U.S. suffered worst quarterly contraction on record

[Paulos23]

So covid-19 is Trump's fault? Sounds almost like a conspiracy theory......

His response to COVID-19 is. He could have done things that would have protected the country better and we would not have as bad of an economic hit.

But then I don't see what he did to make the economy grow when it was on an upwards trend when he was elected anyway. So if he is going to claim the economy is going up just because he is President, he gets the blame when it goes down if he is still President.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Forgive me Ben Franklin for bastardizing your quote: “Trump who would trade human lives for a good economy deserve neither and will now lose both.”

I will take your quote and actually make it true (even though Ben never said anything remotely like this): "China, which would trade human lives for a good economy, deserves neither and everyone else loses both."

 

[civilwarbuff]

But then I don't see what he did to make the economy grow when it was on an upwards trend when he was elected anyway. So if he is going to claim the economy is going up just because he is President, he gets the blame when it goes down if he is still President.

Glad you believe in alternative facts......

 

[GreatLakes4Ever]

I will take your quote and actually make it true (even though Ben never said anything remotely like this): "China, which would trade human lives for a good economy, deserves neither and everyone else loses both."

True. Trump didn’t have to follow along.

 

[civilwarbuff]

True. Trump didn’t have to follow along.

Well, let's see. China held back reporting the virus to WHO for almost 2 months all the while letting people leave Wuhan province for all parts of the world seeding the pandemic.....but, yeah....OK, it's Trump's fault.

 

[Radagast]

I dunno....smallpox vaccine seems pretty effective....and polio....and MMR....and etc......

For many serious diseases, immunity from a single vaccine dose is indeed limited; we address this by giving multiple "booster doses" over time to give the required level of immunity.

In the US, for example, polio vaccines are given at 2 months, 4 months, 18 months, and 5 years, with additional booster for adults when travelling to high-risk places.

 

[GreatLakes4Ever]

Well, let's see. China held back reporting the virus to WHO for almost 2 months all the while letting people leave Wuhan province for all parts of the world seeding the pandemic.....but, yeah....OK, it's Trump's fault.

Trump did next to nothing for six weeks and has continued to undercut medical professionals. Trump isn’t responsible for China’s mistakes but he is responsible for his own mistakes. And now he is left with the campaign slogan, “You had a job.”

 

[civilwarbuff]

For many serious diseases, immunity from a single vaccine dose is indeed limited; we address this by giving multiple "booster doses" over time to give the required level of immunity.

In the US, for example, polio vaccines are given at 2 months, 4 months, 18 months, and 5 years, with additional booster for adults when travelling to high-risk places.

Just think a little bit here.....Infants and toddlers are very small compared to adults therefore you give them correspondingly small multiple doses over time. As adults most 'boosters' or re-vaccinations are given at far longer intervals (7-10yr).

 

[civilwarbuff]

And now he is left with the campaign slogan, “You had a job.”

Nah, it was the governors who closed businesses down not Trump. He does not have that authority.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Trump did next to nothing for six weeks and has continued to undercut medical professionals.

You mean like when Dr. Fauci stated publicly on TV that masks were of no use in preventing the spread of the virus?.....that undercutting?

 

[Radagast]

Just think a little bit here.....Infants and toddlers are very small compared to adults therefore you give them correspondingly small multiple doses over time. As adults most 'boosters' or re-vaccinations are given at far longer intervals (7-10yr).

But if, for whatever reason, you skip childhood vaccines, adults still need a course of multiple "shots."

To quote from the CDC: "Adults who are traveling to areas with increased risk of polio and who are unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or whose vaccination status is unknown should receive a series of three doses:

• two doses separated by 1 to 2 months, and
• a third dose 6 to 12 months after the second dose.

Adults who completed the polio vaccine series as children and are traveling to areas with increased risk of polio should receive a one-time booster dose of vaccine (IPV)."

 

[civilwarbuff]

Adults who are traveling to areas with increased risk of polio and who are unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or whose vaccination status is unknown should receive a series of three doses:

And only the very ignorant would fall into that category.....not the average individual.....

 

[Radagast]

And only the very ignorant would fall into that category.....not the average individual.....

You miss my point: whether it is adults or children, people need multiple doses of polio vaccine, spread out over time, to get the required level of immunity. It's the same for several other vaccines.

 

[FreeinChrist]

So you recognize the cause but you want to blame Trump anyways.....makes sense in a weird sorta way.....

That is true and well supported by facts if one only makes the effort and takes the time to comprehend them....

And if the economy was so great under Obama (after 8 years) why did the national debt double?

