Today there are 29 people in Spokane county, where I live, who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Of course there are more infections in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and other large cities. Infections are spreading in the largest cities and people are becoming more afraid. This is a moment when people want mercy. Can they get it?
Congress has apparently decided to keep doing what it has been doing, only more so. The bill to help people displaced by shutting down restaurants, travel, bars, schools has been stuffed with pork for pet projects to help fund a bunch of projects that have nothing to do with this epidemic. The bill has been created to overspend by a couple of trillion dollars which will hurt our dollar’s monetary value and cause an increase in inflation. That will hurt Americans everywhere. The same people that Congress claimed that it was trying to help. When so many people’s survival is at stake, why can’t Congress do something new instead of the same old thing?
Since our republic was founded after the American Revolution, we have had three ideologies in our country that influenced and created an environment for policy formation. Classical liberalism came first from the nation’s founding to the Civil War. Modern liberalism came second, from the Civil War until WWII. And neoliberalism, our current political ideology came after the Second World War. The power of the federal government has grown as our nation has gotten older. Many seem to believe that a government with unlimited power can do more for them. But more power clearly means less wisdom. Look at Congess’s actions today.
Classical liberalism embraced rationalism and humanism. That gave way during modern liberalism to faith without rationalism. And under neoliberalism there has been an increasing faith in limitlessness tending towards fantasy and magical thinking. We live now in the era when many people refuse to believe that there are reasonable limits in government spending. History shows otherwise. Our economy isn’t healthy because of overspending. Congress is using the novel coronavirus as an excuse to destroy the value of the dollar. Drunk on too much power, Congess has refused to behave with a sober realization that overspending will unleash destruction in new and unpredictable ways.
If you want to learn about how we got to where we are facing these many problems that seem to have such dire consequences, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries available at Amazon.com.

Some regions of the country are experiencing grocery shortages of items like toilet paper, fresh garlic, spaghetti sauce, pinto beans, alcohol swabs and who knows what else. As people get sick with COVID-19, there may also be a shortage of manpower to stock shelves and truck the produce of the nation to where it’s needed. Resilience is a helpful thing in the face of shortages. Also, with so much government money being spent beyond our GDP production, inflation appears to be inevitable at this point. You can do something to help yourself by growing up some of your own food.
Bloomberg was ridiculed for saying that a farmer’s job is so easy, just put the seed into the ground and the sun and soil will do the rest. Of course that isn’t true at all. Farming uses all kinds of know-how! But it is true that plants that produce chlorophyll to allow them to package sunshine into plant products like sugar and other carbohydrate is a boon to your table. You should take advantage of green grow power.

     Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew is a useful resource if you don’t know how to garden. According to this book, a small square footage can be planted to feed a family. The size of your garden depends on how many people live with you. A four by four foot plot can feed one person, and two or three of those can feed two people. For a family of four, four four-by-four garden plots can keep your family stocked up in vegetables for the summer. And with smaller plots, there’s less work.  Perhaps you can also learn to freeze or can some of your produce. You can learn to compost and recycle vegetable trash to get better soil.  If you have a balcony or back deck instead of a back yard, you can try container gardening of your favorite herbs, or vegetables.  Maybe all you want are salad ingredients or blueberries or raspberries.
What else are you going to do that rewards you more during social distancing? Plant a garden in the ground or in a raised bed or in containers and you can enjoy vegetables all summer and freeze or can the rest to tide you over the winter. Go out a buy your seeds today.
If you want to learn more about the connections between politics and economics, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries available at Amazon.com.

President Trump today briefed the press. He said that chloroquine would be available to fight acute infections with the novel coronavirus. Chloroquine has been found to be effective in Australia and South Korea according to anecdotal stories about coronavirus. He also said that Gilead’s remdesivir may be used for compassionate intervention to save the life of any person who might otherwise die of acute infection. Remdesivir was developed to fight ebola virus and it has some effectiveness as an antiviral for use in coronavirus infections. In anecdotes from abroad, remdesivir has been described as a drug that has initiated a quick turnaround of acute pneumonia and high fever. It seems to allow the body to fight the virus by holding back viral amplification and attack of the body’s systems giving the body’s defenses a chance to win out against an otherwise faster attack.

President Trump looked weary as he addressed the press corp and he commented that they were all sitting too close together and endangering each other. After all the meetings he’s attended, he deserves a good meal and a long nap. Likewise, the press corp deserves a rest from all of the hullabaloo. From empty toilet paper shelves to kids staying home from school, everyone has been stirred up by the virus pandemic. Taking a rest from it is essential from time to time.

