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Peacocks and Vultures Are Circling the Deficit |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51503"><span class="small">Paul Krugman, The New York Times</span></a>
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Wednesday, 29 April 2020 08:16 |
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Krugman writes: "The only fiscal thing to fear is deficit fear itself."
Economist Paul Krugman. (photo: Getty Images)
Peacocks and Vultures Are Circling the Deficit
By Paul Krugman, The New York Times
29 April 20
The only fiscal thing to fear is deficit fear itself.
 lmost a decade has passed since I published a column, “Myths of Austerity,” warning that deficit alarmism would delay recovery from the Great Recession — which it did. Unfortunately, that kind of alarmism seems to be making a comeback.
You can see that comeback in the gradually increasing number of news analyses emphasizing how much debt we’ll run up dealing with the Covid-19 crisis. You can also see it in the rhetoric of politicians like Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who is blocking aid to beleaguered state and local governments because, he says, it would cost too much.
So this seems like a good time to emphasize two key facts. One is economic: While we will run very big budget deficits over the next couple of years, they will do little if any harm. The other is that whatever they may say, very few prominent figures in politics or the media are genuine deficit hawks, who are actually worried about the consequences of rising government debt. What we mainly have, instead, are deficit peacocks and deficit vultures.
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The Successful Asian Coronavirus-Fighting Strategy America Refuses to Embrace |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=33430"><span class="small">Matthew Yglesias, Vox</span></a>
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Wednesday, 29 April 2020 08:16 |
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Excerpt: "Other countries have had better results putting sick people into isolation instead of sending them home to potentially infect their family."
Hong Kong government CIO Victor Lam Wai-kiu shows a monitoring wristband for people under quarantine during a press conference on March 25. (photo: Li Zhihua/China News Service/Getty Images)
The Successful Asian Coronavirus-Fighting Strategy America Refuses to Embrace
By Matthew Yglesias, Vox
29 April 20
Other countries have had better results putting sick people into isolation instead of sending them home to potentially infect their family.
 ast Asian countries were way ahead of much of the West in adopting widespread mask-wearing as a means to reduce transmission of the coronavirus. And complaints about the Trump administration’s inability to ramp up testing to the kind of levels successfully used to curb a once-major outbreak in South Korea have been endemic for months.
But there’s something else Asian countries do to control the spread that seems almost unthinkable in the United States: centralized isolation of people who test positive for Covid-19 and their close contacts.
The implementation of these systems varies from country to country, according to local circumstances and preferences. But from China to Hong Kong to Taiwan to Korea, the broad outline is the same: You don’t tell sick people to go home where they can infect their families and roommates; you send them someplace set aside for the purpose. Since some of the people isolated end up being asymptomatic, it’s inconvenient to be forced outside of the home. But for the many people who do get sick, just not sick enough to require intensive care in a hospital setting, it’s convenient to have a safe and well-monitored place to recuperate.
Isolation is the less warm-and-fuzzy side of the “more testing and more contact tracing” mantra. But it does seem to work. Singapore, for example, had coronavirus well contained but didn’t practice centralized quarantining among its population of migrant workers — only to see their dorms become a major outbreak hot spot.
Many Americans instinctively resist this idea, or assert that other Americans would. But the fact is the US has already accepted drastic restrictions on activity to curb the pandemic, and centralized isolation measures might make it easier to shift to more freedom on other fronts. Meanwhile, the country is currently well-provisioned with vacant hotel rooms and college dorms that could be used for the purpose. And even if mandatory isolation turns out to be a bridge too far politically, a purely voluntary quarantine system could still do an incredible amount of good.
America’s current policy: Test and go home
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other American public health institutions, the best thing to do if you get sick with Covid-19 and don’t require hospitalization is to try to isolate yourself at home to protect your family members or roommates.
“As much as possible, stay in a specific room and away from other people and pets in your home,” says the CDC. “Also, you should use a separate bathroom, if available.”
