The PPP Bubble!

With everything else going on during the Covid-19 crisis, it's been easy to miss what might be one of the biggest financial consequences of Trump's mismanagement: the financial bubble caused by the government's Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP.

The PPP was formed as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to help businesses cover payroll and other expenses while customers self-quarantine at home. So long as certain criteria are met regarding how the money is spent - 75% percent of it on payroll, for instance - the loan would be completely forgiven.

Sounds great, right? Certainly some of it has worked. It's the main reason May's job report showed an employment rate which was much higher than expected. Employees who were furloughed, but still got a paycheck through PPP loans, were listed as "employed," even though they were actually laid off. That looked great for Trump's numbers, at least temporarily. Isn't that a good thing?

Not so fast! Because the loans are not being administered by the government! They are being administered by private banks! The Trump administration, which hates government bureaucracy, made sure that these loans would not add to the government's paperwork. So PPP loans got funneled through private banks instead, which actually issue the loan. The banks handle the application process, the banks pay the money, and the banks receive the loan forgiveness money - IF the applicant meets the criteria.

But will the small business meet the criteria? That's the catch! The banks have not been forthcoming about what the requirements are for such forgiveness! They've been very helpful with getting small businesses to apply for the loan. They've been very ready to get the funds into the hands of the small businesses, themselves. But they have not been very good at all about informing the businesses about what they need to do in order to have the loan forgiven.

There's a specific reason for that. If the criteria are not met for loan forgiveness, the bank has the power to demand that the loan be repaid - at interest!

Surprise! That money wasn't free! You OWE it!

And, of course, the bank makes a tidy profit every time one of these loans fails to meet the criteria.

Holy shit, right? How could this story not be one of the biggest? Because, as usual, it bets bogged down in the details. It's not sexy. But it has the potential to bring down the economy yet again. After suffering the initial blow of the first coronavirus wave, and now currently experiencing the second, the PPP loan bubble bursting has the potential to hit our economy with a THIRD shock-wave!

And this shock-wave could very easily hit in October! How's that for an October surprise?

Some people on Capitol Hill have spotted this problem, and even acted on it. To help prevent the bubble, Congress passed the Paycheck Protection Flexibility Act, which the president signed into law back in early June. It loosens the requirements for loan forgiveness. So, for example, only 60% of the money needs to be used for payroll, and businesses have 24 weeks to spend the money instead of the original eight weeks.

But did it go far enough? Probably not, because most small businesses aren't even being made aware of what the criteria is! Loosening the criteria might mean a few more businesses meet that criteria, but it doesn't guarantee that they know what pitfalls to watch out for! And, I should also point out, 24 weeks is six months. Since most PPP loans were applied for in late April, that means most loans that fail to meet criteria will get hit with this new debt in late October!

Right. Before. The. Election!

Did I say holy shit? I meant to say holy FUCKING shit!

I became aware of this huge problem during my prolonged job hunt this past April and May. Like many people, I found myself out of work due to the Covid-19 crisis, and tried to quickly bounce back. (Normally, in such circumstances, I take work whenever and however I can to bridge the gap in my income until I find more permanent work, but this time, my wife begged me to stay home and take unemployment benefits instead. She couldn't stand the thought of me exposing myself to Covid-19 by driving groceries for Shipt or delivering pizzas.) By late June, I had some interesting job prospects on the line, and one of them was with a small accounting firm which liked my experience and expertise with Quickbooks. While interviewing at this firm, the wizened, old accountant quizzed me about various things.

"What do you know about PPP loans?" he asked.

"Not much," I admitted. "I haven't had time to research it, yet."

"Well, they're a big deal," he told me. "These small business owners aren't being told what they need to do to qualify for loan forgiveness." And then he described to me just how the application process was being pushed so quickly, but how small businesses were falling for it left and right.

"But why wouldn't they be told about this?" I asked.

"Because the banks don't want them to know about it," he answered.

"The banks?"

"Oh, yes. These loans don't come directly from the government. So the banks only ask, 'Do you qualify?' and if the answer is 'yes,' they say, 'Sign here!'"

And that's when the penny dropped, and I understood. Since private banks were administering the loans, they had a vested interest in small businesses being fooled into spending their money in a way which disqualified them for forgiveness. That way the banks could demand a payment plan, and, of course, interest on that payment plan!

Lemming? Meet cliff.

