All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (13 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[GrandAdmiral]

The cases of positive individuals are getting closer and closer to Trump...

Trump’s national security adviser tests positive for Covid-19 | CNN Politics

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, has tested positive for Covid-19, according to an official familiar with what happened.

www.cnn.com

 

[insidejob]

The cases of positive individuals are getting closer and closer to Trump...

Trump’s national security adviser tests positive for Covid-19 | CNN Politics

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, has tested positive for Covid-19, according to an official familiar with what happened.

www.cnn.com

Highest ranking official to get it so far and supposedly one of the people who actually speaks to Trump on a regular, if not daily, basis. I wonder if he was as anti-mask as Trump is and spread it across the upper echelons of the administration.

 

[insidejob]

This is real life.

 

[superchuck500]

The new GOP coronavirus package literally encourages people to go out to eat and visit other entertainment venues.

 

[TraumaRN]

Interesting article about the virus and politics
==============
The countries that top the rankings of COVID-19 deaths globally are not necessarily the poorest, the richest or even the most densely populated. But they do have one thing in common: They are led by populist, mold-breaking leaders.

Populism in politics means pushing policies that are popular with “the people,” not the elites and the experts. The United States’ Donald Trump, Britain’s Boris Johnson and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, as well as India’s Narendra Modi and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, have surged to power in democratic countries, challenging the old order by promising social benefits to the masses and rejecting the establishment.

But it turns out that when it comes to battling a new disease like COVID-19, the disruptive policies of populists are faring poorly compared to liberal democratic models in countries like Germany, France and Iceland in Europe, or South Korea and Japan in Asia.

Academics have been fretting about whether liberal democracy — the political system that helped defeat fascism in World War II, set up international institutions like the World Health Organization and seemed to have triumphed in the Cold War three decades ago — can muster the stuff to take on the new populism and address complex 21st-century challenges.

COVID-19 has crystallized that dilemma.

“This is a public health crisis that requires expertise and science to resolve. Populists by nature ... have a disdain for experts and science that are seen as part of the establishment,” says Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank. He was discussing Brazil, where at least 81,000 people have died............

In struggle against pandemic, populist leaders fare poorly

The countries that top the rankings of COVID-19 deaths globally are not necessarily the poorest, the richest or even the most densely populated.

apnews.com

The problem is bigger than "populism", although the my rights and forget about you is certainly a big part of the American mask issue and England Brexit issue. Every movement happens for a reason. England and America HAVE been taken advantage of. We have paid more than our fair share for countries who have not contributed the same amounts of GDP. The World Health Organization was NOT transparent, did enable China. We did not manage immigration well among a host of issues. It's like race, we let it fester and it is coming home to roost.

What starts for one reason continues for a different one...The folks you mention are leaders but not. They have egos unwilling to yield to people who know more than they do. I was just talking to my husband about a stock holding, and disagreeing a bit. He told me his thoughts (CFP), but also smirked a little, I would not dispute ventilator modes with you (CCRN nurse). He knows his limits, I know mine, Trump does not have an area that he is not confident he has all the answers to. Boris Johnson backed it up, but he too was unwilling to yield to science. Brazil, don't get me started.

And covid silver lining: People are learning just b/c you call something a hoax does not mean it is. Read an article on WHY some folks became never Trumpers. A woman said basically "once I figured out the virus was real I wondered what else he lied about". Normally lies do not catch up DURING an election cycle (think global warming). Will seeing the science while imperfect as this is NOVEL, new, unknown, never seen, no data making it by the minute kinda thing, change people's scepticism of it when it turns out they were right? It feel's like we have gone back to the world is flat sometimes?

I don't expect lay people to sift through it like we might, but what about you don't do this for a living, and Trump does not even read let alone do this for a living, does the average person who believes him not get? That is some real arrogance to me.

 

[efil4]

The new GOP coronavirus package literally encourages people to go out to eat and visit other entertainment venues.

I read 100% deduction for money spent.

I'm just curious because since the tax cut, you would have to spend a hefty penny to exceed the current standard deduction and make it worth it.

Now, what I'm really curious is how strict will IRS be in regards to auditing the folks that do this.

 

[superchuck500]

I read 100% deduction for money spent.

I'm just curious because since the tax cut, you would have to spend a hefty penny to exceed the current standard deduction and make it worth it.

Now, what I'm really curious is how strict will IRS be in regards to auditing the folks that do this.

I think the corporate filers are the bigger fish here.

 

[wardorican]

I read 100% deduction for money spent.

I'm just curious because since the tax cut, you would have to spend a hefty penny to exceed the current standard deduction and make it worth it.

Now, what I'm really curious is how strict will IRS be in regards to auditing the folks that do this.

I think it is for businesses. A few years back, they changed the tax reimbursement for companies for when an employee gets a meal while on a company trip, vs taking out a client. Some companies like Google could no longer expense the 'snacks' they provided for their employees.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

The new GOP coronavirus package literally encourages people to go out to eat and visit other entertainment venues.

