The Russians claim that the Chinese didn't unleash the coronavirus on the world on purpose, but accidentally.
I may or may not believe that, but here's the problem TODAY.
Just last week, China locked down the city of Harbin. You've never heard of Harbin? Harbin's population is slightly smaller than Wuhan or New York City. It is also China's 15th largest city. Why haven't you heard of Harbin before today? Because you've got your own problems in your own American City. In my city, there's a cluster of 60 confirmed coronavirus patients at the local nursing home at the edge of town. As right-wingers across the fruited plain choose to be exposed to the coronavirus over the prospect of economic distress, Pontius Trump has washed his hands of the situation and handed the decision to re-open back to the states. Trump desperately wants to be re-elected in the Fall and is grasping at solutions that HE believes will get him re-elected.
But guess what? There will be a second spike of illnesses and the U.S. is going to sprint past the 100,000 dead mark by the beginning of June. I, frankly, am stunned at how fast 50,000 people have died and Coronavirus "Truthers" continue to flood the internet that opening the country is the best economic option. Their take is that 98% of people who get coronavirus will live and they'll let the odds play out in their favor. That is some cold, cold math.
In China, though, there is no debate. Xi Jinping doesn't listen to doctors. He doesn't listen to scientists. He's not constrained by the Chinese Constitution. He does what's best for XI Jinping and keeping power for the Communist Party. The lockdowns have prevented the coronavirus' spread in China, but have also solidified power for the communists.
So let me be specific, Xi Jinping allowed the coronavirus to escape to America. The Russians say accidentally, I think on purpose, but either way it happened. No matter which case is true, you can't put the toothpaste back into its container, the virus is loose. Xi Jinping, it will be found out in a generation or so, used the virus to silence his critics and to consolidate power in his own country, consequences to the rest of the world be damned.
But what you're also going to find out is that much of what you know now will be twisted in the near future. How do I figure? It's happening right now.
The Italians still don't know how many people died from coronavirus. They have an idea, but they've also noticed that other death rates have spiked over the same period as last year. Right now, Americans are awakening to the same possibility in this country: US Deaths Soared in the Early Weeks of the Pandemic. The problem with using straight death rates is that the American Left screams "everyone is dying of coronavirus." Then the right screams "not everyone dies of the coronavirus. Open up our country."
Then Idiot Bill Gates jumps on his soapbox and defends China's response. You know who else is defending China's response? China. Notice this little dog-and-pony show video from China. Have you figured out yet why a Chinese Propaganda video is in English and not in Chinese?
As Harbin is locked down, look for the coronavirus to continue to burn through America and then re-infect China. You know what will happen then? You guessed it, China will blame America for re-introducing the virus to the Chinese People. Xi will stand in front of crowds of Chinese Nationals (ironically) yelling "America did not control the coronavirus."
Most of the world's most powerful people are now not about fighting the virus, but trying to assign blame and to move their own personal agendas. One of the most stark examples of this is the news channel The Blaze. Now that the coronavirus is here, The Blaze beats the drum louder than anyone that it's time to open up America. They doubt the scientific curves, they say it's time to get back to work, and mental health is suffering due to stay-at-home orders. But above all, they scream of the economic distress caused to ordinary citizens.
Which is funny, because for the last 5 years, there is no large news organization that has tried to move the Pro-Life Agenda more aggressively than Glenn Beck's vehicle. (I'm not speculating, you can ask him yourself.) But some arguments of pro-choicers include that women want to focus on their career, women's mental health, but above all, people complain of the economic distress that a baby will cause the mother.
Hmmm. Why would Glenn Beck want to sacrifice the old and poor but save the cute young babies? Because his philosophy closely echos the Prosperity Gospel.
The Blaze is playing the Coronavirus Game to advance the ideas of Preachers such as Joel Osteen. But it's not just The Blaze, CNN uses the coronavirus to play the Trump Sucks Game EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Hell, I'm guilty of it too. As a free speech site, if I could push 1 agenda driven idea because of the coronavirus, I would re-introduce the Ocasio-Cortez/Hunt 2019 Wage Fairness Act. For those who don't want to click on the link, it is basically the MAXIMUM WAGE.
You just scoffed at me that the maximum wage won't work. Listen, long story short, a mandatory fixed number just won't work. What you need is a ratio and the ratio I've proposed is 100 to 1 (easy math). No one in a corporation or government job can make make more than 100 times more than the lowest wage earner in the same company.
Let's say you invented a magical machine that was hand held and made from common wood and had simple rocks on the inside. Every time you held the contraption, you achieved inner peace. You made these contraptions in your basement and sold them for $10,000 each on the internet. The number of employees you have is zero. You worked day and night, working your fingers to the bone, and then you made millions of dollars. Your maximum wage would be ∞.
Let's say you invented a magical machine that was hand held and made from common wood and had simple rocks on the inside. Every time you held the contraption, you achieved inner peace. You made these contraptions in your basement and sold them for $10,000 each on the internet.
But working your fingers to the bone isn't really your thing. so you hired 10 people to make the contraptions and now you're the "Big Picture Guy." All of your workers make minimum wage, that comes out to around $20,000 a year, so your maximum wage in that company would be $2,000,000 a year.
Let's say you invented a magical machine that was hand held and made from common wood and had simple rocks on the inside. Every time you held the contraption, you achieved inner peace. You made these contraptions in your basement and sold them for $10,000 each on the internet. But soon, you just tired of work, but you'd also like to make as much money as humanly possible, so you hired 10 people to make the contraptions, in Bangladesh, and now you're an "International Entrepreneur." All of your workers make minimum wage, in Bangladesh, and that comes out to around $1,200 a year, so your new maximum wage in that company would be $120,000 a year.
The maximum wage would affect less than 1% of the population, but what it would do is to prevent the mega-rich from compounding money in order to use it as a bully pulpit. Somehow the richest of the rich want you to keep working at WalMart during a pandemic and are only concerned about worker safety when they are GUILTED into being concerned about worker safety. You know who I'm sick of hearing from during the epidemic? Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet.... and yes, Donald Trump. The maximum wage would reinforce the "we're in this together" attitude. You're screaming at me that I'm a socialist? You, my friend, are bad at ratios.
Institutions as varied as the L.A. Lakers, Princeton University, and Disneyland crying poor is insulting. You know who's getting the screws? The little guys.
John Salter's Full Blast Arcade was a small arcade at the OTHER edge of town, (on the opposite end of the road from the aforementioned Nursing Home.) I had just gone there about 2 months ago with a friend and we chatted how the arcade was really struggling. When the stay-at-home orders hit, John Salter announced he was closing the arcade almost immediately. Within a week that store front was cleaned out. I don't even know if the story hit the local papers.
Last year, I told myself that one day Beacon of Speech would be successful and I'd do a webcast from the Full Blast Arcade, it would be fun.
Today Beacon of Speech hangs on by a thread and institutions like cleveland.com are
asking for $10 a month digital subscriptions.
The 178 year old Cleveland Plain Dealer laid off most of their remaining staff in April as their digital arm cleveland.com begged for money.
The President of Advance Publications is Donald Newhouse. Advance Publications owns a number of newspapers across America, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer. As of last week.
Donald Newhouse was worth over $12 Billion.
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