Things That Make You Go Hmmm-9/8/20

A few random observations about Covid-19 and its effects that make you go hmmmm.

USA vs. Europe New Daily Cases

One of the constants about Covid-19 from the beginning is that when experts have told us something there is a good chance it will soon be proven wrong.

For example, it was not long ago that we were told that Europe had shown us how to manage and contain the virus.

This is the headline from The Denver Post exactly one month ago.

However, daily cases in the United States are now about half what they were a month ago while cases in Europe have tripled or more over the same time span. The result is that new daily cases in Europe have recently been running higher than in the United States.

Spain and France are now seeing more new cases than they did in March and April. The good news is that deaths, as we have seen in the United States, are not following the case trend.

Have you seen this reported anywhere in the mainstream media?

Unemployment

One thing that has surprised me is how quickly jobs gains have returned in the wake of the economic lockdowns. There is a long way to go but we were clearly very fortunate that the economy was so strong when the pandemic hit.

In fact, it is almost hard to believe that the unemployment rate in August, 2020 at 8.4% is almost the same as it was in August, 2012 (8.1%).

If you follow the mainstream media you would also not realize that President Donald Trump now has a higher approval rating (51%) than President Obama did at the same point in his Presidency according to the Rasmussen Tracking Poll.

Source: https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/prez_track_sep07

What Is Going To Happen In The Housing Market?

Despite the fairly rapid employment gains, it is clear that many people are living on the edge right now. The Covid-19 economic lockdowns have disproportionately affected those in the bottom half of the income scale. It continues to amaze me why Democrats, who claim they are most concerned about income equality, are so adamant about continuing the economic lockdowns.

In 29 states, 40% or more of renter households are at risk of eviction.

Credit: Bloomberg.com

A Pew survey out this week shows that 52% of young people between the ages of 18-29 are now living with their parents. 

This is the highest level in history.

Source: https://www.thedailyworld.com/news/record-52-of-young-adults-living-with-parents-amid-pandemic/#:~:text=A%20record%2052%25%20of%20Americans,now%20back%20in%20the%20nest. caption

The residential housing market is also showing signs of stress. A surprising statistic is that there are already more home mortgages 60-89 days past due than at any point since 1999. This includes the Great Recession period of 2008-2010 when so many mortgages went into default.

It is not just renters and middle income homeowners who are under stress. High income homeowners are also under strain in that government assistance is not available at the same level as it is for others. This is evidenced by the fact that in June we already were seeing 11.8% of all jumbo loans (generally mortgages of over $500,000) in forbearance. This was more than double what it was just two months before.

If we are to recover from the pandemic we cannot allow the housing market to go into free fall. We saw the compounding effects of that in the 2008-2010 financial crisis. 

Money in the Bank

 

A glimmer of hope for the economy's recovery is the cash savings that has been accumulating in bank accounts since the beginning of the pandemic. This is a result of both government payments under the CARES Act as well as reduced consumer spending.

Deposits in checking accounts increased by $1.5 trillion between April and the end of July.

Credit: Bloomberg.com

Aggregate personal savings soared as there were few places for people to spend money.

Credit: Bloomberg.com

Balances on credit cards also dropped. 

Credit: Bloomberg.com

Look at how all of this translated to excess savings calculated on an annualized basis for the months of April-June.

Credit: Bloomberg.com

What does this tell us?

First, it reveals how interconnected our economy is. The lower half of income earners depend on the spending of the upper half of income earners for the money they live on. If higher earners are not eating out, buying clothes, going to concerts and games. remodeling their house, traveling and spending their money a lot of people don't have jobs. 

The government can try to fill that hole but there are practical limits to doing that. Extra unemployment or a stimulus check can only go so far. 

The reality is that if those higher earners catch a cold, the rest of the economy is going to have pneumonia.

Second, there seems to be a good deal of dry powder in the form of savings and cash to fuel a recovery if we can get past the fear of the pandemic and return to some form of normalcy.

That excess savings could translate to an additional $100 billion or more of consumer spending per month over the next year to spur growth if confidence can be restored.

Percent of Those Home Schooling Has Doubled in One Year

This stat makes you wonder what the public school teachers' unions and public school administrators are thinking? They truly are undoing themselves by opposing the reopening of schools in many parts of the country.

10% of K-12 students are now being home schooled. Their parents have pulled them out of school and have taken over the job themselves.

Will they go back after this school year is over? The answer to that question might mean the loss of billions of dollars in school funding. Once parents get used to the idea it might be difficult to get those students back in a public school classroom.

