Monday, April 27, 2020
COVID-19 & Trade:
Thom Hartmann: The Coronavirus Crash Could Be Worse than the Republican Great Depression of 1930
"The coronavirus crisis has turned the fact that we don’t make anything in America anymore from a topic for philosophical and political debate into a crisis in our hospitals causing people to die and endangering our frontline health care workers. Even worse, there’s nothing to catch us as and after we fall, because we don’t have a manufacturing base to fall back on like we did the last time a crisis like this happened — in the 1930s. Most of our medical supplies and prescription drugs now come from China, for example, and that’s producing a crisis in our hospitals because China isn’t exporting N95 masks, ventilators and respirators like they were just six months ago. Back in the day, the British knew that manufacturing was the core strength of a nation, which is why they forbade the colonists in 1770 from manufacturing most items that could be imported from Britain, and famously forbade the good people of India from even turning their own cotton into cloth and clothing (thus Gandhi’s spinning wheel as a logo for protest). The colonists of America overthrew the economic tyranny of the British, and in short order (1791) Alexander Hamilton presented to Congress a detailed and specific plan to turn America from an agricultural backwater to a manufacturing giant. It included recommendations that: • We must discourage the import of foreign-made products and promote the manufacture of American-made goods by taxing imported finished goods (a tax called an “import tariff”). • We must encourage the import of foreign raw materials, and the export of finished goods, with low tariffs on these items. • We must invest government money—extensively — in infrastructure that would build our monetary and industrial base. We should be protectionist and hardworking, and refuse to cede to anybody our right to make whatever we damn well wanted. Hamilton was so successful that 100% of the income of the federal government from our founding to the Civil War came from tariffs — and we learned to manufacture just about everything we needed in this country as a result...
...The last time things unraveled like this was during the Republican Great Depression of 1929-1938. That, too, followed a series of Republican administrations that had radically deregulated banking and securities rules, leading to wild speculation and asset bubbles, starting with a real estate explosion in Florida in the early 1920s. That Florida real estate bubble burst in 1927, and by 1929 it had spread to Wall Street. What we are witnessing today is the death of neoliberalism (e.g., Reaganomics), although few in the corporate media will call it out. And the 40-year embrace of that neoliberalism — by both Republican and Democratic administrations — is every bit as responsible for our coronavirus mortality rates as is the incompetence of the Trump administration. “Roosevelt is dead,” Rush Limbaugh famously intoned at the appointment of G.W. Bush as president, “but his programs remain, and we’re in the process of doing something about that, as well.” Indeed. Let’s start calling this what it is — the total discrediting of the economic theories of Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and borrow-and-spend Reaganomics. It’s the obvious failure of the “globalization,” deregulation and privatization promoted by the GOP through the 1980s and adopted by the Clinton Democrats in the 1990s. Today’s coronavirus market crash is a clear and clarion call for a return to the commonsense policies Franklin Delano Roosevelt put into place that saved capitalism from itself and its predators (and led to four decades of sustained growth of both the economy and the middle class) three generations earlier. The coronavirus crisis will pass within a year or three; after a great toll, enough of us will have immunity, or a vaccine will be widely available, or both. And when it does, the pent-up demand for goods will pop. We should reorganize our trade systems now (or in the next administration) to make sure most of those goods will again be made in America. Now that we are again “rediscovering” the lessons of the Herbert Hoover’s market crash of 1929, if we don’t begin to move manufacturing capacity back into this country we will be, within a few years, far worse off than Americans were in 1932. If we succeed in rebooting American manufacturing through the measures used by Hamilton (and emulated by China over the past 30 years), our recovery from this crisis could mark a new dawn for the American middle class."
