In a sense I’m overwhelmed with material so it should all be very easy. On the other hand it’s as depressing as Heck and my Therapist was expressing her concern. You know, I don’t even get paid. I do it for me and my Art and the presumptive audience who appreciates a little consistency. Nothing to see here, everything is under control. Situation normal. We’re fine. We’re all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?
Luke?
Where to start? We’re #1! We’re #1!
United States sets worldwide record for the most COVID-19 deaths in a single day
By Agence France-Presse, Raw Story
April 11, 2020
The United States became the first country to report more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day, marking a grim milestone as huge swathes of the globe celebrated the Easter holiday weekend under lockdown from home.
The global death toll from the virus surged past 103,000, with the United States quickly becoming the epicentre of the pandemic that first emerged in China late last year.
Europe has so far shouldered the majority of all deaths and infections — though there were signs of hope the curve could be starting to flatten in some of the hardest-hit countries.
…
With 18,849 dead, Italy has the highest global death toll, but is likely to soon be surpassed by the United States.On Friday, the US reported 2,108 new deaths, the highest daily toll out of any country since the outbreak was first reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December.
With more than half a million reported infections, the United States already has more coronavirus cases than anywhere else in the world.
The global infection rate now stands at more than 1.7 million, though with many countries only testing the most serious cases the real numbers are believed to be higher.
But President Donald Trump said that with the US infection trajectory “near the peak” and social distancing working well, he was considering ways to re-open the world’s biggest economy as soon as possible.
He acknowledged the risk of higher death tolls if businesses restart too soon — even as the World Health Organization cautioned countries against lifting lockdown measures too quickly.
“But you know what? Staying at home leads to death also,” Trump said, pointing to the massive economic suffering for millions of Americans.
It is unclear when that will be possible to end the lockdown, with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo saying millions in the state — the hardest hit in the US — will have to be tested before it can reopen.
…
The pandemic has shaken the global economy, and the International Monetary Fund — which has $1 trillion in lending capacity — said it was responding to calls from 90 countries for emergency financing.It said this week the world now faces the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
G20 energy ministers, meanwhile, pledged to work together to ensure oil market stability after major oil producers agreed to cut output.
A dramatic slump in oil demand, worsened by a Saudi-Russia price war, has sent prices crashing to near two-decade lows in recent weeks.
Well, how’s that going?
Oil Prices: Trump Promotes OPEC, Russia Deal On Output As Mexico Offers Support
By Wesley Dockery, International Business Times
04/11/20
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), along with partner countries such as Russia, have agreed to boost oil prices by cutting as much as 10 million barrels a day in production. President Trump has promoted the deal, as it will safeguard the U.S. shale industry.
Mexico was initially skeptical of the agreement, with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hesitant to cut production levels. But Obrador decided to support the deal, as the U.S. will compensate for Mexico in the near term.
“The United States will help Mexico along and they’ll reimburse us sometime at later date when they’re prepared to do so,” Trump said at a White House press briefing Friday.
Mexico wanted to only cut production by 100,000 barrels a day but OPEC wanted Mexico to contribute more. The U.S. agreed to cut 250,000 to 300,000 barrels to fill the gap.
It’s really an empty gesture. It respresents production that is Uneconomic at this price (WTI @ $23.19). And we want to raise Oil prices anyways so our good buddies and Campaign Contributors in in the Carbon Extraction Industry don’t go broke. Kinda. The wealthy always leave a million or two stashed away and you can pawn your Rolex if you must.
So that was Saturday, maybe they mean it this time. I’ve seen conservative estimates of 30% Unemployment and a 15% decline in GDP.
If you feel inclined to point fingers I can suggest a direction. This is the big New York Times piece everyone’s been talking about and will be talking about later today.
He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
By Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, Mark Mazzetti, and Julian E. Barnes, The New York Times
April 11, 2020
“Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”
A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives — Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation’s public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action.
“You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools,” he wrote to the group, which called itself “Red Dawn,” an inside joke based on the 1984 movie about a band of Americans trying to save the country after a foreign invasion. “Now I’m screaming, close the colleges and universities.”
His was hardly a lone voice. Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.
…
When Mr. Trump finally agreed in mid-March to recommend social distancing across the country, effectively bringing much of the economy to a halt, he seemed shellshocked and deflated to some of his closest associates. One described him as “subdued” and “baffled” by how the crisis had played out. An economy that he had wagered his re-election on was suddenly in shambles.He only regained his swagger, the associate said, from conducting his daily White House briefings, at which he often seeks to rewrite the history of the past several months. He declared at one point that he “felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” and insisted at another that he had to be a “cheerleader for the country,” as if that explained why he failed to prepare the public for what was coming.
…
There were key turning points along the way, opportunities for Mr. Trump to get ahead of the virus rather than just chase it. There were internal debates that presented him with stark choices, and moments when he could have chosen to ask deeper questions and learn more. How he handled them may shape his re-election campaign. They will certainly shape his legacy.
Well, enough of that. They go on to list them but it’s big and tedious because it’s stuff I already knew since I was paying attention.
I’m told what makes people on the Autism Spectrum miserable is that they notice too much and need to deal with the information overload.
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