Source; Gallup

What I found particularly interesting is that more students are now being home schooled than attend both private and parochial schools COMBINED!

Is a Vaccine the Answer?

We still keep hearing that a vaccine is the only way that public confidence is ever going to be restored.

Many politicians have stated that they will not fully open their jurisdictions until a vaccine is available. For example, New York City Mayor DeBlasio has already stated that indoor dining in the city will not be allowed before June 1, 2021 and that assumes a vaccine will available by then. 

If that is the case, how was public confidence restored after the Spanish Flu Pandemic? No vaccine was ever produced against that virus. What about other pandemics in history? How did anything ever get back to normal without vaccines?

There are hundreds of companies seeking to develop a vaccine or other therapeutics. This by itself shows the power of capitalism and the free enterprise system. 

The question remains as to whether any vaccine will be effective and will it be safe so it helps in the near term?

Consider the timetable that it took to develop other major vaccines in use today.

This would suggest it is a tall order to believe that a safe and effective vaccine can be developed for Covid-19 in less than one year. This is even taking account of the fact that some of the work has been leveraged off of previous efforts directed towards a SARS vaccine that was never completed because the virus died out.

I found it interesting that in a recent Barron's article on Covid-19 vaccine development it was stated that 750 investors and 350 biotech and pharmaceutical professionals were recently surveyed and roughly 70% said they would wait at least six months after any emergency use authorization by the FDA approving a Covid-19 vaccine before they would take the vaccine themselves. Many said they would wait a year.

A recent CBS poll found that just 21% of voters say they would get the vaccine as soon as it is possible. That had fallen from 32% in late July.

This suggests to me that the fact that a vaccine is available still does not mean that people are going to be rushing to take it. 

On the other hand, Joe Biden said yesterday that he would take a Covid-19 vaccine tomorrow if it was available and approved by the FDA and CDC.

I am a bit confused as to how President Trump is undermining confidence in the vaccine? Trump has been the person who has pushed the strongest for it and supported its development with billions of federal dollars.

Make no mistake, Biden only said this because his VP pick, Kamala Harris, stated several days ago that she would not trust any vaccine developed under the Trump administration. 

The statement by Harris clearly must not have polled well. Liberals are not known to be anti-vaxxers.

I guess Harris also neglected to consider the thousands and thousands of government doctors and scientists (most of which are Democrats) at the FDA and CDC who are big Democrat and Biden supporters politically. They will ultimately be the ones with the responsibility to determine if it is "safe and effective". It will not be Donald Trump.

I understand why politicians like the idea of talking about a vaccine. It seems like the easiest way to regain public confidence and return to normalcy. It is the simplest message to provide hope to the public.

However, my personal view is that placing faith in a vaccine as the ultimate answer to Covid-19 is a mistake. I have written before that it seems to me that President Trump has been spending too much time listening to Dr. Fauci, Bill Gates and big pharma interests who seem to think that vaccines are the answer to any health issue. In the end, he may regret placing too much emphasis on this "solution".

As I stated in an earlier post , all of this talk about vaccines might actually be holding us back from returning to normal sooner rather than later.

It was recently suggested that people would be more likely to return to normal activities if they thought that a vaccine was not a realistic possibility in the near term. 

Simply stated, people are willing to sacrifice now with the hope that it will end soon with a vaccine. However, if you told people not to count on a vaccine there would be a totally different mindset. People would have to get on with their lives and make the best of it. There would be no other choice.

Throughout history this is what people had to do in dealing with pandemics. It was not possible to close most businesses, shut down schools for months, have colleges only do remote learning, work from home and buy what you need to live online. You did the best you could but you could not stop daily life. Everyone knew that the alternative would be far worse.

Just a few more things that make you go hmmmmmm.

It's Not Over Until One Side Accepts Their Fate

Conflicts and wars do not end until one side accepts their fate.

Peace is not achieved until one side realizes the balance of power is such that it is futile to continue the conflict.

The costs of continuing the conflict are finally determined to be greater than the hope that any benefit is going to be gained.

There are times that both sides come to that conclusion, each accepts their fate, and an uneasy truce is the result.

However, true peace is generally only achieved when one side effectively admits that their cause is lost and ceases putting up a fight.

This was the case with Germany and Japan in World War II and it was the case with the Confederacy in the Civil War. 