I think I said something like, "That's cold!"

"Yes it is," he agreed. And then he went on to describe how his was one of the few accounting firms which tried to help its clients avoid these types of financial traps. "I want someone who will help me guide these businesses to better decisions for their money," he said. And he pointed out how other accounting firms who did this sort of thing tended to charge far more for their services.

I admire him, I really do. But his quixotic campaign to save small business owners from themselves was one of the reasons I opted not to take the job, and go with my current employer instead. One, lone accounting firm, working itself to death against the riptide of unscrupulous banks did not sound like the sort of job that would last very long.

Sort of like the jobs that won't last long when these PPP loans come due right before the election.

I seldom say this, but if you believe in a god, now might be a good time to pray.


Eric

*

Defund? No, Defend!

I really hate it when the wrong message gets stuck to the right message.

Example: In Glendale recently, one of the employees of Jet's Pizza set up the sign in front of his place of business to read: "The only race is the human race. All lives matter."

Damn it, if it weren't for those last three words!

The owner later took the sign down and apologized, putting up a "Black Lives Matter" sign.

I have no problems with the first part of the ill-advised sign. There IS no race but the human race! When neo-Nazis dared to demonstrate in front of the Federal Building in downtown Milwaukee in 2002, I carried a sign which said nearly that exact same thing. It read: "The human race is the only race." I still have that sign, and I still agree with its message.

Which is why I'm so disappointed that message got pissed on.

Oh, it's not like all lives don't matter. Of course they do! But right now, and in the decades leading up to this moment in history, black lives do not matter, and have not mattered! (Or at least, generally matter a lot less than white lives do.) Which is why, when someone comes back at "Black lives matter!" with the phrase, "ALL lives matter!" it comes across as completely tone-deaf! Goddamn it, the time to assert that all lives mattered was before! You know, when the doctrine that "all lives matter" should have led you to defend black lives way more than you did! To say "all lives matter" now is too little, too fucking late!

And those recent examples of the wrong damned message getting attached to the right one is why I'm so pissed off at the constant refrain of, "Defund the police!"

Oh, I get it. "Defund" does not mean, "destroy." It does not mean "delete." It doesn't mean we have no police at all. I know perfectly well that it means that policing needs to be restructured in a fundamental way, and that some policing must remain for bank robberies, homicides and the like. "Defund the police" simply means to radically restructure it. Spend the bulk of its budget on law enforcement which does not prey upon malfunctioning tail lights and expired license plates. Have a police force with roots in the community instead of one at war with the community. Demilitarize what policing is all about.

Great. That's what we mean....

THEN WHY NOT FUCKING SAY THAT INSTEAD?!!!

Trumpists are jumping all over this. It sounds crazy to them, and that's because it sounds crazy to me too! Hell, I'm firmly entrenched on the Left, and even I think it sounds crazy! Defund the police?! What, are you nuts?! Someone breaks into my house and I call - what, nobody?! What kind of a solution is that?!

Of course, that's not how the proposal will work. Cooler heads on NPR have been explaining exactly what the protesters are calling for in a nice, rational way. But nearly half of our nation does not get its news that way. They get their news in five-second sound-bytes, they get their information in Fox News distortions, and they will be absolutely convinced that "Defund the police!" means that Democrats are unhinged radicals who cannot be trusted to lead the nation, and that four more years of Trump is far better than that level of crazy.

It's. The. Worst. Possible. Move.

How about a cry of, "Demilitarize the police!" Isn't that what we mean? Or how about, "Replace the police!" We could even borrow one of Trump's phrases and say, "You're fired! Hire new cops!"

Isn't that a more rational-sounding message?!

Opinions are made based on simple slogans and bumper-sticker-ready catch-phrases.

Why, oh why, did we have to pick one so goddamned stupid-sounding as "Defund the police!"?

Are we TRYING to blow this thing?


Eric

*

Protests! Reopening! And Covid-19!

I'll open by simply stating my premise right out: We need to let the reopeners have their way. Because we would be fools to think the protests are really about the death of one African American in Minneapolis. No, what makes it bigger this time is the economic depression we are currently living in. The shutdowns resulting from the Covid-19 crisis have led to massive unemployment, most of it in the Black community. THIS, more than anything else, is fueling the anger, the frustration, and the desperation behind these riots. Blacks have gone from trying to make it on two low-income jobs to having no jobs at all, waiting for a stimulus check which may never come. They've gone from getting by on a wing and a prayer to not even having a prayer. THAT'S why they're willing to face armored vehicles and tear gas! That's why they're looting businesses whose prices have not come down in spite of everything.

