Is Compassionate Capitalism Dead?

Did it ever really exist?

Under US law, other than a proscription against violating statutes and bona fide governmental regulations (“compliance”), corporate boards of directors have only one fiduciary obligation: maximize shareholder values. Under the laws of some European nations, shareholders are but one category of stakeholders to which a corporate board has a statutory duty. Often these additional legally empowered stakeholders include employees, unions, society and the community.

Corporate boards in the US thus must justify their charitable efforts, not in terms of sheer goodness, but in how such efforts improve their public or in-trade perception, which in turn facilitates recruitment of skilled labor, increases the desires of other businesses and customers to deal with them and adds to their reputation of solidity and reliability. Those “desired responses” are thus linked to the board’s sole corporate mandate: maximize shareholder values. Where companies are controlled by individual mega-billionaires, the primary shareholders, provided minority shareholders are not negatively prejudiced (see, Cal Supreme Court: Jones vs. H.F. Ahmanson – 1969), pet charities and causes are often prioritized… at some risk.

What is equally at stake, as privileged classes are accorded greater power and influence (see, US Supreme Court: Citizens United vs FEC – 2010), is that amassed wealth allows those at the top of the income inequality ladder (the worst spread in the entire developed world) to dictate power, influence and, depending where they deploy their capital (including political contributions), direct policy-making that used to be relegated to elected representatives assumed to be operating in the interests of their constituencies. In effect, what is considered political corruption in other nations, using vast pools of capital even if not directly controlled by candidates (wink, wink) to buy media, to make political contributions and effectively buy polices favorable to those with the financing able to do so, has been legalized in the United States. But by international standards, it is still viewed a corruption.  Regardless of the source – for example, Soros on the left, Bloomberg in the middle and Adelson on the right – money talks and free choice walks. We have become a plutocracy.

Strangely, the populist upsurge for Donald Trump, ironically himself a member of the monied elite, is as much a reflection of the failure of current governmental realities – favoring “elites” – as anything else. Despite Trump’s current media monopoly and surging approval ratings, he will be as much of a victim even as he is currently seen as a “rally around the flag boys” champion in dealing with this pandemic.

Younger generations are watching and learning. Their fear that their elders were saddling them with the legacy of complete and total disruption by reason of ignoring climate change has temporarily refocused on the political distortions and “mis-actions” of the federal government over COVID-19. These are the voters of the future, if there is even a nation left in which to vote. And what they see, particularly in urban concentrations, is that the current forms of our “democracy” and the underlying elevation of naked “capitalism” are no longer working.

The rising generations were raised before the Cold War or the Red Scare that dominated the post-WWI political scene until the 1989. They are not repelled by words like “socialism” and “communism,” even as misinterpreted by conservative politicians who tend to conflate social programs with socialism (hence, Bernie Sanders use of “socialism” in his approach actually attracts the young); they seem to feel a greater aversion to naked capitalism, at least the way it has grown in the United States. Words that older generations spent years fighting (Korea, Vietnam, etc.) no longer carry a negative connotation. They’ve returned to the dictionary meanings without the brutal reality of the autocrats who hid behind those concepts for total personal aggrandizement. Our younger generations are watching distortions of the American form of government, as it has devolved into a less than perfect, unequal representational form of government, seemingly for the total personal aggrandizement of Donald John Trump.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat its mistakes. Thank you, George Santayana. And so it is that most Americans believe that, as this pandemic eventually passes, we shall return to what was before. History tells us that will not happen. The political basics will change. Even if the United States survives, and even if this happens past my lifetime, our current eroding and disappearing notion of citizen equality, the beliefs that market-driven capitalism is why we are and will be successful (as if one rule can last an eternity for all things and all people, an obvious absurdity), are simply unsustainable. Unless we change our views to the core, this will end… and end sooner than most realize. Fighting to preserve it with a tweak or two may delay the inevitable, but this will not stop what is coming. History is most instructive in this regard.

The United States was already changing, experiencing upheavals, polarization that we have not seen since the Civil War, facing new barriers that shake us to our core. Asymmetrical warfare. Undermining the election process through long-distance digital manipulation. Massive costs and disruption due to climate change. Displacement of skilled workers by artificial intelligence and implementing automation. Realignment of wealth and income tilting totally to the top, and those elements using their wealth to usurp political power. The first major pandemic since the Spanish Flu in 1918-20 (SARS, MERS, H1N1, Ebola, etc. are not remotely as powerful).

What we have today, a government for the rich, cannot deal with these changes. It just does not work. For those who thought a dictator could never use the elective process, at least in the United States (as did Hitler in Germany, Putin in Russia, Erdogan in Turkey, etc.), to gain power, just watch Donald Trump push the envelope to expand his powers knowing his GOP Senate majority will protect him no matter what he does. Nature’s safety value just may be his age and health, but once autocracy finds roots, unless it is instantly crushed, it grows again like a persistent fungus.

Getting back to the notion of “compassionate capitalism,” where rich folks simply do what’s right because (??), let’s dissipate that mythology forever. I would like to share the story in the March 30^th Los Angeles Times that inspired today’s blog. An excerpt: “For the last month [March], Army reservist Lt. Col. Kamal Kalsi, an emergency room doctor in New York, has been scrambling to find a way to quickly mass produce ventilators, equipment that could save the lives of thousands of coronavirus victims nationwide.

“Two weeks ago, he thought he’d found a company in Sacramento with the perfect answer… But then, as he tells it, necessity took a back seat to business… The firm Kalsi contacted wanted tens of millions of dollars before it would help him, he said… Hearing that ‘tore me up a little,’ Kalsi said. ‘I understand. It’s a capitalist system.’…

“Though President Trump last week ordered General Motors to begin making ventilators [as much motivated against arch-nemesis Mary Barra, GM’s CEO], he has been hesitant to use the Defense Production Act, a Korean-War-era edict that allows the commander in chief to commandeer resources, and to provide centralized logistics and support that could help states obtain needed supplies.

