This was chilling for me to watch and absorb ...

[Jarqui]

Ari Melber asks David Frum to weigh in on Georgia's return to work. Video should be at the spot where Frum starts his response:

?t=2085

Frum's response at 34:44 is what caught my attention.

Frum makes reference to this article

Coronavirus Advice From Abroad: 7 Lessons America’s Governors Should Not Ignore as They Reopen Their Economies
https://www.propublica.org/article/coronavirus-advice-from-abroad-7-lessons-americas-governors-should-not-ignore-as-they-reopen-their-economies

Frum also discusses it here:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/trump-trading-lives-poor-economic-growth/610264/

I think there's a good chance Frum is correct.

Trump will panic that he cannot get reelected unless the economy is back. He knows that will take time. They floated a trial balloon earlier and got the feedback on the objections they'll have to overcome. Since they're not doing any of the seven things they would need to do to bring the economy back, Trump will see it as he has no choice. There will be a political calculation to let many die to bring the economy back.

How else can it be? Trump isn't doing any of the things he would need to to bring the economy back like many advised Propublica. Not bringing back the economy is not an option for Trump politically. So the worst may well be yet to come.

"Take the punch. Mostly minorities and the poor ..."

"Mortality rate for opening up ...."

What a horror.

Talk me down.

I cannot believe what I just typed but I'm struggling to refute it.

And this buffoon is the one going to make this decision?

[Bev54]

1. Frum is at the 28 min mark

[Jarqui]

2. The key part starts at 34:44

I tried to use a link to that spot in my post but it doesn't seem to work from my post.

[Laelth]

3. The American people aren't completely stupid.

Most of us don’t want to die, so we’re staying home. Trump can “open up” the economy all he wants, and nothing will change. Individual governors and mayors can obliterate their “stay-at-home” orders, and nothing will change. Americans are staying home anyway.

Chill out. The Coronavirus is being handled by the American people. The economy, on the other hand, is toast.

-Laelth

[uponit7771]

5. +1, in places in China the government is giving millions out in "vouchers" to people to entice them

... to shop and nope ... doesn't work.

People are 1. broke and 2. sKeered ... no GDP boost for China who decided to not capitalize the consumer level at all during the shut down.

[leighbythesea2]

6. I must add

This means the american people are choosing to stay at home to possible detriment if a community or state opens. Once opened a person can lose their job for deciding they are still not coming in.

To make a statement like this assumes they have savings and ability to lose a job.

My sister is experiencing this right now. Her company headquarters are in Atlanta. Her office is in another state not reopened, but the state is considering it, i believe delaying it's decision a bit.
She got an email they were going back may 4th. No details. Many people pushed back of course but that wasnt going to change the order to go back if head quarters insisted. We are waiting to hear.

She has MS. She doesnt want to be a guinea pig. Of course. I said she could ask for an accommodation with HR to protect herself. But what would the rest do?

Obviously, if her state opens may 1 it is a quandry for the rest correct? So now we rely on employers being benevolent. Or does Alanta feel like if we are doing it, so are you.

I don't think we can assume anyone can sit it out and chill, except those who have everything to lose because they have a) money to last them until they get the next job 12 months from now, b) believe theyd get another job in the mid covid economy, if lucky.

[Laelth]

9. The economy is toast.

Many of us are going to suffer from long-term unemployment. We had better get used to that idea. We’re looking at a GREAT depression. Americans aren’t the only ones, either. Europe is staying home too. This depression is GLOBAL and unprecedented.

My point is that “opening up” states and municipalities (i.e. eliminating stay-at-home orders) isn’t going to make a bit of difference. Americans are not entirely stupid. For the foreseeable future, we’re staying home, and that has nothing to do with any “official” stay-at-home order from any government entity. There’s nothing that government can do about it, either.

-Laelth

[yonder]

7. +1. "The CV is being handled by the American people".

Yup. And to paraphrase the Moody Blues, "we'll decide when it's right, and which is an illusion".

[smirkymonkey]

8. +1000

[Jarqui]

11. I hope you're right

But I'm not as sure.

The economy going takes other things with it.

"Get back to work or you don't eat!" could become a motivator.
There's stimulus and folks got their $1,200 checks.
But what happens next month when there's no $1,200 check?
A significant portion of the people may not have much of a choice.

[leighbythesea2]

12. Exactly

Talking about choices seems like a perspective of privilege to have a choice. Maybe not intended, but is just the same.

[Laelth]

16. But what if there's no job?

Business owners are hesitant to reopen because they don’t have enough customers to justify opening. That’s precisely because people are staying home.



