Pierce: The Calls Are Coming From Inside Camp Runamuck

[mcar]

The Calls Are Coming From Inside Camp Runamuck
Somebody let The New York Times know on Monday that the calls for re-opening the country coincide with more dire White House death estimates.


BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
MAY 4, 2020

There are people within Camp Runamuck now who are fairly screaming for someone to, please, for the love of god, do something, you clowns! From The New York Times:

As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750.

My rudimentary math skills tell me that will come to 81,000 more deaths in that time. Which would put the butcher’s bill at somewhere around 150,000, and that’s just assuming the math stays unchanged, which also assumes that idiot governors and their idiot constituents don’t combine to make things worse, which they will, because they will be encouraged to do so by the president*, who seems to be splitting his time pretty evenly between incompetence and self-pity. (Dude, even if you leave aside the fact that Lincoln was, y’know, shot in the head, half the country left when he was elected! We’re stuck with your ass for at least another seven months.) As nearly as I can tell, the honeybees of the world have been more proactive against the murder hornets than this administration* has been against the pandemic.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a32366300/trump-administration-project-3000-daily-coronavirus-deaths/

[JDC]

1. He wants to blame the states for the deaths.

He is that cold and shitty.


*typo fix

[Docreed2003]

21. Exactly...

He's been setting up this exact scenario for weeks.

[live love laugh]

22. That's exactly what RepubLIEclowns are already parroting...

that state governments are “dictators” and “tyrants” to force open the states and later deny fault.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. What's The Big Deal?

It's only people dying. Everybody dies sometime.
Gotta get that economy pretending to look good again!

[mcar]

4. That's right

We old timers should be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Wall Street.

[malaise]

6. No - for the interests of Don the criminally negligent Con

His only interest is maintaining power - and he is going down

[mcar]

9. Yep, it's all about reelection and power

Same with Moscow Mitch.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. A Little Secret

This liberal is a millionaire. They're supposed to care about me.
They don't but they're supposed to.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

24. They're foaming at the mouth to get rid of you. ...

You fail to worship their gods -- Reagan, Koch, trumPutin, and Buchanan.

[ProfessorGAC]

26. I Don't Know What To Say!

I'm sorry?
No, that's not it.
I kind of think it's something that begins with F.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

28. Aha! Flogging for all the inhabitants of Camp Runamuck.

Have to be careful, though. I'm sure some of the members of the GOPer cult are secretly into flagellation.

[Eyeball_Kid]

14. Right now, the Dow is staying artificially high.

Very soon, the Dow will drop off a cliff. It’s been living large because Trump continues with his happy talk. But when the flow of capital gets and stays anemic, the markets will abandon Trumpy and collapse. It’s coming soon.

[ProfessorGAC]

27. Don't Count On That, EK

I believe it will drop some, but the 2 large parts of the CV collapse was profit taking and an overdue correction.
The post tax margin performers of the vast majority of public corporations suggest a valid 3.25 year average annual growth rate of equities of ~8.3%. So from election day 2016 to now, a 30% rise puts us at 24-25,000.
78% of the economy is still in full operation, and 2 sigma plus/minus the median is still 95% employed.
Add in the borrowed money spending and GDP will fall but at expected recessionary rates.
The sheer investment in operating capital in businesses not called airlines justifies, given the status of truly essential businesses, justifies a Dow number of 20,000, at least. The Russell is affected even less. I haven't done the math on S&P, but it's usually affected somewhere between the Dow & Russell.
And, whether we like it or not, people will get fatigued with staying home. The economy will pick up on the consumption side.
Now, mass death is very bad for the economy, but it would take 6.5 million dead to cause a 1.4% contraction.
Investors will not freak out about 1.4%. Those types probably won't freak out about 6.5 million dead either. But, that's a whole different thread.
The tipping point in November isn't about the Dow needing to plummet. The ads write themselves. Last 5 years s of Obama, markets averaged 10.7% per year. Under PINO, 7.7% (come November)
It's already bad. Doesn't need to get worse.

