General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWarnings being reported on the news.
Banks being overwhelmed by the amount of small business loans requested. Money from the government bailout exhausted.
State governments in big economic trouble without federal help.
Post office will go broke in a few months without help.
Food banks being overwhelmed.
Farmers being wiped out, food being thrown out.
Possible drug shortages, food shortages.
We are slowing the spread of the virus, not stopping it. Any attempt to stop what we are doing now without proper testing will set us back quickly.
Trump is not capable of handling the crisis we face. All of our fears are justified, the news media is telling us all of our fears are justified.
Thank goodness we have some governors that understand this. In the end, they may be the ones that save our country, our lives, until we can remove that lunatic from the white house.
pdxflyboy
(672 posts)dalton99a
(81,068 posts)for his reelection
sop
(9,946 posts)Every other president has taken on the role of consoler in chief during difficult moments. Some do it better than others, but they've all risen to the occasion. Not this POS.
Trump shows up at hospitals after mass shootings, wearing that stupid shit-eating grin, flashing thumbs-up hand gestures, talking only about how much people love him. His vapid porn star wife boards a plane on her way to visit a detention center holding immigrant children separated from their parents wearing a jacket with "I don't care, do u?" on the back.
I never wish others ill, but I'm willing to make an exception in Trump's case.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)And if he did, it would be so obviously insincere that it would be even more disgraceful than not expressing any message of compassion at all.
He simply does not care about anybody or anything but himself.
I would feel sorry for him if he was trying to lead us out of this mess but failing. I'd still call him incompetent, but I'd at least look at him as man in over his head who nevertheless tried.
But Trump isn't trying, period. Because Trump doesn't care, period. Not about human lives, not about America's ability to be a world leader, a crystal city on a hill (or whatever the hell Bush Senior called it). He is interested in his own fortune, his own fame -- and a little irony here because he doesn't understand at all about the meaning of the term "infamy" and why it will always be affixed to his picture alongside "impeached" -- and his pretend ability to help out the wealthiest Americans, because they are the only ones who qualify for his attention, ever.
We -- you and I and all of us here at DU and throughout America, including the poor bedazzled jackasses who still support him with a zeal bordering on idol-worshipping -- are not even insects to him. Our lives, at any rate, mean nothing to him. Our votes, of course, mean quite a lot to him. And I think he's convinced himself that he has got a clear path to winning enough of them in November to keep his job. After all, he has enough idol-worshippers out there who will vote for him if he commits incest with his daughter on a Times Square altar -- and they're good for 30, maybe 40 million votes. So all he needs is for his propagandists to paint Joe Biden as a brain-withered sexual criminal and he'll cadge the remaining 20 million or so he needs to win again.
The best title for a Trump biographer is the line you cite above: "I don't care, do you?"
Sunriser13
(612 posts)jaxexpat
(6,703 posts)Lack of compassion is his badge of courage.
AZ8theist
(5,339 posts)A disgusting, vile WHORE.
(with my apologies to sex workers everywhere. Malaria is just in it for the money. She doesn't even sleep with the pig anymore...)
global1
(25,168 posts)You say the following:
Food banks being overwhelmed. Food being thrown out. Possible food shortages.
Why isn't that thrown out food being donated to food banks?
People in this country should not be going hungry - if food is being destroyed or being thrown out.
Don't destroy it. Donate it.
haele
(12,581 posts)Slowing down, as restaurant and specialty foods orders are drying up. There is no where to send the milk to be made into cheese or yougurt, creams, etc...
The fruits and vegetables are suffering from a lack of pickers and packers. Same with ranchers and meat or egg processing.
A lot of the problem is that most farms and ranches are factory or corporate entities and the "bottom line" is the driver of their ability to produce.
Local growers and ranchers - and processors - will have to pick up when the corporate farms close down.
Haele
Tumbulu
(6,267 posts)If the restaurant that ordered the food is closed and not buying, why would you search everywhere for people to pick the crop when nobody is buying it? And how could you pay them without any sale of the product?