-Laelth

[Jarqui]

17. It's a mess. I'm not sure how it is going to turn out

My Dad & Mom lived through the depression in the 1930s.
I was thinking about that.

My grandfather operated a hardware store, the town paper and some other stuff.
Nobody had money.
He stretched his credit to the max to keep his little town supplied with hardware needs and a newspaper, etc.
He didn't get paid cash very often as nobody had any. People gave him food when they could.
They'd bring it to his back door to avoid the embarrassment of being seen paying him that way.

I'm scared more today because unlike that 1930s time, we are less self sufficient.
We shipped factories, ability, know how, etc overseas with the free trade of the 1990s.
What farmer can you go to to get food ... maybe on credit?
We probably need to be shifting gears to take care of ourselves but our President is too busy thinking about guzzling Clorox and the Senate majority leader is focused on siphoning more money to the 1% while hoping Blue states go bankrupt.

We're about to experience an enormous test and I worry that we're not as well prepared for it as we used to be. WE do not have the leadership to respond to this challenge and the earliest we'll have it in place is Jan 2021.

We're in deep shit. And these fuckers are going to let a lot of folks die needlessly.

[leighbythesea2]

19. True

The economic piece, possible depression is going to take shape and almost none of us have any personal frame of reference for it.
Your grandfather sounded like a great person. My grandfather had a farm and another job, sometimes two if he could. And still gave freely. Mom said he was very generous.

I've been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately. My mom and i lived with her when i was little in the 70s for couple of years. Mom divorced and was building her house.
I learned so much from my grandmother, but i wish i had videos now---- of how to do all the self sufficient things she did!. Plus it was a farm. So to do them, great, but to have the land and structure as context--we are a different society today!

[Jarqui]

20. My father was a little bitter

He felt his father gave too much. He basically gave everything he could.
My grandfather was paying off those 1930s debts (basically gifts during the depression to the townsfolk to keep them going) for much of the rest of my grandfather's life.
My father had two older brothers. He remembered the first article of new clothing he ever got: a new sweater when he was 12 years old. He had worn used clothes every day up until then and it stuck with him.
My mother lost her mother to cancer at the start of the depression. She nursed her father who suffered from war wounds until he wheezed to death from the gassing leaving her an orphan at age 15.

Back then, we had the capacity to produce our own food. Today, with all the imports and collapse of a lot of farms, I wonder about that.

I hope not but we could be in for a really rough time.

[leighbythesea2]

23. What an incredible life

It really is beyond comprehension somewhat for us. There was so so little. Scarring for them.
And no social security for the grandparent generation either. I think about that a lot. My grandmother took care of her parents and in law parents. My grandmother getting social security in the early 60s was a big deal. My grandfather died at 53.
So there was the horrible hardship of the depression, changing people irrevocably. I can understand your fathers distress.
Have you read Angela's Ashes? Harrowing.

I am trying to figure out how to prep. Weirdly, ive been a soft doomsday prepper since 2004. Dont talk about it because, well, watch people look at you like an alien. Lol.

I cant say i figured it out, i mean, its ambitious and expensive. I kinda figured i needed a farm! I have farm property. Pitching a tent isnt gonna do it tho. Building your own infrastructure for this is nuts & took forever already. And 50% complete isnt going to do it. I worry about the number of family farms out there too

[Jarqui]

27. Haven't read Angela's Ashes - heard of / was aware of it

I've been thinking about getting some farm property the last few days. I've grown vegetables and taken care of animals since I was a young boy. My paternal grandmother's family did it for generations. After WW1, my paternal great uncle, suffering from severe PTSD from WW!, lived off the land in the mountains until he died at age 85.

As a result of the depression, my father got into engineering food processing plants because "no matter what, people have to eat - basic food is as close to depression proof as it gets"

Access to solar / wind power is easier today. Satellites can provide internet/phone access. Good clean water that cannot be easily poisoned or damned off would be a key.

[leighbythesea2]

28. That sounds like a plan

A friend who bought a farm in Tennessee, who had been in finance told me to try to get a spring head on your property if you can. Mine has creek. Spring head is across the street. Keeping eye on that land owner. Doent mean i have money to buy if they sell, but i can still try to plan.

Maybe your background, and family history was creating a leaning, and then circumstances are creating a reason to consider it more fully now. ?!

I know i dont really have the conditioning or stamina to run a farm at the moment. But, my uncle still farms, is around the corner, there, and one cousin took it up nearby. He's learning as he goes and asking my uncle.

If you have a desire, and some practice from childhood, and some patience it would come along.

