Coop Scoop #13 3/27 The Two Trillion Dollar Band-Aid Edition

The $2 Trillion Band-Aid Edition

Issue #13
March 27, 2020
coopscoopnews@gmail.com

The only really good news this week was that Seattle’s flagship NPR station stopped live airing of Donald Trump’s daily carnival propaganda “briefing” and that certain employees of CNN and MSNBC are demanding their networks do the same. See NYU’s Jay Rosen dazzling essay on why the media MUST change its posture toward Trump—or better said – against Trump.

The President of the United States continues to be the single greatest source of misinformation and disinformation in the U.S. regarding covid-19. And the broadcast media continues to enable this daily folly as there are high ratings for this slow motion televised train crash. Those ratings also reflect a real hunger by the American people to find out what the fuck is going on and what the fuck they should do. Good luck!

The failure of the Trump administration to provide any daily rational and HONEST guidance about this pandemic, let alone fashion and reveal some sort – any sort—of coordinated national strategy is beyond criminal. There are simply no words.

Exactly one month ago there were 15 cases in the U.S. and the Idiot President said that within a few days there would be no more. Well, 30 days later there are a 90,000 cases in the U.S. and a half million globally – and rising. Refrigerated trucks are storing the corpses at New York hospitals and health workers are wearing trash bags in lieu of missing protective equipment. Testing is free. So are 50,000 dollar bills, if you can find one.
Somehow, this towering dope went from this being a hoax, to a mild cold, to being a “Chinese flu,” to a national emergency to a national emergency that will miraculously evaporate the Day of Resurrection (2 weeks from now) to GodKnowsWhat tomorrow

The stone cold facts are that Trump and his family and college senior advisors don’t know a god-damn thing about pandemics, don’t care to listen much to experts, and are obsessed with one goal only: “start the economy up ASAP” so Donald Trump can be re-elected. Any lie, any distortion, any twisting of facts are all fair in this war on truth. Period. End of story.

I cannot begin to explain how or why a full 50% of Americans think this guy is doing a good job. First person who can answer that wins a gallon of hand sanitizer.

Ahhh… but you say… congress has just forked over $2.2 trillion in a “relief package” better known in the Real World as the globe’s most expensive and insufficient Band-Aid.

Yes, it’s very good that SOME workers, not all, will receive 4 months of bolstered unemployment. It’s also good that Sarah Nelson, the militant leader of the flight attendants union, pressured Democrats to tie at least a few tenuous strings to the the bales of cash headed to the airlines to make sure aviation employees get paid first and before the suits pocket the rest of the bailout.

The additional funds allotted to states, cities and hospitals are better than nothing – still grossly insufficient.

The direct cash payments of up to $1200 a person, while desperately needed by millions at the end of the month, is – sorry to say—chickenfeed. It’s about one week’s average salary after this pandemic has been raging for 10 weeks and probably has some MONTHS to go. It’s an insulting, miserly hand out and not a dignified measure of substantial support.

If there were a coordinated national strategy, and if there had been a coordinated NATIONAL shut down, the government should have provided a minimum of $4000 a month per household for the DURATION of the shut down.

This current band-aid will do next to nothing to stopping the avalanche of unemployment, recession, eventual evictions, loss of careers and home foreclosures. ALL of the measures in this bill are very temporary and reflect the government’s refusal to put human life in front of the Hallowed Economy.

The administration, congress and especially the Democratic House had two general options to confront this crisis. Either issue a patchwork bill of the sort approved today, or exploit this tragedy to introduce some serious structural reforms that will provide for people when the crisis is “over” and to mitigate future and inevitable outbreaks of contagion. I don’t expect Trump, McConnell or Pelosi to lead a radical transformation of America’s moth eaten free market “system” but some much stronger reforms could and should be taken. Problem is, unless these steps are taken, America Post-Covid will be the same as America Pre-Covid. Just with a couple hundred thousand fewer Americans and a lingering reluctance to handshake with strangers.

Six months from now – being optimistic—the pandemic will have waned. Unemployment insurance will be running out but many businesses will not be able to rehire. The minimum wage will not have changed. Food stamps will once again start to get shaved, 80 million Americans will still have NO or totally insufficient health care. Paid day care and family leave will still be out of reach for millions. Social Security will still be insufficient for many to live on and investments will be returning next to nothing interest and probably still cratering. Economic inequality will be worse. And I’m not even willing to speculate what will happen, if anything, in November.