“Instead, the federal government has largely left states to procure supplies such as masks and gowns themselves. The scramble has left those states, cities and even hospitals competing against one another in a free-market response to the pandemic.

“Adding to the tension, state governors, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are balancing those dire needs with the challenge of maintaining harmonious relations with the federal government, including a president who values kind words…

“The ventilator Kalsi sees as the solution is the Go2Vent, made by Vortran Medical in Sacramento and sold for about $100 each, though there is no proof it could be the panacea that he envisions. Vortran’s founder and chief medical officer, Dr. Gordon Wong, declined to comment, other than to say Friday he was close to inking a mass production deal with a venture capital-backed manufacturer in Chicago.” Use the Defense Production Act? Nothing from Trump on that one. How about using state-empowered eminent domain to take the company?

“‘Corporate profits should never be placed ahead of human life, and this is exactly why the [Defense Production Act] should come in and force these guys to play ball,’ Kalsi said Friday [3/27]. ‘We’ve been working to push the governor of California to push these guys…. Kalsi said he heard back that [California Governor Gavin] Newsom’s office wasn’t sure it had the power to compel anything. Legal experts say the issue is clear, noting that Newsom has declared a state of emergency.

“‘When there is a proclamation of a state of emergency, the governor of California is vested with the power to commandeer public and private property,’ UC Berkeley constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky said in an email… If the governor did so, he added, the state would have to pay ‘just compensation.’… Newsom’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment… The governor’s approach to the pandemic has been one of putting the carrot before the stick.” LA Times. Newsom walks the line between flaunting and further alienating Trump and his obsession to protect capitalism at all costs (he still needs the federal government)… and doing what should be done. How many must die from this approach even as Newsom’s and New York’s Andrew Cuomo’s path is so far superior to that of the President?

Vortran Medical is just one example. There are tens of thousands more. There is no morally or ethical basis to pretend what we have is the right system for the current era… or to think that the government we have evolved truly services the needs of the people it was elected to represent. History does not let us go back to the way it was… no matter how much we think it can. Time for a do-over, putting the Government of the people and by the people back into the hands of those people.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and if you think I am angry, just realize that I am actually holding back!

Firm Leadership… in the Wrong Direction

"It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator… I mean, how inefficient. And then, FEMA gets involved! And FEMA starts bidding! And now FEMA is bidding on top of the 50 [states]. So FEMA is driving up the price. What sense does this make?" NY Governor Cuomo, March 31^st on Trump’s leaving pricing for vital medical supplies and equipment to the “free” market.

When national policy, the leader of the nation, declares a rapidly emerging outbreak of an uncurable and highly contagious virus to be a “hoax,” bad news spread by his Democratic rivals, contradicts his medical experts, uses the Defense Production Act to force ventilator construction solely as a personal vendetta against an outspoken critic (General Motors’ CEO, Mary Barra) but not otherwise, cuts off supplies to states with governors who criticize him (Michigan and Washington), projects absurdly optimistic “back to normal” end dates (moving targets), openly states that the damage to the economy is worse than few people dying, blames everybody but himself for the outbreak explosion here in the United States and shoves principal responsibility back to governors for the main solution – as the entire planet (including the United States) is experiencing the worst pandemic since the 1918-20 Spanish Flu that killed somewhere between 50 and 100 million people – requires the biggest workaround against Donald Trump’s failed leadership. That he is boasting about the ratings of his CV-19 press briefings with glee is completely inappropriate. Trump’s brain and mouth are the problem. Meanwhile, facts pour out:

“The White House coronavirus response coordinator said Monday [3/30] that she is ‘very worried about every city in the United States’ and projects 100,000 to 200,000 American deaths as a best case scenario… In an interview on ‘TODAY,’ Dr. Deborah Birx painted a grim message about the expected fatalities, echoing that without doing any measures they could hit as high as 2.2 million, as coronavirus cases continue to climb throughout the U.S.

“‘I think everyone understands now that you can go from five to 50 to 500 to 5000 cases very quickly,’ Birx said… ‘I think in some of the metro areas we were late in getting people to follow the 15-day guidelines’ she added.

“Birx said the projections by Dr. Anthony Fauci that U.S. deaths could range from 1.6 million to 2.2 million deaths is a worst case scenario if the country did ‘nothing’ to contain the outbreak, but said even ‘if we do things almost perfectly,’ she still predicts up to 200,000 U.S. deaths.” NBCNews, March 30th. Yup, those damned blue cities, but in time, CV-19 will leak into every other community, small towns and rural stretches (where our vital farms reside!) and share its malevolence with those targets as well. Areas where doctors and medical facilities are scarce.

Trump’s concern, shared by most Republican leaders in Congress, is that if the economy remains bad – and this recession will definitely continue well past the election no matter what they may want – the election could heavily favor the Democrats. He’s enjoying his virtual headline monopoly – his over-televised CV-19 daily press briefings while his Democratic opponents are gasping for any coverage – and his rising approval ratings. But he is likely to face massive casualties that are going to be much worse because of his failure to fund preparedness (he actually cut programs), his delays in taking action and his underplaying the seriousness of the pandemic causing many people to fail to take even the most basic precautions (or to take them too late). And a much worse economy than if he had been more transparent and effective from the get-go.

Let’s look at this perspective, in the March 24th Washington Post, from Lawrence Summers, an economics professor at and past president of Harvard University. He was treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 and an economic adviser to President Barack Obama from 2009 through 2010: “I am appalled by President Trump’s invocation of economic arguments as a basis for overriding the judgments of public health experts about battling the coronavirus pandemic.

“In fact, as a matter of pure economics — even leaving aside moral considerations that should be taken into account — the president’s arguments are flatly wrong. When Trump tweets and says things like ‘we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself ’ or ‘you can destroy a country by closing it down’ and raises the prospect of reversing measures taken to promote social distancing, he misunderstands the fundamental economic problem posed by the pandemic, as well as the most rational, economically sensible way to address it. In the end, economic growth and well-being would be harmed, not helped, by the course he is advocating…

“[Does] anyone believe that ordinary life will continue if millions of Americans have the virus and our hospitals are overflowing?... Prematurely abandoning or relaxing social distancing will be disastrous on both economic and health grounds. If restrictions are lifted prematurely, the result will be a follow-on pandemic surge. More people will die. What will the policy choice be then? If it is a return to restriction, starting from a much less favorable point and much more disease spread, then the cumulative economic loss will be greatly magnified. The costs we have already borne will have been totally in vain.

