The Coronavirus

[David Horn]

(05-11-2020, 02:18 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The Democrats have been pumping money into the economy, the global economy and the global institutions on a full time basis ever since FDR took office and the Democratic party voted to change the rules and skewed the courts to make it possible for them to do it long term. FDR did a good job keeping the radical factions within the Democratic party in line/ under control with his record use of the veto which kept America together during the years of the Great Depression.

Like I've mentioned, FDR doubled down on the change that Hoover was forced to make during the early years of the Great Depression. I'm sure that you are familiar with the Hoover Dam. We had a major economic problem during the 70's (post LBJ/Vietnam era) that needed to be addressed/fixed. A big government problem that couldn't be fixed the old Democratic way because the old Democratic way of doing business and years of tossing billions upon billions at all kinds of people problems was starting to cause problems. So, how many years will it be before big government believers admit that the government is broke and the era of big government being looked to solve our problems has to end?

The government is never broke.  It has a printing press, or the electronic equivalent of one.  Your rendering of history seems a bit stretched.  If you really care about the debt and deficits, then look here:



Note: the debt dropped in real terms from the end of WW-II until 1973.  Most of that era was dominated by Democrats. Feel free to correlate the rest of the periods.

[pbrower2a]

For Classic X'er:

Mayer Rothschild, founder of the great banking family of Europe, had a basic principle behind lending: never make a loan unless the object of the loan (a money-making proposition for the borrower) is a good deal for the borrower. If the borrower prospered, then Rothschild would find collecting the interest easy. He stayed clear of overt gambles, as has the Rothschild family for nearly three centuries.

Let's look at it this way. If you are Mike R. in debt for $1500 for buying consumer goodies and have $1000 a month in income you are in trouble. A $400 car repair can do you much damage even if you need that car for keeping your job. Maybe you shouldn't have blown $1500 on the wardrobe, the nice stereo, and a bunch of trips to the restaurant (let alone the strip club). Remember the portable radio that you could have bought for $7 at Goodwill or Salvation Army? It wouldn't be stereo, and it might not play the CD's that you since bought, but you are still paying interest on the $700 stereo. Ouch!

So what if you Mike S. and you are in debt for $150,000 for medical school? Physicians make extraordinary income, and paying that off over ten years will be fairly easy. Maybe you hold off on replacing the 6-year-old car that got you through the residency, but what the heck? Lending institutions will be looking at your high income that makes you an ideal buyer of a new home where you set up your practice! The $16 K that you are paying on your medical education is significantly more than what Mike S. is making in a month. Mike S. is struggling to pay off $150 a month in credit card bills -- and he could be in marital trouble over money.

OK. What one goes in debt for matters greatly. On a national scale, going into debt to stave off mass hunger and prevent a proletarian revolution... what other alternative do you have. If it is a war to keep from being conquered by Hitler and Tojo, then what is the alternative? Bolshevism and fascism are horrible things. After the Second World War America was able to pay down much of the debt with the aid of economic growth that either would have never happened or would have all gone to gangsters lording it over us.

Giving people stimulus checks to keep people from doing things that might facilitate the spread of a plague isn't cheap, but it will pay some personal debts and predictable bills. Having to choose between going on the subway to a job at Subway and contracting a lethal or potentially disabling disease or staying at home could be easier if you get money that can pay for utility bills and food. In any event, the money is going back into the commercial system or to hard-stressed state and local governments anyway.

I am certain that we will get through COVID-19 by hunkering down and letting a horrible virus run out of people to infect, disable, and kill before it infects everyone -- or until we have a safe and effective vaccine that allows life to return to normal. It may be a new normal; we are approaching the end of the window of a Crisis Era, so we will be in a more egalitarian economic order than what we now have.

[Classic-Xer]

(05-11-2020, 04:33 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-11-2020, 02:18 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The Democrats have been pumping money into the economy, the global economy and the global institutions on a full time basis ever since FDR took office and the Democratic party voted to change the rules and skewed the courts to make it possible for them to do it long term. FDR did a good job keeping the radical factions within the Democratic party in line/ under control with his record use of the veto which kept America together during the years of the Great Depression.

