U.S. colleges and COVID 19 don't mix

In the many divisive discussions of school reopenings, most have centered on K-12 education and the dangers of transmitting the COVID-19 virus, but many people had seemingly forgotten about the openings of colleges and universities across the country, until social media and news outlets showed pictures of crowds of college freshman, and returning students, at off-campus socials with nary a mask in sight, causing more than a little concern among other students, and of course parents.

That changed on Tuesday with the announcements from Notre Dame and Michigan State University that in-person classes would go online, at least for the next few weeks with increases in positive test results for many of these same party going students, mostly undergraduates.

Notre  Dame campus

Earlier, in many Southern states, there were increased incidents of students being quarantined, along with some staff and faculty; and then the political irony that many of these same incidents were in states that put an emphasis on reopening sooner, rather than later; and, who were lockstep with President Trump in his quest to use the economy as the key plank in his reelection campaign.

Some have questioned whether these colleges and universities should have opened their doors, at all, especially to undergraduates, ready to party down and catch up, or meet each other; and with many living away from home, for the first time, the time seemed ripe for socializing without the distance.

The intersection of politics, money and academia are also adding a secondary measure of not only the value of an education, but also if instruction is going to be remote, should cash-strapped parents be paying full tuition for what many people see as the lack of a full-on campus experience with late night study session, midnight pizza and ice cream;but, not to mention, at the more prestigious schools, the associations that would lead to high-end jobs, or even admission to prestigious graduate schools.

How these factor into public health and safety with a virus that seems to be with us, despite lowering U.S. infection rates, has given many of the self named people pause, and with more than a little reluctance, some schools, such as Notre Dame, in the face of community infections, and bad publicity, it was time to get ahead of what could damage one of the leading Roman Catholic universities.

According to NPR, “The Rev. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, announced that starting Wednesday, in-person classes will be suspended for undergraduates until Sept. 2 and for graduate and professional school students until Aug. 24.

Fr. Jenkins

The move was prompted by what Jenkins called "a steady increase in positive rates" among students in the days since classes resumed on Aug. 10.

"The virus is a formidable foe," Jenkins said. "For the past week, it has been winning. Let us as the Fighting Irish join together to contain it."

While that seems cautiously optimistic, Notre Dame and MSU are large midwestern universities that have large student bodies, whose actions, or inactions affect many other people and institutions, outside of their respective communities; not to mention usually being the largest employers in their areas.

“ . . . 146 students and one staff member have tested positive for the virus since Aug. 3. None has been hospitalized. Jenkins “added that seniors living off-campus account for a large share of the cases, and most infections are coming from "off-campus gatherings where neither masks were worn nor physical distancing observed.”

The report did note that “While Notre Dame plans on keeping many auxiliary functions open, such as labs and libraries will remain open with some expected protective measures, such as temperature checks and contact tracing.”

In East Lansing, things are somewhat different and “The university is asking undergraduate students planning to live on campus to stay home and encouraging off-campus students to consider doing the same "if that is a safer place for you."

It expressed doubts about being able to keep students safe in the face of a pandemic that remains largely unchecked.

"Given the current status of the virus — particularly what we are seeing at other institutions as they re-populate their campus communities — it is unlikely we can prevent widespread transmission of COVID-19 between students if our undergraduates return to campus," officials wrote.

Looking at some of the colleges in Chicago, there seemed to be a myriad of measures, and communications regarding COVID, but some revealed more than others. A recent story in the Chicago Tribune, about a surge of off campus parties at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill. has put the onus on reporting these mostly unsafe parties, to local residents, which has created a backlash among community members, who ask why they are the mandated reporters, with little, or no governance from University officials.

The University of Chicago seemed to focus on contact tracing, self- management and even a pledge to be signed by students, but otherwise seemed mum, on specific measures, other than boiler plate guidance, such as social distancing, face covering and the like.

Their guidance page did state,“We anticipate a limited number of classes will be held in-person. Many classes will include a combination of in-person and remote instruction and discussion. Others will be conducted fully remotely,” and then, “Each academic area and its instructors will determine the delivery mode for its courses, to serve curricular and pedagogical needs and align with public health guidance.”

Northeastern Illinois University, on Chicago’s Northside has planned a detailed and more far-reaching effort for instruction and safety of students, faculty and staff. It’s website offers details on protective cleaning and sanitation, plus the availability of classes offered remotely and hybrid, as well as with synchronization of real time instruction, and options for those academics requiring face to face interaction, as well as asynchronous instruction and contacts via the web, email and dedicated servers.

