NYT: How Many Will Die for the Dow?

[CousinIT]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/opinion/trump-coronavirus-dow.html

. . . Trump and the Republican Party as a whole have now given up on that strategy. They won’t say this explicitly, and they’re throwing up various disingenuous explanations for what they’re doing, but their basic position is that thousands of Americans must die for the Dow.

What was the strategy Trump abandoned? It was the same strategy that has worked in other countries, from South Korea to New Zealand. First, use a lockdown to “crush the curve”: reduce the number of infected Americans to a relatively low level. Then combine gradual reopening with widespread testing, tracing of contacts after an infected individual is identified, and isolation of those who might spread the disease.

. . .

Trump and his party have come out against further aid to the unemployed and against helping beleaguered state and local governments. Instead, the party is increasingly putting all its hopes on a rapid reopening of the economy, even though that prospect terrifies health experts, who warn that it could lead to a second wave of infections and many more deaths.

Where is this push to reopen coming from? Some Republicans claim that we can’t afford to keep providing a safety net, because we’re incurring too much debt. But that’s both bad economics and disingenuous. After all, soaring budget deficits haven’t stopped Trump officials from considering, yes, more tax cuts.

There’s also a pretense that the push for reopening is coming from ordinary working Americans, that it’s a populist, grass-roots demand. But the public is much more worried that we’ll reopen too quickly than that we’ll open too slowly, and those who have lost wages as a result of the lockdown are no more likely to favor quick reopening than those who haven’t.

No, the push to ignore the health experts is a top-down thing; it’s coming from Trump and his allies, and whatever limited public support they’re getting is driven by partisanship, not populism.

[rampartc]

1. i would rather a banker flat below every window on wall st

than another 100.000 coronavirus victims.

what kind of economy continually props up failed capitalists with borrowed money?

[Celerity]

3. a doomed one

[empedocles]

2. Ol' DJIA in a flatish trading range for 6 weeks - an overvalued, vulnerable,

[despite 'efforts' to push it up], trading range.

[empedocles]

8. A mere 15 trillion, $15,000,000,000 of 'support'

'Central banks are creating ‘fake markets,’ Bank of America strategists say
Published Fri, May 22 20208:53 AM EDT
Elliot Smith
@ElliotSmithCNBC




'Key Points
Central banks have deployed a total of around $4 trillion of asset purchases over the past eight weeks, and the global equity market cap has surged by $15 trillion.
Despite the economic crisis brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, risk assets have been rallying of late.


Stocks have become detached from reality due to recent interventions from central banks into the bond markets, according to analysts at Bank of America.
In a research note Friday, the Bank of America Securities division highlighted the question of why the stock market is so divorced from reality as one of the most frequently asked by investors.

Despite the economic crisis brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, which has so far seen 38 million Americans file for unemployment and brought about sharp contractions in global GDP (gross domestic product), risk assets have been rallying of late.
As of Friday morning, the S&P 500 is up more than 14% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average more than 11% so far this quarter, rebounding from a historic sell-off in March as the coronavirus spread in the U.S. and throughout the rest of the world.'

[uponit7771]

11. +1, feds saying they'll buy ETF junk bonds might as well told wall street to buy everything now.

[Chainfire]

4. To Republicans

the death's, as long as it isn't their deaths, aren't as important as profits.

When your gods are power and money, other people's death are just the cost of doing business.

[Initech]

5. At least double or even triple the number we have now.

And Trump won't show an ounce of sympathy for any of them. I long for the days when the worst thing we had to worry about was the possibility of him shooting someone on 5th Avenue.

[UpInArms]

6. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says 'there are more important things than living' to justify reopening

Full title: Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says 'there are more important things than living' to justify reopening the state's economy

Apr 21, 2020

Texas' Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said "there are some things more important than living" as a justification for the state moving ahead with reopening businesses starting next week despite the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

In late March, Patrick called for the economy to reopen as soon as possible, despite cases surging across the US.

"Let's get back to living," he said. "Let's be smart about it. And those of us who are 70-plus, we'll take care of ourselves, but don't sacrifice the country."

Patrick echoed those same sentiments in an April 20 interview on "Tucker Carlson Tonight," saying, "I'm sorry to say I was right on this, and I am thankful we are now beginning to open up Texas and other states, because it's been long overdue."

https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-there-are-more-important-things-than-living-2020-4?op=1

Texas reports largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases

MAY 18, 2020

The Texas Department of Health reported Saturday that there are more than 47,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the state, with over 1,800 new cases reported Saturday, as the state ramps up testing in areas that it has declared high risk. It's the largest single-day increase in confirmed cases in Texas since the pandemic began.