Like I've mentioned, FDR doubled down on the change that Hoover was forced to make during the early years of the Great Depression. I'm sure that you are familiar with the Hoover Dam. We had a major economic problem during the 70's (post LBJ/Vietnam era) that needed to be addressed/fixed. A big government problem that couldn't be fixed the old Democratic way because the old Democratic way of doing business and years of tossing billions upon billions at all kinds of people problems was starting to cause problems. So, how many years will it be before big government believers admit that the government is broke and the era of big government being looked to solve our problems has to end?

The government is never broke.  It has a printing press, or the electronic equivalent of one.  Your rendering of history seems a bit stretched.  If you really care about the debt and deficits, then look here:



Note: the debt dropped in real terms from the end of WW-II until 1973.  Most of that era was dominated by Democrats. Feel free to correlate the rest of the periods

Hmm..I see signs of a federal government that's broke and living well beyond it means. I don't care about the deficits or the debt at this point. Hardly nobody cares about them yet. I do know that they'll eventually become a big problem and the central issue of the crisis. I've even given an opinion on how the problem will eventually be resolved as the two governments opt to part and go they're separate ways vs fighting another bloody Civil War to keep the country together.

[Classic-Xer]

(05-11-2020, 06:55 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-11-2020, 12:44 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Do you have enough Democrats left who are willing to anti-up and pay more taxes and pay higher food costs and higher clothes costs and higher education costs and so forth?

The time America was Great was the time of tax and spend liberalism.  We have since moved conservative way past the point of diminishing return.  Yes, I think it is time to go back to what worked.  We don’t have much choice, as the virus is tugging us in that direction.  Denying that the problem exists, refusing to solve it, goes no where save death.

This is not to say we won’t go past the point of diminishing return again in the opposite direction.  The next unravelling will come in its time.  The desire to do what is best for the common good will wane.

But right now is the time of change, the time of commitment to the country.  Some are sensing it.  Others are marching to their doom.

Dude, we've always been committed to country and the left has always been opposed and in favor of establishing it's own country. Yes, we are getting there and we should be getting there even faster now that this occurred.

[Eric the Green]

(05-11-2020, 07:54 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(05-11-2020, 06:55 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-11-2020, 12:44 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Do you have enough Democrats left who are willing to anti-up and pay more taxes and pay higher food costs and higher clothes costs and higher education costs and so forth?

The time America was Great was the time of tax and spend liberalism.  We have since moved conservative way past the point of diminishing return.  Yes, I think it is time to go back to what worked.  We don’t have much choice, as the virus is tugging us in that direction.  Denying that the problem exists, refusing to solve it, goes no where save death.

This is not to say we won’t go past the point of diminishing return again in the opposite direction.  The next unravelling will come in its time.  The desire to do what is best for the common good will wane.

But right now is the time of change, the time of commitment to the country.  Some are sensing it.  Others are marching to their doom.

Dude, we've always been committed to country and the left has always been opposed and in favor of establishing it's own country. Yes, we are getting there and we should be getting there even faster now that this occurred.

The red states need to establish their own country if they continue to want a country left in the Dark Ages.

[Eric the Green]

(05-11-2020, 04:33 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-11-2020, 02:18 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The Democrats have been pumping money into the economy, the global economy and the global institutions on a full time basis ever since FDR took office and the Democratic party voted to change the rules and skewed the courts to make it possible for them to do it long term. FDR did a good job keeping the radical factions within the Democratic party in line/ under control with his record use of the veto which kept America together during the years of the Great Depression.

Like I've mentioned, FDR doubled down on the change that Hoover was forced to make during the early years of the Great Depression. I'm sure that you are familiar with the Hoover Dam. We had a major economic problem during the 70's (post LBJ/Vietnam era) that needed to be addressed/fixed. A big government problem that couldn't be fixed the old Democratic way because the old Democratic way of doing business and years of tossing billions upon billions at all kinds of people problems was starting to cause problems. So, how many years will it be before big government believers admit that the government is broke and the era of big government being looked to solve our problems has to end?

The government is never broke.  It has a printing press, or the electronic equivalent of one.  Your rendering of history seems a bit stretched.  If you really care about the debt and deficits, then look here:



Note: the debt dropped in real terms from the end of WW-II until 1973.  Most of that era was dominated by Democrats. Feel free to correlate the rest of the periods.