[BComplex]

30. You sound like you know what you're talking about Professor. But the grocery store where I shop

has half empty shelves; empty of bread, juice, dried beans, rice, pasta, and meat. The toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, kleenex, etc has been totally empty since the very first of this shockwave. The milk section is starting to look anemic, too.

There just seems to be this squeeze that makes me feel really uncomfortable. That's kind of at the basis of what propels wall street, no?

[ProfessorGAC]

31. Not Really

Effects on main street take a long time to impact capital markets. The sunk investment is extant. 78% of the country is still working and 90% of big business activities is going on.
I'm not saying there'll be no downward pressure on the markets. But I'm predicting minor.
The store shelf thing seems reasonable. We have no such shortages here. Meat supply is a potential issue, though. Hence the run on beans.

[DemoTex]

19. "Everybody gotta die sometimes, Red." (Sgt Barnes in Platoon)

[napi21]

3. The most frightening line in this post is "stuck with him another 7 months!" Though he does no good

just how much damage can he do in that 7 MONTHS?

[mcar]

5. How many people will die?

How many businesses will close? How many families will become homeless? How many crops will rot in the fields?

It's really terrifying to contemplate.

[rsdsharp]

11. It's closer to nine months.

The election is six months from yesterday. Then we have almost all of November (7), all of December (8), and 2/3rds of January (9) until Inauguration Day.

[napi21]

13. You're right, but, the scariest will be the last 2+ months after he looses in Nov. He will have NO

REASON to hold back on ANYTHING that suits his fancy. no voters to worry about, no opinions to care abiout. He'll be free to be the biggest AH ever!

[rsdsharp]

15. Like Nixon, whose campaign slogan in 1972

was: “If Nixon was the one in ‘68, he’ll be a bigger one in ‘72.”

Well, that’s my story, and I’m stick in’ to it.

[world wide wally]

17. OK...We need a plan.Here is my idea;

We get together about 10 million of our closest friends to surround the White House on Nov 4th. Then we all start shouting, "Get the Fuck Out" until he does.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

25. Is it too late to just abort trumPutin?

[musclecar6]

8. We all know

He doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. Just a modern day Adolph.

[SBoy]

10. His plan along was to run on "his" economy (inherited from Obama)

And now that it’s ground to a halt he needs to to get back up and running. His lack of empathy and narcissism allows him to not give a damn how many people have to die for him to achieve his goal. To me, he should be Impeached again as this is even a higher crime and misdemeanor than the Ukrainian blunder that led to his first Impeachment. A 9/11’s worth of Americans are dying daily.

[Dan]

18. Clarification, the Ukrainian issue

Was not a blunder, but a deliberate attempt to undermine the security of the U.S. with the Ukraine government against a foreign adversary Russia to further his re-election goals.

[GoneOffShore]

12. The best comment on the Esquire FB page - Not entirely insensitive, the Victim-in-Chief demonstrates

Not entirely insensitive, the Victim-in-Chief demonstrates a surprising capacity for deep self-empathy.

[lunatica]

23. Self pity is the best because then you know it's sincere.

My mother used to say that all the time. She had a wonderful wit.

[GoneOffShore]

32. That is freaking amazing - so many good epigrams and so little space.

'He was a self made man who worshiped his creator' - Stephen Fry, 'The Hippopotamus'.

[lunatica]

33. Trump is a walking platitude generator.

He epitomizes epitomes no matter where you turn. His name covers most of the parts of grammar. It’s a proper name noun (Trump), a verb (trumping) and an adjective (trumpian). And history will name his presidency as The Trump Era. An epoch when life as we knew it came to an end, opening the way for a post Trump Renaissance.

[NotHardly]

16. "The call is coming from inside the White House..." legitimate horror movie quote reconfigured

[Roc2020]

20. the death count is starting to become dizzying

the price for neglect by the leaders of this country is breathtaking.

[Cha]

29. KR.. Mahalo for this from Pierce, mcar..