No one knows the future. As we face uncertainties, it was encouraging to hear progress against the novel coronavirus in the drug treatment arena. Nations are collaborating on beating back this deadly foe. They are sharing their insights to help all of humanity. Let’s hope for more progress as we continue to implement social distancing, testing when symptoms appear, quarantine and isolation as necessary. Remember that if you feel overwhelmed by the fear of this new virus you can pause and take a breath, take a few minutes to drink a glass of water, or go for a walk. We are moving towards better days eventually as we endure today’s upheavals and uncertainties.

If you want to learn more about neoliberalism and American history, get a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries available at Amazon.com.

President Trump spoke to America at a press briefing on St. Patrick’s Day. He asked a variety of experts in health, economics and government to speak. The most important strategy to prevent transmission is social distancing. With social distancing, people are asked to stay home as much as they can and to avoid groups of people larger than 10. The idea behind social distancing is to slow down the rate of transmission so that our hospitals can cope with people who need medical help to defeat the virus and survive it. Social distancing may also reduce the number of people who become infected, especially among the elderly. Dr. Debbie Birx specifically adressed the importance of social distancing.
In support of enhancing survival, mobile hospitals may be deployed and the Army Corp of Engineers may remodel some buildings to provide more care areas. Peter Navarro and others in Congress are considering fund grants or loans for increasing phamaceutical production here in the U.S. in support of enhancing supplies of products that have formerly been manufactured abroad. This will provide more pharmaceutical security to those that depend upon medicines that may be less available from foreign sources.
Steve Mnuchin talked about funds that may be available to people who can’t work because, for example, restaurants and bars have closed. He suggested that a government check to provide some living expenses to people who can’t work may be made available to people in need. This is to speed up providing a tax relief aid instead of reducing payroll taxes or having a tax rebate which would take longer to become available cash.
President Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about how to support cases of severe pneumonia that the nation’s manufacturers may be ramping up production of machines that support respiration for people with pneumonia. He also said that some grocery stores are trying to have designated time periods where only the elderly shop to avoid exposing elderly people who need groceries to younger people who may inadvertently transmit the novel coronavirus. President Trump mentioned that both political parties want to support policies that enhance the survival of Americans as we all face the novel coronavirus this year. It is hoped that August may see a lessening of viral threat, but it remains to be seen what will happen. Encouraging loved ones, mobilizing resources to where they are needed, avoiding unnecessary contacts and helping where help is needed will see Americans through.
If you would like to learn more about U.S. history, economics and politics, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries at Amazon.com.

Congress has oversight of the Federal Reserve, so Federal Reserve mistakes are Congress’s mistakes. Our Federal Reserve has made errors of policy under Congressional oversight that have made the stock market less connected with real world production and real world markets. The process of change from production to investment has been called Financialization.
These Federal Reserve errors have allowed the stock market and our larger economy to develop a reckless independence from market forces and a growing fragility. Easy money, or capital available at very low interest rates, has provided a playing field for large capital holders to recklessly risk large loans in a variety of investments, many that aren’t good investments. If an investment fails, there’s more money to borrow. Zero Interest Rate Policy was supposed to be a temporary measure after 2008 that allowed the Federal Reserve to borrow money and bail out the Too-Big-to-Fail Banks. But we have all noticed that ZIRP has been destructive to our middle class, especially old retired people who saved money that now doesn’t pay any interest income to them. Yet the Federal Reserve has already done ZIRP again, they declared over the weekend.
The Federal Reserve should stop that! The Federal Reserve isn’t helping.

Imbalances in our markets are being caused by reckless investing. Malinvestments hurt the economy because they waste economic resources. The Federal Reserve’s experiments have obscured price discovery and kept unsound companies in business. Congressional tolerance of monopolies has artificially raised the cost of tuition, cars, housing and healthcare. During the Great Depression, The Banking Act of 1933 initiated a separation of commercial and investment banks and the part of the Act that did that is called Glass Steagall. That part of the Act kept people’s savings from being used by risk hungry investors who might destroy people’s savings if their investment failed. Federal Reserve policy mistakes ended the Glass Steagall separation between commercial and investment banks during bank deregulation. Policies to undo the separation between investment and commercial banking started slowly during the Carter Administration and continued to completion during the Clinton Administration. Because Glass Steagall was repealed, banks bet everything on the subprime housing market. When the subprime housing market failed, a lot of banks failed too. If Glass Stegall had been still in force, there would have been a cushion to soften the losses. Instead, bank bail-outs during the Great Recession provided a government subsidy for bad banking practices that have only continued.