In politics, it manifests itself in a little different way. One side becomes effectively marginalized and has limited power when they are on the losing side of a big issue. This was the case with Democrats who opposed the abolition of slavery in the name of states' rights in the 1860's. As a result, Republicans took control of the levers of power in the U.S. Congress and the Democrats lost their central issue based on  the will of the American people.

You can see that in this chart that shows control of the Senate and House from 1855-1933.

The same was true for Republicans as they argued against the expanded use of federal powers beginning with The New Deal. They lost the argument to the American people and were in a period of irrelevancy in Congress for over 60 years.

This is the same chart as above for the period from 1931-present. Democrats were solidly in control for almost all of the years between 1933 and 1996.

However, notice neither party has been able to attain a significant majority of seats in either the House of Senate so as to be considered dominant since 1996. We have been an era of political division that continues to manifest itself in the streets today.

It should also not go unnoticed that both of these crisis periods in American history acted as a catalyst for one party to become dominant with the American voters. One party was judged to be with the mainstream of American voters. The other essentially became irrelevant.

All of this is worth considering as we examine the events going on in the United States right now.

The Biden campaign and Democrats would like for people to believe that if he is elected President that the rioting and upheaval in the streets will end. Biden suggests that he will bring a calming presence that will cause the mayhem to cease.

I don't see that occurring. The facts on the ground do not support that view.

Almost all of the rioting and violence we are seeing is in very liberal, Democrat-run cities.

The mayors in many of these cities have been attacked by the mobs. The mobs have shouted them down, surrounded their personal homes and vandalized their property.

These are politicians who are supposedly "on their side".

I see a Biden and Democrat victory in November making things worse. I see it emboldening these radicals such that they believe their radical views have been vindicated and that the American people support what they are doing.

These radicals are going to believe that a Biden/Democrat win means that they are owed something because they will argue that the win would not have been possible without them.

If Biden and the Democrats try to reign them in I see it backfiring as the radicals simply will not accept that they should not have a significant seat at the table. If you doubt this look again at what is happening in these ultra-liberal cities.

These radicals will see no reason to stand down. After all, in their minds they "won".  They will be a long way from accepting their fate which would result in peace for the rest of us.

As I see it, the only way that we get on a path to ending the conflict is for a decisive Trump and Republican win in November.

This is going to be required for practical thinking Democrats to realize that they have to distance themselves from these radical leftists who want to reform and remake what they see as a deeply evil and flawed country.

This is also going to be required in order for President Trump, the governors in blue states and others to take the necessary and decisive actions to put an end to these insurrections and prosecute those who led and funded them.

Many are wondering why we are not seeing see Biden, the Democrat governors and mayors come out and criticize the rioting and violence being perpetrated by radical Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists?

Democrats refuse to do so simply because they know that if they do it they risk losing a small (<20%) but critical portion of their base of support. 

This puts Democrats in a very tough position. They cannot afford to lose the support of the radical left in their party. However, they also cannot afford to lose any more traditional working class voters. They also have to appease the radicals while trying to convince suburban women that they are really not going to defund the police and allow Antifa and BLM radicals to start storming and threatening suburban neighborhoods.

For example, look at this scene in Rochester, NY where BLM radicals invaded a restaurant, terrorized diners and turned over tables while telling people, "if you don't give us our sh**" over the weekend.

And nary a word from any Democrat condemning this violence.

All of this will put the country in an even tougher position should the Democrats win in November.

If you look again at the charts above the country has shifted more Republican than Democrat over the last 25 years. The 2008 election of Obama and the Democrats gaining control of the House and Senate was an anomaly due to the 2008 financial crisis.  That move to the Democrats was quickly reversed when they tried to govern with a much more liberal platform than they ran on.

This resulted in the enormous gains that the GOP made in subsequent elections and ultimately led to Donald Trump winning the Presidency.

I don't see Trump Republicans going quietly into the night if Biden is elected. The commitment and enthusiasm of this group is too large right now. They will not be willing to surrender the country to the radical Left.

The voters in the country still lean center right. This Gallup survey shows that the number of voters who describe themselves as conservative or moderate outnumber self-described liberals by two to one.

You can also see in this chart from the Pew Research Center that Democrats have gotten much more liberal over the last 20 years. However, those who describe themselves as very liberal are still only 15% of all Democrat voters. Interestingly, this is double what it was in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected.

In the meantime. Democrats who consider themselves conservative or moderate have fled the party.

Is is just a coincidence that the Democrats success at the ballot box has declined as the influence of liberalism has increased in the Democrat party?

