Tag Archives: politics

Some Coronavirus Perspective

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To put some perspective on national coronavirus infection levels, I’ve picked out some nations that have been in the news lately.  Coronavirus cases are drawn from Johns Hopkins University as of 14 March, and the population data are from Wikipedia. The per capita normalization is from third grade arithmetic.

I’ve emphasized one nation of particular interest.

Population Coronavirus Cases Per Capita Cases (per 10,000) Deaths Per Cent Deaths per Case
People’s Republic of China 1,427,647,786 80,976 0.56720 3,189 3.93820%
Germany 83,149,300 3,758 0.45196 8 0.21288%
US  328,239,523 2,175 0.06626 47 2.16092%
Japan 126,150,000 725 0.05747 21 2.89655%
Republic of Korea 51,709,098 8,086 1.56375 72 0.89043%
Italy 60,317,546 17,660 2.92784 1,266 7.16874%
Republic of China 23,780,452 53 0.02229 1 1.88679%
Iran 83,183,741 12,729 1.53023 611 4.80006%

Biden and the Sanders Supporters

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In the end game of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s Presidential primary contest—and, yes, at this stage, Party is down to three contestants, with Party’s elite choosing to freeze Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D, HI) out of the contest, she being too willing to speak freely and honestly and too far behind for her axis of approach to counter Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I, VT), the end game is on us—the question arises whether Joe Biden, front runner, can win over Sanders’ supporters, who are every bit as ardent and critically large in number as the NLMSM makes them out to be. Those supporters, after all, will be critical in the general election if Biden is to be electable in the general election.

Here are a couple of critical considerations for that question.

Mr Biden’s agenda is indistinguishable from Mrs Clinton’s and thus anathema to the left Democratic base.

And

he [Biden] has to…persuade them that he’ll bring them to the table and push for a substantial part of their agenda.

This explicit promise, especially, illustrates how strongly Biden stands foursquare against everything that Sanders and his supporters stand for:

Mr Biden recently told MSNBC that he would veto a Medicare for All bill if it crossed his desk.

He can’t, though, move to bring Sanders’ supporters across that gaping chasm. If he makes a credible push for the Left’s agenda, for Sanders’ agenda, he’ll betray his own supporters. That betrayal will demonstrate to both his own supporters and Sanders’ that he cannot be trusted. More broadly, that betrayal will demonstrate to all voters in the general election that he cannot be trusted: he’ll just change his policy positions according to what benefits him personally in the moment.

That stands in sharp contrast with Sanders who, regardless of what anyone might think of his positions and policies, has remained steadfast in those positions and policies, regardless of any fickle political winds.

We’ll get a clue, maybe, in tomorrow’s Progressive-Democratic Party debate in DC.

Currency Swaps and the Federal Reserve’s Role

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The currency swaps, the foreign exchange swaps, discussed here are a lifeline our Federal Reserve Bank system extended to other nations during the Panic of 2008.  The arrangements let foreign central banks exchange their domestic currencies for US dollars in order to increase their domestic liquidity in addition to merely printing more domestic currency units.

The Wall Street Journal thinks the Fed should extend such swaps to more national entities than the few with which we still have such arrangements, under the guise of “that’s what the Fed’s role is.”

I have a couple thoughts on this.

…some folks to forget that financial panics happen, and that’s one reason the Federal Reserve exists.

No, it isn’t. The Fed exists to maintain price stability and full employment. Full stop.

Pricing instabilities might lead into financial panics, and vice versa, but if the Fed sticks to its role—working to maintain/restore price stability rather than reacting to panic itself—the panic will subside in result.

It [the Fed] could extend these swap lines to other countries with markets in tumult like Australia, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

It might—even likely would—be beneficial to extend swap lines to the Republic of China, along with most of the others named. It will do us little good at all to help out an enemy, the People’s Republic of China, for all that we’re presently (too much) entangled with the PRC’s economy. On the contrary, the drag the PRC’s economy represents on our own and those of other nations around the world illustrates clearly the utility of reducing that entanglement and increasing the flexibility of business’ supply chains.

What a Surprise

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Russian sort-of outgoing President Vladimir Putin is maneuvering to stay in office just a tad longer.

As Russia prepares for a sweeping constitutional reform, President Vladimir Putin hinted at running for president once again while addressing lawmakers on Tuesday.
Commenting on the proposal to “remove limits for any person, any citizen, including the current president, and allow for taking part in the election in future” the 67-year-old strongman said such a move would be “possible in principle.”

The Putin proposal has, in fact, passed through his legislature; it now will go to a people’s referendum in April.

For some dictators, staying in office is their only protection. For others, it’s just about the personal power.

A Thought on Joe Biden

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Check out these two videos of a recent interaction between Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden and a constituent in Michigan a couple days ago.

The behaviors in those examples and longer, more contextual versions of it, sadly, aren’t entirely Biden’s fault.

For one thing, much is being made (not necessarily in those two threads) of Biden sticking his finger in the questioner’s face. I disagree: he was pointing, as many of us do, for emphasis and pointing in the direction of the man’s chest without pointing anywhere, or at anything, in particular. It wasn’t until the end that, in his zeal, Biden’s finger came up toward the man’s face.

More importantly, though, as is also being pointed out, that behavior and others like it in the last few weeks, strike me as consistent with, although not by themselves diagnostic of, early stage dementia.

This may be why Biden is being limited (I don’t see him limiting himself) to seven minute speeches (we’ve already seen him tire and visibly fade during 90+ minute debates), few interviews, few interactions of this type, few public appearances at all.

The foolishness and humiliation, though, are the fault of his handlers for continually exposing him and on the part of the Progressive-Democratic Party for letting this charade go on; although at this stage, Party really is limited on what they can do about it.

The best thing that could happen to him now—and best for Party—would be to encourage Sanders to destroy him at the next debate.  Party can’t stop the fight on a TKO, but Sanders can go ahead and knock him out. Of course, a lot of that will be up to the debate moderators and how much they try to protect him.  Biden is wholly incapable of defending himself at this point.

On the other hand, I’m not sure Sanders has it in him to deliver a coup de grâce.