“Indeed, as a matter of logic, overly temporary social distancing represents the worst of all policy alternatives. In the view of almost all experts, it would be a grave mistake to accept the full and rapid spread of coronavirus as inevitable. But if this is to be our strategy, there is no reason not to get on with it, rather than suffer the additional burden of temporary distancing.

“Ending restrictions too soon and allowing a further disease spike carry a range of collateral risks and costs. When it is safe to take up old habits, will the public trust the advice of authorities who misled them? What extra uncertainty cost will be baked into all financial markets when it becomes clear that the federal government has offered false assurances on safety? Will other countries be willing to buy our goods when the United States has turned itself unnecessarily and against the advice of experts into an exporter of products?

“The president has compared the challenge of pandemic to the challenge of war. But Americans do not fight wars for our freedom saying we can only keep going for another few weeks and then we will give up. Elevating temporary economic expedience over the long run health of the citizenry is a dangerous strategy. And we deserve better from our business community than demands to go back to selling when disease counts are still rising.”

But who has done it better? Isn’t Trump at least grappling with the pandemic the way he should? Finally? Why then do some nations, including Taiwan, Korea and Germany, seem to be controlling the pandemic better than others? Let’s look at Germany, which is closer to the American experience although it does have universal healthcare. “The startling numbers are something of an enigma. Some have hailed the country for breaking the spell of catastrophe; others have been far more guarded. What is going on here? And what can we learn from it?... Though not in full lockdown, schools, shops, restaurants and theaters are closed; gatherings of more than two people are banned. The economy will shrink and jobs will be lost. Even Chancellor Angela Merkel self-quarantined after learning that her doctor was infected. (She tested negative.) Germany, it seems, is not immune to the ravages of the pandemic.

“Except in one way: Very few people seem to be dying. As of Saturday, of the 56,202 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, just 403 patients have died. That’s a fatality rate of 0.72 percent. By contrast, the current rate in Italy — where over 10,000 people have died — is 10.8 percent. In Spain, it’s 8 percent. Over twice as many people have died in Britain, where there are around three times fewer cases, than in Germany.

“The startling numbers are something of an enigma. Some have hailed the country for breaking the spell of catastrophe; others have been far more guarded. What is going on here? And what can we learn from it?

“First and foremost: Early and persistent testing helps. And so does tracking people.

“Take the country’s first recorded case. On Jan. 28, a man in Bavaria who works for a car parts company that has two plants in Wuhan, China, was confirmed to have the virus. Within two days, the authorities identified the person who had infected the patient, tracked his contacts and quarantined them. The company stopped travel to China and shut down its plant in Bavaria. The outbreak — several other employees tested positive — was effectively contained. Across the country, the pattern was repeated. Local health departments and federal authorities worked together to test, track and quarantine exposed citizens.

“Germany has also been better at protecting its older residents, who are at much greater risk. States banned visits to the elderly, and policymakers issued urgent warnings to limit contact with older people. Many seem to have quarantined themselves. The results are clear: Patients over the age of 80 make up around 3 percent of the infected, though they account for 7 percent of the population. The median age for those infected is estimated to be 46; in Italy, it’s 63… And many more young people in Germany have tested positive for the virus than in other countries. In part, that’s attributable to the country’s more extensive testing.” New York Times, March 28th. Older people in Germany do seem to be looked after far better than here in the United States, Medicare notwithstanding.

The South Korean response provides ever more astounding success, but because of a 2015 MERS outbreak there, they were overprepared. Testing was almost immediately available, infected people were dealt with instantly, with those testing positive legally required to load an identifying app on to their smart phones. Hospital beds, ventilators and triage were more than enough. Distancing, lockdowns and self-isolation produced numbers that should make our government blush.

So, Trump may have the approval poll support – for now – and his TV ratings and domination of every form of medium are staggering, but he clearly is a big part of the problem, in every way. There are vastly better approaches. Locking down, vastly more testing than is even currently contemplated and a war-time effort to get equipment, experts and supplies where they are needed – without insisting on Trump’s mantra of “let the market set the price” – and basically following the German or South Korean models would be a start. Taking the financial onus off Americans with no or limited healthcare coverage would also take some of the fear away.

We are so far behind as the virus explodes. New York is horrible, but there will be many more New Yorks coming up. If you are confused and more than a little terrified, let me suggest that you watch this video by Dr. David Price of the Weill Cornell Medical Center in NYC: https://vimeo.com/399733860?ref=em-share. It’s worth the time.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the best approach, what I call the Andrew Cuomo (pictured above) method, is to ignore the President and everything he says as much as possible and focus on those who know what they are talking about like Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The Big Question – Should Donald Trump Be Allowed to Govern in a Crisis?

It’s no secret that I find the President to be, to put it mildly, a distasteful, arrogant, self-centered, mendacious, manipulative and incompetent president with an inability to generate empathy for others. Not that some or all of those characteristics are not uncommon among other world leaders throughout history, including US presidents. And frankly, Peter, even nasty personality traits are not sufficient to remove a sitting US president. Not enough to impeach… as if there were time to implement what has become, apparently, a futile gesture anyway. There is another path: Only when the damage of a president’s leadership is so grave, so aberrant or so impaired, that he or she simply cannot “discharge the powers and duties of his office,” as stated in Section 4 the fairly recent (1967) 25^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But Trump has an innate ability to tell people what they want to hear, with a straight face, even when he knows (or should know) he is lying. 

