Friday, December 25, 2020
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Trump Didn't Fix The Trade Deficit - He Made It Worse
Donald Trump said he was going to fix the trade deficit the United States had with other countries. But the only tool he tried to use was to impose tariffs on other countries (including China and many of our allies and best trading partners). This did noting to correct the deficit. It only made American consumers pay more for imported goods.
The imports kept coming (even though they cost more), but exports from the United States fell -- especially agricultural goods. Angered by the U.S. tariffs, China (and possibly some others) found new places to buy the goods they needed.
After his four years in office, and a ridiculous trade war, Trump has failed to eliminate the trade deficit. In fact, he hasn't even reduced that deficit. It is larger now than the day he was sworn into office.
The chart above (from Axios.com) illustrates Trump's utter failure to eliminate the trade deficit.
About 803,000 Workers Filed For Unemployment Last Week
The Labor Department released its weekly statistics on Wednesday. It showed that another 803,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits in the wee ending on December 19th. It marks the third week in a row that more than 800,000 filed. Before the Trump recession, filings were less than 300,000.
Here is the official Labor Department announcement:
In the week ending December 19, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 803,000, a decrease of 89,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 7,000 from 885,000 to 892,000. The 4-week moving average was 818,250, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 1,750 from 812,500 to 814,250.
Most Think 2021 Will Be A Better Year
The chart above is from the Morning Consult Poll -- done between December 17th and 20th of a national sample of 2,200 adults, with a 2 point margin of error.
It shows that 77% of the public says 2020 was a worse year than 2019. But 59% of the public has a positive view. They think 2021 is going to be a better year. I hope they are right!
We Have Vaccines For COVID-19 - One For Ignorance Needed
I said should, but it is not a certainty by any means. That's because of a strain of ignorance on both the extreme right and extreme left that could prevent many people from taking the vaccine. That could delay achieving herd immunity by several months.
Here is part of what Max Boot had to say about this in The Washington Post:
The good news is that roughly two-thirds of the country inhabits the land of facts, where information comes from mainstream media. The bad news is that at least one-third live in a la-la-land of “alternative facts” and “fake news,” where the most trusted sources of information are Fox News and Facebook — or, heaven help us, Newsmax and OAN. There is plenty of irrationality on the left, to be sure, but it now appears much more prevalent on the political right, where so many deny both climate change and the coming change of administrations.
There is a vast, unbridgeable chasm that separates the brilliant scientists who came up with the coronavirus vaccines and the ignoramuses who believe that the coronavirus was engineered by Bill Gates to profit from vaccinations, or that it was created as a bioweapon by China, or that it is spread by 5G cell towers, or that it doesn’t actually exist, or that its dangers are vastly exaggerated, or that masks are either useless or harmful in stopping its spread. This pandemic of misinformation helps explain why the United States is among the countries with the highest covid death rates in the world despite having the most sophisticated medical sector.
Now these two nations are on another collision course because of the resistance to taking the coronavirus vaccine. There is an entrenched anti-vaccine movement that falsely claims childhood vaccines, such as the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, cause autism. Proponents are found primarily on the right, under the deceptive banner of “health freedom,” but also among granola leftists who believe in natural remedies and are suspicious of “Big Pharma.” Now you can add to this witches’ brew all of the covid myths, which have been merging online with larger conspiracy theories, such as QAnon.
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently found that 27 percent of those surveyed say they “probably or definitely” won’t get the coronavirus vaccine, even though it has been proved safe and effective. That figure has fallen seven points since September, but it remains dismayingly high. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, estimates that 75 percent to 80 percent of the population will need to be vaccinated to stop the transmission of the disease, achieve “herd immunity” and allow the resumption of business as usual. Getting there will be a struggle.
But even if we achieve that threshold and put covid in the rearview mirror, the resistance to reason among roughly a third of the population will continue to pose a long-term danger to the country. As physician Sanjay Gupta said on CNN: “The vaccine can help save us from the disease, but it can’t save us from ourselves. We must do that.”
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Medical Workers And Teachers Viewed As Being Most Ethical
The chart above is from the Gallup Poll. They surveyed 1,018 adults between December 1st and 17th, and the survey had a 4 point margin of error. The respondents were asked what professions had the most ethical workers. Scoring the highest were nurses, doctors, teachers, and pharmacists. Police officers were the only other group to get a majority (a very slim majority). All other groups were seen as unethical by a majority -- including the clergy. As usual, members of Congress finished dead last.
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