For many people, this simply isn’t possible in practice. The New York Times reporter Dana Goldstein described her experience of getting sick only to see her husband and young daughter also succumb to infection since there was no practical way to isolate inside their New York City apartment.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, my family owns a rowhouse in Washington, DC, that includes a basement apartment with a kitchen, washer-dryer, and separate entrance. We normally rent it out on Airbnb or use it as guest lodging when family or friends from out of town want to visit. None of that is possible during the pandemic, so right now it’s my home office. But I’ve also set it up as quarantine quarters, stocked with easily 14 days’ worth of nonperishable food and everything else I’d need in the event that I start showing symptoms.
But while this is nice for me, it’s an unrealistic at-home standard for the typical person, and it’s not even clear that isolating in the basement would work. Chris Cuomo ended up living out my hypothetical basement isolation plan when he was diagnosed with Covid-19, but his wife got sick anyway.
It’s not 100 percent clear how that happened, though after reading a preliminary study about how there’s some evidence the coronavirus could spread via air conditioning ducts, it’s possible centralized climate control systems could negate efforts to isolate at home.
Standard practice in developed Asian countries, by contrast, is to isolate the moderately — or often even just potentially — ill outside the home.
Asia’s policy: Isolate in a dedicated facility
Hong Kong has more metro riders than New York in a city with a similar population size and significantly fewer miles of track. And while Hong Kong has a lower overall population density than New York City, that’s because nearly 40 percent of the territory is composed of designated country parks that are free of development. The built-up portion of Hong Kong is hyper-dense, and the average apartment is smaller than 500 square feet.
But despite these factors and very close economic linkages to China, Hong Kong contained the crisis — not just with tests but with centralized isolation.
Mike Bird, a Wall Street Journal financial markets correspondent based in Hong Kong, describes a very different situation from what Goldstein faced. Simply because a friend fell sick, Bird was placed in a spartan but comfortable isolation camp for a 14-day spell.
Korea, which simply had too many cases to isolate this aggressively, needed to adopt a tiered system. Moderately ill people are sent to an isolation center, and only genuinely asymptomatic cases are told to stay home and self-quarantine there. But people ordered to stay home aren’t left on their own. The government sends “quarantine care packages” with groceries, masks, hand sanitizer, and instructions on how to safely dispose of potentially contaminated trash. The Koreans have also been experimenting with location-tracking bracelets to enforce self-quarantine orders.
At the other end of the spectrum, case volumes in Taiwan have been persistently low enough that hospitals are the centralized isolation facilities.
In mainland China, where the outbreak raged out of control after weeks of denial and cover-up from authorities, a wide suite of tough measures was eventually brought to bear to get things under control. A large team of researchers led by the University of Southampton looked at Chinese data and determined that of everything they did, “early detection and isolation of cases was estimated to prevent more infections than travel restrictions and contact reductions.”
This is what Americans are talking about when they emphasize the centrality of more testing to getting the country safely moving again. But the “isolation” part of the strategy is important. If you test people and keep them trapped inside with their families, you’re not accomplishing nearly as much as you would if you actually isolated them.
Are we sure this wouldn’t work in America?
A common reaction in the United States is that while this might work fine in Asian countries, there’s no way it would fly in America. As Ezra Klein writes, “the US is a very different country, with a more mistrustful, individualistic culture.”
That might be so. But it’s worth recalling that in 2017, hundreds of thousands of Koreans took to the streets in a sustained mass protest movement to get a corrupt president booted from office. The incredible protest movement that rocked Hong Kong throughout 2019 was less successful, but the courage and tenacity of those protesters showed pretty clearly that Asian authorities are not dealing with a sheep-like public or one that puts unquestioning trust in incumbent governments.