There were 33 additional deaths reported Saturday, bringing the total number of fatalities in the Lone Star State to 1,305.

Meanwhile, Texas is moving forward with plans to reopen. On Monday, gyms can open with 25% capacity, and they must space equipment and provide cleaning products throughout the gym, CBS Houston affiliate KHOU-TV reports. Nonessential manufacturing and work offices can reopen with 25% capacity as well.

[Kid Berwyn]

15. NAZIs in Texas

During World War II, German POWs held in Texas noticed they were treated with more dignity than the African Americans there.

Even Nazi prisoners of war in Texas were shocked at how black people were treated in the South

In Texas, some of the Germans actually befriended Americans of all colors

Heather Gilligan
Timeline.com, Oct 26, 2017 · 7 m

Excerpt...

American officials were frustrated by their inability to stop their citizens from fraternizing with the enemy after the walls between the prisoners and the townspeople came down (albeit metaphorically). Women lined up against the chain link fences to watch the POWs play soccer. People piled into train stations when a transport was scheduled to arrive, hoping for a glimpse of the prisoners. Edouard Patte, a Swiss delegate of the International YMCA who worked as a Red Cross monitor, put it this way: “it’s difficult to imagine that these nice blond lads with rosy cheeks had been war baiters and murderers a short while ago.”

The POWs also found friends in the most unlikely of places, as they worked alongside African Americans hoeing and picking cotton, talking away long days in the hot sun. African American field hands were painfully aware that white Americans treated Nazi prisoners far better than they did people of color. African Americans waited on POWs when they were transported in Pullman cars to their camps, and prisoners were also allowed to eat in whites-only cafeterias. At the camp, they were dealt the most menial jobs, including spraying the prisoners with delousing foam. The slights hurt all the more because African-American soldiers fought diligently during WWII in all-black units such as the renowned Tuskegee airmen.

Yet, on an individual level, they got along with the Germans. And Germans were fond of them, in part because African American soldiers had protected them from the mobs of people who wanted to kill the POWs.

Surprisingly, given the blatant racism of the Nazi party, some of the German soldiers were also shocked by the shoddy treatment of their fellow farmworkers. “The blacks…didn’t do much better than us,” remarked one POW. “They were just in front of the wire, and we were behind the wire.” Another German soldier, who was a farmer in his civilian life, noted that African American were expected to pick two to three more times the cotton required of the POWs. “You have to see how they lived,” he said after the war. “These people were so exploited.”

Source:

https://timeline.com/nazi-prisoners-war-texas-f4a0794458ea

[Corgigal]

7. Dumb leaders

make dumb decisions.

They don’t think we will see the suffering, nor will we understand or care.

Time will tell.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. How does this differ from

sending troops to war to secure foreign oil? Almost any war you could name was about resources, often oil resources.

[MadLinguist]

10. And the economy will STILL crash, and will take even longer to recover

Even from the perspective of 'Dollar is King', this is a doomed path. Surely these ass-hats know this.
So what the hell gives? This is a gamble that no investor would take. Even investment strategy done by the quarter, whooping it up now, and crashing again somewhere between September and December would require hauling in the money til August, and then what partying on Venus with Elon Musk come January 2021? There has to be some 'safe haven' investment Wall Streeters are thinking they are going to dump their money into when the next waves of infection overtake us. They for sure aren't thinking of investing in hospitals, medical schools, associated labor and supply chains, since those are going to stretch, fray and finally give up the ghost. Unless they plan on using the massive death and fear as a way to get even more sympathy bailouts.

[uponit7771]

12. THIS !!! Sweden's already tried it and their loose NPI didn't have a net positive result out of what

... their neighbors had.

76% of people say there's not enough testing ... that's about as simple as it gets

[iluvtennis]

13. But trump's America is too arrogant and ignorant to follow the proven ways of

other countries that preceded us in how to handle the outbreak. And now over 95,000 souls have been lost in 3 months. So disgusting.

[Done_Playin]

14. If you were watching the orange anti-christ closely...

...this was all sickeningly apparent from the start, (though we must forgive any who could not believe their eyes, as such depravity is inconceivable to most people).

Dr. Fauci inadvertently provided a fig leaf of legitimacy, while standard epidemiology was systematically thwarted and ignored, and confusion and dissension deliberately sewn.

...all by an imbecile satanic clown and his kleptocrat manipulators.

But, wait -- it gets better. In the midst of our suffering and efforts to prevail, an army of blood-thirsty zombies was unleashed upon us. Stephen King, are you listening?

But fear not... somehow the 1% keep getting richer.