I think that food banks will need to get volunteers to go out to farms to pick the crops. And then people will get a little tiny picture of how hard farm workers work. And how skilled they actually are.
The local organic producers in my area employ workers year round, and so they have a dedicated workforce. But still pivoting from restaurant orders to direct retail is quite the task.
And for many crops, the processors are closed, so there is nobody to take the raw product. These guys do not have those connections to retail or food banks. Food banks would need to have their own processing plants.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)The USA did not have a comprehensive plan in place on how we deal with a systemic national emergency.
Had an plan been in-hand and implemented as policy, and an agency assigned to staying on top of that plan with coordinated advanced planning with all the states, things like excessive food waste and unnecessary illness and death would not be happening. Data on infections, antibodies, hospitalizations and deaths would have been collected and coordinated into a central agency, as would the material needs of the states.
Although I have downloaded it but not yet read it entirely, as I understand it President Obama's plan that tRump's people shelved likely would have saved us much grief and misery.
So far what we have with tRump's administration is chaos and criminality...........
sprinkleeninow
(20,133 posts)and thus the motion of the government is devoid
i and many awake daily to an unimaginable nightmare
DENVERPOPS
(8,679 posts)He is simply their front man. Period.
It is the RepubliCON controlled Senate, for starters, that is the overwhelming force behind everything, people.
The "ONE" wouldn't last one second with out them doing what they are doing.......
It is purely like the guy behind the curtain in the Wizard of OZ, except the ones behind the curtain are the RepubliCON controlled Senate. And, with it being documented and proven time after time, that the true person standing way back in the shadows directing the entire show is PUTIN. He and his oligarchs financed the entire run up to the current situation in the United States by mostly laundering Zillions of dollars thru the NRA to the RepubliCONS. After the Cold War, Putin despised/loathed what the U.S. had done to Russia. He vowed to get even forever more.....and has been working on every angle. He found a presidential candidate that he could blackmail and whose intelligence was low and whose ego was astronomical. Then he found a group that put money above all else, the RepubliCON Party and politicians.
The Russian people are laughing their asses off at how easily Putin has been able to trash the U.S. and Democracy.
All of it without personally being involved, and without firing a single missile or rocket......
sprinkleeninow
(20,133 posts)* is exactly who/what they needed to fulfill their filthy agenda
* the embodiment of everything negative A to Z
it could've been game over earlier if we hadn't secured the House at the very least
I find myself veering into 'not despair', but close
it comes in waves
stay safe and healthy 💛
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)nothing but a puppet, taking orders from those running the right wing coup.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)Who would have dreamed in our worst nightmares when I got out of high school in '65 that our nation and a sizable percentage of our people would deteriorate to this degree?
And, layer hard right-wing elected leaders around the country, climate change and a deadly global pandemic on top of it all.
Hard to be positive these days, Sprinkleeninow........
sprinkleeninow
(20,133 posts)KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)Actually, I was into smooth country music at that time.....that summer I left home for college. There was an FM station out of Nashville that played only the really good country stuff and I never got into much rock until a much later age (like 50s through my now 70s) although I've always loved Allman Bros. and anything the Eagles did. Can't deal with hard rock or metal at all, though. I'm into listening to the pickers far more than the singers.
Now, I'm also really enjoying stuff like Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, CSN&Y, Seals & Crofts and many more. Can't play my stuff really loud through speakers anymore but got some good headphones and a power amp to get it loud.
Got to have relief from tRump, ya know.
KY............
Steelrolled
(2,022 posts)but they never get the level of funding needed to be really useful.
I just read one that appears to address exactly the issues we have experienced with COVID-19. It is eerie. But I don't think it ever got that far beyond a high level plan.
There are always other priorities, or government agency reshuffles occur and there it gets lost.
DENVERPOPS
(8,679 posts)Only problem is, that Rural America Farmers are overwhelmingly RepubliCON Trumphumpers......