"real terms" sure makes the debt seem smaller.

[Eric the Green]

The USA, the UK and Brazil: these will soon be the countries with the most cases, AND before long with the most cases and deaths per M pop too. The USA under Trump, the UK under Johnson, and Brazil under Bolsonaro. The people VOTED to get sick!!

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[Eric the Green]

In California, the Bay Area is doing better than Southern CA and the lower central valley. LA keeps the number of new cases in CA high. It is after all the most populous county in the country.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronaviru...alifornia/

[Classic-Xer]

(05-11-2020, 10:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The USA, the UK and Brazil: these will soon be the countries with the most cases, AND before long with the most cases and deaths per M pop too. The USA under Trump, the UK under Johnson, and Brazil under Bolsonaro. The people VOTED to get sick!!

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

As I've mentioned, you should expect see us at or near the top in COVID19 cases from now on for obvious reasons already mentioned.

[Classic-Xer]

(05-11-2020, 02:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: From my perspective, the time America was great was also the tax and spend liberal time, the time the Democrats pushed benefits and labor unions to put more in the hands of the workers, less in the hands of the elites.   Now, the rest of the world’s factories are not going to get bombed out again.  The jobs sent abroad in the conservative era (with the aid of both parties) are not going to come back.  But productivity has gone steadily up.  The difference is the Democratic favoring of the people, the Republican favoring of the racists and elites.
 

Do you know that people who use racism are racists? I bet if I really pressed you on the topic of racism, the forum would learn how racist you and others are at the core. I mean, why is it that Democrat's are so into gaining support from minorities these days?

[Eric the Green]

(05-12-2020, 12:11 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(05-11-2020, 10:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The USA, the UK and Brazil: these will soon be the countries with the most cases, AND before long with the most cases and deaths per M pop too. The USA under Trump, the UK under Johnson, and Brazil under Bolsonaro. The people VOTED to get sick!!

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

As I've mentioned, you should expect see us at or near the top in COVID19 cases from now on for obvious reasons already mentioned.

Yes, as I'VE mentioned, the reason these 3 states are at the top of the list or soon will be is because their policies were to deny the danger of the virus and try "herd immunity" rather than impose quarantines and provide testing. These leaders are Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson.

Morrison proved that it IS possible for a Trump clone to do the right thing. It often doesn't happen though.

As for Putin, I'm not sure what to say about that one. Unlike the other Trump clones, he is basically a tyrant in an authoritarian regime, whereas in the other countries enough of the people made a mistake so Trump and the Trump clones could take over. So I'm not sure what Putin is doing wrong.

Of course, some people say that Trump himself is in turn a Putin clone.

[Eric the Green]

(05-12-2020, 01:33 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(05-11-2020, 02:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: From my perspective, the time America was great was also the tax and spend liberal time, the time the Democrats pushed benefits and labor unions to put more in the hands of the workers, less in the hands of the elites.   Now, the rest of the world’s factories are not going to get bombed out again.  The jobs sent abroad in the conservative era (with the aid of both parties) are not going to come back.  But productivity has gone steadily up.  The difference is the Democratic favoring of the people, the Republican favoring of the racists and elites.
 

Do you know that people who use racism are racists? I bet if I really pressed you on the topic of racism, the forum would learn how racist you and others  are at the core. I mean, why is it that Democrat's are so into gaining support from  minorities these days?

"Minorities" (soon to be a misnomer and already a misnomer in CA) are a key faction of the Democratic Party, because that Party and not the other one more often serves their interests. The Republicans serve the interests of the oligarchs, ONLY. That means that theoretically the Democrats only need to show that they serve the interests of all the people, including people of all ethnicities, not just the oligarchs, in order to win. 

Unfortunately, folks like you are more concerned about keeping the country white and keeping out immigrants, especially if they are people of color, and/or about imposing Christianity on us, or supporting war, and above all supporting the notion that giving tax money for welfare creates dependency (and those "lazy people" are usually people of color, so that ideology (trickle down economics, neo-liberalism, free-market ideology) is also racist, although not explicitly so until Trump), that they ignore the fact that all the Republicans care about is keeping the wealth for their clientele. You guys are just being fooled because the Republicans are able to appeal to your prejudices and your false pride in self-reliance.