You have to also ask yourself if 85% of the county is going to stand by while 15% tries to destroy it?

I believe the only way out out of the mess we are in right now is to send a loud and convincing message to Democrats that they are on the wrong path.

That will only occur with a convincing defeat where they will need to look deeply at what they have brought upon themselves and the country.

How do you have a country with people brazenly breaking the law? Rioting? Calls to defund the police and empty prisons? Open borders, sanctuary cities and no attempt to enforce existing immigration law? 

Society cannot function without law and order.

You may not like the way President Trump behaves. You may not like his tweets. You may not even like some of his policies. 

However, what value do you put on your life, your property, your livelihood and the legacy of this country that you might like to confer on your children and grandchildren for the future?

Democrats need to get back in concert with mainstream America. We can have healthy differences of opinion on policy priorities and solutions and the role government should have in solving problems.

We cannot have lawlessness.

That message needs to be delivered on November 3 and it needs to be delivered strongly.

The radicals, and the Democrat party, have to understand that what we are experiencing has no place in the United States of America. They need to understand in no uncertain terms that the future fate of the Democrat party is in doubt if its leaders continue to ignore the lawlessness.

If the people of the United States fail to hold these people to account, it is the fate of the nation that may be at stake. 

DC Values or American Values?

I find great irony in the fact that there is probably no city in the United States of America that is more removed from the nation at large than those who live in Washington, D.C.

It is almost as if the residents of that city want nothing to do with, and have no respect whatsoever, for the country for which they are the capital city.

Consider the election results in the 2016 Presidential election.

Donald Trump was the choice of the American people in that national election.

Only 4% of the voters in Washington, D.C. voted for President Trump.

Compare those vote results to more authoritarian or totalitarian countries.

Putin only got 77% of the vote in the last Russian election.

Maduro only got 68% of the vote in the last Venezuelan election.

It probably should come as no surprise that the District of Columba recently issued a report recommending the removal, relocation, or contextualization of the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial and a number of federal monuments and buildings in Washington, D.C.

The report also recommended the names on various schools, parks, playgrounds and streets in D.C. be changed if the names of the individuals involved had “key disqualifying histories, including participation in slavery, systemic racism, mistreatment of, or actions that suppressed equality for, persons of color, women and LGBTQ communities and violation of the DC Human Right Act.”

This is the complete list of properties they looked at. There were 153 "persons of concern" that had "disqualifying histories".

Who are some of those 153 persons that D.C. decided had "disqualifying histories"?

George Washington

Thomas Jefferson

Christopher Columbus

Benjamin Franklin

James Monroe

Andrew Jackson

Woodrow Wilson

John Tyler

Zachary Taylor

William Henry Harrison

Francis Scott Key

Alexander Graham Bell

George Mason

I can't help but wonder why they did not also recommend that the name of their city also be changed?After all, why would they allow the name Washington be used at all?

It does not end there either as Columbia is derived from the name of Christopher Columbus. Washington, D.C. is not a good name in the cancel culture we live in today.

All of this merges with a larger narrative that many Leftists use today that the United States of America is inherently flawed and evil because slavery was not explicitly forbidden in its founding documents. The argument follows that all of the Founders, at a minimum, were complicit in supporting the institution of slavery and that everything that follows is forever tainted and illegitimate.

I find it amusing that the primary thing that progressives seem to have that supports their view that the country is inherently flawed is to cite things from 250 years ago. I guess none of the good that the country did over the next 250 years counts? Being the first country in the world to provide power to the people to govern themselves. Providing the highest standard of living to people in the history of the world. Confronting and defeating the axis of evil (Germany and Japan) in WWII. Rebuilding those countries and returning those countries to the citizens after they had been defeated. When has that ever been done in the history of mankind?

It should also be remembered that our Founders inherited the slave system from the British. It was not an invention by our Founders. In fact, a little known fact is that in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson included a provision that attacked slavery and the King's actions in "suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce."

This passage was deleted in the final Declaration that was approved but I think it pretty clearly shows that Jefferson was not aiding in "the construction of institutionalized racism and subjugation of racism" as has been alleged by Leftists.  He was actually attempting to deconstruct it.

Yes, some of the Founders owned slaves but most of those were inherited. Most of our Founders wanted to curtail and find a way out of slavery. That is one of the main reasons that slaves were only counted as 3/5 in census calculations for the number of reps each state got in Congress. It was done to limit the influence of the slave states so they could not expand the practice. It was to put pressure on those states to end the practice. Notice it did not apply to free black citizens. They were fully counted. It only applied to slaves. It was a penalty. 