Typically, removal of a president under Section 4 requires a severe medical reason or out-and-out insanity. It would require the Vice President and the majority of the Cabinet, all selected or appointed by Trump, to vote to remove him from office, a long shot given Trump’s approval ratings (49% generally, and 60% on his handling of the COVID-19 crisis according to a March 24^th Gallup Poll) and the proclivity to underplay the seriousness of the pandemic among Trump’s red state supporters. The unpopularity among red states of masses of blue state liberals (read: almost every major city in the United States, including in red states like Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, etc.), where the pandemic has and will continue to hit the hardest, makes Trump’s support of reopening the economy at the expense of keeping people safe and alive his calling card. Trump appears to be about Trump and little else.

Trump’s tweets on March 29^th were mostly about how his press briefings were generating astounding ratings on television, with parallel consumption in social media. “President Donald Trump boasted about his growing TV ratings on Sunday [3/29], while Dr. Anthony Fauci of the White House Coronavirus Task Force warned that up to 200,000 Americans could die from COVID-19.

“Trump quoted an article from the New York Times that provided recent viewership statistics of his coronavirus press conferences. The article states that they have averaged 8.5 million viewers, roughly the same size as audiences for ABC’s ‘The Bachelor.’ Last Monday’s conference [3/23] drew nearly 12.2 million viewers, putting it on pace with ‘Monday Night Football.’” Variety.com, March 29^th.

Fauci also found himself on the receiving end of growing conspiracy theorists and others on the alt-right seeking to discredit him and purge him as a senior governmental advisor. Trump’s pronouncements were all they needed. To the President, the coronavirus pandemic was a media event to enhance his glowing and commanding visibility. New York was running out of medical supplies, as Trump’s braggadocio surged. Evidence of severe and dangerous megalomania? It would so appear to most rational thinkers. But not to his committed followers. But that’s now. Things change. People die. Even in red states.

First: Like it or not, most of the economic values, the state-of-the-art productivity in the hottest growth sectors, are in big cities. Red states depend on cities for tax dollars; blue states generally give more to the feds than they get, while the reverse is true for most red states. Cites fail, and the nation fails. Second: Not containing CV-19 anywhere pretty much assures that sooner or later it impacts every community in the United States, however isolated. The greatest concentrations of people will lead the pandemic, but CV-19 is an equal opportunity infector. Sooner or later. Third: viruses are governed by nature’s laws, not susceptible to being legislated or executive ordered away. Fourth: We call that science, understood and subject to new potential processes to alleviate the decimation that will be determined by that red state detested educated elite, scientists and healthcare professionals. 

Not politicians. Not pastors. An elite that includes the 800,000 American doctors (out of approximately 1.1 million physicians in the United States), so deeply concerned at the President’s arbitrary and premature April 12^th date (since extended to April 30^th by irrefutable evidence; still quite unrealistic) – when he hopes to begin to reopen the U.S. economy by relaxing the CDC guidelines on distancing, keeping non-essential businesses closed and sheltering-in-place – that they signed the letter at the end of this blog addressed to the President, the Vice President and White House CV-19 senior advisor, Dr. Deborah Birx.

At one level, we know that Donald Trump is running his administration to maximize his personal position, particularly his electability. He’s all but buried his likely November Democratic opponent’s, Joe Biden, visibility. See my March 29^th Read Anything About Joe Biden Recently? blog for the extreme details. Trump is all about the economy, his raison d’etre for reelection. So, telling people what they desperately want to hear – that this crisis is almost over, and their jobs and businesses will rebound fully in a couple of weeks – is his mantra, however false that may be. That a vast number of Americans will die as a result of his decisions does not appear to faze him.

Personally, I believe that the President’s megalomania has risen so fiercely of late that he may well be dangerously mentally ill in ways that can and will kill people. Do we have to wait until we pass the one-million-person infection rate? Two million? Ten million? Higher? What does the mortality rate have to get before we see the reality of his megalomania and its life and death impact?

Is megalomania actually considered mental disorder? Yes. According to the psychiatric standard-bearing, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Volume 5 (the latest, known to most in the field simply as DSM-5), narcissism and megalomania are the same mental disorder.

Not everyone in the psychiatric/psychological profession agrees; many believe that megalomania is much more dangerous with potentially very severe consequences. “Narcissism is an exaggerated sense of self love while megalomania is an exaggerated sense of self-worth based on fantasies of power, attractiveness and other physical or psychological attributes and, therefore, all megalomaniacs are narcissists, but not all narcissists are megalomaniacs.” Psychology and Neuroscience Stack Exchange. Most folks know Donald Trump is a narcissist, even his followers. He seems to be a full-on megalomaniac now. So what?

When narcissism rises to megalomania in support of a notion of God-like “I can do no wrong” autocratic dictates in the hands of a man whose actions can now kill hundreds of thousands if not millions in his own country, when he prioritizes political revenge over saving lives, are there sufficiently responsible individuals in his cabinet, including the Vice President, willing to act to save their country… or is that just the way it goes? Will Trump’s decision rise to a recognition of some form of voluntary homicide… or is the nation beyond caring about that? History will not remember him well, but what about NOW?

I could spend pages listing all of the self-glorifying, scientifically false and shamelessly contradictory rhetoric from Donald Trump on this CV-19 outbreak. But everybody knows what these statements are and either continue to reinforce their anger, believe what he says as truth, or simply write off his misleading statements as hopeful exaggeration. Little things reinforce his “only I matter” persona, that it is always about his political perception. For example, The Wall Street Journal reported on March 26^th that the President is considering putting his name on all federal stimulus checks. If that is remotely true… That’s bad enough.

However, a recent reality, which I hope the President reverses, shows how he is punishing an entire state, teaching those voters that they need to oust their governor and fall in line under this strict direction, because of a personal feud with a Democratic governor in a swing state, a woman I might add: Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Whitmer, speaking on Detroit radio station WWJ-AM on March 26^th, told the listeners that medical supply vendors had been told “not to send stuff” to Michigan needed in the struggle against CV-19. This terrifying reality seemed to be very much directed from the White House, because of a personal feud between Trump and the Governor, an outspoken critic in her belief that Trump’s CD-19 response is/was both inadequate and often misleading. She had attempted to speak with the President the day before, but he did not take her call.

