China’s economy expanded by 4.9% in the third quarter compared to the previous year, showing the rest of the world what’s possible when Covid-19 is brought under control.
China’s economy has now recovered from its historically bad first quarter, when the coronavirus forced the country to shut down. GDP grew a cumulative 0.7% through the first nine months of 2020, the data show.
The International Monetary Fund expects China’s economy to expand by 1.9% in 2020. That compares to contractions of 5.8% in the United States.
The way Beijing handled the initial outbreak of coronavirus late last year has been criticized by some Western politicians.
But China’s stringent lockdown and population tracking policies helped bring the virus under control within its borders. The country also set aside hundreds of billions of dollars for major infrastructure projects to fuel economic growth.
Europe and the United States are now facing another surge of coronavirus cases. The US is averaging more than 55,000 new cases a day — up more than 60% since a mid-September dip.
The United States’s economy will remain hamstrung until there’s a dramatic reduction in the number of coronavirus cases.
China, meanwhile, will continue to power ahead.
Economic data for the month of September indicated the country’s recovery is gaining even more strength. Industrial production and retail sales figures were particularly robust.
U.S. GDP: Blue line. China GDP: Red line
The International Monetary Fund predicts that China’s economy will grow by 8.2% in 2021, a much faster pace than the United States.
Most recent figures show China’s GDP at about $14 Trillion, while the U.S. GDP is about $20 Trillion, and since 2008, the gap has been closing.
In the United States our leadership began, and continues to this day, with denial of facts, based only on reelection efforts and not on reality.
The bluster of “Make America Great, Again” was not backed by actual lawmaking.
A leader does not make a nation great by:
Widening the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
Giving the rich huge tax breaks, while doing little for the rest.
Demeaning, threatening, and diminish the influence of, a free press.
Hiring criminals and incompetents to dismantle consumer-protection agencies.
Pardoning criminals who are friends of the government leader.
Reduce healthcare and healthcare insurance for the poor and middle-income.
Establishing nepotism as an approved government function.
Demanding that the President’s personal businesses be rewarded by the government
Continually disseminating and encouraging false information
Gutting laws that protect consumers from criminal banks and business owners.
Denying climate change and discouraging efforts to fight it.
Arbitrarily ending treaties with allies and enemies, fomenting distrust of Ameria.
Denying the dangers of COVID and discouraging the use of masks and other COVID-fighting efforts.
Encouraging the use of polluting and global-warming carbon-based fuels.
Discouraging anti-pollution efforts.
Discouraging efforts to expand renewable energy availability.
Discouraging the immigration of consumers and workers who would help grow the economy.
Failing to encourage or acknowledge science, technological advancement, and education.
Failing to encourage the arts.
Failing to encourage small business.
Failing to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure.
Encouraging bigotry and such bigoted movements as QAnon, white supremacists, and Nazis.
Idolizing ruthless dictators, while condemning leaders of free nations and former allies.
Never taking responsibility for problems while always taking unwarranted credit for good news.
Repeatedly committing acts of personal immorality.
Punishing whistleblowers who reveal the truth about illegal acts.
Punishing those who do not exhibit greater loyalty to the leader than to the nation.
The fact is, our once-great country is a mess. Our once-respected and admired nation, now is condemned, mocked, and denounced worldwide, even by former allies.
We have no national policy for anything other than what is best personally for the President. We have drifted inexorably toward fascism. One political party, the Republicans, has lost all sense of its history, its identity or its direction:
Stuart Stevens: “In a long-forgotten era — say, four years ago — such a question would have elicited a very different answer. Though there was disagreement over specific issues, most Republicans would have said the party stood for some basic principles: fiscal sanity, free trade, strong on Russia, and that character and personal responsibility count.
Today it’s not that the Republican Party has forgotten these issues and values; instead, it actively opposes all of them.”
“Republicans are now officially the character doesn’t count party, the personal responsibility just proves you have failed to blame the other guy party, the deficit doesn’t matter party, the Russia is our ally party, and the I’m-right-and-you-are-human-scum party.
Yes, it’s President Trump’s party now, but it stands only for what he has just tweeted.”
You, who always have been Republicans, no longer have a political party. The party you love has gone.
You are like baseball fans, still pledging allegiance to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Neither your Dodgers nor your Republican party still exists. You can stop yearning for your lovely, childhood sweetheart. She married another man, moved somewhere far away, and looks and acts like the Wicked Witch of the West.