Was it all necessary? Is the hardship needed? Or did we panic for nothing?

The right-wingers say yes. Many of them are (still!) calling Covid-19 a "hoax." And they want the economy re-opened NOW.

We have to let them. We need to show, by example, that the shutdown was not just some academic exercise. It was necessary to save the lives of many, many people.

"What?!" You might ask. "Are you seriously willing to sacrifice innocent lives to Covid-19 just to prove a political point?!"

No! Let me make this abundantly clear: I, myself am not willing to sacrifice anyone. But THEY, on the radical Right, are! And we simply can't stop them. Their minds are made up. We couldn't police it if we tried. All we can do is warn people, and warn them we will. And after having warned them, c'est la vie.

Then, when the virus rebounds, and the casualties begin to mount in red states, we on the Left will be there, saying, "We told you so!"

Again, we have no choice.

And the reason we don't have a choice isn't only because the wing-nuts on the Right are so gung-ho for reopening. The African American  communities are hurting, and they're seriously wondering whether any of it is necessary. It was a powder keg long before Derek Chauvin ever leaned on George Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes. The anger and frustration were vented on those businesses who charged the most and paid the least: Walgreen's, and Target. No, not those businesses exclusively, and not nearly so calculated. Some of the looting was just sheer opportunism. There is some evidence that looting may have been set up by agitators on both sides. Stories of loose bricks appearing at protest sites are troubling. But the agitators wouldn't be able to do anything much, if there wasn't so much actual anger to take advantage of.

So it's time to let the reopeners have their way, as if we have any other option. When the virus resurges, the pro-Trump cult will finally be out of excuses. I know, I know, I've been saying that for a while, but this time it counts more than ever before. Because no political party has ever bet so many chips on one throw before.

"But what if you're wrong?" someone may ask. "What if the virus isn't nearly as deadly as we thought? What if the number of Covid-19 cases doesn't spike, and the death toll doesn't mount like you predict?"

Well, the early numbers show that the numbers are spiking already, so that's a silly question at this point. But just for shiggles, let's say that the virus doesn't spike, and the death toll doesn't mount, or at least not as much as we thought. What then?

Well, that will make for a slightly more interesting November.

But we can't sacrifice the well being of our African American brothers for nothing. We can't march with them on the one hand, and deny them jobs with the other. Not without damned good reason.

Let's give them that damned good reason! Let's prove we were right! And lean on the neck of the Alt-Right for a change!


Eric

*

Reopen, And Guarantee A Trump Loss!

By now, Trump supporters everywhere are screaming "plandemic," as if somehow the Democrats could be responsible for a global outbreak in every single country. Many have insisted that the reaction to Covid-19 is a hoax. They've protested in front of many state capitals, some of them armed to the teeth, screamed at the cops trying to control the situation, and brandished flags saying "Don't tread on me." (And a few General Lee Confederate battle flags, but that's a subject for another day.) They're insisting we reopen now, and so is President Trump, tweeting things like "Liberate Michigan!" or, "Liberate Pennsylvania!"

My response to that is simple: Go right ahead! IF you want to guarantee Trump will lose in November.

I'm of two minds on this one. Of course I don't really want right-wingers to end the shutdown and reopen the economy, because the ones who will pay the price are not necessarily the ones who will be out and about. Most likely, it will be those with weakened immune systems or the elderly who die as a result. No one has the freedom to rist someone else's life needlessly. And yet, I know full well it's impossible to control a little less than half of the entire nation if it's hell-bent on not cooperating with any state's shutdown order. The cry of "Live free or die!" is as American as baseball and apple pie, and only the latter is available at all right now. Eventually, I have no choice but to shrug my shoulders and say, "c'est la vie." It's not like I can really control these people anyway.

But here's what I can do: I can prophecy about what your reopening will achieve - and what it won't. It's an easy prophecy to make.

It will guarantee a comeback of viral infections, and guarantee a Trump loss.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that with greater opportunity for viral spread, the greater the actual spread will be. It was never possible to stop the spread entirely, but that wasn't the goal. The goal was to slow it down. Lift the restrictions put in place to slow the virus down, and the viral spread will speed up. That will produce a measurable increase in the number of infections, in the number of verified cases, and, unfortunately, the number of deaths.