“Whitmer told CNN later in the day that the state’s shipments of personal protective equipment are being ‘canceled’ or ‘delayed’ — and sent instead to the federal government. She said it’s happening to other states as well.

“Trump’s willingness to punish a state’s residents amid a pandemic over a feud with a governor appeared evident in a statement at his press briefing Friday [3/26]. The president said he had instructed Vice President Mike Pence, who heads up the president’s coronavirus task force, not to call the governors of Washington or Michigan. The two states have among the highest number of coronavirus cases in the nation, and Michigan is experiencing a dramatic spike in cases from 350 a week ago to nearly 3,000 Friday [3/26]… ‘I say, ‘Mike, don’t call ... the woman in Michigan. It doesn’t make any difference what happens,’ ’ Trump said.

“Whitmer told WWJ that she has been critical of the weak federal response to her state’s needs amid the fight against rising COVID-19 cases but that other governors have also complained about the lack of “federal preparation.” She complained earlier this week that the number of masks and gowns sent to her state by the federal government was barely enough to cover a single shift at a besieged hospital. The state hasn’t received a single ventilator despite a critical need… ‘I’ve been uniquely singled out,’ Whitmer said. ‘I don’t go into personal attacks. I don’t have time for that, I don’t have energy for that, frankly. All of our focus has to be on COVID-19 right now.’” Huffington Post, March 28^th. 

That the President is willing at all to put the lives of millions of Americans at risk, for intensely personal reasons that have nothing to do with the well-being of this nation, is sufficient evidence of a severe mental disorder that should give rise to removal from office under the 25^th Amendment. Even if he eventually reverses himself, the delay he engendered alone will kill people who might have otherwise survived had he cared more about them than his ego.

I should note an alarming coincidence: the only place where Trump actually ordered a corporate manufacturer to create equipment under the Defense Production Act was after a long-standing personal feud, with a woman, in Michigan. General Motors CEO, Mary Barra. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 26^th that the President is considering putting his name on all federal stimulus checks. If that is remotely true….

            I’m Peter Dekom, and while I doubt what needs to be done will be done, perhaps the leadership from the biggest states can replace the malignant self-serving power at the top of the federal government… a most necessary workaround to give American as safe as they can be.

The letter from 800,000 doctors noted above:

Read Anything About Joe Biden Recently? #WhereIsJoe

Where’s Joe Biden? There are no rallies where he can stir the crowd. All those talk and interview shows have been either cancelled or have been pushed aside as telecasters deal with the CV-19 outbreak. Guest appearances? Where? Social media? Everybody’s focused on the outbreak, the medical risks, Congressional stimulus package as well as the short and long-term consequences. Election in… November…??? Really, there’s an election coming? So far off… so very far off…

And even as the facts suggest Donald Trump has only made things much worse by his hold-back, vacillating and overly optimistic inconsistencies, his unwillingness to take the necessary steps to order the manufacturing of needed supplies, you will note that his name is everywhere. On most CV-19 news coverage. Good, bad or indifferent, he is the only national leader who is doing and can do anything to minimize the damage.

Being in the public eye all the time gives Donald Trump a distinct advantage over Candidate Joe, who just cannot find a public platform that thinks the election is worthy of more coverage. Donald Trump, pretty much by himself, is the headlines! Trump’s “rally substitute”? Daily White House CV-19 press briefings, where his “experts” always start out giving Trump credit for everything, even though he is really the problem and even though they will later have to reconfigure Trump’s contradictory misstatements. Press conferences for Biden? Zero. Trump got another photo op on March 27^th when he signed the stimulus bill at an Oval Office ceremony.

Take a good look at the recent polling. Almost across the board, Trump’s approval ratings on how he is managing the outbreak are in the 40%+ range, many really close to 50% as the above March 24^th Gallup poll reflects (60% of those polled approved of Trump’s handling of the CV-19 crisis!)… even as medical experts are making it rather unambiguously clear that he is part of the problem, not willing to be a meaningful part of the solution. Even as Trump refuses to invoke the mandatory manufacturing of needed medical supplies and equipment under the Defense Production Act (except as revenge against General Motors by reason of a personal feud with its CEO) – claiming that voluntary corporate manufacturing and allowing the free market to set prices are his preferred path – states are literally bidding against each other, jacking up prices, for basic medical supplies. A mask which used to cost about 80 cents is now somewhere around $7. Taxpayers will be forced to pay for those price-gouging profits, either by state taxes or from their share of the stimulus grants to government. But that’s slipping from the public mind.

Where’s Joe Biden in all this? Trying to get noticed. But social and traditional media simply don’t care. His explosion of emails and social media posts seem to slide into the ether, drowned out by Trump, Trump, Trump… everywhere, all the time. For those Democrats who believe that the President’s incompetence, his denial of what everyone should know (but won’t acknowledge) is truth, should be enough to defeat him in November, that smugness should be forever erased from their faces. Even the bipartisan stimulus package, which Trump himself had very little to do with and which will distort our political and economic choices for a very long time, is being credited to Donald Trump. If those benefits start to fade, you can bet that the master of blame-directing, The Donald, will make sure that the “China Virus” does not become the “Trump Virus,” that Democrats (particularly blue state governors) are targeted as the incompetent ones and that he will be cast as that “wartime” savior president.

Some Dems are circulating a scary study: “Moody's Analytics has three different models for projecting the results this November – and they ALL show an easy GOP win. This is extremely alarming news from one of the most accurate predictors of presidential election results, because their models have only been wrong once in the past forty years.” That once was in 2016, and they have explained that they had not sufficiently polled that new batch of Trump populist voters who, in past elections, simply did not vote. Some experts point out that if the Dems cannot get a massive turnout in November, they are toast.

