2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Kyriakos]

Can't use arrival time, cuz of unexpected local delays. Most will declare a due-by postmark date.

Either way, I fear this will create a massive issue.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I am not sure if the US is actually ready for this election - recall the farce at Iowa.

Oh there's no question that this election is going to be a total **** show.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Is this story correct ? The risk that the SC decides after the election whether the postal votes for Pennsylvania received after Nov 3 would be valid or not ?

Yes, as I've said before, my concern is that this is a signal that SCOTUS is waiting to see if the election is close enough that these few states will decide it. If it is, they may decide to throw the election to Trump.

 

[KaibaCorp]

Did you just compare cheating to sexually assaulting someone and forcing her to risk her career.

Dude, Trump assaulted Stoynoff.

It doesn't affect his ability to be President, insofar as enough Americans want a lying sociopath in office. But don't equate cheating with sexual assault.

And that's the solid one. One sexual assault makes every additional accusation more likely.

Edit: notice that you didn't know about Stoynoff, due to your news sources

Oh I remember hearing about it, and many others. That’s the point, there’s been so many of these now, you said yourself it’s part of the political/famous figure game. Can you share with me why you find so much voracity in it? Why you find it more “solid” than Reade’s accusation of Biden?

 

[Gorbles]

There’s probably some truth to this, I’m no economic expert, but Trump taking office resulted in some historic booms to the economy (both in total counting numbers and in percentages). Check out my link below to The Hill,

Your links are qualified by the links I provided. You're rolling out statistics without context. The links I provided illuminate the context around the figures, and indeed why they can be presented as you're trying to.

 

[Lexicus]

So Bird, the guy calls people deranged and respectfully asks them to consider his view? Same sentence even. That sounds about right. It's not written to the "deranged." That's written to you.

What are you talking about? He doesn't call anyone deranged in that article.

 

[KaibaCorp]

You're the second person today I've heard/read say this.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 23 October 2020 - "Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19, by Age and Race and Ethnicity — United States, January 26–October 3, 2020"

Excess numbers can surely be a sign of under-counting COVID deaths due to non-testing, it’s also probably true many normally-preventable deaths not involving COVID are contributing too. ER visits have been way down:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6923e1.htm
I’m not sure how they’re coming to the conclusion two thirds of all excess deaths are attributed to COVID. Granting that though would put the death rate to... 0.055 percent? All things considered, a massive burst of good news from the initial projected 2% rates at the start of the pandemic.

And then there are other contributions to the current excess deaths:

from ABC:

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the stay-at-home measures and disruptions to daily life that aimed to slow the spread of the virus and save lives led many public health specialists to worry that the nation also could see an uptick in suicides, drug overdoses and domestic violence.

Nine months later, those grim predictions look like they're coming true.

"There is a mental health wave to this pandemic," Dr. Ken Duckworth, chief medical officer of the National Alliance for Mental Illness, told ABC News. "We as a species don't do well with uncertainty."

The pandemic, for many Americans, has exacerbated already-stressful scenarios -- deaths of loved ones, illnesses, loss of income-- according to psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe.

Additionally, stay-at-home orders and school closures -- important actions to prevent virus spread -- created downstream consequences such as social isolation, eroding support networks and additional financial strain.

All of these factors are contributing to more suicides, overdoses and violence, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And specialists warn that this mental health pandemic within the virus pandemic also will disproportionately affect Blacks, Hispanics, the elderly, people of lower socioeconomic status of all races, and health care workers.

age-adjusted suicide rates since 1941. By June, a CDC survey of 5,470 US adults found that one-third reported anxiety or depression symptoms. About 10% said they had considered suicide during the last month, and the rate of suicidal thoughts was highest among unpaid caregivers, essential workers, Hispanic or Black respondents and young adults.

People age 18 to 25 may be the most affected group, Duckworth explained.

"We need to take a look at the age impact," Duckworth added. "In the age where identity is developed, young adults are missing college."

The opioid epidemic, previously considered the greatest public health threat in the U.S., also has worsened since the virus outbreak. After overdose deaths briefly plateaued in 2017 -- stricter regulations of prescription drugs were enacted -- deaths began creeping upward again because of illegal synthetic substitutes like fentanyl.

"We were making some improvement in terms of treatment options for opioid addiction prior to the pandemic," Dr. Harshal Kirane, medical director of Wellbridge Addiction Treatment and Research, told ABC news. "However, there were still major treatment gaps that have worsened now that we have a superimposed pandemic."

More than 40 states have reported increases in opioid-related deaths since then pandemic struck, according to the American Medical Association.

Overdoses -- both fatal and non-fatal -- have increased 20% compared with the same time period in 2019, according to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program.

warns that the pandemic is likely to undermine efforts to end gender-based violence globally, while stay-at-home and social distancing orders may effectively trap the abused with their abusers.