Adding to the controversy, and concern, was Dr. Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Task Force Leader, who on Thursday offered the strong suggestion, in a private call, that “Each university not only has to do entrance testing,” she said, according to a recording of the call obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. “What we talked to every university about is being able to do surge testing. How are you going to do 5,000 samples in one day or 10,000 samples in one day?”

Dr. Birx

The idea would be a mammoth enterprise and would face both funding and organizational challenges, and it has not been  recommended by the CDC because it has not been “systematically studied” reported The Center for Public Integrity on its website.

They also reported that, “More than 600 American colleges and universities are returning to in-person classes or mostly in-person classes this fall, according to a tracker from the College Crisis Initiative at Davidson College. Most are testing students as or before they return, said Katie Felten, interim assistant director of the initiative, with some mailing test kits to students’ homes before they travel to campus.”

While the growing body of research and data that can inform American colleges and universities is on the upswing, most, which are often seen as microcosms of non academic areas, the effort is not easy, nor is it consistent, as we have seen.

Or, to put it simply, the United States has more than 5.4 million infections and over 172,000 deaths and it is against this background that colleges and universities are struggling to make decisions about the coming Fall semester.

Working retroactively, as was the case with Notre Dame, who began classes in the middle of August, and proactively, is the case with MSU shows that a timeline and date, plus infections seem to govern how and when university administrators can make the decisions to go forward with in person learning, hybrid, or entirely remote.

Scrapping plans “for a partially in-person semester just one week after classes began. Faculty Chair Mimi Chapman told NPR on Tuesday that she hoped other schools would learn from its experience, and said, “If we can't bring those resources to bear in the way that we did with a more successful result, I think it should give every other large public university in the country pause before going forward.”

Classes at MSU begin on Sept. 2, and in a statement MSU’s president, Samuel L. Stanley, Jr, M.D, a physician and biomedical researcher,said: “This was an extraordinarily difficult decision, but the safety of our campus community must be our paramount concern. Please know that we are making choices based on reliable public health data, updates from local and state officials and our understanding of the science and research available to us on the novel coronavirus.”

At The University of Illinois at Chicago,there was a statement, from The United Faculty (UICUF) stating that, "we do not have confidence that the Administration's plan will sufficiently provide for a safe reopening, let alone sustain a healthy open campus for the fall semester," in response to the school's plan for a return to campus.

They also cited deep concerns for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for their members to "keep our campus and community safe." The Union is planning a strike vote in September.

Pres. Stanley

Joining the increasingly long list of colleges and universities that are switching to partial, or completely remote instruction are the University of Maryland, The University of Pennsylvania, the University of South Carolina and the University of Virginia.

Of equal concern are those students and parents who want a refund, or at least partial discounts on hot having the full on campus experience.

The New York Times in its coverage earlier this month, and with a recent update, highlighted the dilemma: “A rebellion against the high cost of a bachelor’s degree, already brewing around the nation before the coronavirus, has gathered fresh momentum as campuses have strained to operate in the pandemic. Incensed at paying face-to-face prices for education that is increasingly online, students and their parents are demanding tuition rebates, increased financial aid, reduced fees and leaves of absences . . .” 

Lacking a consensus on how these demands can be met, and how, it seems that one statement offers one official response, “These are unprecedented times, and more and more families are needing more and more financial assistance to enroll in college,” said Terry W. Hartle, a senior vice president for the American Council on Education, a higher education trade group. “But colleges also need to survive.”

Again from the Times: “Starting up an online education program is incredibly expensive,” said Dominique Baker, an assistant professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University. “You have to have training, people with expertise, licensing for a lot of different kinds of software. All those pieces cost money, and then if you want the best quality, you have to have smaller classes.”

“A handful of universities have announced substantial price cuts. Franciscan University of Steubenville, a private Catholic university in Ohio with about 3,000 students, announced in April that it will cover 100 percent of tuition costs, after financial aid and scholarships, for incoming undergraduates. Williams College in Massachusetts took 15 percent off in June when it announced it would combine online and in-person instruction this fall,” they added.