Your father was smart to think that way about his career. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, food is first.

Angela's Ashes is also very funny. Laugh out loud kind. Brillant writing. The tragedy of Irish poverty in depression era. The united states too.

[Jarqui]

29. My maternal grandmother's family was Irish

going back many generations.So I am quite interested in checking the book out.

The search for what happened to my great uncle that abandoned society to live in the mountains started in the mid 1960s when my brother & I insisted that he be found and we get to meet him - which my father made happen. He dropped his belongings when he got home from the war and had basically disappeared for 45 years. It ended in a meeting with the army in 2016 who were trying to determine why he hadn't blown his brains out because he had PTSD so bad.

Things happen for a reason and these tales are illuminating - providing clues to the reasons why things happened the way they did.

My folks never got over the Depression and some of the harsh lessons they learned. I will never forget some of those things and the hurt that shaped them. I wish my daughters could be spared such a thing but it doesn't look like they will.

[leighbythesea2]

30. That itself

Sounds like a book. He had a level of awareness and self preservation that kept him alive.

I'm so interestrd in PTSD but am not sure why. I have a soft spot for military, so much respect. They do the impossible and then come home and cannot cope. It seems too hard to unravel. I warched a talk recently by a dr who studied trauma and it. Wrote a book. Have watched some things on hallucinogenic drugs as therapy. Michael Pollan wrote a book on that. His books are on food, eating, farming and the food complex generally. It seems like for some, no amount of any traditional therapies helps their PTSD.

In 2016 i apologized to my daughter because it had felt as if we were progressing as a society before trump. And we were! I knew this would be a slide backwards, although what is happening today who could ever haved known. I still believe decency etc is the majority of us. But the economic situation is new territory.

[Jarqui]

31. His father died when he was 8

He was the oldest child and quit school to work to support his brother, sister & mother.
During the war, he continued to support them - sending a lot of his pay home to them.
After the war, offing himself wasn't an option because it would have left his mother and sister destitute. By then, my grandfather had a wife and three young ones. He continued to support them the rest of their lives - both predeceased him. If he hadn't done what he did to help support my grandfather who was only five when his father died, there's a good chance my immediate family wouldn't exist. In my eyes, he's the real hero of our family.

[leighbythesea2]

32. Glad you found him

That was good effort and knowing his story is important to everyone in the family. These people were tough as nails.

My aunt did genealogy on my moms family. We know so much. Great deeds and adventures. She started back in the 70s i think. Lots of road trips. Until ancestry.com came out i didnt know people might have zero knowledge of their family. What those generations did and went thru is fascinating. So great to know the stories.

[leighbythesea2]

21. Right

I'm wondering how long it can go like that. And what percent of businesses will stay closed 3, 6 months versus those wanting & willing to open. Havent seen any statistics on it. 60% don't, 30% do? Probably no statistics now, and it will be regional.
What if in 6 months still no tests?. It's a mess for sure.

But I still dont think it will stop employees having to decide between feeding a family and the health risk, if asked to return.

Again, this is anecdotal opinion based on my sister. Breadwinner. 4 kids. Her company makes products that are essential. They've decided to return on May 24th, in waves, and rotation, to keep office adhering to 6 foot distancing.
She's not going back in the first wave. But she is going back in some capacity. With MS. Tell me this isn't based on doing what she feels she must.

If i could tell her fight it completely and if they dont accommodate, let them fire you----i will pay you your salary i would. But we know that's wholly unrealistic don't we?

I can give you the example of my husband too. He's been working with 12 others the whole time. Solar power so also essential, but people were given a choice. Super reduced staff.
I was laid off, our bigger salary. We strategized. I have 2 stepsons. One with aspergers. Theyve been sheltering with dads mom. Im sheltering w my mom, (im her caregiver). We've figured out how to mitigate risk to have an income and health insurance. But my husband is the lonely guinea pig, so to speak.

Ive divulged a lot here, just as an example of the complex, very grey-area decisions people have to make when their employers are open.
.

[Laelth]

22. Some of us have difficult choices to make.

I can only tell you how my daughter feels about this. She’d rather be working. She would gladly take the risk of exposure to Coronavirus in exchange for pay, but she doesn’t have that choice. She has been laid off, and, so far, she hasn’t been able to find work. Her old job may or may not come back. If it did, she would take it, and she doesn’t care about the risk.

But there’s no job for her, nor are there any jobs for millions of Americans who got laid off quite recently. There’s no telling when, or if, those jobs are coming back. We are, collectively, in a world of hurt.