Don’t be fooled into believing that our nation’s concerns over a new coronavirus have provided investors a reason to crash the Stock Market. Because of bad Federal Reserve policies, investors knew that our markets have become less resilient and they were obviously waiting to cash out as they are doing now. Derivatives have allowed a casino-like environment in global trading and investing under a regime of cross border capital flows. Derivatives have allowed investors to create dollars out of bets that they now want to trade for dollars built from people’s hard work that have been invested in the stock market to get a retirement fund. After Glass Steagall protections were removed, and after ZIRP policy, retirees were driven to invest in the stock market. I know that people who actively invest in the stock market see money invested there as being all the same. But obviously the money earned over a lifetime is more dear to the earner of that money than money earned by betting derivatives. Glass Steagall protected saver’s money. We need that protection again as can be seen by today’s stock trading. Retirees can’t afford to lose their retirement funds. As money hungry investors cash out, people’s retirement dollars are evaporating. What will older people who cannot work now do when their retirement evaporates?
Global trade has hit a speed bump but that’s not a reason to crash the market. There’s no indication that global trade is ending for all time.

The nCoV 2019 virus shouldn’t become an excuse to crash every part of the U.S. economy. It also isn’t an excuse for Congress to allocate more dollars that aren’t accounted for to fight people’s fears or to raise confidence.
I don’t applaud when our Congress suggests an unlimited budget to fight a new virus. We should all ask Congress where exactly will they put the money that has already been allocated and who will benefit? Why do they need more money? Do they want the whole economy to become nationalized, or what?
If you want to learn more about our nation’s history, the relationship between the economy and politics, ideological change over time, banking problems, government corruption, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries available at Amazon.com.

Not that long ago, people would often say, “There’s no cure for the common cold.” That quip was supposed to remind us that people and organizations have limited power. It isn’t surprising that a highly contagious and somewhat deadly flu-like illness can’t be stopped. Many examples from history show us that this outcome isn’t something new. Airplanes in the context of global trade have just made the spread of such a virus much faster.

It isn’t that we took a misstep somewhere in the line of contagion. Please don’t blame the CDC, the WHO or the President. There just isn’t a procedure to stop the spread of nCoV coronavirus 2019 once it’s in the population. That’s because it’s an airborne contagion that people can transmit before they have symptoms of any illness. It is an invisible menace that we will all have to face up to with steady courage.

We can only try to slow it down. How can we slow its spread? Make some washable masks (see previous posting). Stock up your pantry and eat at home. Reduce unnecessary public outings. Buy extra toilet paper and other supplies to enhance your resilience in the face of this challenge in case you become ill. Get some gatoraide. Make sure you have analgesic medicine (aspirin, ibuprofen, acetominophen) to lower a fever. Stay home when you can…read a book, watch a movie, make some art, play your guitar or listen to music, read your favorite on-line posts, talk with your family.

As this virus makes its way through our cities remember to be kind to the sick and grateful if you remain well. Human beings have limited powers and so do human organizations and they still can’t cure the common cold or even the uncommon new cold. You can cope.

If you want to learn about politics and economics in the context of American history, if you want to grow more know-how about how we got to our current place in history, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries, available on Amazon.com.

Circumstances in China look bad right now because of nCoV or novel coronavirus 2019. People are dying of this virus in China. It’s called novel because it’s new and people have less immunity to new viruses. The index case, I have read, was probably in early December. The doctor who warned about deadly pneumonia cases being caused by nCoV was censored and now he has died of the virus. China suffers with illness and fear right now. Let’s have a moment of compassion for the suffering of the people in China.
Elsewhere in other nations, because we were warned, the virus may not have gotten loose into the population of our largest cities. Thank you to China for warning us and thank you Dr. Li Wenliang the doctor who warned China.

This virus is extremely contagious according to several reports. It is much more contagious than ordinary flu. In order to give our disposable face masks to healthcare workers, it’s important not to hand them over to those outside of healthcare.

But don’t worry, you can make your own washable masks just in case this virus ever becomes a danger for you or your family. If you make several, you can wash the ones that need it without going without one.

You will need polyester thread, a yard of ordinary cotton fabric that most craft stores sell to quilters, a yard of cotton flannel that will touch your face and feel soft and some narrow quarter inch wide elastic for the straps that go over your ears. In making masks for my family, I found a breathable liner product called Insul-Bright that has a metal and plastic center which could give you some extra protection if you put it into the center of the cotton sandwich. It’s an insulating product made to line potholders.