What I think Bob may be referring to, is the fact that in some sections of the country, people really ARE racists, even if not all Republicans everywhere are. The people of Mississippi, for example, vote according to their race; that is proven by the stats and exit polls. Left-over racism exists there, as it has for hundreds of years. Blacks for example in many places are profiled, arrested and/or shot in higher numbers, and that is because the people who oppress them in those ways are racist. Republicans get their votes, because their policies continue to keep the people of color in their place; going back to Nixon's southern strategy which resulted in the change of political party registration of racists from Democrat (their party after the civil war) to Republican.

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-12-2020, 03:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Republicans serve the interests of the oligarchs, ONLY.

Nitpick.  They cater to the racists and those who embrace the Fox fantasies as well.

(05-12-2020, 03:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: What I think Bob may be referring to, is the fact that in some sections of the country, people really ARE racists, even if not all Republicans everywhere are

Essentially correct.

[Bob Butler 54]

CNN gives another report of a violent protest against the isolation restrictions.  This time a store employee trying to enforce mask wearing got his arm broken.

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-11-2020, 07:54 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Dude, we've always been committed to country and the left has always been opposed and in favor of establishing it's own country. Yes, we are getting there and we should be getting there even faster now that this occurred.

In recent coverage of the virus, they emphasize that the isolation policy protesters are in a vast minority, and a significant number of people of both parties approve more of what the governors are doing than the president.

Thus, like your own talk of violence while not doing anything, I don’t think the protesters will do anything either.  You just represent a small minority.

The spiral of violence seems to be stuck still at the lone nut level.  I don’t see anything comparable to say Bleeding Kansas, the Harper’s Ferry raid, or the violence in Boston that led to the Revolution.

So I am just not impressed.

[Eric the Green]

(05-12-2020, 05:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-12-2020, 03:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Republicans serve the interests of the oligarchs, ONLY.

Nitpick.  They cater to the racists and those who embrace the Fox fantasies as well.

(05-12-2020, 03:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: What I think Bob may be referring to, is the fact that in some sections of the country, people really ARE racists, even if not all Republicans everywhere are

Essentially correct.

I agree, and I think in the rest of my post I mentioned catering to racists etc. even despite what I said about serving the interests of the oligarchs only.

[Classic-Xer]

(05-12-2020, 03:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "Minorities" (soon to be a misnomer and already a misnomer in CA) are a key faction of the Democratic Party, because that Party and not the other one more often serves their interests. The Republicans serve the interests of the oligarchs, ONLY. That means that theoretically the Democrats only need to show that they serve the interests of all the people, including people of all ethnicities, not just the oligarchs, in order to win. 

Unfortunately, folks like you are more concerned about keeping the country white and keeping out immigrants, especially if they are people of color, and/or about imposing Christianity on us, or supporting war, and above all supporting the notion that giving tax money for welfare creates dependency (and those "lazy people" are usually people of color, so that ideology (trickle down economics, neo-liberalism, free-market ideology) is also racist, although not explicitly so until Trump), that they ignore the fact that all the Republicans care about is keeping the wealth for their clientele. You guys are just being fooled because the Republicans are able to appeal to your prejudices and your false pride in self-reliance.

What I think Bob may be referring to, is the fact that in some sections of the country, people really ARE racists, even if not all Republicans everywhere are. The people of Mississippi, for example, vote according to their race; that is proven by the stats and exit polls. Left-over racism exists there, as it has for hundreds of years. Blacks for example in many places are profiled, arrested and/or shot in higher numbers, and that is because the people who oppress them in those ways are racist. Republicans get their votes, because their policies continue to keep the people of color in their place; going back to Nixon's southern strategy which resulted in the change of political party registration of racists from Democrat (their party after the civil war) to Republican.

I don't care if millions of minorities fall in line with what you and other racists are teaching and become more and more racist. I guess the whites will just have to adjust and seem to become more and more racist themselves as a result. I'd feel bad about the more advanced minorities that caught in the middle but if there aren't enough them to effectively counter their own racists there's not much we can do about it. I'd hate to go back to the age of the Whites vs Indians ( the last race war). But, maybe that's what's going to be needed to end racism here.

