Democrats Will Sabotage Your 401(K) Today. Federal Reserve Tries to Salvage Things.
It's not the virus causing the problems in market turmoil today. It is the Democrats.
One sad bit of housekeeping out of the way — we have canceled our family vacation. We were going to Hilton Head to stay in a house. But we do think it would be irresponsible as the President urges everyone to stay home for us to go off, even if we sheltered in place there. Likewise, I just can’t in good conscience abandon my radio listeners right now. If I went to the beach, I’d feel obligated to work from there. I may take off Friday because I really do need a break. But otherwise, it’ll be work, work, work.
Also, I hate to keep saying this, but please encourage people to subscribe to this email. It’s just $7.00 a month or $70.00 a year.
Now onto the important news of the day. Before you get to the bottom, ask yourself what you aren’t hearing a lot about these days. There’s one thing.
The Fed Steps In
I’m adding this portion as the sun rises further. The Federal Reserve has just stepped in to avoid the markets tanking. The Senate Democrats, as you can see below, were perfectly happy to let the market tank. But the Federal Reserve this morning is working to make sure that does not happen. The Fed just announced debt buybacks and extensions of credit to calm the markets.
This is a grown-up act and a pretty major intervention by the Federal Reserve that should hopefully calm markets. Overnight, the markets had suspended the futures market because things were tanking so badly after the Democrats scuttled the stimulus package. Now, hopefully, we can see the markets go up or at least not crash so terribly.
Senate Democrats would tank the markets today
Last week the press blasted the GOP for this. Will they blast the Democrats today? Dick Durbin negotiated the bill, then voted to keep a filibuster going after Pelosi demanded changes. We will learn a lot about media bias today as the media covers what happened last night. If we go back a week, House Democrats rushed out a stimulus plan that was several hundred pages long and gave everyone less than 12 hours to review it. The media then attacked Senate Republicans for waiting 48 hours before passing it.
Here, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have been negotiating this package and suddenly the Democrats turned against it. Why? Because Nancy Pelosi flew back to Washington to announce she had her own plans.
Should the markets go down today, the Democrats will have a sizable portion of the blame. But I don’t expect the media to blame them. Back in 2008, when President Bush produced the TARP plan to bail out banks during the financial crisis, reporters savaged conservative Republicans for slowing the plan down. Some of those same reporters are around now and it will be instructive to see how they react to Democrats filibustering a plan they themselves helped negotiate.
Pieces of bills — comprehensive bills are bad ideas
The best solution to all of this, of course, is a piecemeal approach. Lobbyists hate those because it is far harder to hide stuff in small packages. But the House and Senate should do this. Take each piece and pass as a stand-alone bill. Keep the legislation rolling. Make it easier to understand and harder to fill full of gifts for various donors and constituencies. In fact, that is one reason Pelosi wants the current plan scrapped. She wants a student loan forgiveness program. These people are not serious, but the media is playing for a team.
In fact, the media’s willingness to routinely play for the Democrats is one reason so many Americans just simply do not believe anything the press says. If the media wants to rebuild trust, a whole lot of reporters need to stop being Democratic Party whores. If you want an example of what I’m talking about, witness the evolution of the New York Times’s headline for a single story:
The Drug Cocktail
Doctors in Europe have been saying for a week that a drug combination of the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic Azithromycin seems to work to reduce and cure COVID-19 infections. President Trump has touted it and suggested it be administered to patients. But the FDA experts and Dr. Fauci have wanted clinical trials. The response from the press has been to bash the President and ridicule him for suggesting the combination of drugs should be pushed out. Bloomberg News went so far as to run a fear article claiming that hydroxychloroquine is fatal. Well, it is at 2 grams, but at the doses prescribed by doctors, it is not. But Trump Derangement Syndrome is so poisonous, Bloomberg ran that ridiculous article to get the President.
Now, in New York, the drug combination is going to be administered to patients starting Tuesday. I won’t hold my breath for the media to bash Governor Andrew Cuomo for pushing this. The media is so invested in playing tit for tat bashing games with President Trump they completely undermine their own ability to get stories out. The fact that doctors in Europe (and South Korea) have been suggesting this should have been a way for the media to explore American healthcare bureaucracy. After all, it is the FDA that bungled initial restrictions on testing, not the President. Instead and predictably, instead of examining our healthcare bureaucracy, the press decided to bash the President. Now Andrew Cuomo is doing as the President suggested and the media is silent. The only difference is the party with which Cuomo is affiliated.
A Total Random Aside
This is not an ad, just a recommendation — if you love coffee as much as I do, consider a subscription to Moustache Coffee. My wife and I have had it for several years after trying several of these sorts of things. We haven’t changed. They have great variety and roast fresh then ship. Check them out here. Seriously, not an ad, I just really like them and it’s something not related to the virus.