The resulting spike in resulting cases and deaths will renew public fears, and cause a backlash. The states that were forced to reopen will suddenly find themselves having to shut back down again. Perhaps by June. And, of course, that means any hope of economic recovery by November becomes a pipe dream.

What excuses will Trump supporters have then? It's not like they'll be able to deny Trump's open call for states to reopen. Hell, he called on his supporters to "LIBERATE!" states with shutdowns. His supporters heeded his call, and protested state capitals, with guns brandished! But a renewed outbreak? In the middle of summer? That will be impossible to refute!

Just as it will be impossible to refute Trump's utter mismanagement of the coronavirus response.

But consider what could happen if Trump supporters comply with the shutdown orders? (They won't, but play along.) What if they settle down, continue to stay home, and the economy doesn't recover as a result of the shutdown continuing?

Why, in that case, they get to blame the entirety of the economic depression on the Democrats. In particular, Democratic state governors. And it might even sell! Trump could cruise to an easy victory, even in the midst of one-fifth of all Americans being out of work.

In other words, if you're a Trump supporter, the best way to ensure his reelection is to stay home!

The one thing we don't know for certain is how far the virus has spread already. But we do know that, when weighed against the overall population, the United States has had fewer of its citizens confirmed to have Covid-19 than most other developed nations. That may be due to the lack of testing to begin with, but it may also be due to the fact that most Americans don't live in New York City, and the viral spread has nowhere to go but upward.

If we enact widespread testing for the antibodies which result from Covid-19, we might get a sense of how many people have been infected so far. That might tell us that many people have already been infected, and that herd immunity is near. If so, my prophecy will be wrong. But if I'm right, and the virus has not spread very far yet, if our efforts to flatten the curve have been successful, then we are on the verge of a new spike in coronavirus cases.


There is a remote chance I might be wrong. But if I'm right, you Trumpers out there are about to fuck yourselves, and your president, big time!

The saddest part is that you will have killed the innocent to do it.


Eric

*

Erickson and Messihi Are Idiots!

Recently, two Doctors operating a free clinic called Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield, CA stepped forward to criticize the mortality rate of Covid-19, saying the numbers indicated that it was no worse than the annual flu. Their video was critiqued by the experts, universally lampooned, and then YouTube removed the video for violation of policy, namely dissemination of false or misleading information. These two were lionized by Dr. Phil McGraw (which should be a red flag for everyone, right there), and conservative media, of course. But were they right? I looked for a table of their data, but couldn't find it. That's because they didn't provide one. So instead I found those few remaining outlets which still offered the video and watched the whole thing through, taking notes. If you want to follow along with me, one of the websites which still shows the video can be found here. Here's what I found:

They're idiots.

Erickson does most of the talking during the press conference which the video shows. He begins by saying that it is right to quarantine the sick, but not right to quarantine the healthy. This is empirically false. Quarantining can both keep a disease in, OR keep a disease out! It is simply, plainly false to say that quarantining should only be done one way to keep a disease in! Prevention is done on both sides!

And this guy is a doctor?

But Erickson was only getting started. He then begins to quote numbers, and I'm pretty good with numbers, so here's where I started writing things down furiously. He points out that 5,213 people in his clinic had tested positive for Covid-19. Of those, 340 tested positive, for a ratio of 6.5%. No problems with the math, there.

He then goes on to point out that there were 33,865 confirmed Covid-19 cases in California, out of 280,900 people tested. That's 12% positive. Still no math errors yet.

It is here that Erickson takes a wild leap. He points out that there are 39.5 million people in California, and extrapolates, based on his 12% positive test rate cited, that there are 4.7 million cases of Covid-19 in California.

That's positively DAFT! With the virus currently spreading, and the population nowhere near reaching herd immunity, in California or anywhere else, it is ridiculous to assume the virus had already spread to 12% of everyone in California at that time! Yes, it's fair to say that many people who did not have symptoms hadn't been tested, and it's also fair to say that because of limited testing, it's impossible to say how far exactly the virus had spread, but calculating 12% of the entire state presumes that the virus spread uniformly, instead of breaking out in "hot spots."

