The press corps doesn’t want you to believe that hydroxychloroquine can help a person who has contracted covid-19. I don’t believe the press corps. I suggest that they are just making this move according to political strategies and goals that might have something to do with game theory.

I have therefore added a book about game theory to my summer reading list. I will continue ignoring their claims against hydroxychloroquine as I go about sussing out some sort of reason why our press corps would make them. I am sorry to see this massive push to ignore a treatment that can save lives. Balderdash.

I have already read reports published by doctors and seen videos of doctors who have worked on the front lines who have been treating covid-sick people and they have said that hydroxychloroquine is safe and effective in careful doses to treat people who have tested positive for covid-19. I believe the doctors. Hydroxychloroquine is by a large margin, their drug of choice for better treatment outcomes.

We have all heard the press corps make up lies to help some political candidates and destroy others. This current launch of a disinformation campaign against hydroxychloroquine fits in well with previous ones like the Russia Hoax. I no longer give such claims against reality any credence.

The American press corps is owned by five or so mega-corporations that have monopoly power in the news world.  You and I don’t have a reason to trust these mega-news-monopolists after the 2016 election and the subsequent news distortions that have become all-too-familiar. A great resource to learn about monopoly press in the United States is Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, published by Pantheon Books, New York in 1988 and renewed in 2002. From the copyright date, you can see that monopoly press gained influence decades ago.

To continue, I disagree with politicians who want to continue suggesting that covid-19 is more deadly and dangerous than it is in reality. Deaths by covid-19 are being exaggerated.

The notion that people across America were compelled to wear masks is not true either. They did it out of courtesy to help their neighbors.

The idea that conditions still exist that justify an expansion of government power is also not true. There was never a need to quarantine anyone who was not sick. Continued fines against people who open their businesses against a government mandate after covid-19 has proved to be a lesser threat are unjust and un-American.

If you want to learn more about why your government has become so wrongheaded about so much of what it is doing, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries available at Amazon.com., where I will take you through the steps of change that have perverted our nation’s operations and produced the mess that surrounds us all.

According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress is responsible for setting a budget for federal spending. The original idea the Founders had was for Congress to spend what is needed to keep our nation in good repair, to put federal monies to good use and to add federal taxes as needed to do normal federal duties. That was when Congress was limited in the scope of its activities to regulate the U.S. economy. Later, justices in the Supreme Court decided to reinterpret the Commerce Clause to expand it and make it possible for Congress to take an active role in shaping our U.S. economy. The Founders didn’t require Congress to have a balanced budget amendment because the Founders thought that in an emergency, it would be better to overspend, for instance in the time of war, rather than lose a war. In the not too distant past some members of our contemporary Congress proposed a balanced budget amendment but it has never passed into law becuase there are too many Congress members who don’t want one.

Today’s Congress has decided to avoid a limited spending budget altogether. This is fiscal policy abuse and it would alarm the Founders. It alarms me. For years the Congress hasn’t approved a final one year budget for the federal government. Instead they keep adopting temporary spending bills so that they can “keep the government open.” There are hysterical media dramatizations about harms to tourists and government employees whenever an increase in spending isn’t approved immediately after a government shut-down. The pitch of hysteria rises until the government passes another temporary spending bill. You wouldn’t think at first thought that it would even be possible to spend past the money contained in the U.S. Treasury. The Treasury is not only empty now, it owes money that the government doesn’t have. And Congress doesn’t pass more tax bills because most people are against more taxation. The nation’s trajectory endangers every American at this point. Recently passed trillion dollar spending bills show that Congress is abusing its monetary policies to cause inflation…a backdoor tax increase. One that will hurt the poorest Americans the most.

A virus scare has been a convenient excuse to interfere with the American economy and pass large spending bills that benefit large capital holders. The press seems to want to keep the virus scare going. Public announcements prolong virus fearfulness with phrasing that refuses to acknowledge that the rate of infections peaked in March. Even though there are realistic and effective treatments for infection by covid-19, many deny that those treatments exist and work. In fact those treatments can work very well as long as they are implemented early. The call for a vaccine is just a stalling tactic when in fact the world has never developed an effective vaccine against a rhinovirus or a coronavirus. Even if someone claimed to have a vaccine and even if it didn’t work well, there are some who would want people to be required to take it to give the vaccine-maker money for a faulty vaccine. We already see that pattern with flu vaccines.

Congress continues on a spending spree. Some Congress members have recently drafted yet another spending bill in the trillions of dollars. Many political interests are getting special attention from Congress in the name of the covid-19 emergency which has now turned into an excuse to create more debt approved by Congress. This is inflationary and it should not be happening.

Congress has turned the purse of the treasury inside out. They are putting promises into that purse for you to pay money or assets that Congress doesn’t have and can’t tax for. They want you to be the solution in giving over your freedom, your wealth, your life to them in the name of your welfare which the Congress has clearly failed to protect because their current policies promote insolvency.

Shame on Congress. Stop, stop, stop making a mockery of a free republic. “Free” doesn’t mean that Congress can oversee a fantasy government with unlimited power, unlimited spending, unlimited influence and unlimited oversight of everyone and everything. Congress is behaving like everyone’s worst enemy.

If you have come to distrust the American education system and you want another better chance to learn about our two hundred year history in the United States,including changes in politics and economics, including timelines that connect important events in the flow of change, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries, available at Amazon.com.