Russian interference is already pushing against minority voters, who lean Democratic, not to vote in November. Red states are avoiding forcing “vote by mail” alternatives. For a detailed look at how Republicans are making it difficult for minorities to vote, how they are reining in Democratic districts, please read my March 24^th blog by guest contributor, VoteRiders cofounder, Kathleen Unger: Coronavirus, 2020 Election and the New ID Laws Are Brewing a Perfect Storm. Are We Prepared? God knows, Biden is trying. VoteRiders is just pro-voting and will not take a partisan position.

“Even as President Trump fumbles his way through the outbreak, there are risks for Biden if he remains in the background of this ever-changing public crisis. Fresh polling this week [third week in March] shows a diminished lead for Democrats in November, and Trump’s approval rating mostly stable despite heavy criticism of his early efforts to downplay the significance of the pandemic… That leaves Biden in uncharted territory, a candidate awkwardly adjusting to the new reality of virtual campaigning and struggling to find a message that gets him back on voters’ radar.

“He is making a concerted effort this week to raise his public profile, holding daily media events from a television studio newly installed in his home in Wilmington, Del., where he is housebound due to the pandemic. After days of being all but invisible, he gave interviews to ‘The View,’ CNN and MSNBC, and Wednesday [3/25] he held his first news conference via Zoom. Also on Wednesday [3/25], Biden launched a campaign newsletter and in its first edition announced he would soon start producing a podcast…

“‘Everybody is navigating a new world,’ said Steve Schale, an advisor to Unite the Country, a super PAC supporting Biden that just launched a fresh ad attacking Trump’s response to COVID-19. ‘There is no easy answer to this. There is nothing normal about this moment. Yet the political calendar doesn’t take a break.’

“Another multimillion-dollar political committee supporting Biden, Priorities USA, recently launched its own new $6-million ad campaign aimed at helping Biden elbow his way back into public debate about COVID- 19, including a one spot that contrasts the chaos of Trump’s actions with clips of a resolute and confident Biden vowing to ‘lead with science.’

“The marketing blitz, though, is undermined by a Biden campaign that still seems unprepared for this moment. The jury-rigged television studio in the rec room of Biden’s house projects more like a home-movie production than a high-tech presidential campaign… He gave his first speech — about COVID-19, of course — on Monday [3/23], amid confusion about when the remarks would start. Biden got out of sync with the teleprompter and lost his place. He called the governor of Massachusetts ‘Charlie Parker’ (his last name is Baker).

“That was the bad news. The good news was that viewership was limited; none of the major television stations carried it live, which both relieved and frustrated many backers of the former vice president. The operational glitches of the campaign right now make them cringe.

“Still, Biden supporters believe that the public health emergency wracking the nation cries out for a serious, experienced, stable leader — the qualities that Biden has been selling himself on since the day he launched his campaign.

“‘His experience and persona are made for this moment. People watch him and hear him and think, ‘It would be nice if he was president,’ ’ said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who was deputy campaign manager to Sen. John F. Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. ‘The downside is people are not paying attention.’…

“However he handles this awkward interregnum publicly, many Democrats are hoping that Biden uses this time well to ramp up his campaign operation so it will be ready when the battle resumes in full force… ‘He has 12 people working on his digital platform,’ said Michael Meehan, who also advised the Kerry campaign. ‘He needs 1,200.… It is hard to knock off an incumbent in times of trouble. You don’t win presidential campaigns in the spring, but you can lose them there if you don’t prepare right.’… On Tuesday [3/24] morning, a new Monmouth University poll showed Biden’s lead over Trump in a fall matchup had shrunk to a scant 3 points, putting it inside the margin of error.” Los Angeles Times, March 26^th. Rumors are that Biden’s “technical glitch” for his virtual press conference included the suggestion that his home internet connection lacked the bandwidth most everyone else already has. Seriously?

All those donor dinners… living room fund-raisers, group meetings… rallies… not available right now. Sorry Joe! Bloomberg’s around… But folks willing to go hear you speak? Forgetaboutit! Trump has one of the most sophisticated social media systems on earth! Wake up! If elderly Trump could do it… And Bernie Sanders…

“Even before the pandemic hit, Democrats worried about being able to match the Trump re-election campaign’s financial war chest. Biden, throughout the primary campaign, has been out-raised by his rivals. Campaigning from afar during a pandemic isn’t going to make raising cash any easier – especially with a team not noted for its digital prowess… The Trump campaign has pivoted from taunting Biden over his absence on the national stage to mocking his re-emergence. An email blast from the Republican National Committee accused the former vice-president of attempting a ‘sorry interpretation of a president.’” The Guardian (U.K.), March 28^th.

“‘[Biden] is going to have to change quickly,’ said Shomik Dutta, a veteran of Barack Obama’s two campaigns and partner at Higher Ground Labs, an incubator for progressive political technology. ‘Joe Biden now has to wheel 180 degrees and prosecute a very different campaign than the one he was running.’” LA Times. Man the phone lines! Blow out the social media reach! Exactly what is Bernie Sanders waiting for? Biden needs Bernie Sander’s massive network of young and savvy social media connectors, all quite content to sit alone at home and spread the word digitally. Now. If Bernie isn’t going to concede until the “convention,” double advantage Trump.

And one more thing. Where is the Democratic Party? Where’re Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Corey Booker, etc., etc, all those folks who endorsed Biden? By the way, is anyone concerned that the two expected major party Presidential candidates are in the most vulnerable age group at risk should they contract CV-19? Shouldn’t Biden at least name his running mate now?

            I’m Peter Dekom, and for fact-freaks like me, we know that keeping Trump in office will wreak permanent damage, much irreparable, to the viability of the United States as a functioning unified nation and as an influential world power.

Bear Market Rally

A $2 trillion dollar stimulus package. The two-party solution: give everybody what they want and damned the deficit. Damn the reality that massive future budget cuts will slam the average American the most. As the Republicans will say after this settles, we have to reduce the deficit. As sure as rain. Just double the stimulus now. Avoid the depression. Democrats want money to go directly to the people and small businesses. Republicans want to bail out big business, and Trump has made it clear that he believes the best solution is to address corporate needs first. Congress wisely put in direct money for middle- and lower-income workers and smaller business. Both parties got what they wanted. All of it. The bill became law on March 27^th. The legislation bans companies from using bailout funding for share repurchase (a temptation when the market falls) and makes sure such funds do not wind up benefitting Trump-owned businesses… mostly (hmmm). So what?