Why did Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers accede to removing this language in the Declaration of Independence? Quite simply, if they were to be successful in breaking away from Great Britain, and gaining independence, all 13 colonies had to be totally united. Everyone who put their name on the Declaration of Independence was literally putting their life, livelihood and fortune on the line. As Benjamin Franklin famously told those that were assembled to sign the Declaration on July 4, 1776,

"We must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately."

The larger goal of independence from Great Britain took precedence as it was not possible to move forward without all colonies being united on the issue of slavery. Tough compromises are necessary on tough issues. Moving forward allows for a fight for another day. Retaining the status quo accomplished nothing for the cause of freedom in the 1770's---for anyone---colonists or slaves.

Jefferson was later instrumental in making sure there was a ban on slavery in the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 and it was Jefferson who as President initiated the legislation that banned the importation of any more slaves.

Let me put this in context with an analogy that Leftists might understand today.

They believe that fossil fuels are evil. They believe that continuing the use of fossil fuels is going to result in cataclysmic climate change. They argue that this could literally result in the deaths of billions of people around the world.

Progressives would clearly like to ban fossil fuels, but despite having a President like Obama and Democrat majorities in the House and Senate in his first term, it has not been done. Fossil fuels have not even been banned in liberal states like California, New York, Vermont or Hawaii.

Why not? It is just not practical to do it right now. Lights would go out around the nation. Cars would not run. Trucks could not make deliveries. Food production would plummet.  In addition, it would devastate a number of states economically. Do you just write off millions of jobs in Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and other states? 

Our Founders had to balance similar concerns. The record is clear that most were uncomfortable with the practice of slavery they had inherited. However, they had to balance that against other issues and concerns while working to make changes in the future.

Joe Biden's son made millions of dollars on the Board of a fossil fuel company in Ukraine. I am sure that there are plenty of progressives that have oil and gas stocks in their stock or retirement portfolios. Some might have inherited them. Progressives think that burning fossil fuels is going to be the end of the earth. The fact that they profit from them does not make them evil. It is the world they live in today.

Joe Biden was in Pennsylvania this week saying that he has no intention of banning fracking. Of course, several months ago during the Democrat primary campaign he said the exact opposite.

Will the Democrats say that Biden now has a disqualifying history? Of course not. They understand reality and so does he. Biden and the Democrats have a bigger purpose in mind right now. Biden wants to be President and he likely cannot achieve that goal if he does not win Pennsylvania. He is not going to do that by wrecking the economy in that state. 

It was no different with our Founders. They wanted freedom from Great Britain. They were not going to achieve that goal by dividing the colonies at the outset.

There is one difference between the Founders and Biden. They weren't talking out of both sides of their mouth on this issue to the voters. After all, they were trying to get to the point of allowing people to vote and choose their own representatives.

The reality is that all men are imperfect. Jefferson and Washington and our founders inherited a world that was imperfect but they did their best to change it for the better.

Did they make it perfect? No. Were they perfect? No.

However, they made it a whole lot better than it was. They also established a foundation of freedom that endures today. Should that not account for a fair and balanced view of the contributions of Jefferson, Washington and others who founded the United States at great risk and cost to themselves?

The framework they established also provided a model that has provided rights and freedom for billions of other people on this earth that was unheard of before these men made that Declaration in 1776. 

Our Founders were not inherently flawed. They devised a system of government that has survived longer than anything in existence in the world today. Think about it. UK, France, Germany,  China. Russia, Japan are all operating under a different governing system than they were 200 years ago. The USA has endured. These men were flawed? No, they were geniuses.

I don't think we can say the same thing about those who are running the city of Washington, D.C. these days.

Our country has been dealing with a pandemic for six months. Millions of jobs have been lost. Children cannot go to school. Rioters have been roaming the streets of Washington, DC and other cities  intimidating citizens and damaging public and private property.

With all of this going on the leadership of that city considered it a priority to spend time, resources and money "identifying persons of concern whose life stories may have conflicted with the values of the residents of the District of Columbia today"?

What values are those?

It doesn't appear they have much to do with what we used to consider were American values.

Who would ever think that this is a sight that might be endangered?

Credit: MagnoliaBox.com

It actually might be only one election away.

Panic Porn Is In Peril

Over the last several months there have been many who have worked hard to peddle panic porn about Covid-19.