Mass publics have been willing to embrace quarantine measures in part because they make sense. The US government’s official stance is that it’s not safe for a sick person to have contact with her roommates, family, or even house pets; given that reality, it’s the failure to isolate that seems to require justification. It’s also more humane. Nobody wants to listen to a loved one suffer alone in the room next door without comfort or assistance. Even people who don’t require acute care benefit from some kind of attention and support, and that’s best provided by trained personnel in an organized setting.
Last but by no means least, stricter restrictions on the activities of those exposed allows for a less restrictive overall environment.
America’s current policy restricts healthy people’s ability to access outdoor space, generates paranoia about passing encounters with runners or cyclists, and discourages people from seeking routine health care for ailments that aren't Covid-19. But actual sick people are sent home to potentially infect their loved ones. It’s not so much that the US is doing more than Asia to prioritize liberty over public health as that it’s ignoring evidence on which restrictions of liberty are effective.
Even if mandatory centralized quarantine does prove to be a bridge too far for the American political system, the striking thing about the status quo is there’s no good way for people to voluntarily isolate themselves from other members of the household.
If states and cities began to invest in quarantine facilities — like by buying out hotels, which are currently hurting for lack of customers — opening them up on a voluntary basis could do an enormous amount of good. But especially for jurisdictions with smaller caseloads that are eager to “open up,” it’s really worth thinking harder about what the plan is when new cases pop up.
Strict centralized isolation measures would likely ultimately be cheaper and less invasive than ping-ponging in and out of lockdown. It’s what the most successful coronavirus-fighting countries are doing. And since the US has already turned almost every aspect of daily life upside down, it should think about trying a similar strategy, too.
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Trump Is Exhibiting All the Symptoms of a Hydroxychloroquine Overdose |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51492"><span class="small">Dana Milbank, The Washington Post</span></a>
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Tuesday, 28 April 2020 13:13 |
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Milbank writes: "My study hasn't been peer reviewed yet, but my evidence - based on a hunch that originated in my gut - is very strong: President Trump has overdosed on hydroxychloroquine."
Hydroxychloroquine. (photo: POLITICO)
Trump Is Exhibiting All the Symptoms of a Hydroxychloroquine Overdose
By Dana Milbank, The Washington Post
28 April 20
 y study hasn’t been peer reviewed yet, but my evidence — based on a hunch that originated in my gut — is very strong: President Trump has overdosed on hydroxychloroquine.
Trump, who claims a “natural instinct for science" not from formal training but because his late uncle was a scientist, once used this innate ability to determine that climate change was a hoax and that windmills cause cancer. More recently he mobilized the U.S. government to make sure thousands of covid-19 patients were treated with the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin — because Trump’s instinct told him the drug cocktail would be a “phenomenal” “game changer.”
Sadly, evidence from all over suggests that the drugs cause heart problems and worsen death rates.
No matter! The stable genius dropped his hydroxychloroquine hypothesis faster than you can say “snake oil” and is now touting a new miracle cure for the virus: injecting the lungs with bleach, alcohol or other common disinfectants, possibly along with massive doses of heat and ultraviolet light.
Noting that disinfectants kill the virus “in a minute” on inanimate surfaces, Trump asked: “Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside? Or almost a cleaning? … It would be interesting to check that.”
Government scientists dutifully promised to investigate the boss’s lung-bleaching idea.
As it happens, I, too, have a natural instinct for science (my brother is a urologist) and I have used it to conclude that hydroxychloroquine abuse has caused Trump and some top aides and allies to suffer a condition we experts refer to as acute nuttiness.
First, it is scientifically obvious from Trump’s enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine that he has been using it himself. While taking the drugs, he has not succumbed to coronavirus. He has concluded, therefore, based on his study population (N=1), that the drugs prevent coronavirus 100 percent of the time.
To this I can add clinical evidence, derived from searching the Mayo Clinic’s website for side effects of azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine and its cousin, chloroquine. Among them, I found: “change in hair color” (Trump has recently faded from orange to gray), “discoloration of the skin” (originally and mistakenly attributed to tanning beds), “trouble sleeping” (see his overnight tweets), “noisy breathing” (that gasping during his Oval Office address), “difficulty with speaking” (whenever using a teleprompter), “runny nose,” (the sniffing!) and “unusual facial expressions” (‘nuff said).