“Officials at the University of Illinois at Chicago are holding firm. As chancellor Micheal Amiridis said in a statement, “since UIC continues to teach all courses remotely, we have not considered a partial refund on tuition. However, we are considering a partial refund of the fees for interrupted services (recreation, student centers, student programming, athletics, etc.), as well as some lab fees associated with specific courses,” noted edsurge.com in May.

Yet some students are asking for a reduction, such as University of Chicago students, which provides the most expensive undergraduate education in the country, saying they charged too much tuition to begin with, they said.

“It's not about the like online classes,” says Julia Attie, one of the student leaders of the movement at University of Chicago. “This crisis is highlighting problems that already existed” around the affordability of higher education.

Perhaps the question is not only the worth of a university degree which does provide greater earnings over a lifetime, (only about 33% of Americans have a B.A.) but exactly how much actual learning has happened, versus managing to get a degree, especially at elite colleges, such as Harvard or Brown, who have the most fierce opposition to keeping tuition rates, even to the point of fighting lawsuits.

Podster Jeffrey A. Young, for Edsurge interviewed Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor at The University of Pennsylvania who said, ““I don't think we know enough about how much students were learning under the face-to-face model to calculate what an alleged loss might be under this new model,” Zimmerman says. He adds there has been a “longstanding reluctance to try to figure out how much people learn,” and therefore “it's quite difficult, if not impossible, to figure out what sort of drop off there might’ve been with the introduction of online.”

Updated 27 August 2020

"Three dozen Purdue University students were suspended this week for attending an off-campus party, violating the school's social distancing rules, according to CNN.

Note: This is a developing story and will be updated as needed.

Kamala Harris brings in the cash, but faces her past

Tuesday’s news that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden chose California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate sent shock waves of pleasure through much of the party and also signalled that he was committed to not only having a woman, as his vice president, should he be elected, but that he was also sensitive to the mood of the country as it grapples with the quest for racial equity, in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, by  choosing a woman of color.

The 55 year old Harris is the child of a an Indian mother and  a Jamaican father, and identifies as a black American, and in a country with a long legacy of racial criteria, this identity is both one that is claimed, (and part of the racial landscape in this country), and affords her the pleasure of being a historical choice.

It also gives a hefty boost to the Biden  campaign, and a candidate, that needed to free himself from earlier gaffes mostly representing a generational understanding of race, but also from simply being an older white male in a country that is trying, in progressive circles, at least, to go beyond a traditional face of leadership.

Therefore he bypassed the white female candidates such as Elizabeth Warren, and Gov. Whitmer or Michigan. And, while both of them offered unique advantages: placating progressives, and getting Michigan votes, lost to Clinton in 2016, are just two, they fell short of overall campaign goals.

Harris also boosted the Biden campaign, with $36 million in donations, many of them from first time donors, and this shot in the arm, along with a younger outlook, can help Biden capture the much sought after presidency in a nation that has been divided by race, in no small measure beginning, but not ending with his positive comments about the Ku Klux Klan that marched in Charlottesville, Va.

While some in the media made much of the “suitability” and “safeness” of her selection, as a standard, this has not alway been the case and in 1960 the selection of Lyndon Johnson by John Kennedy was seen as neither, by many, including his brother Bobby, who was his campaign manager.

Johnson helped secure southern votes in a Congress that was then dominated by the South, and also brought a surge of electoral votes, and protestant support for the country’s first Roman Catholic presidential candidate since Al Smith.

Harris can bring much of the black vote, but not all of it, and also many women voters, especially those that are younger and educated, both black and white who have become dissatisfied with Trump, and within that camp, independent voters

To be fair, there are some blacks that do not view her as authentic since her parents were both professionals who immigrated from other countries, and earned advanced degrees, (in endocrinology and economics),which they feel does not mesh with their more standard view of black families, holding service jobs and on the lower income rung. 

While those votes might not come, an expanded view of what it means to be black may be exactly what is needed.

Along with California’s electoral votes.

Harris did face some formidable competition for the role; and while Karen Bass, another potential running mate, had far more legislative experience, and as head of the Congressional Black Caucus, had influence, she is relatively unknown and echoes of “Karen who” might have blighted an auspicious beginning

Susan Rice, former national security advisor for President Obama, a Rhodes Scholar, had the global experience, much needed after the Trump actions, but she has never held elective office, and might not have been ready for the rigors of the campaign trail.

Val Demings, another black woman, and a highly qualified legislator, was also relatively unknown, although her law enforcement background would have been a plus (she was police chief for Orlando, Fl.) the lack of immediate recognition, might have hampered her other skills, and past accomplishments.