We continue to hear it every day. Newscasts begin with the new daily case counts. We are incessantly told about the death counts. We have started to hear more about the "unknown long-term effects" involving Covid-19. We hear about cases involving college students who have returned to campus and we hear that it is too dangerous to open our schools.

However, the facts increasingly do not fit the narrative. My sense is that this panic porn is in peril. More people are starting to question what they are being told. Are we on the brink of starting to see increasing numbers of people push back on the attempts to control the narrative and control their lives?

Will we see this quote from Charles Mackay's book, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" come full circle?

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” 

Here is an example of the panic porn we were seeing on Twitter in the middle of July. The same narrative was repeated innumerable times in the media.

We were told that we should expect a meteoric rise in deaths in states like Florida and Arizona.

Six weeks later what has occurred?

New cases in Arizona are now below what they were on June 1.

Source: https://covidtracking.com/data/state/arizona

Deaths did not increase. They started falling right after July 18 and today are only about 1/3 the numbers we were seeing at that time.

Source: https://covidtracking.com/data/state/arizona

Hospitalizations in Florida have dropped by 2/3 since that panic porn was published.

Source: https://covidtracking.com/data/state/florida

We were also told that it would be a disaster if schools reopened for in-class instruction.

You might have seen this story about a Covid-19 outbreak in the Cherokee County schools in Georgia shortly after they reopened in early August.

You likely did not see the follow-up report.

Cherokee County schools have 42,000 students.

As of August 28, they had 81 active cases.

They have 5,000 staff members in the school district.

21 active cases almost a month after school reopened.

This data is taken directly from the Cherokee County School District website and is updated every Friday.

Even more interesting is that 43 (34 students, 9 staff) out of the 102 total active cases were cleared to return to school as of Monday, August 31. 

Source: https://www.cherokeek12.net/Content2/casestatusreport

There have been a lot of news stories about the 1,200 University of Alabama students who have tested positive for Covid-19 since classes began last month. 

Source: https://nypost.com/2020/08/30/1200-students-now-infected-with-coronavirus-at-university-of-alabama/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons

However, I have not seen any news reports that have also reported this fact that was in the most recent press release from the Alabama university system.

At this point, no COVID-positive students at UA, UAB or UAH are hospitalized and there is a high overall vacancy rate (70+%) in UA System isolation spaces. 

Panic porn perpetrators have been further put on the defensive with the CDC report issued late last week that showed that only 6% of Covid-19 deaths were attributed solely to the virus. 

This has been falsely interpreted by some to downplay the lethality of Covid-19. In fact, if you think about it, if 6% of deaths have occurred in otherwise healthy individuals with no other contributing factors it shows the virus should not be taken lightly.

However, when you see the entire list of the contributing factors, and the distribution of ages, it is clear that this virus primarily attacks the oldest and most vulnerable among us. On average, there were 2.6 additional contributing factors beyond Covid on the death certificates.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm?fbclid=IwAR3-wrg3tTKK5-9tOHPGAHWFVO3DfslkJ0KsDEPQpWmPbKtp6EsoVV2Qs1Q&_ga=2.53078186.360593399.1598974775-78455626.1597777406#Comorbidities

It is also seems inescapable to me in looking at the data that the Covid-19 death numbers are overstated merely because there is a test to identify the virus in the body. 

For example, over 5,000 of the Covid-19 deaths list a contributing factor as being an accident, poisoning or other adverse event. Over 7,000 death certificates list cancer and over 5,000 list Alzheimer's as contributing factors.

Let's be real here. If someone died in an auto accident, or had a heart attack, and also had a mild case of the flu, the death certificate would not list influenza as a cause of death.

You can see the effect of what has occurred in this chart that @EthicalSkeptic prepared that shows all natural cause deaths (excluding Covid-19) are now far below the averages of the last several years. This indicates that a number of deaths we saw from Covid-19 in April and May were likely fatalities we would have seen in June and July in a normal year. This trend is still playing out in the numbers.

How big is the "testing" effect in all of this?

As I have written before, there are usually less than 1 million tests for the seasonal flu conducted each year in the United States even though it is estimated that there are as many as 36 million flu infections annually. 

Let's put that in context.

We are now conducting almost as many tests for Covid-19 in a single day as we do for the seasonal flu in an entire year.

Almost 80 million Covid-19 tests have now been administered in the United States. That is equal to almost 25% of the national population.

However, the accuracy and validity of those tests are coming under increasing scrutiny.

