Tag: COVID-19
The Corona virus certainly doesn’t understand discrimination, but oppressive social and political structures governed by caste biases certainly add on to the multiple vulnerabilities of the marginalized communities in India. Caste is allotted at birth, it defines the role of a Hindu at birth, defining their social position irrespective of their acquired economic status. Caste is rigid to the extent that it can never be changed, even if a Hindu choses to convert to Islam or Christianity or any other religion, the Caste identity remains. Be it in choosing life partners, jobs or now in dealing with a global ‘pandemic’, where we cannot even spare the First Citizen of our country, Caste discrimination and atrocities seem like they are here to stay, irrespective of Corona.
The Shovel
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trumpism is a form of fascism, of course, but at its core is a whiny rebellion against the achievements of human and civil rights since the 1960s. Do the new norms after the Civil Rights Movement stop people from saying in public that African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians and women are inferior? Then by God, Trump and Bob Mercer and Breitbart and Fox would go out of their way to put all those groups down.
” I have a feeling” Trump (ODT)
via Trump Vows to Quickly Reopen Economy, Ignoring Public Health Experts
- Murdoch Whitehouse- SACK THEM
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On her Fox Business show, anchor Maria Bartiromo complained that the PPP provision “doesn’t make any sense to me” because the loan goes “right out the window to its employees, who are at home.”
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On America’s Newsroom, Bartiromo complained that there are restaurant owners who feel that the PPP loans aren’t going to “do anything for me once things open again because I have no revenue. Yes, maybe I save those people from being out of a job because I gave my employees the money, but for the viability of my business, that’s questionable.”
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On Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Fox Business host Charles Payne about the “75/25” regulation. Payne said that he “reached out to the administration” to discuss the provision, but “they are saying they are not going to change that.”
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Fox & Friends hosted the owner of a Crunch gym franchise, who complained that the bill isn’t suitable for health clubs. Kilmeade told him that Congress “can’t tell you how to run your business, you have to tell them what it takes to run your business.” Kilmeade also claimed that “unemployment is so attractive now, a lot of [employees] don’t want their jobs back.”
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On Fox & Friends, Kilmeade told Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia that “these restaurant owners can’t live with 75% [of the loan] going to labor” because “many of these people don’t want their part-time jobs back.”
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Kilmeade also made this argument on the April 9 edition of Fox & Friends, saying that if the goal is to help small businesses, “don’t make them take 75% of that grant money and put it towards employees, many of which don’t want those jobs back because they’re better off on unemployment.”
Global banks were supposed to be bullet-proof after boosting capital ratios but the regulatory buffers were never stress-tested for such a shock. They risk becoming the “amplifier” of the downturn as rising bad loans force them to pull back, starving the real economy of credit.
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A cyclist wearing a protective face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus moves past the Rocky statue outfitted with mock surgical face mask at the Philadelphia Art Museum in Philadelphia, Tuesday, April 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Coronavirus pandemic
As the day unfolded: Scott Morrison says COVID-19 restrictions could be lifted in four weeks, global cases surpass 2 million, Australian death toll stands at 63
Even if the worst is avoided and there is no secondary financial crisis, there will not be a swift return to normal. Mohamed El-Erian from Allianz said the rescue measures offer liquidity but cannot prevent the slow burn of defaults. Nor can they kick start the economy when companies refuse to invest because they have no idea what is going to happen.
via Delusional: Investors are underestimating the economic shock the world is facing
It’s something Capitalists don’t seem to get and what’s worse don’t want to (ODT)
If Covid-19 is not beaten in Africa it will return to haunt us all | Free to read | Financial Times
Remember when the Surplus was Everything (ODT)
Both of these facts around this part of the government’s response expose the brazen hypocrisy at the core of Neoliberalism. The takeaway is this: these governments have the money for increased social safety net programmes and infrastructure, but they choose to not invest in these things. To put it crudely, the issue is not ‘we can’t afford these programmes’, you fuckers are just unwilling to pay for them! A blank cheque and the keys to the treasury for the political donor class with crumbs and scraps for the serfs! As the Irish poet W.B. Yeats said ‘the centre cannot hold’.
Only when COVID-19 testers get to test more widely do we stand a chance of avoiding the worst this virus can dish out. That is what the overseas evidence is telling us. The governments in Australia seem to realise this. Western Australia Health Minister, Roger Cook, unveiled expanded testing will start on Thursday. The other states are thought to be doing the same.
via Doing a Wuhan – » The Australian Independent Media Network
While America Sanctions, Cuba Assists (ODT)
“With any infectious disease, particularly respiratory ones such as coronaviruses, a primary public health goal is herd immunity,” says Dr Silva.
But Dr Silva says a vaccine, which could be 18 months away, is one of the best and safest ways to do that.
“One thing is to introduce a vaccine to build up community resistance with an eye toward herd immunity. The other is to let a gnarly virus happily spread about,” he says.
“With a vaccine, there isn’t the element of sacrificing a segment of your people.”
Italy, the second hardest-hit nation after China in the world’s coronavirus pandemic, has announced a new figures that show it has one-third of the world’s total deaths from the new virus.
The crisis has pushed hospitals to breaking point at the epicentre of the contagion in northern Italy and left other regions scrambling to strengthen their own health systems as the number of infected rises nationwide.
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Coronavirus deaths surpass 2500, Italy rushes new doctors into service
If we are to deliver the most reasoned system of healthcare we need to be far more socialist than we are now and we already have Universal healthcare. Covid-19 is an illness we know a lot about already. Closing down our social system is closing down labour the life force of the nation and socially irresponsible. The Dutch seem to be the only nation to see that. It accepts the reality of the illness and is prepared to deliver healthcare to all the vulnerable rather than draw a cut off point like Italy has. The biggest decision, however, is to least disrupt life as it was and allow Covid-19 to take it’s course encouraging the EU to do the same and not make labour, small business and families pay as they can least afford it. Not so however in Australia. (ODT)
via Coronavirus: Melbourne CBD foot traffic falls as workers stay home
Fighting Fake News with REAL 17/3/20; Coronavirus Capitalism — and How to Beat It, Scott Morrison & Hillsong;
This crisis — like earlier ones — could well be the catalyst to shower aid on the wealthiest interests in society, including those most responsible for our current vulnerabilities, while offering next to nothing to the most workers, wiping out small family savings and shuttering small businesses. But as this video shows, many are already pushing back — and that story hasn’t been written yet.
Now think back to late 2007 and 2008, when eight years of Republican recklessness in war and finance came perilously close to destroying the global banking system and did succeed in crashing the markets and plunging the nation, and the global economy, into what’s now called the Great Recession, the worst recession since the Depression of 1929 and the 1930s. The only one major nation that steered clear of recession was China. While demand was collapsing around the world, it was China, acting like some super engine, that pulled the global economy out of the quagmire. Continuing to wage economic war against China today is thus suicidally insane.
Neither Covid-19 nor a major recession poses a threat to our survival as a species. We do, however, face two existential threats, both created by our species, and each featuring our nation in the lead role. At the very moment when only global unity and cooperation can save us from threats of nuclear holocaust and environmental devastation, deadly nationalism is tearing our species apart. Can Covid-19 teach us that those two great menaces to our existence are also not zero-sum games? That our species either wins or we, as well as many other species, all lose?
olddogthoughts 
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