Also, consider the mental side effects the drugs can cause: Irritability. Confusion. Aggression. Anger. Hostility. Quickness to react or overreact emotionally. Unusual behavior. Unsteadiness. Severe mood or mental changes. Restlessness. Paranoia. Depersonalization (an emotional “numbness”). Feeling that others are watching you or controlling your behavior. Feeling that others can hear your thoughts. Feeling, seeing or hearing things that are not there.
Confusion, paranoia, aggression, unsteadiness, severe mental shifts: These would seem to describe not just the president’s actions of late but those of some top aides and allies.
Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services, Reuters just reported, had initially installed as head of the agency’s coronavirus response one Brian Harrison, who among his other qualifications was until April 2018 a Labradoodle breeder.
Trump officials ousted the man who until recently led the federal government’s effort to come up with a vaccine for coronavirus, Rick Bright, because, Bright said, he had declared that hydroxychloroquine treatments “clearly lack scientific merit.”
They also removed Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from her job leading the coronavirus response after saying (correctly) that Americans should expect “significant disruption” to their lives.
HHS has just hired, as its chief spokesman, former Trump campaign operative Michael Caputo, who, CNN found, authored an array of racist tweets and trafficked in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
New White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has “cried while meeting with members of the White House staff on at least two occasions,” the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman reports. “Crying” is another of the listed side effects.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed that states file for bankruptcy rather than receive emergency funds — potentially devastating public health, not to mention millions of Americans’ pensions.
Nervousness and “general feeling of discomfort” are side effects. This can be seen in Robert Redfield, head of the CDC, being forced to recant warnings about a second wave of coronavirus in the fall. And Tony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, walking back his claim that lives could have been saved if the federal government acted more quickly.
And now we have Trump talking about killing the virus by scrubbing the lungs with household disinfectant.
Where does it end? French researchers have speculated that smokers may have protection against the virus. Perhaps Trump will distribute to every ICU in America a case of Marlboros from the national stockpile?
Patients, after a rejuvenating lung cleaning, can enjoy a smoke with their chloroquine cocktail.
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FOCUS: Trump's Judges Are a Giant Step Backward for America |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=54160"><span class="small">Shira A. Scheindlin, Guardian UK </span></a>
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Tuesday, 28 April 2020 12:22 |
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Scheindlin writes: "Whether or not he is re-elected, Donald Trump will be revered by conservatives for his judicial appointments. As of March, Trump has appointed 193 judges to the federal bench, with another 39 pending on the floor of the Senate or in the Senate judiciary committee."
Senator Mitch McConnell. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Trump's Judges Are a Giant Step Backward for America
By Shira A. Scheindlin, Guardian UK
28 April 20
After three years of Trump’s appointments, the federal judiciary is 73% white and 66% male, but it will be even more male and pale by the end of his term
 hether or not he is re-elected, Donald Trump will be revered by conservatives for his judicial appointments. As of March, Trump has appointed 193 judges to the federal bench, with another 39 pending on the floor of the Senate or in the Senate judiciary committee. Those nominations will surely be acted on favorably by the Senate before 20 January 2021, when there may be a new president and a new Senate. There are another 38 district court vacancies awaiting nominations. In one presidential term, Trump may appoint up to 270 federal judges, or 31% of the entire federal judiciary. For perspective, Barack Obama appointed 329 in eight years.
There is no doubt that the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, will confirm Trump’s appointments until the very last day of his term. This is of course the same Senate gatekeeper who infamously blocked Obama’s final supreme court nomination, Merrick Garland, for an entire year – on the ground that in the final year of a presidency, the Senate should await “the will of the people” in the upcoming general election. But that was then. The rules have apparently changed. McConnell will pack the courts with “right-thinking” ideologues who will carry out Trump’s agenda long after he has been subjected to the scorn of historical scrutiny.