-Laelth

[leighbythesea2]

25. Absolutely

My heart goes out to your daughter. I understand why she would work if she could. I hope she does find something.

Can relate. I work in fashion apparel (design) . Our category is at the very bottom of the statistics currently. Biggest loss, why--- makes logical sense. But brick and mortar fashion was already in big trouble. It's going to be massive bankruptcies. I think at least half the brands are going away. Everyone i know is furloughed. (My sister was in apparel, but moved over to essential hardlines years ago). So my sister is the exception among my work peers.
In apparel, there is and will be a glut of workers all looking for the same jobs down the road.
Given my age etc, i dont know what the future holds. I cant retire yet.

So the choices for those without jobs IS worse. Your daughter has it worse than me, as i assume she's young. How does one get traction under these conditions?. They cannot.

[Ace Rothstein]

24. States probably won't be closed down at the 6 month point as they'll have gone broke by then.

So will any municipality after 6 months.

[leighbythesea2]

26. That makes sense

Am not knowledgeable on their budget structures, but 3 months seems longest. Based on what i do know about retail business operating costs, P & E, no way more than one quarter works. Even that is awful.

[misanthrope]

14. Yes and no, it depends on where you are

Last edited Sat Apr 25, 2020, 04:05 PM - Edit history (1)

In Mobile, Alabama, there are people out everywhere, have been for a couple of weeks despite a stay-at-home order and nightly curfews. The traffic in front of our house is about 3/4 or more of what it is on a normal day. You go to stores and there might be a third of the people wearing masks or other protective gear. Social distancing has dropped to nothing if it isn't strictly enforced by the stores.

Few are acting mindfully. We've had cops breaking up massive block parties. They had to close the parks because so many people were having gatherings and picnics. The city was forced to remove rims from basketball courts to stop the games from going on as usual.

The always-abundant street litter now includes a wealth of discarded nitrile gloves and sanitizing wipes.

One popular local media outlet has screamed for weeks about ending measures, decrying the response to the pandemic, demanding everything return to normal. They have purposefully strayed away from news that the county had the most dramatic rise in cases in the entire state and has almost twice the per capita cases of far more densely populated cities.

The mayor's hand was forced by the county health department and the governor into installing measures but has been itching to end them since they started. He is trying every trick he can to skew numbers, in hopes his denials and delusions can lead to the earliest possible dropping of measures.

From what's been seen on social media and in response to his remarks, he has plenty of backers in a town marked by high complacency and conservatism.

[Laelth]

18. Thanks for that.

Obviously, there are local differences in the ways people are responding to the novel Coronavirus. What I would ask is whether local businesses will reopen when the local stay-at-home order is rescinded. Will local business owners feel comfortable reopening? Will there be enough customers to justify reopening?

I live in rural East Texas, and people here are somewhat slack about social distancing. Our business owners, on the other hand, are more serious about it. They are enforcing some degree of social distancing on their own by keeping their businesses closed ... for the time being.

-Laelth

[FM123]

4. Yes, Frum really lays it out there. Not a pretty picture.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

10. Truth is

We don't need a market to live.
Money is paper and the only reason it has value is because people believe it has value.

The things we need can be procured by ways without money.

Look at people risking thier lives because they care. Look at the people who are delivering food that farmers would waste since they can't make profit off it.

We already have the means to exist without profit,and without hanging a price tag on life.

We have forgotten this.

This market is a lie,rich people tell us from cradle to grave.. So they can extract away the wealth this Earth has given us all.

Hence thier term "consumer CON fidence."
We can imagine a much better way of life if we decide to step out of the shit we have been conditioned to accept. And think about it.

[crickets]

13. I can't talk you down. I'm sorry.

I wish I could. I wish somebody could talk me down too. I am in SW GA right now, horrified that this is actually happening. It's going to be ugly and it didn't have to be this way. This was not the moral choice. It was the expedient one -- well, expedient for some.

[SoonerPride]

15. I disagree with David Frums analysis

He said repeatedly that “hundreds of thousands will die.”

That is right.

“Most will be poor.”

That is also right.

But he also said “most will be minorities and not his voters,”

That is only true so far. It has already predominantly hit metro urban centers with minorities disproportionately represented in the death toll

But going forward as this virus spreads to rural America “his people” are going to be the ones to disproportionately die. They are poor, working class, and have mostly the same underlying health conditions as inner city poor. Diabetes. Obesity. COPD. Smokers/Vapers with lung issues. And on and on.

If he thinks “ah well so what if 750,000 die they’ll be Democrats anyway” he will be shocked to see the dead will be primarily his supporters.

And the dead don’t vote.