Musings —03.09.2020 10:44 AM
—Not every coronavirus victim deserves sympathy
For historians, I will repeat my view: @realDonaldTrump won't be defeated by @JoeBiden alone – he will also be defeated by #coronavirus. It will lay bare his incompetence and dishonesty, and it will needlessly harm people and markets. And it's happening right now. #USpolitics
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 9, 2020
The one silver lining in all of this– I type this btw as I sit in a clinic waiting to have my fever checked out– is that this situation is making it plain as day just how incompetent and out of his depth Drumpf is. In an election year no less. And I get a kick out of the fact that it drives him bonkers whenever the stock market slumps.
Derek,
Please give us an update, at your convenience, on how you’re feeling.
Derek, if memory serves, you are a loyal booster for the most incompetent, least intelligent PM in Canadian history. Apparently incompetence is only an issue when the other guys demonstrate it?
Brother, did you go to OLP? The Matlow thing has many people anxious. Hope you are okay.
Howdy folks– well, even though I was sweating at work and my nose was running like a tap, apparently I actually don’t have a fever, go figure. And I can still lung-breathe fine so the Dr wasn’t overly concerned. I am taking a few days off work to just rest and get fluids though. No, I wasn’t at OLP on the weekend. Thanks for the concern all, much appreciated.
And to pedant: in 2015 I certainly was a JT booster but after gradually realizing along with most of us what a phoney he was, SNC and his treatment of Raybould and Philpott was the last straw and I was done with him. I didn’t vote Liberal this election (nor CPC). He was lucky to be running against a dud like Scheer.
Agreed. The swan dive has thus far had two self-evident triggers: COVID-19 and the weakening of the OPEC and Russian relationship.
But as usual, the incompetent herd on Wall and Bay Streets miss the obvious and inevitable cause: the Bond and Stock Market asset bubbles, along with debt and deficits. American Banks are already rapidly heading for insolvency while the banking geniuses pass the buck for their greed and quite deliberate mismangement on the regulation red herring. So glad I’m not an American taxpayer. Those poor saps.
I guess you are, like me, a Canadian taxpayer. Nice to meet you fellow sap…our bill is coming. Big time.
Dawn,
True, we likely have both record deficits and debt. In the States, their debt and deficits are now greater than their GDP. We aren’ t there in Canada, as far as I know.
Ronald, Canada currently has the 3rd or 4th biggest real estate bubble on the planet. Only Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand are ahead of us. When it bursts, Canadian taxpayers will be forced to bail out citizens who took on too much debt. The Liberals will raid the bank accounts of responsible people to transfer their hard-earned wealth to people who overleveraged themselves.
Frankly, I prefer the American model whereby banks are bailed out and profligate citizens are left to their fate. Banks impact everyone – savers and spenders alike. It makes more sense to support them rather than indebted citizens.
So in summary, I would rather be an American taxpayer than a Canadian taxpayer.
And to bore you even further, the next panic trigger will be the Bank Repo Market, with the Fed injecting hundreds of billions into the system each night so banks can obtain liquidity. Like 2008, the banks are refusing to lend to each other, like they normally do, because they are all scared about each bank’s exposure to European Banks, particularly the already wobbly DB, Commerce and HSBC banks. Meanwhile, Repo requirements are often oversubscribed which means the Fed money injected into the system is insufficent to meet daily banking requirements. Repo is the next domino waiting to fall.
Ok, Trump critics, I’m genuinely curious, so please tell us what actions you would take to deal with the corona virus.
Joe,
You start by normalizing the economy, not sticking with a deflationary environment created by ridiculous interest rate cuts, that only further weaken the economy. QE 4 or 5 is but a symptomatic representation of a crashing economy. It’s like the guy trying to bail water out of the Titanic using a pail and plastic beach bucket.