The New York Times (which has generally been eager to promote panic porn) recently published a story in which it reports that the PCR tests used to identify the virus seems to be vastly overstating the number of truly contagious cases we should be focused on.

Based on an analysis that the Times did of PCR tests in Massachusetts and New York, up to 90%  of people testing positive carried barely any virus and likely were not contagious.

Nevertheless, these people were recorded as confirmed cases, were likely quarantined for at least 14 days and all of their close contacts were told to do the same.

How is this occurring? 

The PCR test amplifies genetic matter from the virus in cycles; the fewer cycles required, the greater the amount of virus, or viral load, in the sample. The greater the viral load, the more likely the patient is to be contagious.

This number of amplification cycles needed to find the virus, called the cycle threshold, is never included in the results sent to doctors and coronavirus patients, although it could tell them how infectious the patients are.

Most PCR tests are using 40 cycles of amplification in their protocols. 

Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left, Dr. Mina said.

The experts that the Times contacted said that nothing more than 30 or 35 cycles should be used with the PCR tests.

Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside. “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive,” she said.

A more reasonable cutoff would be 30 to 35, she added. Dr. Mina said he would set the figure at 30, or even less. Those changes would mean the amount of genetic material in a patient’s sample would have to be 100-fold to 1,000-fold that of the current standard for the test to return a positive result — at least, one worth acting on.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The current PCR test standards are amplifying positive genetic material by 100x-1,000x over what it should be.

What would happen to panic porn if 90% of the daily confirmed Covid-19 cases went away tomorrow?

When The New York Times is asking questions about the testing protocols you know something is amiss.

It also tells me that panic porn is in peril.

I think we are near an inflection point where one by one we will see more people slowly recover their senses and separate from the herd.

Protests have been escalating in Europe against Covid-19 restrictions including the wearing of face masks. Large protests have been held in the UK, Germany, Belgium, France and Spain in the last couple of weeks.

When you see protests begin in the United States, panic porn will no longer be in peril. It will be on its way to perishing. 

The Real Estate Baron

One of the standard narratives the Democrats and mainstream media like to repeat about President Donald Trump is that he became President simply because he wanted to enrich himself.

If that is the case, it is not working out very well for him.

According to Forbes, Trump was worth $4.5 billion in 2015 before he ran for President.

Forbes estimated his net worth at $3.1 billion in 2019. It is undoubtedly worth less right now considering how much of Trump's assets are in New York City and are tied to the hospitality industry and are invested in commercial real estate.

Forbes reports that Trump has dropped from the 156th wealthiest American to 275th since he became President. 

Another narrative that the Democrats and mainstream media like to perpetuate is that they need to see Trump's tax returns because he might be hiding potential conflicts of interest or economic ties with foreign interests (Russians!).

As I have pointed out in the past, a tax return is a very poor vehicle to do this. Trump's personal tax returns would be very limited in understanding his entire financial picture. They would only provide details related to his specific individual items and any sole proprietor income. They would not provide any detail on income, expenses or debt on those things held in partnerships, limited liability companies or corporations. A financial disclosure form is much more informative for someone like Trump who has significant and wide ranging business interests.

All federal executive branch officeholders are required by law to file an annual financial disclosure statement. President Trump recently filed his for the calendar year 2019. It is 78 pages long and provides almost everything anyone would want to know about Trump's financial situation. You can view it yourself here.

Here are Trump's checking and savings accounts and investment in gold (very minimal considering his net worth).

Here are all of Trump's liabilities.

Here is an example of some of Trump's assets and the "income" associated with the assets. Note that what is reported are revenues. This should not be confused with the net income that went into Trump's pockets. These are gross sales before expenses or cost of goods sold. Trump's hotel in DC. grossed over $40 million. If he was lucky, he netted no more than 10% of that.

When it comes to the subject of enriching oneself as President let us now turn to Barack Obama.

When Barack Obama was first elected to the United States Senate in 2004 he was a law professor making $85,000 per year. Forbes did an analysis shortly after he left office of the income of Barack and Michelle Obama made between 2005 and 2016.

Since the Obamas are now private citizens there is no official document that tells us exactly what their income is or how much they are now worth. However, those amounts are surely small potatoes compared to what they are now bringing in.

The International Business Times estimates the Obama's net worth today at $70 million. Obama receives a reported $400,000 per speech. The couple also have a lucrative production deal with Netflix that is reported to be worth $50 million to them. There also must be a number of other revenue inflows that we don't know about.