Still need that jubilee
Congress truly needs to consider a modified jubilee. People need to be given a few months’ respite from paying their loans and credit card payments. Let everyone defer for three months without penalties and interest. Just adjust the payments by extending them three months if they are on a fixed plan or just deal with it if it is a credit card. People need to free up resources right now. Frankly, people should also be given the option of suspending payments to their 401(K) plans or even borrowing without penalty or interest from their 401(K) plans. Let people control their own destinies.
Balance of Experts
One of the interesting things happening right now is the balance of expert opinion. Health care experts want the whole country on lockdown. Economists want people back to work. The measure of our leadership is our leaders balancing between the concerns of both. Right now, healthcare experts are calling most of the shots because the virus needs to be contained. But people are only going to be quarantined or so long. Pretty soon, the economists and business leaders are going to want everyone back to work. The business of America is business and staying home reduces business. That is not good.
Already a bunch of Republicans are starting to spread around stuff that suggests the viral spread and casualty rate are not so bad. Those things are being thoroughly rebutted by expert epidemiologists, etc. but each share fans the flames that this is no big deal. That is one of my many frustrations in all of this. I have been telling people for months that this was a big deal and they needed to get ready. I have been a minority voice on the right. I’m already seeing people on the right say this is all overblown.
The irony here is that if we do everything we are supposed to and we contain the spread of the virus, many voices on the right will use our actions as proof it was all overblown in the first place. There will be a lot of my colleagues having to answer some tough questions on the day of judgment. Lying and spreading half-truths and fear to capitalize on a people who hate the press is part of grift within the conservative movement that is poisoning people. There is so much the media should answer for because the media has gotten so much wrong and been so partisan. But having irresponsible voices on the right out there now still claiming this is all a media scam is terrible to witness and makes me ashamed for them.
Frankly, and not to put too fine a point on it, claiming to be pro-life while also saying it’s no big deal if a bunch of people die so long as we’re making money is not really a pro-life position. We need to minimize the viral spread and that means we each have to sacrifice. We are seeing a bunch of supposed Christians more concerned with the almighty dollar than for those created in the image and likeness of the almighty. It is sad and shameful.
Twitter v Facebook
I want you to note something that is not generating outrage on the left. The Chinese communist party and the information ministry of China are using Twitter to spread disinformation about the virus. On a daily basis, the propaganda masters of China are on Twitter telling people that the United States is to blame for the virus. There are very few Democrats complaining.
Facebook is the one tech giant that refuses to do business in China. It has no Chinese operations. Twitter is blocked in China, but would desperately love to be there. In 2016, Democrats blamed and savaged Facebook for Russians spreading misinformation on their platform. It turns out it was not a significant amount of misinformation, but there was some. Democrats, to this day, are attacking Facebook. But they are awfully silent about what Twitter is doing.
It is not a coincidence that Facebook has increasingly treated conservatives and progressives the same — mostly being hands-off and allowing all political speech. Twitter, on the other hand, is increasingly antagonist towards conservatives and conservative values.
Two-year unlimited charitable tax deduction
This is a brilliant suggestion from the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. They are advocating for a universal charitable deduction for the next two years. Under the proposed plan, the ERLC proposes giving individuals and businesses an unlimited charitable deduction for two years. Right now, nonprofits are being hit hard by the economic impact of the viral spread. Allowing Americans to give to nonprofits and deduct 100% of the giving over the next two years is a great way to help non-profits.
Congress should act on this plan immediately and get it done.
That Thing We Aren’t Hearing A Lot About
Y’all, I have tried. I really have tried to find the information. I’ve looked at the World Health Organization website. I’ve looked at the CDC website. I’ve looked at the National Institutes of Health website. But I can only find information on how this virus is impacting men and women. I have no data at all on how it is impacting the other 57 genders.
Notice we are hearing very little about that. Turns out that when serious times hit, these topics go away, which suggests they never were serious topics for serious people. In some corners, however, you can find remnants. For example, while everyone is talking about this Wuhan virus and the impact of COVID-19 on the healthcare system, the Atlantic has found time to demand more diversity among those who write crossword puzzles.
That’s right friends. With everything happening today that needs covering, someone decided the crossword puzzles of the world have too many men writing them. Be assured the brilliant minds of the media are focused on the important things that matter.
Actually, considering how quickly people have dropped the transgender crusades, if I were in that group I supposed I’d be a bit offended how quickly the mainstream media was willing to drop coverage of my pet crusade.
We should use this time to acknowledge the media’s willingness to abandon this particular cultural crusade is an admission against interest that no one really was interested except a very loud contingent on social media. Even COVID-19 can stop Drag Queen Story Hour at your local library.
One last point — Planned Parenthood is still open in California. If COVID-19 manages to shut down Planned Parenthood, the virus will have saved more lives than it has taken.
Your last paragraph needs to become a meme. As it is, it's goin to become my early morning Facebook post.
Two other things are/may be symptomatic of Corona virus: diarrhea, and loss of sense of smell. Saw this is two different newspapers today and yesterday.