Harris then made the final cut, but there are some who saw her prior presidential run, as something of a bust, not only for some organizational snafus, but also for lacking a central message that American voters could easily grasp, and her stumblings about an older poll on what many mid to lower families could do when faced with an emergency need for $400, would be a “complete upheaval” was not only was off the mark, from the original poll in 2017t: borrow the money, or a cash advance from a credit card, also made her seem less knowledgeable, in 2019; or represented her failure to vet a staff memo.

Of course this is all behind her now, and with a well oiled and newly re energized Biden campaign,she brings the experience from lessons learned to a campaign that is gaining on the incumbent, so much so that Harris was anointed by Trump as being “unqualified” to be the presumptive nominee, because of her parents birthplace, a racist trope that the he had falsely claimed about Barack Obama.

Her passions and her strength of character, especially towards those who are less advantaged, gives an edge and counterpoint to Biden who can often come as too avuncular, while Harris’s aggressiveness, seen in her questioning of Attorney General William Barr, and most infamously to Supreme Court nominees, Brett Kavanaugh, made her a household name to those opposed to his selection.

Both she and Biden have some work to reach progressives, who were not in his camp, from the beginning and Harris in her roles as District Attorney and California Attorney General when she raised the ire of local police for her support of the prison system  in California, the skewed effort to deny sex workers the internet, in defense of them, but without the infamous backpage.com, many were forced back  onto the streets where they faced greater danger.

Harris also took a more cautious stance in investigations of police brutality, killings of black and brown men, and also the death penalty for the killing of a police office, which at first she refused, and then facing the loss of police support reversed her stance, and then reinstated later, as she faced election.

That balancing act that, where she almost fell, had some in the black community, feeling as if she was selling out to the more conservative positions towards police, and undercutting the communities that they serve; but also showed how easy it is to lose support for the top cop, from the crew in blue.

If these and other issues surface, and they will, the former attorney general will have to do some damage control from her past, and deal with the ongoing patterns of police abuse towards black and brown people.

July Jobs Report is a slip and slide

One step forward, two steps back, seemed to be the theme for the July Jobs Report from the U.S. The Labor Department, with its gain of 1.8 million non-farm jobs, and a “modest” 10.2 percent unemployment rate, that exceeded expectations of 1.6 million and 10.5 percent unemployment, but all things being equal it also gives rise to a sense of lowered expectation.

Taking even a rough estimate of the report, it’s as if a surgeon said, “well, you can only crawl right now, but one day you will walk again!” and crawling to the precipice seems the best outlook for the U.S. economy as it lurches and rolls with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that has shattered and shuttered jobs, homes, and lives across the nation.

Some economists have decided to see sunny skies in those numbers stating that the American market is strong and resilient. This seems to us a weak bedside manner that lacks more than a dose of reality - but maybe based on faith alone..

Much of the bump in the report comes from rehires after the March shutdown, especially in leisure and hospitality, but as quickly as they came back, they can quickly leave, since the stimulus money has all but evaporated for many American families as they face a mountain of unpaid bills and possible eviction for being unable to pay the rent.

Combine that with a reluctance to physically distance by many Americans, which has resulted in higher numbers of infections, in thirteen major cities, and the die seems cast for another shutdown.

In that vein, July saw an increase of 592,000  jobs in leisure and hospitality and 502,000, plus 100,000 in amusement and gambling, but with many people wary of going to restaurants, and the reduced footprint mandated by local laws, this downward slide will probably in clearer focus for the August report, and we like the following comment from The New York TImes, as a better barometer of these times:

“The rate of churn in the labor market remains incredibly high,” concluded Morgan Stanley’s economics team. In plain English, that means millions of workers finding a job only to be fired soon afterward, or being let go permanently after assuming a layoff was temporary.”

Even through the prism of hope, faith, and some charity, it’s easy to see that the downward slope can happen at any time, and with the U.S. leading the world in infections and death, and an uneven repose to personal protection, i.e. mask wearing, a minor first line of defense, that many people are refusing, holding weddings, motorcycle runs and even a return to youth athletics, that danger abounds.

As we have said, many times over, in previous posts, the marquee rate is only a slice of the real values, and the U-6 rate is the more accurate, and that “has come down from 22.8 percent in April,” these are those who have given up looking for work, or those who are marooned in part-time work, preferring full-time, but not finding it.