When the Fed becomes the buyer of last resort of Treasuries, that no one else wants, what does that say about their present yield and future capacity for yield increases? It says Treasuries are already worth almost nothing and that buyers will serially lose money once yields get to zero, which is coming fast. And to make matters infinitely worse, one regional Fed member wants to do for stocks what the Fed has already done for bonds, namely rapidly create a climate of non-confidence, by changing legislation that covers the Fed to allow for stock purchases.
To reflect a truly strong economy, or to strengthen one already in crisis, you need to slowly but surely raise interest rates. Only that type of move can create international and domestic confidence in the American economy. But it has to be a happy medium of rate increases, otherwise inflation will get out of control and that will tank the dollar.
You don’t use it as an excuse to boost your own ego (I know, wild idea right?) You don’t bitch about not wanting cruise ship passengers to be counted as part of your totals as if this were some kind of international-epidemic-golf game. You don’t lie to people that tests are available for any and all who want it. And you don’t call it a hoax. I mean, I could go on, but I’m curious why you’d even ask that question. The one decent thing he’s done is agree to a boost in funding for the CDC, whose budget he had previously cut btw.
“You don’t use it as an excuse to boost your own ego (I know, wild idea right?) ”
He does that all the time, and everyone knows it. Justin Trudeau is using this crisis the same way. They are both politicians.
“I mean, I could go on, but I’m curious why you’d even ask that question. ”
That’s because you misread his question: he asked what you *do* do, not what you don’t do (but hey, any excuse to throw out a few Trump insults, right?).
“The one decent thing he’s done is agree to a boost in funding for the CDC, whose budget he had previously cut btw.”
He is also introducing compensation measures for those harmed by this event.
This is all moot anyway. The general public in the US knows that it is the job of the CDC and the NIH to deal with this, not the President, and both agencies have been quietly doing just that since this whole thing started. No one is going to blame Trump, Trudeau or any other western leader for this: they will point the finger right where it belongs, at China.
One thing I have wondered is how much, after this has all hopefully calmed down in several months, the Chinese govt is going to comprehensively regulate the poaching and sale of wild meat in markets across the country. We all know the CCP is capable of incredible invasiveness in the lives of Chinese citizens. I’m a tad morbidly curious to see how far they go in trying to prevent future zoetropic transmissions.
I would agree. They don’t do half-measures, as a rule.
To be honest, this is probably the type of situation where Trudeau’s infamous comment about “admiring their basic dictatorship” (or whatever he actually said) came from. The ability of China or any similar government to deal with a crisis like this is something that the leaders of democracies can only dream of.
(JT just shouldn’t have actually *said so* out loud)
Once again as paper growth turns to confetti, the faux capitalists shreik for government investment to aid “hard hit areas” (see quotes from bankers and investment analysts in just about every news article on today’s collapse). In the end, der Sozialismus gewinnt. Every time.
I really hope so and admittedly I feel his chances are much worse than two months ago still it would be foolish to underestimate him. He has a loyal devoted base who will support him no matter what and also the electoral college doesn’t help either as GOP vote is much more efficient. Democrats have same problem our Tories have in Canada, they tend to run up the margins in strongholds which they already have, while narrowly lose in the key areas they need.
and yet Quinnipiac has 47% disapproval, 43% approval for Trump’s handling of this crisis, more or less trackig his overall numbers. Obvious ineptitude to people who already disliked him, more ‘Fake News’ for his base.
I’m sorry, but Joe Biden will not be defeating Donald Trump in the next election because it would take a minor miracle for Biden to even end up running.
Someone else may indeed beat Trump…just not Joe Biden.
Fred,
In politics, never say never. Trump has admitted that even he thought that he would lose. But he didn’t, unfortunately.
“In politics, never say never.”
I know, but the election isn’t for, what…eight months or so? That’s an eternity in politics.
“Trump has admitted that even he thought that he would lose. But he didn’t, unfortunately.”
If only the DNC hadn’t chosen such a widely-despised candidate…