During the 1970’s novel opportunity was found in music, art, drugs, sex, civil rights, meditation, war, commerce, banking, recycling, energy, science, and conversations that confronted generational change, new workplace opportunities for women and minorities. It was everyone’s chance at reinvention. The idea was that each person could become an agent of their own personal transformation through an exploration of new experiences. Job interviews were more relaxed than now. They didn’t use an algorithm. Hiring was about trying to find someone who wanted to work and had basic qualifications. The 1970’s had stagflation and people were trying to use less and make a little money go farther. Do-it-yourself tables made out of wooden cable spools were popular. President Carter put solar panels on the roof of the White House.

Interest rates went higher under Paul Volker’s leadership in an effort to stem inflation, from 10.5% to 20% in 1980. By 1982 there was a recession. After the 1970’s people had a hangover and the consequences of all that ’70’s exploration were making people a little miserable. They were looking for prosperity and hoping to find some. President Reagan had his “Morning in America” ads about people finding work and making money. Reagon got rid of Carter’s solar panels. Reagan wanted America to know that we weren’t really running out of energy while he paid a lot of attention to the Middle East and its oil resources. Reagan deceived everyone in his national speeches about American involvement in the politics of South America. The idea of outsourcing to get cheaper labor was transforming the world of entrepreneurs. 1986 was the year of Margaret Thatcher’s deregulation of the London Stock exchange in the Big Bang. The Savings and Loan crash happened in 1987.

By the 1990’s times were changing because of the personal computer and the cell phone. Both were starting to transform people’s lives in a small way. London’s Big Bang was affecting global trading as hot money travelled the world bringing newly arrived capital to some nations and then destroying capital and leaving huge piles of debt behind as large capital holders gobbled up assets all around the world. The Gulf War erupted in 1990 and started a spate of wars in the Middle East that would divert capital for decades into its hungry maw. It was still possible to get a college degree and have a long term career. But scientists who worked for corporations or government lost the right to own royalties from their inventions when most of the places where scientists worked put that into their contracts. After that, the money for science inventions went to employers instead of inventors.

The World Trade Center was destroyed in 2001. A recession followed. In the twenty first century, there seemed to be less going on in terms of new kinds of opportunities. Banking was growing. The real estate market was booming. But the world of invention was slowing down. In 2007 and 2008, the sub-prime mortgage crisis led to bank closures and foreclosed properties. President Obama was elected as a president promising hope and change. Homelessness and hunger grew across America. Real estate lost 30% of its value overnight. After a few years, investors started buying properties and flipping them for a profit to drive up the price of housing. Wages continued in a long-term slump and job security evaporated during a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions. Real estate seemed to be worth more but only because houses had become a traded asset by asset investors not by home owners. Many couldn’t find a good enough job to pay for an expensive mortgage and health insurance cost as much as mortgages had cost in the 1990’s. Debt soared. School tuition costs doubled and tripled. Lots of people with college degrees couldn’t get a good job. Several government programs rescued bank investments. There were cross border capital flows at low interest rates. We saw TARP and ZIRP and QE. Banks were too big to fail according to the Federal Reserve.

The Obama Administration brought Obamacare which failed to improve healthcare but cost a lot in terms of healthcare inflation. The Obama era created a lot of minimum wage jobs. Eric Holder failed to prosecute for torture in the Middle East. The economy dragged along.

Now it’s 2020. Where is opportunity in America today? Our quiet resolve to endure economic upheaval has left us with bigger regrets than we had after the 1970’s. And when will these large upheavals end? Only a few years ago the disruptors were bragging about their transformation of our economy but they’ve grown quieter about upheavals lately. What can Americans hope for and what can we actually achieve in this neoliberal reality where government and industry have partnered up and split the economy between them? What can any of us achieve to change the world into one that comforts people with economic security? What is the reward for hard work when disruption undermines every person’s efforts? That is the question that everyone faces today.

If you would like to learn about economic and political change over the span of American history, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries at Amazon.com.

We can’t stop infections with covid-19, which can cause worrying or dire symptoms in a fifth of our population. Therefore, I have only gratitude for Dr. Paul Marik, MD, Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine of the Eastern Virginia Medical School who has published a treatment protocol.
Since much of our nation has chosen to reopen their businesses, we need this protocol right now. Social distancing has done what it could by buying time for doctors to develop a protocol and now this one has been published. You can find it at the source listed below.
Please notice that hydroxycloroquine is a prominent part of the protocol to treat infection and quercetin, a bioflavonoid, is used prophylactically. It acts to strengthen the tissues of the circulatory system. I’m also giving you a reference for an article published by The Lancet about why covid-19 causes cardiovascular complications. Good luck to all who fight against this illness.

Sources:
Dr. Paul Marik, MD, Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk VA, EVMS Medical Group EVMS Critical Care Covid-19 Management Protocol, https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf, ongoing updated information, 20 April, 2020, accessed 1 May 2020.

Zsuzsanna Varga, Andreas J Flammer, Peter Steiger, Martina Haberecker, Rea Andermatt, Annelies S Zinkernagel, et al, The Lancet, Endothelial cell infection and endothelitis in COVID-19, published ap 20 2020, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30937-5/fulltext

If you’d like to improve your understanding of our political machinations and our economic situations, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries, available at Amazon.com.