Had Erickson been referring to tests of the antibodies which react to Covid-19, he might have had an argument. Then, he could have said, "X number of people have been confirmed to have the virus already, with Y number of people showing symptoms and Z having died." From there, he could have extrapolated based on population. But he does not do this. He bases his numbers based on those who have been tested so far. With testing limited, that translates almost entirely to people showing symptoms of an illness. It still wouldn't have been 100% accurate, because extrapolating never is, but it would have been closer. Instead, he only takes numbers available from people who had the virus right then and there, and those numbers were provided by the hospitals or clinics which did the testing.

That's a little bit like calculating the average height of people based on measurements taken from players in the NBA.

Then Erickson really goes off the deep end. He takes the extrapolated number, 4.7 million cases of Covid-19, and calculates mortality based on the verified number of Covid-19 deaths, 1,227. This gives him a mortality rate of 0.03% (actually 0.026106). This is ridiculous! He extrapolated the denominator, but not the numerator! He extrapolates, because testing is limited and many people show no symptoms, that 12% of all of California is infected. But by that same logic, he must also factor in that many people who died from Covid-19 were never recorded. Now, that's difficult to fathom, but if one uses the same extrapolation technique Erickson applied, then out of 4.7 million cases in California, we should expect a mortality figure of 170,290. That's a lot more than 1,227!

Let's re-do Erickson's calculations using today's numbers to illustrate what went wrong. Erickson did his calculations and announced them back on April 22. Today's date is May 5th. During that two-week span of time, the number of confirmed cases in California has increased to 54,937, and the number of deaths has nearly doubled to 22,254. The number of people tested is spotty, but the L.A. times reports it as 747,874 people tested so far. That's 7.3% positive. Extrapolate from this against the overall population of California, like Erickson did, and we get 2.9 million Covid-19 cases. 22,254 dead out of 2.9 million is 0.77%! That's still pretty small, but a whole lot bigger than 0.03!

See the problem?

Erickson's tests at his own clinic showed a positive test percentage of 6.5%, 340 positives out of 5,215 people. Suppose he had presumed his own clinic's numbers to be more accurate than California's numbers and used those? These would have given him a mortality rate of 0.05%. Still pretty low, but bigger than 0.05.

What Erickson did was deliberately go with the calculation which would give him the largest possible denominator, while ignoring and/or minimizing the numerator! There's only one way to describe that: politics got put before science!

In the video, Erickson goes on to do the exact same mistake with New York's numbers. Here, one of the reporters couldn't keep quiet any more, and pointed out that such extrapolations probably wouldn't be accurate. Erickson's reaction is to brush off the reporter's concerns and keep right on going. He does the same deliberate miscalculation on New York's numbers, getting an absurdly low percentage (garbage in, garbage out), and then does the same thing with the numbers nationally.

Even the reporters knew more about math than this guy!

One does not need to be a math genius to see the errors, here. One would expect medical doctors wouldn't make a math error this basic. But really, many medical professionals don't bother much after trigonometry, and forget about certain things in favor of learning the names of various medications, memorizing anatomical nomenclature, learning about protein folding and polysaccharide chains... It is literally drinking from a fire hose. Some basic math is bound to fall by the wayside.

When we start getting some testing numbers in for the antibodies relating to Covid-19, and get some measure of how many people have truly been infected with this disease already, we can revisit Erickson's calculations and get a more accurate figure.

In the meantime, I wouldn't visit their clinic in Bakersfield if my life depended on it!


Eric

*

Broker The Convention! (Tara Reade Revisited)

This is a retraction, and an apology.

In my blog post from April 30th, I made the case that Joe Biden was neither forgiven, nor forgivable, merely "passable."

I am now downgrading Joe to "lesser of two evils." And I am openly calling upon the DNC to oust Biden from the ticket, and hold a brokered convention this fall.

What changed my mind?

My own philosophy of following through, and of being open to all the evidence no matter where it leads. As such, I followed through on my research from April 30, and went back to listen to Tara Reade's account of events as she described them on the Katie Halper podcast back in March. It wasn't enough for me to take other people's analysis of what Tara said, I had to hear it for myself. I encourage all of you out there to do the same. You can do so here.

After overcoming Soundcloud's horrible technical problems (it's a bad venue to host a podcast, avoid it at all costs if you want to do a show), I was (finally!) able to listen to the entire interview. I found Tara Reade's account to be thorough, and believable.