AP News: German minister backs creating legal right to work from home
"Germany’s labor minister wants to enshrine into law the right to work from home if it is feasible to do so, even after the coronavirus pandemic subsides. Labor Minister Hubertus Heil told Sunday’s edition of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that he aims to put forward such legislation this fall. He said initial estimates suggest the proportion of the work force working from home has risen from 12% to 25% during the virus crisis, to around 8 million people. “Everyone who wants to and whose job allows it should be able to work in a home office, even when the corona pandemic is over,” Heil was quoted as saying. “We are learning in the pandemic how much work can be done from home these days.” Heil stressed that “we want to enable more home working, but not force it.” He said people could choose to switch entirely to working from home, or do so for only one or two days per week. Heil’s center-left Social Democrats, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition, had already called in December — long before the virus epidemic brought public life in Germany and elsewhere to a near-standstill — for the establishment of a right to work from home. Germany’s main employer group rejected the idea. The chief executive of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations, Steffen Kampeter, said mobile work is in everyone’s interest when it is possible and makes sense, but “operational issues and customers’ wishes must play a central role.” “We need a moratorium on burdens instead of further requirements that limit growth and flexibility,” he said."
Thom Hartmann: The Coronavirus Crash Could Be Worse than the Republican Great Depression of 1930
"The coronavirus crisis has turned the fact that we don’t make anything in America anymore from a topic for philosophical and political debate into a crisis in our hospitals causing people to die and endangering our frontline health care workers. Even worse, there’s nothing to catch us as and after we fall, because we don’t have a manufacturing base to fall back on like we did the last time a crisis like this happened — in the 1930s. Most of our medical supplies and prescription drugs now come from China, for example, and that’s producing a crisis in our hospitals because China isn’t exporting N95 masks, ventilators and respirators like they were just six months ago. Back in the day, the British knew that manufacturing was the core strength of a nation, which is why they forbade the colonists in 1770 from manufacturing most items that could be imported from Britain, and famously forbade the good people of India from even turning their own cotton into cloth and clothing (thus Gandhi’s spinning wheel as a logo for protest). The colonists of America overthrew the economic tyranny of the British, and in short order (1791) Alexander Hamilton presented to Congress a detailed and specific plan to turn America from an agricultural backwater to a manufacturing giant. It included recommendations that: • We must discourage the import of foreign-made products and promote the manufacture of American-made goods by taxing imported finished goods (a tax called an “import tariff”). • We must encourage the import of foreign raw materials, and the export of finished goods, with low tariffs on these items. • We must invest government money—extensively — in infrastructure that would build our monetary and industrial base. We should be protectionist and hardworking, and refuse to cede to anybody our right to make whatever we damn well wanted. Hamilton was so successful that 100% of the income of the federal government from our founding to the Civil War came from tariffs — and we learned to manufacture just about everything we needed in this country as a result...
...The last time things unraveled like this was during the Republican Great Depression of 1929-1938. That, too, followed a series of Republican administrations that had radically deregulated banking and securities rules, leading to wild speculation and asset bubbles, starting with a real estate explosion in Florida in the early 1920s. That Florida real estate bubble burst in 1927, and by 1929 it had spread to Wall Street. What we are witnessing today is the death of neoliberalism (e.g., Reaganomics), although few in the corporate media will call it out. And the 40-year embrace of that neoliberalism — by both Republican and Democratic administrations — is every bit as responsible for our coronavirus mortality rates as is the incompetence of the Trump administration. “Roosevelt is dead,” Rush Limbaugh famously intoned at the appointment of G.W. Bush as president, “but his programs remain, and we’re in the process of doing something about that, as well.” Indeed. Let’s start calling this what it is — the total discrediting of the economic theories of Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and borrow-and-spend Reaganomics. It’s the obvious failure of the “globalization,” deregulation and privatization promoted by the GOP through the 1980s and adopted by the Clinton Democrats in the 1990s. Today’s coronavirus market crash is a clear and clarion call for a return to the commonsense policies Franklin Delano Roosevelt put into place that saved capitalism from itself and its predators (and led to four decades of sustained growth of both the economy and the middle class) three generations earlier. The coronavirus crisis will pass within a year or three; after a great toll, enough of us will have immunity, or a vaccine will be widely available, or both. And when it does, the pent-up demand for goods will pop. We should reorganize our trade systems now (or in the next administration) to make sure most of those goods will again be made in America. Now that we are again “rediscovering” the lessons of the Herbert Hoover’s market crash of 1929, if we don’t begin to move manufacturing capacity back into this country we will be, within a few years, far worse off than Americans were in 1932. If we succeed in rebooting American manufacturing through the measures used by Hamilton (and emulated by China over the past 30 years), our recovery from this crisis could mark a new dawn for the American middle class."