The dust will settle. Somehow, people will get back to work (eventually), although it is hard to see why corporate America will return quickly to normal even with subsidies. Most American families will remain slammed, and that short-term cash infusion will burn off very quickly. The GOP barometer of economic success (which does not actually impact most of us in any meaningful way) is a strong stock market. They sacrificed middle- and lower-income Americans with that massive 2017 corporate tax cut, saddling them with paying back a multi-trillion-dollar deficit over the coming year – but the stock market rose. $1.5-trillion tax cut that made the federal deficit so much bigger – nearly $1 trillion last year – and that was before anyone had ever heard of CV-19. If that tax cut continues, the deficits will continue to soar on that basis alone. Oh, and Congress just pushed through that $2 trillion stimulus package, and the stock market soared again, experiencing its largest one-day gain in history.

But to hold that market, to grow that market, these are these little missing ingredients: sustainability, productivity, global stability and consumer confidence. Good unemployment numbers have to return, but so many businesses are shuttering permanently. So many people who had cash reserves have to replenish them. And so many people who did not have those reserves are mired in debt that has to be repaid.  With this contraction, how long will the market hold? If Trump cannot reopen by his own Easter weekend deadline (which I am sure he will extend with another Trumpian blame-fest), what do you think the market will do? Even after the outbreak ends, do you expect that state and federal income tax revenues, already deferred, will instantly rebound to pre-CV-19 levels? The deficit, even with the low federal reserve rates, will just be so much fatter. Reality will bring that bear market rally down fast. I suspect sooner rather than later.

Op-Ed contributor for the Los Angeles Times (3/25), Doyle McManus underscores how desperation is driving a “we gotta do something big” effort from Congress and the President, including what I believe is GOP-driven corporate socialism: “This time, almost every Republican is supporting a $2-trillion stimulus package [it passed and was signed into law on 3/27] that includes billions in loans for companies, states and citizens; help for state-run unemployment insurance programs; and direct payments of $1,200 to most adults — a measure that once would have been mocked as shoveling money out of airplanes.

“The cost more than doubled in just a few days, making it the biggest economic stimulus package in history… One reason for the GOP support is that the economic crisis touched off by the pandemic could be worse than the Great Recession, with some forecasts of unemployment soaring to 20% or more.

“But another is that we have a Republican president — and he knows that his chance to win reelection will plummet without vigorous action to save the economy… ‘Trump decided to go big, and Republicans fell in line,’ Geoffrey Kabaservice, who has written a history of the GOP, told me. ‘It raises a deeper question: Is conservatism separable from Trumpism anymore?’…

“He was the first real estate developer in New York to win a public subsidy for commercial projects under programs initially reserved for improving slum neighborhoods… In 2016, the New York Times calculated that Trump had received at least $885 million in tax breaks, grants and other subsidies for luxury apartments, hotels and office buildings…

“When he has listed priority targets for help under the coronavirus rescue package, he has often mentioned the tourism and hospitality industries. He said he didn’t know whether his hotels would be among the beneficiaries. [The stimulus package prevents Trump from benefitting from some of the bigger benefits] … ‘We have to work with the airlines. We have to work with the cruise lines,’ he said Monday [3/23].

“But those probably aren’t the right priorities. Airline companies have plenty of access to private capital markets, and several have shown that it’s possible to survive bankruptcy… Most major cruise lines are foreign owned and employ relatively few U.S. citizens. The largest, Carnival, is incorporated in Panama — although its chairman, Micky Arison, is one of Trump’s friends and advisors.

“When the first stimulus packages were proposed this month, there was a flurry of initial resistance from fiscal conservatives in Congress… Forty GOP House members and eight senators voted against a proposed bill that would require many employers to provide sick leave to their workers. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he worried about ‘incentivizing people to not show up for work.’… But as the crisis deepened, the only debate was between the two parties, as Democrats pushed to make the package more generous to unemployed workers and to impose stricter oversight for a $500-billion fund for corporations.”

Here’s the big problem. If this CV-19 shutdown continues into mid-April and beyond – which it is showing every likelihood of doing looking at other places that have already gone through this explosion – we have shot our wad. Business bailouts should have been in last place. Dealing with medical needs and governmental support systems, followed by attention to individual health and financial needs, are what we really could afford now. My March 21^st Tax Cuts, Guns and COVID-19 blog suggests what really needs to be done both now and after the CV-19 threat subsides.

Consumer confidence mirrors the fall in the stock market, a fact that is likely to push way past the impact of the new stimulus bill. According to the March 28^th Los Angeles Times: “The [late March consumer confidence] index saw an 11.9 percentage point drop, compared with a 12.7-point drop during the Great Recession [of 2008]… The Dow Jones industrial average on Friday [3/26 even in anticipation of the stimulus bill] ended a three-day rally by falling 915 points and is now down 27% from its mid-February high.” Real estate deals are falling out of escrow, lenders are increasingly wary as people lose jobs and income, so we can expect prices in that sector to fall as well. The recession is here and coming out of is plagued with uncertainty. A recovery is nowhere in sight.

Staggering levels of unpreparedness, austerity cuts that have sliced the heart out of our emergency medical system, were compounded with the most ineffective federal leadership in American history. From both sides of the aisle. What’s the plan, Stan? If this does not end soon?

            I’m Peter Dekom, and as the President’s approval numbers seem solid, that’s so much more than can be said for the health and financial stability of the nation as a whole.

Money for Testing and Treatment – CV-19

While most medical insurers are waiving the cost of being tested for CV-19, still hard to find, the same cannot be held true of those actually requiring treatment. That assumes that you are even offered treatment. There are some pretty nasty ethical issues that are being reviewed right now.