AND, it is considerably cheaper for them to till the crop under, and collect a large Federal Gov't subsidy, especially the vast number of huge farming conglomerates/coporations......The only welfare the RepubliCONS want is Corporate Welfare.......
They want a country where they are the top 1%, and the entire rest of the nation is crushed down into the bottom 1% position, with nothing in-between.....
Pacifist Patriot
(24,647 posts)Converting industrial and institutional products to retail consumer products is more like trying to get a locomotive to take a left turn than getting a car to change lanes.
The processing, packaging, and distribution differences makes milk or toilet paper destined for a school entirely different products from milk and toilet paper headed to a grocery store near you.
As much as we like to think that better planning could have prevented this wasteful conundrum, anyone suggesting it six months ago would have been dismissed as a chicken little crank. The expense of putting such contingency plans in order would be seen as an unacceptable unnecessary business expense.
3Hotdogs
(12,209 posts)The problem is how to process, purify and add preservatives to it.
Then, where is the trucking going to come from? That costs money.
Your sympathy and disgust are valid. The logistics are not there.
The food being destroyed was meant for restaurants such wholesalers. Restaurants are now out of, or in reduced business status.
A restaurant veggie supplier near me (NJ) has begun selling to individual consumers. Problem is, you gotta buy 40 pounds of the vegetables at a time. We got together and bulk ordered and then broke up the stuff with relatives and neighbors.
Demovictory9
(32,324 posts)JustAnotherGen
(31,683 posts)I live in NJ
MadMike47
(105 posts)DownriverDem
(6,206 posts)That is what MSM do. They aren't supposed to be on anyone's side.
EarthFirst
(2,877 posts)They are 100% complicit in helping rebrand White Nationalism as the Alt-Right
Fuck that theyre on everyones side...
DENVERPOPS
(8,679 posts)that the MSM is 80+% owned by Rich RepubliCONS??????????
All the news that is in the RepubliCONS best interest to run...............
Most of the groundwork for all this was done during the Reagan administration.
Some of us were screaming from the rooftops.We were especially chastised by by the "Reagan Democrats" who had their heads buried in the sand. And we have screamed our heads off since, only to be ridiculed and laughed at the entire time.
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,539 posts)It's hard to watch Dr. Fauci and the other experts stand there and listen to the Insane King, knowing there is so much critical work they could be doing.
Trump said he had absolute authority to open the country. When the governors made him back down he found another way to do it -- support "spontaneous" uprisings in every state, starting with the Democratically held battleground states. The Red State governors, who were reluctant to issue stay-at-home orders in the first place, are using the protests as a reason to lift the order. So Fat Donnie gets what he wants (again!) without having to take any responsibility.
DownriverDem
(6,206 posts)Governor Whitmer is doing all she can to slow it down, but trump is doing all he can to bring her down. She is popular here and we support her. trump thinks what he is doing will help him win Michigan.
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,539 posts)Newsom took action early and doesn't take any of Trump's guff. He's set the example of joining with other states (Washington and Oregon) to share information and supplies.
DENVERPOPS
(8,679 posts)are flaunting their corrupt actions in our faces, and not caring a twit or worrying about votes in the upcoming election leaves me with no other thought than they already know they have the election rigged and can proceed full steam ahead with their agenda and not even wait for the election.
Anyone disagree with my hypothesis?????????
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)jalan48
(13,798 posts)a crisis like this to keep people from seeing what is going on. One example today is the federal government stealing PPE and ventilator orders from states that have already paid for the items and then doing who knows what with them. Zero transparency is our future.