What we do know is that Barack Obama has become a real estate baron in his own right since he left office. I am not talking about hotels, golf resorts and commercial properties like Donald Trump. I am talking about residential real estate.

Let's look at the houses that Barack and Michell Obama own.

He reportedly still owns the house that he had in Chicago when he first ran for President. Zillow currently values the house at $2.5 million.

They own this house in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C. which they paid $8.1 million for in 2017.

They own this home on Martha's Vineyard which they purchased for $11.75 million in 2019.

Reports surfaced this week that Obama is also in the process of building a home in Hawaii that he will use as a "retirement home". It made news because Obama's front man is reportedly using a planning loophole to circumvent some environmental regulations during the building process. That property cost $8.7 million and that is before the costs of tearing down the house on the property and the costs to be build a compound with three new houses on the tract of land for the use of Obama and visitors.

The building site is famous as being the exterior shot used to represent the mansion in the Magnum PI tv series.

This is the 3-acre site overlooking Waimanalo Bay.

This is the view looking out over the bay.

This is the house that was on the property before it was torn down. $8.7 million before it was torn down? Whoever knew that being a private investigator was such a lucrative business?

Credit: Armando Rossi via The Daily Mail

I am not begrudging Barack Obama for making a lot of money and buying a lot of houses.

However, how is it that Donald Trump is said to be enriching himself as President when he is giving away his entire salary as President and his net worth has decreased by over $1 billion in the last four year and Barack Obama is considered a dedicated and selfless public servant?

Trump is the only President in my lifetime that will undoubtedly have less wealth when he leaves office than when he entered. Contrast that with Obama, Clinton and others who enriched themselves by tens of millions of dollars when they left office. For that matter, compare Trump with Joe Biden after he left the Vice Presidency.

I wrote about what was revealed in the tax returns of Joe Biden earlier this year. This is a guy who became a United Senator at age 30 and spent the 44 years doing nothing other than taking a federal paycheck. His income in the first year he left public service? Over $11 million. Middle class Joe? Seriously? Who really enriched themselves due to holding public office?

Obama, Biden and Clinton's make much of the need to raise taxes and redistribute the wealth.

Obama has said that a lot of the success of those who are better off in our society is due to the American system of education, infrastructure and others who helped them along the way. Therefore, they should be more than willing to pay more in taxes.

 He famously stated in a 2016 speech that "you didn't build that" income and wealth by yourself.

"If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen," 

However, if you think about it, there is no one that argument applies to more than a former public official that goes into the private sector and capitalizes on their name, their contacts and their experience than people like Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Paul Ryan or John Brennan.

In each case, their entire personal career or brand equity has been earned in a public sector job that the American taxpayers paid for. For these people it is really true that "somebody else made that happen." For most politicians, everything that they earn after leaving the public sector would not have occurred but for the taxpayers funding that prior experience.

The Democrats seem to be desperate to raise more in taxes.

My suggestion is that we start first with a surtax on any earnings of former elected or Senate-confirmed executive branch appointments wherein a percentage of post-public sector earned income would be subject to an income tax surcharge.

That surcharge would be equal to 1% for each year of federal service. For example, Biden had 44 years of federal service before he started writing books and giving speeches. Under this proposal he would be subject to a 44% surcharge on this income.

Doesn't it seem fair that the taxpayers should get some return on the investment they made in Joe Biden over the years that allowed him to be so much in demand by the private sector?

After all, "the somebody else that made it happen" were the American taxpayers.

I can't think of anything that would be fairer when it comes to taxes.

I suggested in these pages earlier that Michelle Obama would have been Joe Biden's dream pick for VP. Why didn't that happen?

  

First, there is the question of what a loss to Trump would do to the Obama legacy? Don't think that was not a consideration

However, I also could not see how Michelle would ever agree to be the ticket considering the scrutiny that would mean and the financial loss that would mean for the Obamas. That would mean no Netflix deal. No $400,000 speeches for Barack. No corporate board seats or high-paid consulting gigs.

Owning and maintaining four houses requires a lot of cash flow. What do you think the taxes, insurance, upkeep, utility and maintenance costs are per year on those properties? It has to be at least $1 million per year. That is not easy on a VP's salary---or even a President's pay.

For context, here is what Barack Obama said on the subject of wealth inequality a little over a year ago at a speech in South Africa.

This is the full quote from the speech.

“There’s only so much you can eat. There’s only so big a house you can have. There’s only so many nice trips you can take. I mean, it’s enough.”

Enough for you and me maybe. It is just not enough for a real estate baron like Barack Obama.