I cut both of the cottons into 6 inch by 6 1/2 inch rectangles. I cut the liner into a 5 inch by 5 1/2 inch rectangle. The bottom and top of the rectangle are the long side and the sides are one half inch shorter. I laid the cottons on both sides of the liner fabric and I turned the liner fabric 45 degrees to make a diamond. The corners of the diamond will stick out of the top, bottom and sides (but you will cut off these small triangles later). This makes the mask less rigid so that you can add pleats near the corners later to make the mask more 3-dimensional to make room for a person’s nose inside the mask.

Making the mask longer along the top than the sides, I sewed one inch in from the shorter sides of the mask rectangle, sewing a line an inch from each edge using the running stitch. I cut off the triangles sticking out of the sandwich from the liner. I made 2 elastic straps for holding the mask on by cutting 2 elastic ribbons into a length 14 and one quarter inches long and I overlapped the ends a quarter of an inch and sewed them together. I took each elastic strap and placed it into the narrow rectangle at the seam just sewed on the sides of the sandwich of cottons and liner. I pinned the elastic strap out of the way inside the skinny rectangle so that I could sew another seam along the edge of the sides. Then I sewed up the sides of the skinny rectangle with the elastic strap inside using the blanket stitch. Then I sewed closed the top and the bottom of the mask using the blanket stitch. The elastic will help cinch up the sides of the mask when it is worn. The straps can be adjusted for size by tying a loop you put in the middle of the straps. The elastic loops make it easy to pull the mask over your ears.

To finish, I located a point one inch from the top and one inch from the side. That is, I came down one inch from the top edge (along the first seam sewed) of my almost finished mask and folded over a small amount of the cotton fabric sandwich on both sides (one inch from the top and one inch from the side along the seam) facing the center. This location of fabric was outside the liner diamond, an ideal location to make a pleat or pucker. I did this on both sides one inch from the top edge securing the fold by sewing it in place in one spot twice through. I did this for the bottom part of the mask also, turning it upsidedown so the pleat would fold towards the center. Now there are 4 pleats. The middle of the mask rectangle was left puckered by these folded portions one inch from each edge near the corners.

The purpose of a mask is to make transmission of a microorganism or virus less likely. If you are infected it protects others from your sneezes and sniffles which will make the mask dirty and in need of a wash. A mask can also help you if you are caring for a loved one who is sick. The most important thing that a mask does is to keep you from touching germs and then touching your face. Make your own washable mask. Leave the disposable ones to healthcare professionals. You should also wash before you eat and after you go to the bathroom. Even if you aren’t wearing a mask, don’t touch your face unless you have washed first.

I hope that this nCoV virus won’t come here, but just in case, in addition to making masks, you might want to stock up some extra supplies for a possible quarantine. Food staples, medicine, various essentials like bleach, just-in-case. If you want some reading to keep your mind occupied with the issues of American politics, economics and history, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries available at Amazon.com.

A few years ago, eight bad guys at Wells Fargo in positions of authority set up false accounts at the bank or had their employees do that. John Stupf was one of them. He made bonus money in the millions. These eight executives helped to set up thousands of frauds that operated by charging people fees for fake accounts, a kind of fraud that strikes down trust and confidence in banking. And now these same bad guys are being fined but not jailed. This is an example of white collar crimes in banking not being criminally prosecuted. Those bad guys probably have money stashed in off shore accounts. Why aren’t they in jail? What about all the economic and social damage that they caused? What about harms to employees and customers? This is an example of economic violence. I’m disgusted that this is happening. It makes it hard to put money in the bank at all. What a shame.
Financialization, ZIRP, TARP, QE, massive borrowing, Derivatives are all destroying the value of our money. A failure to prosecute financial crimes strikes a blow against our society’s order and its ability to reward those that create value. Without a working monetary system, there’s no way to trade or share opportunity. There’s only fraud. If you want to find out more about this kind of travesty and the policies that have caused it, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries available at Amazon.com.

