Tag Archives: politics

bu Dale Coberly WHAT THE TRUSTEES REPORT REALLY MEANS REALLY “DOING THE MATH” [a few years ago the word “du jour” among journalists about SS was “it’s the math.” Of ourse none of them actually did the math.] [note: i use the tax rate for each the worker and the employer because this is what the worker “sees” and it is what the employer sees. It is also the legally correct division. The Trustees Report usually combines the separate tax rates into one...

About a month ago I wrote on the COVID 19 plight of the Navajo Indians in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham requested military field hospitals to be set up to handle the fast moving virus. Trumps comment was, “Wow, that’s something.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Emergency Management Agency together constructed three reservation field hospitals to be used as alternative care sites according to the tribe earlier...

by Ken Melvin Are capitalism and democracy compatible?  Both Capitalism and Democracy are complicated, complex concepts with varying interpretations. Beginning with a working definition of democracy: Democracy — A government formed of representatives popularly elected by the enfranchised citizenry of the governed entity. Webster’s : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a...

There is a severe Remdesivir shortage On March 2 2020, I warned you that this was going to happen. I did not warn about the opaque and arbitrary Trump administration policy, because the Trump administration is always “worse than you imagine possible even taking into account the fact that it is worse than you imagine possible” Brad DeLong 2003 or so referring to the last Republican presidency. When are Americans going to notice the pattern ?...

A good Anne Appelbaum read here at The Atlantic to which I subscribe to in print and via computer. The print-version makes for a brief case stuffer when I am flying somewhere far away. The Youtube depicts China as a Lego terra-cotta warrior with a low masculine voice and the United States as a Lego Statue of Liberty with a high, squeaky voice. “The rest of the World is Laughing at Donald Trump” The official Chinese news agency “Xinhua,” is poking at Trump...

Here Trisha Greenhalgh, an actual expert, writes what I have been trying to write. In a Twitter thread. Please click the link. Two key tweets But the principle of waiting for the definitive RCT [randomized controlled Trial] before taking action should not be seen as inviolable, or as always defining good science. On the contrary, this principle, inappropriately applied, will distort our perception of what “good science” is. This explains with less than...

On April 20th Georgia Governor Kemp called for “reopening more of the state’s economy to minimize the ‘terrible impact of Covid-19 on public health and the pocketbook.’” It would apply to certain non-essential businesses. Kemp, who was later told by Trump it was too early to reopen Georgia’s economy, was following Trump’s lead to begin to open state economies. Many states like Georgia do not have the funds available (by choice) to pay for long periods of...

The widely followed IHME model of coronavirus cases has been much too optimistic The IHME model by the University of Washington has gotten a lot of attention in the past month, most likely because it has always forecast a much lower number of total deaths caused by coronavirus than, for example the Imperial College of London’s model, that forecast over 1 million US deaths if no quarantine measures were put in place. But that model has come in for a lot...

 Which Nations Have Most Rapid Rate Of Increase In Deaths Per Million from SARS-Cov-2? As of earlier today, 4/29/20,. according to “Our World in Data” ourworldindata.org/coronavirus, there are currently nine nations that based on looking at the three-day rolling average, have rates of increase of more than 5 per million per day.  They are in order with their rates: Belgium 15.97 Ireland 10.73 UK 9.2 Spain 9.01 Sweden 8.38 Italy 7.82 France 7.32 USA 6.2...

An Update on Shadow Government Not only is the current level of testing for the coronavirus insufficient, the tests themselves are flawed.  Read this summary by infectious disease specialist Michael Osterholm and a coauthor for particulars.  Their key policy conclusion is A blue-ribbon panel of public health, laboratory and medical experts, ethicists, legal scholars and elected officials should be convened immediately to set out a road map with...