Meanwhile, China, despite its despicable, dictatorial leadership, at least has leadership. Its focus is not solely on what will enrich the leader. Despite many horrifying failings regarding personal freedoms, China’s focus is on (ironically) making China great again.
Unless America takes a dramatic reversal of the twenty-nine points listed above, China will become the world’s dominant nation, democracy will be a lost experiment, and it will happen within your lifetime.
As you read excerpts from the following article, keep several facts in mind.
Unlike state and local governments, the United States government uniquely is Monetarily Sovereign. It never can run short of dollars. Even if it collected zero tax dollars, the U.S. government could continue spending, forever.
The American people are running short of money, and many are entering a starvation phase they never before had experienced.
U.S. politicians, especially conservatives, claim that federal deficit spending (aka “money printing”) will cause inflation or will have to be paid for by our children. Neither claim is true. They both are part of what is known in economics, as “The Big Lie.”
It is a disgrace. The wealthiest government on earth, having infinite resources, is intentionally allowing its people to fall into starvation.
In the history of the United States, inflation never has been caused by federal deficit spending. Inflation always is caused by scarcity— shortages of vital products, usually food or energy (oil).
And the claim that aid given now will be paid for by our children later, not only is false, but makes no sense on the face of it.
State and local governments don’t operate that way. They are not Monetarily Sovereign. They use tax dollars to pay their bills. The federal government does not.
What becomes of those federal tax dollars you send to the Internal Revenue Service or the U.S. Treasury? They are destroyed upon receipt. They cease to exist in any money measure. That is why there cannot be a definitive answer to the question, “How much money does the federal government have?” The correct answer is: It has infinite money.
And as for worries about future children paying for federal stimulus dollars, our children are paying now, by sliding into poverty.
Many children and adults will die too soon, by not being able to afford medical care or by inadequate nutrition. Many brilliant brains will be wasted by not being able to afford college.
This is today’s America, the once “golden land,” that now has been turned into “misery land.” And it all is unnecessary.
At the touch of a computer key, our federal politicians could end poverty in America. Yet, because their own bellies are full, they focus only on being re-elected, not on the welfare of the people.
The Democrats want to spend money into the economy; the Republicans refuse. It is that simple.
There is no apolitical way to sugar-coat this. It is the Republican Senate, led by Senator Mitch McConnell, that primarily is responsible for the currently growing poverty in America.
The Democrats are responsible for not explaining the facts to the American people, but at least they want to pump money into the economy. The Republicans don’t.
The blood of today’s impoverished and dying Americans is on GOP hands.
Yahoo Money Millions of Americans are entering poverty amid pandemic as stimulus runs out
Denitsa Tsekova·Reporter, Sat, October 17, 2020
Millions of Americans have been thrown into poverty as government aid dried up in the last five months, according to a pair of studies, and those ranks will likely swell without more relief on the way.
“Poverty is rising in the United States,” Zach Parolin, a researcher at the Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy told Yahoo Finance (video above). “More families, once again, are struggling to put food on the table, struggling to provide for their families at a time when we have the means to be able to help them out.”
Eight million more Americans fell below the poverty threshold since May, a study by Columbia University found. A similar study from the University of Chicago and Notre Dame estimated 6 million Americans entered poverty for the same period.
A figurative “wall” divides federal wealth from starving people. The wall is guarded by Congress.
Without further government intervention, more Americans could follow, facing food insecurity, utility shutoffs, and even homelessness.
What a disgrace, what a cruel disgrace.
Visualize that to the left is a vast pile of wealth — money, food, medicine, education etc. — and to the right are homeless, starving people.
In between is a wall, guarded by the U.S. Congress, intentionally preventing the impoverished people from receiving aid.
That is America, today.
Poverty in the U.S. actually declined at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, thanks largely to two provisions in the CARES Act: stimulus checks and the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits.
Since then, there has been no second round of checks, and the extra unemployment benefits expired at the end of July.
“That’s just a lot of money that they’re going to have to do without,” Bruce Meyer, a University of Chicago economist, told Yahoo Money. “It means people are going to be cutting back on what they can.”
While the funding provided under the $2.2 trillion CARES Act was the largest economic stimulus package in history, its effects won’t last long enough to support those in financial hardship, especially when the job market and the economy haven’t recovered.
“Unless we see a miraculous employment recovery,” Parolin said, “it’s certain that families are going to need some extra income support to be able to pay the bills and put food on the table.”
