(04-29-2020, 12:03 AM)Labster Wrote:

myself, last thread, two weeks earlier Wrote:Since Trump never actually ordered anything closed, he can't order anything back open.

Unless...

And this is crazy town...

So in 2007, Congress in their wisdom decided to give the President the authority to invoke martial law in states and take direct control of their National Guard without the consent of the governors. It has to be a situation in which a right enumerated in the Constitution where the governor cannot or will not enforce that right. So, freedom of assembly? Prohibiting the free exercise of religion? Stopping the right to bear arms by closing gun stores? I think the legal right is probably there. Martial law has been used in the U.S. in the past to get people to return to work, like in the SF dockworkers strike.

The only downside to this idea is starting a civil war in the middle of a pandemic, so there is that.

Welcome to crazy town, folks!  AG Barr says state orders for containing COVID-19 may violate Constitution.  So here's our Attorney General trying to lay the groundwork for this, in a move that is classic Barr.  Does Trump want him to to this?  Probably not, or maybe only some days of the week.  But dollars to donuts AG Barr has the same crackpot idea I had *and* he also thinks it's a good idea.

And in terms of the strikebreaking idea, Trump has just ordered slaughterhouses and meat packing plants to reopen -- the ones that have been closed because of large scale epidemics among the workers.  Unions are not happy about the life-threatening conditions at work.  But hey, maybe we can consider The Jungle a futuristic book now?

Cory Doctorow Wrote:I live in Burbank, which is in Los Angeles County, but is its own city, separate from Los Angeles (like North York and Toronto were, pre-amalgamation — I can see the Los Angeles city line from my house).

We're getting a front-row seat for a stress-test of the limits and power of the U.S. system of federalism, with California asserting a wide latitude of autonomy from the federal authorities (the federal response, needless to say, has been a catastrophic failure that may yet bring the country down) — and moreover, California is joining forces with other states in the region to form a single block. That's really weird, as is the reversal of the left and right's position on "state's rights" with Trump asserting that states have NO right to assert independence in the face of federal authority, and the left insisting that states have broad latitude to act (normally it's the other way around with the right asserting that states can engage in racially or gender-based discriminatory conduct, ban abortion, etc).

What will be really wild is what may come of this after the next federal election, in which the new Democratic president could use the strong federal powers that Trump could get the Supreme Court to agree to to enact gun control, abortion rights and antidiscrimination rules that overrule state governments.

I have been paying attention to Canada as well. It's certainly more functional than the U.S.

The thing that both Canada and the U.S. are getting wrong, most of all, is being too timid with stimulus. They are sovereign currency issuers whose debts are denominated in their own currencies. They should be conjuring up TRILLIONS more, and nationalising the payroll of every struggling business, keeping those workers employed so they can return to work when the crisis ends. This should come with conditions for employers (good conduct orders that ban discriminatory conduct, structured bankruptcies, dividends, stock buybacks, etc), and should be capped at a sum sufficient for payroll employees to pay rent/mortgages and buy groceries and other necessities. The inflationary risk is minimal: it won't raise the cost of labour, nor will it put more dollars into circulation to bid up the price of goods — it will simply replace the dollars that have ceased to circulate in order to pay for goods that are still being produced and debts/liabilities (mortgages/rents) that are still owed.

Cory Doctorow Wrote:What will be really wild is what may come of this after the next federal election, in which the new Democratic president could use the strong federal powers that Trump could get the Supreme Court to agree to to enact gun control, abortion rights and antidiscrimination rules that overrule state governments.

Cory Doctorow Wrote:I have been paying attention to Canada as well. It's certainly more functional than the U.S.

The thing that both Canada and the U.S. are getting wrong, most of all, is being too timid with stimulus. They are sovereign currency issuers whose debts are denominated in their own currencies. They should be conjuring up TRILLIONS more, and nationalising the payroll of every struggling business, keeping those workers employed so they can return to work when the crisis ends. This should come with conditions for employers (good conduct orders that ban discriminatory conduct, structured bankruptcies, dividends, stock buybacks, etc), and should be capped at a sum sufficient for payroll employees to pay rent/mortgages and buy groceries and other necessities. The inflationary risk is minimal: it won't raise the cost of labour, nor will it put more dollars into circulation to bid up the price of goods — it will simply replace the dollars that have ceased to circulate in order to pay for goods that are still being produced and debts/liabilities (mortgages/rents) that are still owed.

Michael Flor, million dollar survivor Wrote:“I feel guilty about surviving,” he says. “There’s a sense of ‘why me?’ Why did I deserve all this? Looking at the incredible cost of it all definitely adds to that survivor’s guilt.”

(06-29-2020, 11:55 AM)SilverFang01 Wrote: Also, the lead researcher's name. Wonder if there is a relation?