Two things from Reade's account stood out to me, and debunked two pieces of evidence I had based my prior conclusion upon. The first was her immediate supervisor, whose name was bleeped out on the Katie Halper show. But Reade repeatedly said that this person was a "she." That, logically, could only mean Marianne Baker, Joe Biden's executive assistant at the time. Biden simply had no other female managers on staff that fit Reade's description. One of the reasons I was dubious about Reade's story was Marianne Baker's insistence that she didn't recall hearing any complaints about sexual harassment from Reade at the time. It was comforting to me that a woman opposed Reade's claims. But according to Tara, when she tried to tell her female supervisor about the sexual harassment incident, she was stopped. The supervisor held up her hand, as if she knew where the conversation was going, and said she didn't want to hear anything more about the details! This not only establishes that this sort of thing had happened in Biden's office before, but that this supervisor knew enough to give herself plausible deniability later on! If I'm right, and this supervisor was indeed Marianne Baker (and who else could it be?), then Baker had an out to be able to say, truthfully, that she did not recall hearing any complaints from Tara Reade. Well of course she didn't! Because she stopped Tara from telling her! This transforms Marianne Baker from a reliable female witness against Reade into a possible co-conspirator, and outright enabler for Biden.

The other piece of evidence was the complaint that Reade filed with the Senate Personnel Office. I took it as a solid piece of evidence that the document could not be found there, and that Tara Reade hadn't kept a copy for herself. But going by her testimony, in the office culture she faced at the time, early 90's, she had every expectation to not be taken seriously in her complaint. She had already been rebuffed by all her superiors, and, after working her way up the chain of command as per protocol, finally filed the complaint pessimistically. She expected the document to be ignored, and therefore didn't keep a copy for herself - she'd already been psychologically beaten down by this point. That's an understandable mistake for a young, 22 year-old woman to make, especially given the climate towards sexual harassment at the time. Furthermore, it was beyond easy for Biden's office to pull a string or two in the old-boy-network and simply make the document disappear in the Senate Personnel Office, or possibly even beyond that. It was wrong of me to presume that missing document to be as weighty a piece of evidence against her as I'd thought. I'd forgotten the old adage, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." It's not evidence of presence, either, but the evidence of presence comes from other sources, including Tara and seven other women with similar complaints.

I also screwed up on my assumptions regarding the timing of Reade's testimony. I assumed she was coming forward because Bernie Sanders was in trouble. But it's equally likely that she came forward because Joe Biden was suddenly a viable candidate again. Biden was so unlikely a victor in the Democratic Primary that it took everyone by surprise when most other candidates bowed out and endorsed Biden between his victory in South Carolina and the following Super Tuesday. It wasn't necessary to come forward if Biden was just going to lose anyway. But then, suddenly, Biden had a miracle comeback! The stakes became much higher, and coming forward became less of an option, and more of a necessary duty.

Reade's account of the "gym bag incident," had a few details which impressed upon me. The first was Joe's remark towards the end of the actual assault, where he said something to the effect of, "I thought you liked me." This implies that Joe was taken with Tara, thought he had a shot, and made a move on her. When she apparently didn't reciprocate romantically, he acted surprised. The second thing which impressed upon me was her account of his anger afterwards. "You're nothing to me!" he shouted at her. After the incident, Tara said, it was that remark, of "being nothing," that injured her more than the incident itself. That's not the sort of thing one simply makes up. The third thing that stood out was her recounting how Joe calmed down afterward. He put his hands on her shoulders and said, "You're fine. You're fine." Based on everything we know of Joe Biden, that's exactly the sort of thing he might say in such a situation. He would want to smooth things over - even though he knew he probably couldn't. It's just the sort of detail that doesn't seem concocted, and rings true as genuine.

I said from the beginning that I believed Reade's initial account. Now I know a little bit more about the background, and the whole story rings true. I do believe that Biden mistook Reade's naturally sunny personality and disposition as flirtation. It happens all too often, especially in the workplace. When Joe made a move, and didn't quite get the response he expected, it all backfired on him, and he reacted first with anger, and then reeled his anger back in. It's a story that makes sense to me, and doesn't come into conflict with my impressions of Joe Biden as a person.