Here we are smack dab in the middle of January. I still hear loud squawks about Trump’s impeachment as the press tries to engage us on that topic. The fever pitched press efforts at dramatizing impeachment don’t engage the public when there isn’t a basis to the charges. Most people don’t care about it anymore. After the Russia Hoax there’s little press credibility on Trump matters.
In Virginia, there are clashes of desperados devoted to stopping or enhancing gun regulations but many Americans aren’t really tuning in to that either. Despite Virginia’s Governor’s passionate denial of his voter’s rights according to Virginia statutes and constitutional prerogative, all he deserves is removal from office. The drama of a Civil War isn’t needed now. Natural rights still matter as much as always and the Constitution still offers it’s political wisdom to any who wish to appreciate the document and its guidelines to having a prosperous polity.
These issues pale in comparison to our banking problems. Banking is where politics and economics are bending our reality into its mishapen mess right now. Our monetary policy is failing us.
I would like Americans to pay attention to abuse of our monetary system by the Federal Reserve with all of its ill fated experimentation using derivatives, financialization and cross border capital flows. Also notice off the books expenses by the Pentagon and by private military forces in the Middle East. Notice rampant monetary fraud in Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid and their attendant price increases in a monopoly market that undermines reasonable price discovery. Notice that despite whatever experts such as Timothy Geithner tell us all to the contrary, TARP, zero interest rate policy and QE failed our nation’s economy and sowed fresh seeds of distrust. American distrust of political organizations and institutions is the rot at the core of our nation’s center. A distrustful nation can’t do as much as a nation that is solvent and accountable.
I would like all Americans to see where capital has been injected into the stock market in order to elevate stock market prices. These injections are undermining real market trading with capital injections and computer trading. I would like all Americans to notice the effects both now and in history to monetary abuses involving graft, involving over-printing capital, involving debt. Look at myriad easy-money disasters that have followed banking deregulation…buyouts, long-term unemployment. Let’s come together in a universal vigil and acknowledge that our leaders are failing us when they make decisions involving our monetary system.
Reform of our monetary system must be undertaken in order to restore a prosperous America. We can start by ending the existence of holding companies. Holding companies were FDR’s honey to assuage the vinegar of the SEC. They were the escape trap door and tunnel out of bankruptcy and financial regulation. The SEC is mostly powerless now, so what do we need holding companies for? They hide the capital holdings of people who abuse their opportunities and allow them to escape bankruptcy with hidden cash reserves. This is cheating. We can also acknowledge that derivatives have to go away. They aren’t really constitutional because they lead to imbalances in the market and cash creation after insolvencies that they cause. We can reduce the size of giant Too-Big-To-Fail banks. We can go back to the earlier regime of Glass Steagall separation of investment and commercial bank holdings. We can start paying interest on bank accounts that encourage savings instead of ripping off savers. We can close the borders of nations to free capital flows which hurt people who have smaller amounts of assets. This greedy dance of wild capital hasn’t freed people as many imagined that it would. It only misallocates resources which are wasted. It destroys opportunities that we all need. If you want to learn more about these topics, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries from Amazon.com.

Happy New Year! The overall economy hasn’t recovered since the 2007-2008 Great Recession but here’s some practical approaches to gaining a foundational education in essential information that can help you and all of us to extricate ourselves from political and economic challenges that we face:

* Learn about the subject of economics. A great reference is: Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, Third Edition, by Thomas Sowell, Published by Basic Books in 2007. A careful reading of this dry book will reward you at the very least about such topics as “Profit vs. Loss”, and “What is an Economic Market?” Our public schools and universities have neglected the broad topic of economics even though everyone is affected by our economy. You should try to learn something about economics because our divisive politics that has become so full of combative subjects has become that way due to economic conflicts. When you don’t understand anything about economics, it makes you more vulnerable to economic exploitation.

*In addition you should make an effort to learn about financialization and derivatives from a variety of online sources. A really fantastic resource on financialization is an article by Greta R. Krippner, “The Financialization of the American Economy” by Socio-Economic Review, (2005)3, 173-208, http:cas.umkc.edu/econ/economics/faculty/Wray/ 631/Week%207/Krippner.pdf

* Read about the Great Recession and discover its causes with this useful book: All The Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, copyright 2008 published by The Penguin Group. This book will tell you the deregulation steps that led to the rise of derivatives. It will help you to understand where Congress went wrong and how the Federal Reserve gained too much power over our economic opportunities. Our economy today continues to be vulnerable to imbalances like the ones that caused the Great Recession.

* Read Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, the Plume Group, copyright 2004 to see more about the shaping of a global system and the use of debt as an opportunity to gain power over people. Most of us fail to know as much about globalization as we need to know. This book will get you started.

* Read Political Catsup with Economy Fries: Liberalism, Pragmatism, Opportunism, by Mel Scanlan Stahl, published by Fast Car Publishing, 2015, to put all of these resources plus a lot of historical ones into a big picture that will help you to understand how we got into our economic and political predicaments as we enter 2020. Get your copy today at Amazon.com.

If you are facing 2020 with misgivings about your future, take a moment to read these few references to give yourself some solid ground to stand on as you face a new year full of challenges.