AP News: German minister backs creating legal right to work from home
"Germany’s labor minister wants to enshrine into law the right to work from home if it is feasible to do so, even after the coronavirus pandemic subsides. Labor Minister Hubertus Heil told Sunday’s edition of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that he aims to put forward such legislation this fall. He said initial estimates suggest the proportion of the work force working from home has risen from 12% to 25% during the virus crisis, to around 8 million people. “Everyone who wants to and whose job allows it should be able to work in a home office, even when the corona pandemic is over,” Heil was quoted as saying. “We are learning in the pandemic how much work can be done from home these days.” Heil stressed that “we want to enable more home working, but not force it.” He said people could choose to switch entirely to working from home, or do so for only one or two days per week. Heil’s center-left Social Democrats, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition, had already called in December — long before the virus epidemic brought public life in Germany and elsewhere to a near-standstill — for the establishment of a right to work from home. Germany’s main employer group rejected the idea. The chief executive of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations, Steffen Kampeter, said mobile work is in everyone’s interest when it is possible and makes sense, but “operational issues and customers’ wishes must play a central role.” “We need a moratorium on burdens instead of further requirements that limit growth and flexibility,” he said."
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Pandemic Response:
NY Times: He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
"An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response...
...Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.
The president, though, was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials. It was a problem, he said, that had come out of nowhere and could not have been foreseen... Even after Mr. Trump took his first concrete action at the end of January — limiting travel from China — public health often had to compete with economic and political considerations in internal debates, slowing the path toward belated decisions to seek more money from Congress, obtain necessary supplies, address shortfalls in testing and ultimately move to keep much of the nation at home.
Unfolding as it did in the wake of his impeachment by the House and in the midst of his Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s response was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the “Deep State” — the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives.
Decision-making was also complicated by a long-running dispute inside the administration over how to deal with China. The virus at first took a back seat to a desire not to upset Beijing during trade talks, but later the impulse to score points against Beijing left the world’s two leading powers further divided as they confronted one of the first truly global threats of the 21st century.
The shortcomings of Mr. Trump’s performance have played out with remarkable transparency as part of his daily effort to dominate television screens and the national conversation.
But dozens of interviews with current and former officials and a review of emails and other records revealed many previously unreported details and a fuller picture of the roots and extent of his halting response as the deadly virus spread:
Contrast Trump and the American response to that of Germany. 4 key factors that made a difference:
testing, tracking, a robust public healthcare system, trust in government.
The GOP has actively been working to tear down trust in public institutions since the Reagan Administration.
NY Times: A German Exception? Why the Country’s Coronavirus Death Rate Is Low
"The pandemic has hit Germany hard, with more than 100,000 people infected. But the percentage of fatal cases has been remarkably low compared to those in many neighboring countries...
...Testing
In mid-January, long before most Germans had given the virus much thought, Charité hospital in Berlin had already developed a test and posted the formula online. By the time Germany recorded its first case of Covid-19 in February, laboratories across the country had built up a stock of test kits. “The reason why we in Germany have so few deaths at the moment compared to the number of infected can be largely explained by the fact that we are doing an extremely large number of lab diagnoses,” said Dr. Christian Drosten, chief virologist at Charité, whose team developed the first test. By now, Germany is conducting around 350,000 coronavirus tests a week, far more than any other European country. Early and widespread testing has allowed the authorities to slow the spread of the pandemic by isolating known cases while they are infectious. It has also enabled lifesaving treatment to be administered in a more timely way."...