Still, the U-6 is among a series of data points that underscore just how difficult the labor market remains for those out of work, and delighting us was this:  “I think the U-6 is a better indicator of the job market than the 10 percent unemployment rate,” said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global. “The traditional unemployment rate doesn’t capture what’s happening on the ground.”

"It's great to see progress, but the speed of progress has slowed down and we're still far from any sort of healthy labor market right now," Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed, told Business Insider.

BI also added this bracing splash of cold water: “Employment remains down 12.9 million jobs from its pre-pandemic February level, the report said, meaning that only about 42% of the jobs lost during the crisis have been recovered. Bunker pointed out that the cumulative hit to unemployment and the new unemployment rate were still worse than during the Great Recession.”

Dan North, a senior economist at Euler Hermes North America, told Business Insider that all things considered with the bump, there "are some other considerations here,one is that "you have to ask how sustainable these gains are" — if there's another wave of COVID-19, many of the jobs re-added in industries such as leisure and hospitality and retail trade could be on the chopping block again.”

And, aye there's the rub.

The specterof 30 million people out of work has not given the Republican dominated Senate a desire to help those that face eviction, and loss of property, as they pushed back continuing the $600 unemployment extension, that was a lifeline to many whose lives were teetering on the brink of disaster.

Now enters President Trump with a series of executive orders to give a $400 extension, relief from student loan debt, and a payroll deduction holiday, that some fear will endanger the Social Security program.

Also worrisome is the fate of state and local governments whose cash-strapped coffers have offered few alternatives, and despite a lack of true data, due to extensions, this can affect employment for many, and as The Washington Post opined, “At the state and local levels, revenue is still way down and demand for services still way up. Many states and municipalities just started a new fiscal year, and without further federal help we should expect more layoffs ahead. Job losses at state and local governments have knock-on effects throughout the private sector, too, since these laid-off workers cut back on spending, government services decline, private contracts get canceled, etc.”

A wise woman once said that the past is past and cannot come back again, and that the future is all that we can call our own, then embracing the future along with a healthy dose of reality, is crucial to seeing the world’s largest economy, and its people thrive.

U.S. Economy meets the impossible with plunging GDP

Last week’s dramatic plunge of the GDP in the U.S. to 32.9 made a lot of people take an equally dramatic gasp at the report card for America’s economy, for the second quarter, to be a predictor of doom, or what some are calling the Cassandra Complex for the world’s largest economy.

Battered and buffeted by a pandemic that seems to see no relief, for most of the country, it represents the sharpest loss in modern American history, and is poised to take millions of non-working Americans to the brink of survival.

Joined with the dramatic rise of cases in the Southwest, and Florida, the effects of rising infections have come to the Midwest, as Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said, with that state's rising infection rate, “We’re at the danger point.”

For the nation, there are 4.6 million infections, and 154,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, and the economic result has sabotaged the “halting recovery” that many were counting on to raise the dilemma that many American families and individuals are facing, with over 14 million of them unemployed.

Employers were on the brink of feeling their way back to some semblance of solvency,

“Not only have we plateaued, but we may be losing ground,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton in Chicago. “To have these kinds of numbers in July when many in Congress hoped this would be over by summer underscores how unique and persistent the Covid crisis is,’ she commented to The New York Times.

The unemployment figure, what we call the marquee figure, doesn’t say it all and seeing even that drop from 15 percent in April to 11 percent in June, buoyed by the first round of stimulus checks, acknowledged by economist, not has agreed that the outlook is not good, and this Friday’s jobs report from the U.S. Labor Dept. is not expected to be good, and to reflect even further decline in employment, especially for service employees, but also for the travel and leisure community, not to mention the decimated airline industry.

The freefall in consumer spending helped to bring the second quarter’s GDP drop by 34.6 percent as most held onto their spending and lowered their use of credit and debit cards.

The surge in unemployment filings shows a growing sense of desperation from urban centers to rural hamlets as many wait for Congressional relief in the form of not only another stimulus check, but to keep the $600.00 unemployment extension that many people see as their lifeline, but many Republican senators see as a disincentive to look for work, and while negotiations are in full bore, any loss will be seen as actions in the voting booth this November.

While that money was well spent, said Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell, as the Fed closed its two-day meeting, noted that the stimulus money was well spent, but also that the drawn out recovery will take every tool needed to ensure even a remote sense of solvency; and more notably stressed that the U.S. economy is now being driven by COVID-19.