As for the old folks thing: NYT says 38% of all deaths were from old folks in homes. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-nursing-homes.html
From Forbes back in May:

Let that sink in: 42% of all COVID-19 deaths are taking place in facilities that house 0.62% of the U.S. population.

And 42% could be an undercount. States like New York exclude from their nursing home death tallies those who die in a hospital, even if they were originally infected in a long-term care facility. Outside of New York, more than half of all deaths from COVID-19 are of residents in long-term care facilities.

Canada said 81% of their deaths were nursing home related: https://www.mcknights.com/news/81-p...age-global-rates-both-shocking-and-avoidable/

 

[Farm Boy]

Lex, I read it wrong. Thank you.

 

[KaibaCorp]

Your links are qualified by the links I provided. You're rolling out statistics without context. The links I provided illuminate the context around the figures, and indeed why they can be presented as you're trying to.

The link you provided is politifact and a report written by a democratic house member and ex-ambassador to Switzerland under Obama, not exactly non-partisan. Beyer is citing NYT, CBS etc. just like posters here do. The context you are taking about him providing should also come into consideration in this way: percentage growths Obama saw starting from the bottom of the barrel status of the economy he dealt with are different from what Trump has been achieving. For instance, jobs: more jobs were created under Obama because unemployment started much higher, more people needed jobs. Trump has taken a moving labor market and helped it move up another margin. That’s not static, riding-on-coattails stuff, that’s continued improvement. What’s harder, taking the Packers from 1-15 to 8-8? Or taking them from 8-8 to a playoff team?
Wage increases too. Your own source shows it took Obama 4 years to see the type of increase in median household income Trump had in one year (and proceeded to continue to increase). A 5% increase over 8 years v 9.2% in 4 under Trump. Again, this is not static managing of the steering wheel.
No mention of Trump’s 3.2 trillion dollar tax cuts or reduction on business regulations (like allowing small businesses to pool together to provide employees with health insurance, which Obamacare prevented).

 

[Farm Boy]

The pinko football team?

 

[Estebonrober]

The link you provided is politifact and a report written by a democratic house member and ex-ambassador to Switzerland under Obama, not exactly non-partisan. Beyer is citing NYT, CBS etc. just like posters here do. The context you are taking about him providing should also come into consideration in this way: percentage growths Obama saw starting from the bottom of the barrel status of the economy he dealt with are different from what Trump has been achieving. For instance, jobs: more jobs were created under Obama because unemployment started much higher, more people needed jobs. Trump has taken a moving labor market and helped it move up another margin. That’s not static, riding-on-coattails stuff, that’s continued improvement. What’s harder, taking the Packers from 1-15 to 8-8? Or taking them from 8-8 to a playoff team?
Wage increases too. Your own source shows it took Obama 4 years to see the type of increase in median household income Trump had in one year (and proceeded to continue to increase). A 5% increase over 8 years v 9.2% in 4 under Trump. Again, this is not static managing of the steering wheel.
No mention of Trump’s 3.2 trillion dollar tax cuts or reduction on business regulations (like allowing small businesses to pool together to provide employees with health insurance, which Obamacare prevented).

remember guys fact checking is censorship. You are not allowed to use reality to rebuke GOP talking points. It hurts their feelings.

all of this was always Trump carrying on an economy that was good before he took over and injecting nitrous into it. It didn’t need the boost and has further defunded an under funded government.

 

[Gorbles]

The link you provided is politifact and a report written by a democratic house member and ex-ambassador to Switzerland under Obama, not exactly non-partisan. Beyer is citing NYT, CBS etc. just like posters here do.

So you're saying the links I've provided are inaccurate? I don't really care what you think of the sources themselves you see, because that's an irrelevant tangent.

If they're inaccurate and you can demonstrate that, to the level of detail they have provided? Now that's worth something. But only if you can.

 

[Lexicus]

percentage growths Obama saw starting from the bottom of the barrel status of the economy he dealt with are different from what Trump has been achieving

Trump's 33% annualized growth out of the deepest economic trough in US history is actually this, but sure

all of this was always Trump carrying on an economy that was good before he took over and injecting nitrous into it. It didn’t need the boost and has further defunded an under funded government.

Trump didn't boost jack. He took office as the cycle moved into a boom phase, and his tax cuts and so on didn't boost anything, only eroded the foundation of stability even further and set us up for prolonged crisis when things came back down.

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh I remember hearing about it, and many others. That’s the point, there’s been so many of these now, you said yourself it’s part of the political/famous figure game. Can you share with me why you find so much voracity in it? Why you find it more “solid” than Reade’s accusation of Biden?

Yes. There's more evidence for Stoynoff's claim because she luckily, in her distress, did more things to create that evidence.

It's the quality of the evidence. In both scenarios described, it's obviously 'unprovable'. And it's unprovability is convenient to both sexual assaulters and false accusers. You can quickly spiral out any conversations around these lines, based on bias. Any sociopath will hide behind 'unprovability'. But this doesn't mean there's a 50/50 chance that either accuser is correct. The best we have is a balance of evidence.