So, during a pandemic, the federal government's stimulus response to encourage more human to human interaction? Yeah, we're screwed.

 

[TraumaRN]

This is real life.

Do you know how dangerous this is? There are people who believe this stuff, likely not here.

 

[Eeyore]

POTUS is tested "multiple times per day"

I doubt that he's going through the giant q-tip test. Are they taking saliva samples from his sippy cup?

 

[TraumaRN]

I think it is for businesses. A few years back, they changed the tax reimbursement for companies for when an employee gets a meal while on a company trip, vs taking out a client. Some companies like Google could no longer expense the 'snacks' they provided for their employees.

My husband is a CFP. They changed meals and entertainment deductions. Used to be able to write off taking someone to a football game...They stopped it. Meals have still been 50% deductible with some changes.

New Tax Rules for Deducting Meals for Businesses

New tax rules eliminate entertainment expenses, change some meal deductions for businesses. Follow this guide on how these rules affect your business.

www.thebalancesmb.com

.

So if we do a client event we can write off the food but not the DJ for example.

 

[RobF]

England and America HAVE been taken advantage of. We have paid more than our fair share for countries who have not contributed the same amounts of GDP.

I agree with most of your post @TraumaRN, but I'd dispute a couple of points. On this one, that's how it's been portrayed, particularly by nationalists, but contributing a greater share of GDP as a wealthy developed nation is what should happen. Not even just altruistically; we're in a position to do so, and it benefits us. Health is a global issue.

The World Health Organization was NOT transparent, did enable China.

And while that's true to an extent, practically speaking, it's a pretty limited extent. Because even with that being the case, via China and the WHO we still had more than enough information to recognise the seriousness of the situation well before we had epidemics in our own nations and to take far more substantial and earlier action that we did. That we failed to do so is on us, not China or the WHO.

 

[TraumaRN]

I agree with most of your post @TraumaRN, but I'd dispute a couple of points. On this one, that's how it's been portrayed, particularly by nationalists, but contributing a greater share of GDP as a wealthy developed nation is what should happen. Not even just altruistically; we're in a position to do so, and it benefits us. Health is a global issue.


And while that's true to an extent, practically speaking, it's a pretty limited extent. Because even with that being the case, via China and the WHO we still had more than enough information to recognise the seriousness of the situation well before we had epidemics in our own nations and to take far more substantial and earlier action that we did. That we failed to do so is on us, not China or the WHO.

In terms of GDP, I expect nothing from third world countries. I am talking specifically about Germany. Covid is on Trump, period. But the WHO being biased with the most dangerous country on earth, when they are not transparent is a problem. It has always been predicted that a coronavirus pandemic would come from China for myriad reasons. He is wrong on a lot, but the intellectual property theft is a bigger issue than most Americans realize. And really this makes it bare that our supply chains were not diverse enough. Having said that if you freeze out the biggest economy in the world there will be real economic consequences, and the China war is about to get ugly no matter who is in office. If just due to Hong Kong.

 

[insidejob]

Anyone see this graph showing the data for positive tests once the CDC stopped handling tests and turned it over to HHS? There's apparently a magically flattened curve. Immediately.

 

[RobF]

In terms of GDP, I expect nothing from third world countries. I am talking specifically about Germany.

Germany? I'm not sure I follow. Germany is the fifth largest contributor to the WHO (https://open.who.int/2018-19/contributors/contributor), providing 5.33% of its funding through to Q4 2019. The USA is the largest contributor, providing 15.18% of the WHO's funding, but the USA has a GDP roughly five times that of Germany. That is, Germany has been contributing a higher proportion of its GDP to the WHO than the USA has, before the recent USA cuts.

Are you maybe thinking of defense spending within NATO countries, rather than WHO contributions?

But the WHO being biased with the most dangerous country on earth, when they are not transparent is a problem.

I think that's overstating it. The WHO is pretty transparent, they publish a lot of data and information. I wouldn't argue that the WHO isn't overly, let's say, diplomatic, frequently refraining from direct criticism even where warranted, but I'd say they have to be. They don't have power to force compliance, and I can see why they'd take the approach of praising China for providing the information they did, with the aim of encouraging further compliance, rather than take a more aggressive stance with the risk of China reducing cooperation as a result.

 

[Farb]

So, did we definitely prove that Trump said the virus itself was a hoax and didn't exist? He actually said there was not virus or did he say the reaction to the virus was a hoax?

 

[efil4]

So, did we definitely prove that Trump said the virus itself was a hoax and didn't exist? He actually said there was not virus or did he say the reaction to the virus was a hoax?

how can one hoax a reaction? you mean fake a reaction?

Personally what i think he meant was the severity of COVID was the HOAX.

Unfortunately, over 147,000 obviously disagree.

And yet another example of how his lack of empathy and understanding defines his ability to be POTUS.