The fading effect of the stimulus comes as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continue talks for a bipartisan stimulus deal.
But disagreements on price tag and key provisions, lack of GOP support, and the proximity of the election all lower the prospects of a deal before the election.
The bottom line is quite clear. The Republicans, having for decades told their constituents that federal deficits are bad for the people and bad for the economy, now do not want to tell the simple truth: Federal deficit spending is necessary for economic growth.
So despite the fact that predictably, deficit spending for stimuli has been beneficial, with none of the politicians’ dire predictions realized, the GOP would rather see people starve than to admit they have been lying all along.
I hate to put this in such stark political terms, but there is no way around it: The Democrats want more stimulus; the Republicans want less. Period.
With no additional support, experts warned that the economy will slow and fewer jobs will be created. Protections for renters and borrowers also are set to expire, likely leading to another increase in poverty.
The so-called “protections for renters and borrowers” merely shifted the pain to landlords and lenders, who also are people suffering from the recession.
The solution is not to transfer pain from one group to another, but rather for the federal government to pump dollars into the pockets of all the people.
Only the federal government can spend money without feeling pain.
“Poverty is going to continue to rise,” Meyer said. “You’re going to have people having had more and more weeks out of work, and only a fraction of those lost earnings replaced. That’s going to accumulate over time.”
The financial hardships caused by this will likely mean a rise in people who can’t pay rent and utility bills, who will struggle to buy food, and who could even lose their homes.
“It’s sad to say,” Parolin said, “we can probably expect to see an increase in homelessness in the United States.”
The above article should make you furious. All this pain, all this hunger, all this tragedy in America, coming mostly from the party that promised to “Make America Great, Again,” is completely unnecessary.
There is no other way to say this. We (in the U.S.) are headed for a depression because we have an incompetent and untruthful government.
Our fundamental problem is the lack of money in the private sector. The solution is for the federal government, which being Monetarily Sovereign has unlimited money, to pump dollars into the economy.
Sorry, but it isn’t any more complex than that.
Problem: Lack of money. Solution: Add money. How much money? What the economy lost due to the virus.
The economy needs at least $7 Trillion net added from the federal government. But, our Congress is spending far too little and spending way too late.
Unless Congress and the President deign to see the light, we have no way to prevent a depression.
That was April, yet Congress and the President still have not seen the light.
So you will suffer, sadly, needlessly, disgracefully. We will have a depression. The blame is directly on the shoulders of Congress and the President. You trusted them. They failed you.
The best-known power of the Supreme Court is judicial review, or the ability of the Court to declare a Legislative or Executive act in violation of the Constitution, is not found within the text of the Constitution itself.
The Court established this doctrine in the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803).
Thus, in 1803, the Supreme Court arbitrarily decided what its power will be.
That circular reasoning gives the Court whatever power it wishes to exercise on any given day.
(Remember the words, “not found within the text of the Constitution itself.” We’ll return to those words later.)
If you were a justice on the Supreme Court, how would you judge cases? Would you judge according to your interpretation of”
the plain, 1780s language in the Constitution?
the words of the Constitution as they are used, today?
what the framers of the Constitution meant in the 1780s?
what the framers would have meant had they known about today’s realities?
what you believe is best for America, today?
Today, as the Senate “debates” the fitness of Amy Coney Barrett, these questions become important.
Much of the hearing focused on such matters as Barrett’s judicial philosophy of Constitutional “originalism” and “textualism.”
She believes the Constitution should be interpreted with the original intentof the founding fathers in mind and statutes should be interpreted in accordance with the actual words or “text” used by legislators.
Judges should not impose their own policy beliefs to advance changing cultural norms.
Perhaps she thinks this is what she believes. Perhaps this is an honest answer, but I doubt it, for it is a lie.
Begin with the fact that the founding fathers did not know of today’s science: electronics, atomic energy, weapons of mass destruction, medicine.
Add to that the fact that 1780’s morality is quite different from today’s, especially with regard to women, people of color, and children.
By today’s standards, the founding fathers were blatant, selfish bigots, who believed that they were superior human beings, and the rest of us were inferior.
And add to that the fact that yesterday’s words often mean something quite different, today.
There is not a single paragraph, not a single sentence or word in the Constitution, that is not subject to interpretation.
Let us parse, for instance, just one sentence in the Constitution, the 2nd Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
A well regulated: How “well” is well? How is “well” to be evaluated and who does the evaluation? Specifically, what is meant by “regulated”? Whose regulations must be followed — city, county, state, or federal?