We now know a lot about Trump’s judicial appointments. Eighty-five per cent are white and 76% are male. This is a significant step backward. Obama’s judicial appointments were 64% white and 58% male. Today, after more than three years of Trump’s appointments, the federal judiciary is 73% white and 66% male, but it will be even more male and pale by the end of his term. Even more troubling is the average age of the Trump judges. According to Brookings, the median age of Trump’s judicial appointments by the beginning of his fourth year in office is 48.2. By the same time in his presidency, the median age of Obama’s appointees was 57.2. This means that Trump judges will serve, on average, for 10 years more than the Obama judges.
Statistics only tell part of the story. More important is the impact of these statistics on the critical issues that face the courts now and in the future. Courts should reflect the people they serve. I served as a federal district judge for 22 years. The vast majority of criminal defendants (in non-white-collar cases) were either African American or Hispanic, as were their family members. Plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases were overwhelmingly women, minorities or persons with disabilities. The same was true in actions involving prisoner rights, voting rights, housing discrimination and public benefits. Not all cases involve big corporations and business disputes.
A diverse bench engenders trust and credibility. Many studies have shown that decision-makers reach better decisions when they bring a variety of experiences to their analysis. A 36-year-old lawyer who has never tried a case, has not represented individual clients, and has not spent years facing life’s challenges is not well-positioned to decide on the length of a prison term, the need for access to healthcare, abortion, food stamps, Medicare or housing, or the impact of pollution or discrimination on working people’s quality of life. It is for this reason the American Bar Association’s standing committee on the federal judiciary insists that a candidate for judicial office have at least 12 years of experience practicing law – not talking about it as a speech writer, lobbyist or media star.
When I was appointed to the bench I was 48. I had been a federal prosecutor, a defense lawyer, and had handled many civil cases in trial and appellate courts. That experience was invaluable. I knew both the substance and procedure of federal practice. The same cannot be said of many of Trump’s nominees, whose only qualifications appear to be their consistently rightwing voting records.
Consider the following four Trump judges, all of whom were appointed in their 30s. What they have in common is not their legal experience, but their outspoken support of Trump’s political agenda. All were members of the Federalist Society or other rightwing organizations, clerked for conservative judges, and have written articles or advocated for legal positions that are vastly out of step with most Americans.
Allison Rushing was 36 when she was confirmed to a seat on the fourth circuit court of appeals, 11 years after graduating from law school, and Trump’s youngest nominee to a circuit court judgeship. She clerked for then-circuit judge Neil Gorsuch and for Justice Clarence Thomas. Her law practice during the remaining nine years was limited to representing big corporations at one of the nation’s largest law firms.
Andrew Brasher was 38 when he was confirmed to a seat on the 11th circuit court of appeals, after serving for only nine months on the district court for the middle district of Alabama. In the years just before his appointment he served as Alabama’s solicitor general, often advocating for rightwing causes.
Justin Walker, best known for his full-throated defense of Brett Kavanaugh (for whom he clerked), was appointed as a district judge in the western district of Kentucky, at 37, just 10 years after graduating law school. He is a protege of Mitch McConnell, who held up debate on a Covid-19 relief bill to attend Walker’s induction ceremony. Less than six months after Walker took the bench, Trump announced that he intended to nominate him for an upcoming vacancy on the DC court of appeals.
Patrick Wyrick was 38 when he was confirmed as a judge for the western district of Oklahoma. Four years after graduating law school he became the solicitor general of Oklahoma. He is a protege of Scott Pruitt, the disgraced former head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
One of these judges could easily end up on the supreme court; two are known to be on the shortlist. All will probably still be on the bench 40 years from now. That alone should make voters think hard about the upcoming presidential election. As the saying goes: elections have consequences.
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