But what about the big detail? Did Joe Biden "digitally penetrate" Tara? It still seems out of character for Joe, to my impression, but that's hardly conclusive. The scenarios I can imagine where it does make sense involve how Tara may have actually felt about Biden at first, and it's not fair for me to speculate about that. But one thing is certain with me: it almost doesn't matter. Enough of Tara Reade's story is true that Biden cannot be our nominee going into November. Even if Tara added that little "detail" to her story just to equate her old boss with Trump as much as possible and damage him politically, the bulk of her story rings true, and that's all we need.

I had said previously that Joe Biden is no Brett Kavanaugh. I hold to that conclusion for one simple reason: Biden backed off! Kavanaugh, according to Blasey Ford, did not, and would have followed through on his rape attempt had he been able to get Ford's one-piece swimsuit, which she'd been wearing underneath her clothes, off of her. Donald Trump is also not the type who backs off, based on everything we know about him and his accusers.

That's the real difference between men like Joe Biden, or Al Franken, or Garrison Keillor, and men like Donald Trump, or Harvey Weinstein. The Bidens and Frankens of the world back off after crossing the line. Even if they don't apologize, or give a non-apology apology, they back off! Men like Trump or Weinstein cross the line, make their bed on that side of the line, and then shit on the bed after they're done!

That's the real reason I'll gladly vote for Biden over Trump, if I'm left with no other choice.

But I'll not do so happily. Biden is not our ideal candidate. He's slipping mentally, and it's getting rather obvious. Even if he manages to hold his marbles together past November, how long will he be able to afterwards? It's a good bet he won't last four years, in my opinion. This horse is too old to hitch a wagon to anymore.

In the long run, it might not even matter. Biden's critics took a huge hit this weekend. Biden strongly refuted Reade's claims on Morning Joe last Friday, and allegations regarding Eva Murray (Christine O'Donnel's niece) turned out to be proven false. Fox News seems to have backed off on the Tara Reade story somewhat as a result. Biden is not to be underestimated. He led the entire Democratic pack of candidates nearly the entire time. His poll numbers hovered around 29% consistently and never dipped below 16%, even at his lowest point following his loss in New Hampshire. And if he beats Donald Trump in November, it will certainly help to beat Trumpism - which is the real goal. But let's not pretend that Trump fans are not chomping at the bit to see Biden on the debate stage with Trump. They're looking forward to seeing Biden stumbling over his own words and forgetting things as Trump assails him with his lies and hyper-confident hyperbole.

So let's broker the convention! I don't know who will emerge from such a fracas as the new candidate, but it won't be anywhere nearly as bad as handsy Uncle Joe, and that will do just fine. It can't be Bernie Sanders, because a segment of the Democratic block won't vote for him, and a unified ticket is imperative. But Bernie should certainly be in the smoke-filled room that decides on Biden's replacement! It should probably be a woman to undo the damage to the "me too" movement all this has caused, and should be an African-American to smooth over the bruised feelings within the black vote - seeing as how it was they who made Joe the nominee in South Carolina. That might mean Kamala Harris is the pick, or it could mean someone more off the beaten path, like Ayanna Pressley (Democratic Congresswoman from Boston, Mass., and member of "The Squad"). But whoever it is, it will be a better choice overall.

My apologies to all my readers, and my apologies to Tara Reade.

I offer no apologies to the broken nomination process, the voters of South Carolina, or the other candidates who dropped out way too early.


Eric

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Covid-19 Graphs, Part 3

What exactly is the mortality rate of Covid-19? It's hard to tell with so much information (and misinformation) out there. So, having all the data on hand from the last four charts I put together, I thought I'd try to shed some light on what the actual mortality rate might be from this virus. The main problem is, there's so much contradictory data, it's hard to get a true bead on what the actual death rate is.