Pepsidog
(6,252 posts)liberalhistorian
(20,809 posts)as a dogcatcher in East Podunk, Wyoming, how the HELL anyone with more than two brain cells to put together could have thought otherwise and pulled the lever for him, or could STILL think otherwise, shows just how far we've truly fallen.
progree
(10,864 posts)Closing values of DOW and S&P 500
Dow: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/history?p=%5EDJI
March 17 21,237.38
April 17 24,242.49
% increase: +14.1%
S&P 500: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/history?p=%5EGSPC
March 17 2,529.19
April 17 2,874.56
% increase: +13.7%
LiberalLovinLug
(14,154 posts)Maybe simplification but unless there is a full fledged run on the banks by the majority of average people, those with substantial wealth, use this time to set themselves up for the future. They may lose money in the short term from existing businesses, but that will all be offset and more once the economy starts up again, and they now own millions more in property, or business's that weren't able to survive through the pandemic, whose value will shoot up again when its over. Apparently the Koch brothers did very very well after Bush Jr.'s recession, in Obama's first years, as the economy improved, their vulture capitalist steals made them ultra rich.
The trick for these modern day robber barons is to walk as close to the line as possible between the public at large rising up, and demanding their own money from banks because they let it get too desperate, against the point where the economy crashes enough to force small business's to have to sell off.....to them. Or mortgage holders unable to pay off their home or building. They sweep in and pay pennies on the dollar. Sit back in their mansions with everything they need while they sit out COVID19, all the while tweeting support for Trump and opening business up again NOW so they can reap the profits of their new investments.
DENVERPOPS
(8,679 posts)And just wait for the second wave of financial shit to hit the fan.......
This upturn is merely what is called "a dead cat bounce"
I honestly feel that we haven't seen anything yet compared to what is coming.....
The U.S. public is composed of masses of people that are illiterate, ill informed or terminally greedy.
Given that, we ain't seen nothing yet, to what lies in the near future for all of us......
LiberalLovinLug
(14,154 posts)It will get more and more nuts.
It will be a battle of information. I'd say "Info wars" but that refers to something else. I do fear the power of the MSM, no matter how much they are dismissed by the fringes on the left and right. How much will they start to bend towards opening up the country, for their owners, who have stakes in more than a media company, vs. adequate safety messaging?
DENVERPOPS
(8,679 posts)one millimeter away from them pulling off their cabals coup.
That being: a Corporate Fascist Tyranny.........
Unlike anything the world has ever seen...........
llmart
(15,501 posts)The Dow was almost 27,000 on March 1st, so the April 24,242 doesn't impress me much at all. Right before Christmas it was over 28,000.
I won't celebrate the Dow until it's back up to the 28,000 mark like it was before Christmas.
progree
(10,864 posts)rather than that it's down from some recent all-time high in February.
DOW
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/history?p=%5EDJI
11/8/16 close: 18333
1/19/17 close: 19732
1/20/17 close: 19827
4/17/20 close : 24242
Since election day: +32.2%
Since 1/20/17: +22.3%
S&P 500:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/history?p=%5EGSPC
11/8/16 close: 2140
1/19/17 close: 2264
1/20/17 close: 2271
4/17/20 close: 2875
Since election day: +34.3%
Since 1/20/17: +26.6%
Not hyper-stellar returns considering that its over 3 1/4 years since inauguration day, and nearly 3 1/2 years since election day, but not terrible either. Just a modest 6.4%/year for the Dow and 7.6%/year for the S&P 500 since inauguration day (Annualized average returns not including dividends. Dividends add another 1.5% to 2%/year)
Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund (VFINX) using adjusted close which includes reinvested dividend distributions
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VFINX/history?p=VFINX
1/20/17 close: 197.69
4/17/20 close: 265.58
+34.3% (9.5%/year)
(I generally use the last close before inauguration day as my benchmark (1/19/17), but a lot of people prefer to use the inauguration day close (1/20/17). So I present both the 1/19 and 1/20 numbers to satisfy everyone).
Lock him up.
(6,874 posts)... they could cash in bigger bonuses!!
That's how they looted the Treasury...
progree
(10,864 posts)National Debt in $trillions: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
1/20/17: 19.947
4/16/20: 24.465
+22.7%
What really matters is debt to GDP ratio:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S?cid=5
Q1 2017: 103.4%
Q4 2019: 106.8% (Q4 2019 is the latest GDP statistic)
This is a number that is supposed to go down when the economy is "the best we've ever seen" or whatever words the orange fuckwad uses.