Militia: What is a “militia”? Is it the U.S. army? Is it the National Guard? Is it the state police, county police, city or village police? Or is it some other, unidentified group, and if so, what are its powers?
being necessary: This phrase can mean “is necessary,” or it can be conditional, as in “when a well-regulated militia is necessary,
to the security of: What exactly does “security” mean? Does it have to do with foreigners who might attack us? Or does it refer to internal security from lawbreakers? Or does it have to do with individuals’ protection from an unfair government?
Currently, the United States, depending on interpretation, does not have any well-regulated militias, and if such are “necessary, we are not . . .
. . . .a free State,: What then, is a “free state.” Free from what? Every law that ever has been, or ever will be passed, diminishes in some way, some citizen’s freedom, though it may enhance others’.
Not only are all of these words debatable, but just within the past few years, the entire 13-word phrase has been effectively eliminated.
We now come to the only part of the Amendment that has been left intact.
the right of the people: Which people? Does this include children of any age? Criminals? Non-citizens? And where can this “right” be exercised? In Congress? In a court of law? In jail? On the street?
to keep and bear: Where does “keep” mean? In a house? In a safety-deposit, bank vault? In a pocket? And where may one bear an Arm? In one’s hand? In one’s clothing? In one’s car?
Arms: What are “arms”? Atomic bombs? Fighter planes? Cannons? Machine guns? Poison gas? Tanks? Or does “Arms” include only what the founders knew about (i.e. “intended”): Swords? Muskets? Flintlock pistols?
shall not be infringed. Currently, “infringe” means to limit or undermine. So does this phrase mean there are to be no limits at all?
When Amy Coney Barrett claims she will follow “original intent” and the “actual words,” she either is lying or is naive, or both. She will do exactly what she claims she will not do: She will advance her own policy beliefs according to her own view of cultural norms.
Barrett, and other so-called originalists, like to paint themselves as innocent, blank slates, whose only information comes from the indisputable words of the Constitution.
They use the “I-can’t-help-it; that’s-what-the-Constitution-says” (or doesn’t say) excuse for doing exactly what they want to do.
Here is an example of that devious, originalist thinking:
Justice Clarence Thomas, who rarely speaks at all, issued a joint statement with Justice Samuel Alito, that the Court’s 2015 ruling “read a right to same-sex marriage…even though that right is found nowhere in the text” of the Constitution.
He wrote it had “ruinous consequences for religious liberty” of those who might object.
Justice Thomas, who has spent his inferior career denying he is black, now uses the “nowhere to be found in the text” line as his excuse for ruling that his ownreligion‘s interpretations of civil law are to be found in the text.
(Remember, that the purpose of the Supreme Court itself is “nowhere to be found in the text,” so is Justice Thomas issuing a defacto objection to all his rulings?)
Despite related references in the Constitution, Thomas apparently believes religious dogma trumps the law.
There is a widespread notion, especially strong among conservatives, that Justices should not create new law. Rather, law-making is to be left to Congress and to the President.
Supposedly then, the Supreme Court should pretend America remains in the 17th Century, pretend to ignore the real world around them, and pretend to be robots who, without compassion, mercy, or care, judge only as our omniscient founding fathers would have judged.
Originalism is a myth, a monstrous myth, perpetuated through the years by an overly Christian, overly white, overly male, overly old Court. It is a myth that has excused and created numerous cruel, thoughtless legal opinions that have devastated millions of American lives.
The originalists sit on high, looking down, both literally and figuratively, divorced from the human needs of real people, and coldly rendering decisions destined to inflict pain.
I do not respect the “originalists” on the Court. They are callous, heartless, cold-blooded, archaic machines, who have forgotten the fundamental purpose of government: To improve the lives of the people.
Originalists are the strict disciplinarian, “anti-Ginsburgs” of our generation.
Amy Coney Barrett may be an intelligent woman, but without compassion she has no reason being put in a position of such power.
We only can pray, the harm she does will be short-lived and soon forgotten.
Objections to abortion come in two “flavors.” The moral objection is that the fetus is a living human being, and anything done to terminate a fetus is murder.
This question devolves to timing. When does a human life begin?
Is an egg a human being? Most people would say, “No,” although the human egg, the largest cell in the body, contains almost everything required to make a human; the sperm, the smallest cell in the body, adds very little.
Is a human created the moment the egg is fertilized? Is a human created the moment a heartbeat can be detected?