...Tracking
On a Friday in late February, Professor Streeck received news that for the first time, a patient at his hospital in Bonn had tested positive for the coronavirus: A 22-year-old man who had no symptoms but whose employer — a school — had asked him to take a test after learning that he had taken part in a carnival event where someone else had tested positive. In most countries, including the United States, testing is largely limited to the sickest patients, so the man probably would have been refused a test. Not in Germany. As soon as the test results were in, the school was shut, and all children and staff were ordered to stay at home with their families for two weeks. Some 235 people were tested. “Testing and tracking is the strategy that was successful in South Korea and we have tried to learn from that,” Professor Streeck said. Germany also learned from getting it wrong early on: The strategy of contact tracing should have been used even more aggressively, he said...
...A Robust Public Health Care System
Before the coronavirus pandemic swept across Germany, University Hospital in Giessen had 173 intensive care beds equipped with ventilators. In recent weeks, the hospital scrambled to create an additional 40 beds and increased the staff that was on standby to work in intensive care by as much as 50 percent. “We have so much capacity now we are accepting patients from Italy, Spain and France,” said Susanne Herold, a specialist in lung infections at the hospital who has overseen the restructuring. “We are very strong in the intensive care area.” All across Germany, hospitals have expanded their intensive care capacities. And they started from a high level. In January, Germany had some 28,000 intensive care beds equipped with ventilators, or 34 per 100,000 people. By comparison, that rate is 12 in Italy and 7 in the Netherlands. By now, there are 40,000 intensive care beds available in Germany...
...Trust in Government
Beyond mass testing and the preparedness of the health care system, many also see Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership as one reason the fatality rate has been kept low. Ms. Merkel, a trained scientist, has communicated clearly, calmly and regularly throughout the crisis, as she imposed ever-stricter social distancing measures on the country. The restrictions, which have been crucial to slowing the spread of the pandemic, met with little political opposition and are broadly followed. The chancellor’s approval ratings have soared. “Maybe our biggest strength in Germany,” said Professor Kräusslich, “is the rational decision-making at the highest level of government combined with the trust the government enjoys in the population.”
NY Times: He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
"An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response...
...Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.
The president, though, was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials. It was a problem, he said, that had come out of nowhere and could not have been foreseen... Even after Mr. Trump took his first concrete action at the end of January — limiting travel from China — public health often had to compete with economic and political considerations in internal debates, slowing the path toward belated decisions to seek more money from Congress, obtain necessary supplies, address shortfalls in testing and ultimately move to keep much of the nation at home.
Unfolding as it did in the wake of his impeachment by the House and in the midst of his Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s response was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the “Deep State” — the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives.
Decision-making was also complicated by a long-running dispute inside the administration over how to deal with China. The virus at first took a back seat to a desire not to upset Beijing during trade talks, but later the impulse to score points against Beijing left the world’s two leading powers further divided as they confronted one of the first truly global threats of the 21st century.
The shortcomings of Mr. Trump’s performance have played out with remarkable transparency as part of his daily effort to dominate television screens and the national conversation.
But dozens of interviews with current and former officials and a review of emails and other records revealed many previously unreported details and a fuller picture of the roots and extent of his halting response as the deadly virus spread:
* The National Security Council office responsible for tracking pandemics received intelligence reports in early January predicting the spread of the virus to the United States, and within weeks was raising options like keeping Americans home from work and shutting down cities the size of Chicago. Mr. Trump would avoid such steps until March.
* Despite Mr. Trump’s denial weeks later, he was told at the time about a Jan. 29 memo produced by his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, laying out in striking detail the potential risks of a coronavirus pandemic: as many as half a million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses.
* The health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, directly warned Mr. Trump of the possibility of a pandemic during a call on Jan. 30, the second warning he delivered to the president about the virus in two weeks. The president, who was on Air Force One while traveling for appearances in the Midwest, responded that Mr. Azar was being alarmist.