Gee, why did it double under Obama? Really???

Remember the Great Recession which began in the previous administration (Bush)? The one caused by the collapse of the housing bubble and the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007 - 2008?

Remember the two wars started by the previous (Bush) administration? One was warranted because of Osama Bin Ladin and 9/11, but not Iraq.

Remember who inherited a balanced budget with a surplus....and then pushed through two big tax cuts, one before 9/11 and one after? It was Bush...who started two wars.

It is not rocket science. Obama had to deal with a crashing economy in as he became president and it took money to get us out of it. And he couldn't just abandon the wars, but at least HE got Osama Bin Laden.

 

[FreeinChrist]

Trump did next to nothing for six weeks and has continued to undercut medical professionals. Trump isn’t responsible for China’s mistakes but he is responsible for his own mistakes. And now he is left with the campaign slogan, “You had a job.”

Now there are reports that a unified testing plan didn't happen because the initial states affected were blue states:

Kushner's coronavirus team shied away from a national strategy, believing that the virus was hitting Democratic states hardest and that they could blame governors, report says

Members of Jared Kushner's coronavirus task force considered a national-scale testing plan early in the US's coronavirus outbreak.

However, according to a new Vanity Fair report, the plan never came to be, partly because the task force thought it would be better politically to hold off.

The logic, a source told Vanity Fair, was that the virus would hit Democratic-voting areas hardest and that the damage could be blamed on governors instead.


​

So besides pretending it would just magically go away, and holding back on enacting the Defense Production act, it looks like a national testing plan went poof because the virus was hitting blue states first.

I had strongly suspected that Trump's lack of seriousness in Feb. - March was because it was hitting blue states and not red.
Now it is red states and they are being hit bad.

 

[Pommer]

He allowed states to have to compete against each other for ventilators, this raising prices, rather than using the purchasing power of the federal government to lower prices.

I seem to recall stories of FEMA commandeering PPE, selling it to the private sector, and then having the states bid for the goods. Why involve the private sector at all?
Why the extra layer of costs?

 

[FreeinChrist]

I seem to recall stories of FEMA commandeering PPE, selling it to the private sector, and then having the states bid for the goods. Why in love the private sector at all?
Why the extra layer of costs?

I read that some of that happened too. How crazy! They should have bought all they could and sent it to the places in need or charged only what they paid.

But hey, initially it was blue states that had the problem so perhaps the Trump administration wanted to make it painful??

 

[Pommer]

That's some pretty convenient windowing of the data there. Your Fox article was published on Feb 17. The S&P500 peaked for the year on Feb 19 with a value of 3386.15, then proceeded on a month-long crash, bottoming out on Mar 23 with a value of 2237.40, for an overall decline (from the peak) of 33.9%. It's value at the time I'm writing this is 3247.60, so it's recovered most of its losses over the last four months, but it's still down 4.1% from that peak. It's closing value on election day (which is a silly benchmark, but okay) was 2139.56, which means that in the 936 trading days he's been in office, it's gone up 51.8%.

Going back 936 trading days before the 2016 election would bring us to 2/22/2013, on which the S&P500 had a closing value of 1515.60. Over that span of time, it rose 41.1%. Sure, that's still lower than Trump over the same length of time, but not as big as your article presents. Moving the cutoff date to inauguration day moves it another couple points in Obama's favor.

Additionally, Obama’s last fiscal year ended September 30th, 2017.

 

[wing2000]

You mean like when Dr. Fauci stated publicly on TV that masks were of no use in preventing the spread of the virus?.....that undercutting?

Citation?

 

[childeye 2]

Almost every country in the world went to shutdowns whether they followed the 'playbook' or not. New virus=new rules for combating it....

Of course every virus is different. The playbook acknowledged that in it's conception. It outlined a series of questions that should be asked and answered about the virus, and there were steps to be taken depending on the answers. It therefore was a comprehensive work product. As such, mandatory shutdowns and stay at home orders were not excluded from the hypothetical scenarios. Nonetheless it's rather common sense that testing and PPE are priorities from the start for any country to have a chance of containing a contagion. The experts testimony to congress and everywhere in the media talked about this many times.

Moreover, those countries who did well in their responses, had the unified cooperation from their citizens. The commitment to stay at home orders greatly reduced the chance of spread so that those who were infected could be found and isolated. That's what requires testing and tracking, and there's no way around that. Once the cases started showing up in low numbers, which could reasonably happen over a period of only a month, they would then able to loosen the restrictions while the testing and tracking remained in place keeping the spread at a manageable level. I personally believe that's the best strategy, and the quicker you do it the better.