Four Topics

“Doctor” Trump has now announced that the Corona virus will be gone by April because the weather gets warmer then and the virus can’t survive.  That’s a pretty big leap of faith.  But for now 97 people were killed by the virus in the past few days and now this virus is more deadly than the SARS virus that struck in 2002.  People at March Air Force base have been quarenined the last two weeks and no cases have shown up and they are scheduled to be released today after a final physician’s exam.  The virus has been the occasion for new regulations of governments around the world as far as procedure for quarantining is concerned.  We seem to be doing a pretty good job of keeping  the virus in check in this country and we’re pretty virus free here.  Even in the entire  country there are very few virus outbreaks, under twenty.  It could always get worse but maybe not.  

According to the Thom Hartman school of economics if they suddenly cut the payroll tax to zero and you owed nothing in either FICA or wages, that employers would cut your salary by that much.  So if you worked for Mc Donald’s for twelve dollars an hour they might but it to nine or something.  Hartman says it’s all a question of what the employee is willing to work for.   I submit rather that it’s all how much am employer is willing to pay you.  If you regularly had your lawn mowed for twenty dollars each week you wouldn’t cut it to seventeen simply because your taxes went down by fifteen percent.  I’ve done enough accounting to know that it’s gross pay that counts.  This is your salary expense.   So I actually agree with Norquist of all people.  But there was this guy with the southern twang who called the show.  And he said even if what Hartman claimed were true, there would be more money for the employer to work with and if he cut your pay he’d go out and create more job positions perhaps by expanding his hours or something, so his business could make more money.  That southern guy was right.   But let me explain where Thom Hartman may have gotten his idea.  During the Clinton administration we were on an economic up cycle.  The "market" for wages was going up as it does as an up cycle advances.  Clinton took advantage of this up cycle when he raised taxes to bring more money into the treasury.   There was a trend but the causal link isn't what Hartman thought it was.  Likewise during the early years of the "W" administration in the early two thousands, from mid 2001 in fact, we were into a "down" economic cycle.  Cutting taxes did no good because we were in a pre-set economic down cycle.  Who is to say what causes these  cycles?  Maybe it's astrology.  At any rate it appeared to Tom that people were willing to work for less because their taxes were being cut.  I will say that tax cuts benefit the rich a whole lot more because we're talking about usually a larger percentage cut for the rich and a whole lot more cash. 

Joe wanted to watch the entire academy awards.  Otherwise I would have had more news on.  I completely missed Sixty Minutes.   The academy awards began promptly at five with a Black woman singing “Will You Be My Neighbor?”   There appeared to be no growing trend for one particular Best Picture.  They wanted to go out of their way to honor women.  The conducter who did all of the movie scores for us was a woman.  Kobe Bryant’s name was mentioned.  The show lasted till just past eight thirty.   Juaquin Phoenix gave a long speech on the exploitation of lower classes of people and also the exploitation of dairy cows.   The other last two awards also took a lot of time.  Jane Fonda put in an appearance wearing some “old lady” wig.   Jane Fonda is still actively involved in protests.  I didn’t have reception problems with any television station yesterday.   That’s an accomplishment. There was no official host.  “1917” won for overall sound and also cinemicrography.  “Paracite” is a Korean language movie and it scored Best Picture as well as best foreign film.  Juaquin Phoenix was best actor or “Joker”.   The best director was for “Paracite”.     The best score was for “Joker”.   Elton John got the best song for Rocket Man.  “1917” won for best visual effects.  Sar Wars didn’t win anything.  The best actress was the one who did the Judy Garland movie, who didn’t even look like her. 

The debate came on right at five.  There was a lot of unity with the democratic candidates expressing support for each other when needed.  Joe Biden kept using the pronoun “I” a lot saying everything legislatively that he personally got accomplished.  Yang was among them and he wants to give Blacks a thousand dollars as reperations.  Stires was there and he was the most progressively outspoken defending Blacks and attacking Trump and he too talked about reperations for Black people because they have only a tenth of the household wealth of white people.  Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders held their own.  Amy Clovichar talked about how poor her upbringing was and she’s one of the few non millionaires up there.   Budajudge wasn’t very impressive, and one of these days I’ll spell his name right.  I watched the debate on KABC till ten after seven and  for their second break I went out and smoked and got my medication.  Then I turned on Two and a Half Men briefly.  I switched back and Stires was just wrapping up his summation statement and he was the last one.  It was seven thirty.  Then in time I watched CSI Miami till nine.  Joe said turn off the TV but I was already half asleep.