This appeared in the March 24^th Coronavirus Special Supplement from the Los Angeles Times (emphasis in red added): “Here’s what’s happening with the coronavirus outbreak in California and beyond… A steep rise in the number of people being hospitalized with COVID-19 in Los Angeles County is probably a sign that a wave of extremely sick patients could overwhelm hospitals in the coming weeks. Medical providers say they’re rushing to draft policies to handle the tough decisions they anticipate they’ll have to make.”

Let me translate that for you if you need real treatment: if there are way too few supplies and facilities available, someone is going to make an evaluation of both your likelihood of survival and exactly how valuable you are to society. If you are a senior, already being asked by highly placed Republicans to take one to boost the economy, you are unlikely to get that treatment when someone significantly younger needs that same ventilator/respirator/ICU bed. Where there are the worst shortages, seniors are probably best left at home to try and make it from there… if they can. Good luck with that one. 65% of the deaths in the United States from CV-19 are seniors (80% worldwide), who also occupy 45% of the hospital beds and over half of the ICU stations.

Except for a little personal feud with General Motors, where the President is forcing the carmaker to manufacture ventilators under the Defense Production Act, Trump is otherwise relying corporations voluntarily to make ventilators and is letting the market determine pricing… and not otherwise using that law to get enough ventilators made. Guess what, old folks?!

So for all those attending parties flaunting CV-19, spring breakers partying like crazy, those attending birthday celebrations (for a 40^th in Westchester, NY; for a 70^th at the Trump golf club in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA), the now-infamous Kentucky sneering coronavirus party, each of which turned into CV-19 super-spreader events, ask yourself how many folks you think you just might have help kill or seriously damage for life? Or bankrupt? You don’t really see the damage unless you live in or near a city. And if you do, no matter where you are in the United States, brace, brace, brace! Mardi Gras in New Orleans? Guess which major city is next?

Assuming you are one of those that gets CV-19 and unlike a few who have more moderate symptoms, assuming you actually do qualify for hospital treatment, what can you expect the cost of that treatment to be? “A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that the total cost of coronavirus treatment in a hospital could top $20,000 when factoring in out-of-pocket costs and insurance coverage. 

“The research factored in the average total cost of treatment for an inpatient admission for pneumonia (pneumonia is among the most serious coronavirus complications) among large employer plans in 2018. For those who suffered major complications, the cost was $20,292. For less than major complications, it cost $13,767 and for those with no complications, the cost was $9,763.

“Danni Askini, an uninsured woman treated for coronavirus in a Boston-area hospital, was slammed with a $34,927.43 hospital bill between testing and treatment… ‘I was pretty sticker-shocked,’ she told TIME [magazine]. ‘I personally don’t know anybody who has that kind of money.’” Yahoo Money, March 25^th. It always costs more when you are uninsured, because you do not have the volume bargaining power of a major healthcare provider to negotiate rates and caps… and hospitals do not extend those rates to the uninsured. Serious complications and that bill could rise into six figures. If you are in a state where Medicaid coverage was extended – generally blue states with a few red ones thrown in out of desperation – you might get coverage that way.

But let’s say you do have healthcare coverage, it’s a pandemic; aren’t we supposed to be fully covered? “‘That’s the great thing about private health insurance — you always have to say it depends on the plan,’ Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Yahoo Money. ‘So you have to hit the deductible and then you can get at least some coverage for it. But there still may be a copay or there still may be 20% insurance. The plan will pay 80% and you pay 20% up to some out-of-pocket limit.’” Yahoo Money. All that talk from Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden in their last debate notwithstanding, the government isn’t covering treatment for everyone. A few, maybe. Highly placed government officials who make the policy and happen to be seniors? Of course!

And you have to read the fine print in your insurance policy. If you are transported to a hospital that is not inside the plan, assuming you could have made that choice, you just might face some subsequent surprises… but even if you are “in network”: “An additional thing to keep in mind for those with health insurance during the pandemic is to watch out for surprise medical bills.

“‘Essentially, it’s two situations,’ Matthew Rae, associate director of the Healthcare Marketplace Project at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Yahoo Money. ‘One is to go to in-network hospitals. You did your research, you found a hospital which is in your provider network, and then you end up seeing a provider who’s not part of your network.’

“If the hospital you go to is in your provider network, there could still be providers within the hospital [even within a plan approved hospital!!!!] who are not, such as a radiologist or pathologist. They can charge you what’s known as balance billing — this is when a provider bills you for the difference between their charge and the allowed amount.

“‘When you get a balance bill, it’s typically a much higher cost,’ Rae said. ‘And these bills can be very expensive for people and importantly, these are financial protections that are baked into your insurance plan. So out-of-pocket maximums don’t apply to spending.’” Yahoo Money. And when there are shortages of specialist inside the plan? One thing folks in France, Spain and Italy – areas of intense CV-19 infection – do not have to worry about is medical bills.

There’s another side to medical issues during this crisis. Red states are seeing a path to ban abortions. Already, Texas and Ohio governors have deemed abortions as elective and/or non-essential medical procedures, which must legally be postponed. A March 23^rd statement to the Texas Tribune from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office said, "no one is exempt from the governor's executive order on medically unnecessary surgeries and procedures, including abortion providers.” That statement noted any providers in violation of the order - which expires April 21^st - could be fined $1,000 or jailed for up to 180 days. Republicans using a crisis to reverse Roe vs Wade and impose other GOP platform policies on their constituents? You might recall that Texas has a whole lot of folks without health insurance! They have fought the Affordable Care Act, tooth (oh, Medicare and the ACA don’t cover dental!) and nail.

But you know what the GOP will say if and when there is a universal healthcare bill before the Congress? The one that Trump promised in his 2016 presidential campaign but never materialized? “We just cannot afford that right now; the deficit is out of control.” From corporate socialism – the big tax cut and all that bailout money in the stimulus package. Screw people!

            I’m Peter Dekom, and the one thing that will abound aplenty when this pandemic settles down will be American medical bankruptcies and more than a few children with parents unable to care for them.