Bob doesn't seem to understand that his blatant stupidity and your blatant stupidity and the blatant stupidity others here are getting in the way of progress and placing it at risk. Here's a news flash, every person on the other side values their wealth, their religion, their Constitution and their Constitutional rights, the American rule of law, United States of America and it's flag. I'm just telling you and others here so that you understand who you are really at war with today and who you're followers will be at war with tomorrow and so you all understand what you will be losing eventually.

[Eric the Green]

(05-12-2020, 10:41 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(05-12-2020, 03:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "Minorities" (soon to be a misnomer and already a misnomer in CA) are a key faction of the Democratic Party, because that Party and not the other one more often serves their interests. The Republicans serve the interests of the oligarchs, ONLY. That means that theoretically the Democrats only need to show that they serve the interests of all the people, including people of all ethnicities, not just the oligarchs, in order to win. 

Unfortunately, folks like you are more concerned about keeping the country white and keeping out immigrants, especially if they are people of color, and/or about imposing Christianity on us, or supporting war, and above all supporting the notion that giving tax money for welfare creates dependency (and those "lazy people" are usually people of color, so that ideology (trickle down economics, neo-liberalism, free-market ideology) is also racist, although not explicitly so until Trump), that they ignore the fact that all the Republicans care about is keeping the wealth for their clientele. You guys are just being fooled because the Republicans are able to appeal to your prejudices and your false pride in self-reliance.

What I think Bob may be referring to, is the fact that in some sections of the country, people really ARE racists, even if not all Republicans everywhere are. The people of Mississippi, for example, vote according to their race; that is proven by the stats and exit polls. Left-over racism exists there, as it has for hundreds of years. Blacks for example in many places are profiled, arrested and/or shot in higher numbers, and that is because the people who oppress them in those ways are racist. Republicans get their votes, because their policies continue to keep the people of color in their place; going back to Nixon's southern strategy which resulted in the change of political party registration of racists from Democrat (their party after the civil war) to Republican.

I don't care if millions of minorities fall in line with what you and other racists are teaching and become more and more racist. I guess the whites will just have to adjust and become more and more racist themselves as a result. I'd feel bad about the more advanced minorities who caught in the middle but if there aren't enough them to effectively counter their own they'll be stuck in the middle. I'd hate to go back to the age of the Whites vs Indians ( the last race war). But, maybe that's what's needed to end racism here.

 Bob doesn't seem to understand that his blatant stupidity and your blatant stupidity and the blatant stupidity others here are getting in the way of progress and placing it at risk. Here's a news flash, every person on the other side values their wealth, their religion, their Constitution and their Constitutional rights, the American rule of law, United States of America and it's flag. I'm just telling you and others here so that you understand who you are really at war with today and who your followers will be at war with tomorrow and so you all understand what you will be losing eventually.

We on the left teach that people of color have been enslaved and oppressed up until recently, and still are in many cases. We support anti-poverty programs and welfare because they protect us all and promote economic growth, as we have explained. So because Democrats advocate some of these ideas, some of the time, people of color know which party to support, and like the other party, Democrats rally and encourage their supporters to vote. You claim this is getting political power by catering to POC and Democrats are dependent on them for this. I agree with JFK instead who said when the rights of one are violated, the rights of all are threatened. That's why POC support Democrats, because they protect their civil rights and anti-poverty programs, which help everyone. You vote Republican because the rights you care about are property and gun rights. You don't support the rule of law or democracy, because you support a president and party that violates and destroys these things. For you guys, the flag matters but what it stands for does not.

[pbrower2a]

(05-11-2020, 04:22 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-11-2020, 11:28 AM)gabrielle Wrote: The economy is screwed no matter what.  If we allow many more people to die, including many skilled health care workers, it will be even more difficult to rebuild the economy, besides being morally reprehensible.

I know about economic hardship.  I lost my job in 2009.  I never really recovered from those times.

I agree.  We're not going to see good times for a while, and great times will have to wait even longer.  If, by some miracle, we manage to really change the paradigm, then at least the end of the 1T should be a good to great one.  That's still a long time away, with plenty of pain along the way.