Stoynoff immediately told people and she immediately changed assignments. That Reade didn't doesn't absolve Biden (it can't), but it means Stoynoff's case is very strong. It tightens her probability cloud more than Reade's

Trump's many other accusers, plus his confession, make additional victims more likely.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Trump's 33% annualized growth out of the deepest economic trough in US history is actually this, but sure


Trump didn't boost jack. He took office as the cycle moved into a boom phase, and his tax cuts and so on didn't boost anything, only eroded the foundation of stability even further and set us up for prolonged crisis when things came back down.

Having actually coached (and played) football, I can say for 100% certain that it is way harder to make a terrible team into a mediocre one than it is to make a mediocre team into a playoff team. You can make it into the playoffs without even improving from mediocre. Mediocre teams make it all the time. The NFC East will almost certainly send an 8-8 team or even one with a losing record to the playoffs this season. So that football analogy fails about as bad as Gurley remembering too late that he wasn't supposed to score a TD last week.

Just looking at the Dow alone, Obama came into office with it at around 8,000 and left with it well over 19,000, nearly tripling it. Conversely, Trump took office with it at 19,000 and actually managed to get it lower than what he started with at one point... right now its around 26,000, which is lower than it was at the beginning of the year. And Republicans have the nerve to call Obama's recovery "sluggish". Its just completely dishonest. Trump has done nothing for the economy but ride Obama's coat-tails, then wreck it. And blaming it on Obama starting with a crashed economy just doesn't cut it. Clinton came in with a Dow around 3,000 and left office with it well over 10,000, so Clinton tripled it as well. Baby Bush took that 10,000 Dow Clinton left him, and crashed it into an 8,000 Dow to turn over to Obama. The reality is that Democrats have been tripling the Dow... Republicans then come in and crash it. ​

 

[Lexicus]

Obama's recovery was sluggish, but not for the reasons Republicans claim it was (and, perhaps not incidentally, it was made more sluggish than it need have been by their obstructionism). I have noticed that partisans of both parties make misleading claims about economics all the time though.

Now, Trump simply has taken over an economy that was on its way toward a boom before coronavirus showed up and kneecapped it.

And Trump is the person more responsible than anyone else on Earth for the pandemic status of the virus....so it's pretty much entirely his fault that the economy cratered so badly.

for reference, this is US GDP:

And now, predictably, his supporters are acting like a large growth after a deep trough - one that, as @Sommerswerd pointed out, brings us not quite where we were before - is some proof of his genius.

Jay is even calling it a v-shaped recession....

 

[Sommerswerd]

Now, Trump simply has taken over an economy that was on its way toward a boom before coronavirus showed up and kneecapped it.

I'm just fed up with this notion that Trump gets to blame the economy on coronavirus. The disastrous situation we are in with coronavirus is his fault. It is a direct result of his incompetence, his malfeasance, his dishonesty, his short-sightedness... The condition of the economy, regardless of underlying factors, is part of his Presidency. I reject out of hand the notion that he gets to excuse himself for the economic mess we are in just because a crisis struck. Some crisis always strikes. Every POTUS has to deal with crisis and the effects on the economy.

Coronavirus didn't kneecap the economy. Trump's incompetence, selfishness, and dishonesty did.

 

[El_Machinae]

So, I think that the economy/coronavirus was an impossible dilemma. Obviously, some regions will perform better than others, but it's hard.

The big difference is the scope of the economic damage. Everyone tells us that 'the wealthy are the risk takers' in order to justify their disproportionate gains during the good times. But if a calamity hits and wealth migrates upwards, then you know they're not actually the risk-takers, they're the feudal lords

 

[Lexicus]

I actually think that if this had happened with Clinton in charge there's a good chance it would have been 'discovered' much earlier, at least treated as a threat much earlier, and the US would hopefully have tried to lead some international cooperation in dealing with the virus in China, before it could spread around the world.
If that had happened the world could look very different now.

Coronavirus didn't kneecap the economy. Trump's incompetence, selfishness, and dishonesty did.

Coronavirus did, with Trump giving it more help than any other person in the world.

So, I think that the economy/coronavirus was an impossible dilemma.

It's a false dilemma.

 

[Farm Boy]

See, if you guys were all still farming you'd know the wealthy being risk takers thing is bull****. The risk has been collateralized and actuarialized out. When the economy drops out, banks take all the acres. The farms don't disappear, it's just that now instead of 20 farms, you have 2 with 10 very experienced hired hands. Recessions are better for the rich than booms.

I actually think that if this had happened with Clinton in charge there's a good chance it would have been 'discovered' much earlier, at least treated as a threat much earlier, and the US would hopefully have tried to lead some international cooperation in dealing with the virus in China, before it could spread around the world.
If that had happened the world could look very different now.

Don't. The president can do many things, but making the PRC suck less is probably well beyond their ability.