Their measures are to buy asset backed securities, loans to small businesses and the purchase of corporate bonds to shore up the bond market.

The deepening recession, a sinkhole, say some economists are going to take years for a full recovery.

The hit to the service industry is now 43.5 percent, and the restaurant industry, an especially large employer for larger U.S. cities about 650,000 is in a weakened position as many people, even with 25 percent capacity restrictions, as it struggles to remain open, as it sheds employees.

With rents ranging from $3500 to $100,000 a month and attempts to meet payroll proved daunting for an industry that was once the hallmark of the recovery from the Great Recession, and where 75 percent of all growth in leisure and hospitality came from this area; making it work is one of the challenges that many owners have, and also some feel that it’s a “lose lose”, all the way around: lose if you stay open and lose if you close.

Reactions such as these gathered by The Brookings Institution, from their website, are just part of a much larger picture.

56 percent of all restaurants have acquired at least $50,000 of new debt as a result of COVID 19 and there are expectations that many restaurants will lose $240 billion by the end of 2020, noted sevenrooms.com.

Food preparation and service is the second most common job in the United States, they noted, and the stark truth is that two thirds of all restaurant employees have lost their jobs.

Facing loss is the production industry, down by 11.3 percent, but Monday’s ISM report showed that “American manufacturers expanded in July for the third month in a row, but senior executives say production remains well below pre-pandemic levels and not all the jobs are coming back soon,” according to Market Watch.

“The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index rose to 54.2% from 52.6% in June, marking the highest level in 15 months. Economists surveyed by Market Watch had forecast the index to total 53.6%., they added.

An important caveat is that, “Although readings over 50% indicate growth, the index doesn’t measure the actual amount of production or tell how much it has improved. The survey basically asks executives if their businesses are doing better or worse compared to the prior month.”

LinkedIn, the professional networking site, has laid off 1,000 employees, approximately 6 percent of its workforce, but there is good news: their employees will get at least 10 weeks of severance pay, and continued health coverage through COBRA.

The country’s largest retailer, Walmart has agreed, with some pressure from labor unions, to extend bonuses to frontline workers, due to the current surges, and according to Associated Press it will give $300.00 to full time hourly workers, and $150 for part time hourly workers.

Meanwhile the business community has slashed spending in every area, new investments, equipment, and physical plant, but the area they most often have cut is that of pay cuts, and a reduction in hours, which come to say are just different sides of the same coin.

While it’s safe to assume that this is an action taken by small business, there are some big names that have done the same: Tesla, General Motors, and Occidental Petroleum to name but a few.

Perhaps, of greater concern is the drop in revenue for state and local government, and while estimates are the best that can be had, (due to the beginning of the new fiscal year, for many states), the provision of extensions for deadlines for collections have not allowed for 2020 final figures, but a general estimate is that there was a 10 percent loss for the 2020 fiscal year, and a 20 percent loss estimate for 2021.

Some of the big states like California, New York and Illinois are seeing the following: $32 billion in 2021, for California; $13 billion for 2021, in New York; and for Illinois, in 2020, a $2.7 billion loss.

As we have noted before, this can result in a serious job cut for many black and brown people, who hold positions in some of America’s largest cities,

On the federal side there has been an increase in government spending of 2.7 percent, in the spring, and a ratcheting up with the stimulus checks to 17 percent.

For international trade, the balance sheet was even more skewed as exports shrank by 64% in the second quarter, with a corresponding drop in imports of 53 percent, sending more workers to the unemployment line.

It's a certainty that King Covid, as some are calling the pandemic, is here to stay, even in the short run until a vaccine is proven, after early clinical trials, which are currently being conducted, with dire consequences for the American workforce.

Problematic is that the response from the White House is precarious and misleading, with President Trump citing dubious claims like ingesting Lysol, and then the unproven treatment using hydrochloride, and then under pressure, reversing himself, then being angry with Dr. Deborah Birx, as she predicted the pitfalls of a new and even more deadly round wave, (with many people feeling that he is spinning about to try and ward off the prospect of being defeated by Joe Biden); and then remarkably after stating late last month, “by comparison to most other countries, who are suffering greatly, we are doing very well,”  then in the face of the U.S. having the highest infection rates and deaths, in an Axios interview on HBO, he said regarding the high death rate “It is what it is.”