Check this out:

This graph is based off of the same April 27 totals I used in my previous two blog posts along this subject. As you can see, the numbers per country are all over the place! Perhaps the most surprising number is France, with an 18.35% mortality rate. How on Earth could France, a country with access to high quality health-care, have a mortality rate that high? My speculation is that the virus got into the Islamic slums which are scattered throughout France. These areas have been the subject of some controversy over the last 20 years, as the Muslims who live there have been rendered second-class citizens by a French culture which very strongly prizes its secular heritage, and strongly looks down upon any religion, much less religious extremism. (Je suis Charlie!) As such, once the virus hit those poor and secluded areas, the death toll shot way up, in spite of France's high-quality health care and strong welfare state. I will have to do some further investigations in order to confirm this, but that is my current hypothesis. Italy's high mortality rate is easily explained by the outbreak happening so quickly, and overwhelming their medical infrastructure. In other words, if you let the virus loose and doctors get overwhelmed, the death rate goes way up. That's understandable, as doctors can only do so much. Spain had a similar situation. The U.K. decided it would not oppose the virus at first to let its population achieve herd immunity on its own. Sweden tried the same approach, and it seems to have worked there, but the U.K. has a much larger population with a much higher density of city dwellers. The approach didn't work at all for the U.K., and so its mortality rate skyrocketed to 13.56%, topping even Italy. As such, the U.K. reversed course and began quarantines and social distancing. Boris Johnson finally learned the hard way about Covid-19 when he tested positive and (good for him) recovered.

Why did Sweden's approach work? Well, it only did, somewhat. In terms of spreading the virus, it did so almost as rapidly as Spain and Italy at first. It even spread the virus faster than the U.K. originally! From that standpoint, Sweden's approach was a dismal failure, as I pointed out in my previous blog post. But Sweden's population is very low, and social distancing is already a condition of living in Sweden, with homes widely spaced apart, and cold weather forcing inhabitants to stay indoors most of the time. Quarantines didn't need to be imposed - they were already a Swedish way of life. That, combined with Sweden's excellent government-run healthcare system, kept the death rate very low in that country.

Those countries which show mortality rates in the mid-range areas include the U.S. (5.68%), Germany (3.71%), Iran (6.31%), and China (5.51%). What could be going on, there? In the U.S. and China both, the government initially denied that there was a problem, and only moved quickly to address it after it was clearly too late. That this resulted in almost identical mortality rates in both countries should serve as an important lesson to us. The mortality rate could have been much lower, had the U.S., or China, acted quickly upon initial reports regarding the virus. Hospitals have been overwhelmed in both countries, but only in certain areas; Wuhan in China, and New York in the United States. Germany acted responsibly, for the most part, and kept its mortality down a little better, but still recorded a mortality rate of 3.71%, due to high population density, and an open-border policy within all members of the E.U. It's reasonable to say that the U.S. could have achieved at least a similar number, if it had acted as responsibly as Germany did. If it had, the U.S. could have saved 19,041 lives!

What about those countries which tested low? These nations are Australia, Iceland, Japan, Russia, Singapore, and Sweden. What do they all have in common? Primarily it a combination of having highly managed or very sparse populations, and high quality of health care. In the case of Russia we must consider that they have been falsifying their numbers to show lower mortality. Australia actually had one of the highest infection rates, yet its mortality rate turned out to be quite low. Again, only high-quality health care could explain this. Japan has not only high-quality government-run health care, but also a culture of cleanliness which, frankly, New York City sorely lacks. South Korea tracked the virus using cell phone data and quarantined those areas which were identified as hot-spots. Civil libertarians might object to this based on privacy grounds, but which would you rather have: the corporations having our private data, as we do here in the U.S., or the government having our private data, as South Korea has? Either option makes people uncomfortable, but if there is to be restrictions imposed in any case, either through state-wide quarantine orders, or through governmental data-mining, isn't the better option to have the data-mining? (I'd rather give the data to Uncle Sam than Jeff Bezos any day! But that's just me.) Iceland's health-care is specifically geared to respiratory ailments due to the island's volcanism. Singapore did a strict track-and-sequester approach, similar to South Korea. Sweden, as we've noted, didn't do so well as far as the spread of the virus goes, but its mortality rate turned out to be low, again thanks to citizens having fine government-run health care.

So, it would seem that high-quality of health care matters, and matters a lot! We might be able to keep mortality rates relatively low, if our hospitals could handle the volume of Covid-19 cases. So far, our lock-downs and quarantines are achieving this, except in states with no such orders, such as South Dakota. That ought to be a lesson to us all.

In previous postings, both here and on social media, I have given a mortality rate of about 2%. Given the mortality rates we are seeing in most other countries, 2% is quite conservative. But that still means that anyone who contracts the virus has a 1-in-50 chance of dying from it! If you were handed a bowl of skittles, and told that 1 in 50 were poisoned, you probably would not eat a single one!

And that, my friends, is the point of the quarantine.


Eric

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