Unfortunately the above doesn't capture the C-19 drop in tax revenue and increase in spending.
On April 29 (10 days from now), the first estimate of Q1 2020 GDP is due. That's for the January 1 - March 31, 2020 quarter. That won't show much of the of the C-19 impact. We'll have to wait for late July to see the first estimate of Q2 2020 GDP (April 1 - June 30, 2020).
As for deficits, this is a bit old, but it's what I've got ready-to-go
{#} ACTUAL Federal Spending and Deficits - Fiscal Years 2008 - 2019, in $Billions
Fiscal year 2019 ended September 30, 2019. Similarly for all the other fiscal years.
Note: all figures in this section are actual, not budgeted. I only point out that Bush signed the FY 2009 budget, and that Obama signed the FY 2017 budget.
Again, increasing deficits (in plain old dollars or as a percent of GDP) is not what we're supposed to see in an economy that is "the best we've ever seen".
GReedDiamond
(5,299 posts)That's already happened with hydroxychloroquine.
My girlfriend was prescribed it for rheumatoid arthritis earlier this year, her first bottle ran out, but the prescription could not be refilled because "president" Motherfucking Asshole Shit-for-brains caused a run on it - plus, I thought I heard the Global Village Idiot spent millions of $$$ buying it all up in bulk for "his" and Jared Fuckwit's "national" stockpile (which the States have no access to, apparently).
The pharmacist confirmed that, and said they have no idea when hydroxychloroquine will be available again.
Wednesdays
(17,248 posts)They gave me only half a refill last time.
I take it for osteoarthritis.
Amishman
(5,541 posts)The stock market is rebounding nicely
Sneederbunk
(14,208 posts)machoneman
(3,952 posts)Trump Depression, Trump Virus, Trump Kills!
burrowowl
(17,606 posts)he should be tried for:
crimes against humanity
sedition and treason
dereliction of duty
accepting emoluments
etc.
along with his enablers!
Lock him up.
(6,874 posts)... by over 40,000 grieving families.
cstanleytech
(26,080 posts)Nunes and Moscow Mitch.
world wide wally
(21,719 posts)Every last thing he does is counter-intuitive to winning votes. Letting Americans die should lose him votes. Supporting the undermining of local laws should lose him support. Yet he invests in this approach and keeps doubling down.
And his supporters think it's the cat's shit...which they also think is good
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)bucolic_frolic
(42,676 posts)so the breakdown of systems will create shortage and distribution problems
warmfeet
(3,321 posts)Real change requires real sacrifice and real hardship. Much more so than most of us are currently experiencing - including myself.
Not talking about asinine protests spouting bullshit conspiracy theories.
Talking about stoppage. Stoppage of everything involving productivity and consumption. If we want real change, it will take real hard work and sacrifice. Hiding behind the sofa now.
My apologies in advance.
I really like the color of the sofa.
seta1950
(932 posts)Why is food being thrown away why not give it away , what a waste.
Brainfodder
(6,423 posts)...nutshell version...
Now how do you deal with this conundrum?
mvd
(65,148 posts)There are still hot spots. Camden has grown a lot, and my township in Montgomery County PA is up to 83 cases and 11 deaths. It feels safe where I go, but you never know. Places like NY and PA which have flattened the curve overall could go way up again.
orangecrush
(19,236 posts)SWBTATTReg
(21,859 posts)Regardless of the so called worthless president, regardless of who the governor is, regardless of who is in the Senate or House, I'll will still protect my loved ones and friends w/ every OZ of energy I have, and won't ever give up. I think it's a little extreme to tout a few major time governors (and they are, don't get me wrong), it's just all of us, doing our part, are doing by far the most in fighting this thing.
NNadir
(33,368 posts)In their world, apparently the Great Depression was great.