In recent years, America has been largely under the control of people with the desire to live like sultans no matter what suffering such might result. The American economy has its base in rentiers making huge incomes mostly by bleeding people other than themselves for living in their world. That is how one wins in Monopoly, but the well-known game doesn't last long and involves few people. When one gets wiped out in a game of Monopoly one can go on to some other activity -- maybe doing crossword or jigsaw puzzles or watching some TV. In America someone who loses the struggle for economic and personal dignity cannot walk out when wiped out; unless one commits suicide one is obliged to stick with it and get degraded and humiliated even more by the "winners" -- people who always had an edge, the people born on third base who thought that they had hit a triple, so to speak.  

This is not the capitalist order that some of us knew in childhood, one in which productivity was the essence. Pay related to productivity in industrial work; if one was not in production work in industry one's effort and competence could be treated as if it were productive activity if one were a clerk-typist, a teacher, or a cop. 

To be sure we are no longer in the world in which people can easily make money by meeting the shortages of material objects. Most people would be perfectly happy with a new-and-improved version of the material life of the 1930's... not so much having more stuff but having better. Basically, safer vehicles on safer highways, better fidelity on the radio and phonograph, maybe less pollution (natural gas as opposed to coal for home heating).. and of course better medicine.  Social change? Sure. Ditch Jim Crow, anti-Asian sentiment, male chauvinism, the "gentlemen's agreements" to deny Jews accommodations in hotels, and (it wasn't a mainstream concern of the time) homophobia. But at this point one speaks of anachronisms. Ever-increasing productive capacity, many people thought, would solve all problems, whether one was a Marxist or a participant in the Technocracy movement (although the Marxists and Technocracy people along with about everyone in between had different ideas of how to achieve that). Obviously for the peace, freedom, and dignity of Humanity, Nazism, Fascism,  Bolshevism, and colonial rule would have to go -- not that many people saw how anyone of them would vanish.      

The high productivity that the world now has has solved plenty of problems. It creates unprecedented prosperity... but it also creates a huge Industrial Scrap Heap even bigger than the once-infamous expression of the late 19th century. Millions have been trained in schools to see productive labor as the definitive expression of self valuation.  There's a big problem: we have been making more stuff than we need. Making more than is necessary, even if it is of high quality, does not create more happiness for consumers. Clutter is ugly, and if we were obliged to buy stuff that we did not want we would have to destroy much of it. 

....Starting with the first Tax Revolt of Proposition 13 in California (in the mid-1970's)  we had a tendency toward a solution: making the super-rich even more rich and giving them greater power over us all. Such may in part have been a right-wing reaction to the Boom Awakening: if people had to pay more for what they got they would become more serious about a new paradigm in which the sole purpose of life is to make people already filthy-rich even richer and more powerful. Ronald Reagan was the first expression of such as President to get away with such since
Calvin Coolidge (whom Reagan admired). Calvin Coolidge? Yes -- that man from the era of minimal government, the last gasp of the Gilded Age in American politics and economics. Young adults would be obliged to reduce their expectations in pay and opportunity. So if you dislike your meager pay as a fast-food or retail worker? Then get another such job! This was the heyday of the shopping mall, when people with college degrees were retail sales clerks and were really good at what they did. OK, they learned salesmanship, which has commercial value and is useful for jobs as teachers and clergy. 

There was nothing wrong with America that faith, tax cuts for the Master Class, ever-rising property rents, relaxation of regulations for workplace safety or against environmental degradation, and the gutting of the power of labor unions couldn't solve. With some slight backtracks with Presidents Clinton and Obama, the overall trend has been toward pure plutocracy in which government effectively represents asset ownership and bureaucratic power within vertically-integrated near-monopolies. Such is the political expression of Mussolini's Corporate State -- if (so far) without the torture chambers and concentration camps. 

In essence, 2% of Americans get to live like sultans, about 5% would do well in just about any other system, and the rest must toady to the 2%.

[Eric the Green]

Most new cases in the USA on May 12:
IL 4014
CA 1735
NY 1504
TX 1011
NJ 942
FL 941
MA 870
PA 849
GA 846
VA 730
MN 695
MD 688

Texas, Florida and Georgia moving up! Chickens starting to come home to roost. It takes a week or two.


USA total: 22,802
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/