Or when the fetus reacts to some stimulus — touch, sound, chemical? At what point during the pregnancy should the termination of a fetus be considered the murder of a human being?
Or, does human life begin only when the fetus emerges?
Despite the fury with which those questions are debated, there is no “right” answer. You can argue and present evidence until you turn blue, and you will not be able to prove anything. It’s all subjective.
We don’t even know how to define life, let alone determine when or if the end of a fetus should be defined as “murder.”
The other “flavor” is religious. Religions have rules that are couched in “morality,” but often have very little moral theme. Attending mass, eating kosher, covering your head, protecting the Qur’an, are not moral conscripts. They merely are religious rules, arbitrarily changeable, more akin to club rules than to morality.
Abortion is not even mentioned in the Old or New Testaments or in the Qur’an, though religious scholars have debated abortion for at least two thousand years, perhaps longer:.
Laws that prohibit absolutely the practice of abortion are a relatively recent development.
In the early Roman Catholic church, abortion was permitted for male fetuses in the first 40 days of pregnancy and for female fetuses in the first 80-90 days.
Not until 1588 did Pope Sixtus V declare all abortion murder, with excommunication as the punishment.
Only 3 years later a new pope found the absolute sanction unworkable and again allowed early abortions. 300 years would pass before the Catholic church under Pius IX again declared all abortion murder.
In 1920 the Soviet Union became the 1st modern state formally to legalize abortion.
In the early period after the 1917 revolution, abortion was readily available in state operated facilities. These facilities were closed and abortion made illegal when it became clear that the Soviet Union would have to defend itself against Nazi Germany.
After World War II women were encouraged to enter the labor force, and abortion once again became legal.
Strangely, some people even object to the use of condoms, which seems to indicate they believe a sperm is a human being. Others object to “the pill,” indicating the egg itself must be considered a human.
In sum, abortion laws have little to do with morals or with god. They are man-made (as opposed to woman-made) rules related to genital power and national interests.
I mention all this because of an odd paradox.
Consider Planned Parenthood. It is an organization reviled by some because it provides abortions. But it also:
“. . . provides a wide range of confidential, safe, expert health care. The majority of Planned Parenthood’s services are preventive: care that helps prevent unintended pregnancies with birth control and sex education, reduce the spread of STDs through testing and treatment, and screen for cervical, breast, and other cancers.”
Think of Planned Parenthood as a tool people can use, not only to end pregnancies, but to prevent pregnancies, and to educate themselves about many aspects of human reproduction and health. In this sense, Planned Parenthood does not abort; people abort.
Why do I phrase it that way? Because of guns, and the oft-heard defense of guns: “Guns don’t kill; people kill.”
There are several reasons why people own guns: For self-protection, for sport, to prevent and commit crimes. Guns are but a tool, the primary purpose of which is to threaten or kill. As a tool, the purpose of a gun is determined by the user.
So here we have two tools, Planned Parenthood and guns, that are tools, and as tools, their use is not determined by the tool but by the user.
The purposes of Planned Parenthood primarily are educational and self-protection, and secondarily to kill. The purposes of guns secondarily are entertainment and self-protection, but primarily to threaten and kill.
A real weirdness is revealed when you realize that the people who most avidly defend guns often are the same people who most avidly oppose Planned Parenthood.
Another interesting thought: Those people who favor guns, while opposing Planned Parenthood, seem to care nothing about the aftermaths.
That is, what do gun owners do about people who have been shot?
What care is provided by, for instance, the National Rifle Association (NRA) or any gun-owner group, for the people who survive a shooting, but are left with horrible disabilities, disfigurements, and terrible pain? What care is provided by gun owners for the families of people who are shot?
Similarly, what care is provided by abortion opponents, for unwanted children who sadly often suffer a lifetime of parental neglect? What care do pro-lifers provide to impoverished parents trying to care for those unwanted children? What care do anti-abortionists provide to mothers whose health is damaged by an unwanted pregnancy?
Ironically, it is the abortion providers, not the abortion opponents, who are more active in “sex education, reducing the spread of STDs through testing and treatment, and screening for cervical, breast, and other cancers.”
NRA Applauds Barrett. As a “pro-lifer” she opposes abortion, yet she favors anti-life guns.
Guns and Planned Parenthood: So different, yet oddly parallel, like two trains on adjacent tracks, running in opposite directions.
Do you favor all types of guns? Do you oppose Planned Parenthood?