* Mr. Azar publicly announced in February that the government was establishing a “surveillance” system in five American cities to measure the spread of the virus and enable experts to project the next hot spots. It was delayed for weeks. The slow start of that plan, on top of the well-documented failures to develop the nation’s testing capacity, left administration officials with almost no insight into how rapidly the virus was spreading. “We were flying the plane with no instruments,” one official said.
* By the third week in February, the administration’s top public health experts concluded they should recommend to Mr. Trump a new approach that would include warning the American people of the risks and urging steps like social distancing and staying home from work. But the White House focused instead on messaging and crucial additional weeks went by before their views were reluctantly accepted by the president — time when the virus spread largely unimpeded..."
Contrast Trump and the American response to that of Germany. 4 key factors that made a difference:
testing, tracking, a robust public healthcare system, trust in government.
The GOP has actively been working to tear down trust in public institutions since the Reagan Administration.
NY Times: A German Exception? Why the Country’s Coronavirus Death Rate Is Low
"The pandemic has hit Germany hard, with more than 100,000 people infected. But the percentage of fatal cases has been remarkably low compared to those in many neighboring countries...
...Testing
In mid-January, long before most Germans had given the virus much thought, Charité hospital in Berlin had already developed a test and posted the formula online. By the time Germany recorded its first case of Covid-19 in February, laboratories across the country had built up a stock of test kits. “The reason why we in Germany have so few deaths at the moment compared to the number of infected can be largely explained by the fact that we are doing an extremely large number of lab diagnoses,” said Dr. Christian Drosten, chief virologist at Charité, whose team developed the first test. By now, Germany is conducting around 350,000 coronavirus tests a week, far more than any other European country. Early and widespread testing has allowed the authorities to slow the spread of the pandemic by isolating known cases while they are infectious. It has also enabled lifesaving treatment to be administered in a more timely way."...
...Tracking
On a Friday in late February, Professor Streeck received news that for the first time, a patient at his hospital in Bonn had tested positive for the coronavirus: A 22-year-old man who had no symptoms but whose employer — a school — had asked him to take a test after learning that he had taken part in a carnival event where someone else had tested positive. In most countries, including the United States, testing is largely limited to the sickest patients, so the man probably would have been refused a test. Not in Germany. As soon as the test results were in, the school was shut, and all children and staff were ordered to stay at home with their families for two weeks. Some 235 people were tested. “Testing and tracking is the strategy that was successful in South Korea and we have tried to learn from that,” Professor Streeck said. Germany also learned from getting it wrong early on: The strategy of contact tracing should have been used even more aggressively, he said...
...A Robust Public Health Care System
Before the coronavirus pandemic swept across Germany, University Hospital in Giessen had 173 intensive care beds equipped with ventilators. In recent weeks, the hospital scrambled to create an additional 40 beds and increased the staff that was on standby to work in intensive care by as much as 50 percent. “We have so much capacity now we are accepting patients from Italy, Spain and France,” said Susanne Herold, a specialist in lung infections at the hospital who has overseen the restructuring. “We are very strong in the intensive care area.” All across Germany, hospitals have expanded their intensive care capacities. And they started from a high level. In January, Germany had some 28,000 intensive care beds equipped with ventilators, or 34 per 100,000 people. By comparison, that rate is 12 in Italy and 7 in the Netherlands. By now, there are 40,000 intensive care beds available in Germany...
...Trust in Government
Beyond mass testing and the preparedness of the health care system, many also see Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership as one reason the fatality rate has been kept low. Ms. Merkel, a trained scientist, has communicated clearly, calmly and regularly throughout the crisis, as she imposed ever-stricter social distancing measures on the country. The restrictions, which have been crucial to slowing the spread of the pandemic, met with little political opposition and are broadly followed. The chancellor’s approval ratings have soared. “Maybe our biggest strength in Germany,” said Professor Kräusslich, “is the rational decision-making at the highest level of government combined with the trust the government enjoys in the population.”
