California and Minnesota may be taking tiny baby steps to reinstate the First Amendment to the bill of rights, but there are indications here and there of opposition to any such efforts.
This discussion will be posted on several of my blogs.
Excessive focus on the First Amendment is a “suicide pact”
If you could take a photograph of the US labor market today, the picture would look something like this. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
A useful adjective to describe the devastation we are seeing in the job market escapes me.
New unemployment claims for week ending 5/16/20 were 2.12 million, seasonally adjusted. Nearly as many, 1.19 million who are not otherwise eligible unemployment filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) in the week.
That’s somewhere around 3.3 million people who lost their job in week 10 of the shutdown.
My tally of data:
40.73M – seasonally adjusted new claims since the economy was put in an induced coma
6.82M – new claims for unemployment by people who otherwise aren’t eligible for unemployment – self-employed and independent contractors
47.55M – total of seasonally adjusted plus independent contractors and self-employed people out of work since shutdown began
Number of new unemployment claims is a tally equal to about one fourth (24.8%) of the civilian labor force in February. Independent contractors and self-employed people who are out of work is now equal to about 4% of the February civilian labor market.
That means about three out of ten people who were in the civilian labor force in February are now out of a job (28.9%).
The state governments of California and Minnesota have given their permission for people of faith to partially engage in the free exercise of their religious beliefs.
Look at the detail for more than 15 seconds and you realize there’s only a fractional restoration of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, along with the fractional restoration of the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
With our freedom under assault by many state and local politicians across the United States, it is more important than ever before that on this Memorial Day we remember those who shed all their blood so that we may be free.
A ‘thank you’ from me is so trivial. I will demonstrate my appreciation for freedom purchased by others by exercising my freedom of speech today. Yesterday I exercised my freedom of religion. Today and tomorrow I will exercise my economic freedom, also called pursuit of happiness, by running my business the way I choose to do.
Following post was first published on May 29, 2017. It reprints an earlier post of May 30, 2011. I will update the discussion slightly. Deletions are struck through, new comments are in italics. This feeble tribute to those who have gone before will be posted across several of my blogs.
Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
From May 29, 2017:
Those of us living in the United States are blessed with religious freedom, political freedom, and economic freedom because those who went before us fought for freedom.
Many of those fighting offered up their life for freedom and the offer was accepted.
I am humbled and grateful to God that some of my ancestors are included in the long list of those who fought. I am especially humbled that a great, great grand-uncle is in the list of those who died in the defense of freedom and the effort to crush slavery.
Because of their sacrifice, I get to enjoy this kind of freedom:
Um, that’s not how this freedom thing works. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
It’s about time.
As of this morning, places of worship in California will be allowed to resume full operations in Phase 4, which will be at some distant point in the future, likely the end of the year or sometime in 2021. Vague comments by state authorities hint the opening date may be after a vaccine is in use.
In Illinois, full worship services will not be allowed until after a vaccine is in use, with the governor acknowledging that will be 12 or 18 months from now.
Another state, I lost track of which one, put worship in the last category to reopen, along with concerts and stadium-filled athletic events.
Other states and counties, too numerous to bother gather articles for specific citation, have placed worship services low on the list of places to open.
It now looks like the First Amendment may be put back in the Constitution after having been removed by a wide variety of governors.
Several recent events for you to consider:
Catholic and some Lutheran churches in Minnesota will resume worship on May 24.
Around 500 California churches (primarily Protestant) are reopening May 31, with or without permission.
Roman Catholics in Orange County will resume Mass on June 14.
CDC issued guidance for worship services.
California governor is thinking about maybe allowing worship again. Will let us know Monday, May 25.
This discussion will be posted on several of my blogs.
Why fuss over something like gathering to worship?
If you think I’m being too harsh on the long list of governors and bumbling public health officials who won’t allow in-person worship, be advised that too many of my relatives and ancestors fought for our freedom to let American freedoms be trampled upon.
Three of my relatives I personally knew came home from war with life-long physical or emotional injuries. Each suffered until he died.
One of my ancestors died in the effort to crush slavery and rebellion. His blood is in the ground at Champion Hills, east of Vicksburg.
The price paid for our freedom is measured in blood.
There is severe danger that a growing number of businesses are going to look like this over the next few months. Abandoned Safeway store [01] by Ben Schumin is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0The damage from the lockdown is spreading. More news is emerging about the devastation that took place in just the first full month of the closure.
The damage will continue to grow the longer the shutdown continues. At some point it will start compounding, growing at a faster rate out of proportion to the time that is passing. Keeping the economy closed now is unnecessarily so the compounding damage is a choice.
Merely a few of the articles in recent days:
Guess on GDP shrinkage in next quarter
Disproportionate number of poorer households hit by job losses
Collapse of tax revenue in New York state
Collapse of home sales in Southern California
Another retail chain announce store closures and another announces liquidation
It is imperative to reopen the economy in full, not just for ‘curb-side delivery.’ If we don’t open soon, I fear the following articles will be mild in comparison to what we will see in the future.
This discussion will be posted on several of my blogs.
5/16/20 – Fox Business – US GDP could sink over 40%: Atlanta Fed – Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is forecasting a 42.8% drop in GDP for the second quarter of 2020.
I don’t have any word that can describe this disaster:
New unemployment claims for week ending 5/16/20 are just under 2.5 million, seasonally adjusted. An additional 2.2 million people who wouldn’t usually be qualified for unemployment filed during the week for Panemic Unemployment Assistance. The new PUA tally is shocking.
The tally of seasonally adjusted new claims is 38.6 million since the economy was put in an induced coma.
The continuing lockdown is directly leading to a decline in health. Large volume of articles for many weeks now have been pointing this out.
This is second of two posts describing recent articles. Part 1 here. This will be posted on several of my blogs.
5/11/20 – Wall Street Journal – Medical Lockdown Will Cause a Disease Surge – Two practicing MDs point out that lots of people have not sought treatment during the pandemic for initial signs of some other form of illness. There will be a surge of people visiting doctors after the lockdown ends. Six or eight weeks of delay will not be an issue for many people but for others it will make their illness far worse and for some, unrecoverable.
Disaster exercise In Tel Aviv on November 11, 2010. Allegory to where the US public health will be in near term. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
The continuing lockdown is directly leading to a decline in public health. Large volume of articles for many weeks now have been pointing this out.
This is first of two posts describing just a sampling of recent articles. This will be posted on several of my blogs.
5/19/20 – A Doctor a Day letter-signed; letter to Pres. Trump signed by over 500 doctors– You can read the letter yourself at the link.
A mass casualty incident is currently underway in the United States.
Letter explains the assessment protocol in a catastrophe:
“During a mass casualty incident, victims are immediately triaged to black, red, yellow, or green. The first group, triage level black, includes those who require too many resources to save during a mass crisis. The red group has severe injuries that are survivable with treatment, the yellow group has serious injuries that are not immediately life threatening, and the green group has minor injuries.”
Goal of medical providers during such a catastrophe is to focus treatment on the red group while making sure the yellow and green groups do not deteriorate a level.
Assessment by the doctors of where we are in the United States?
Red – millions of Americans are currently at triage level red. There are normally 150,000 Americans who are given a cancer assessment each month.
We now have two months of no testing which means there are over 300,000 Americans who have detectable cancer, don’t know it, and have not started any treatment. An unknown but calculable number of those will die because of the lack of testing during the shutdown.
Our very form of existence as the United States of America is based on the idea that the power of government is based on having consent of the governed. In other words we, free citizens, give government the power it has.
Phrased more eloquently, the Declaration of Independence declares:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, …
We are beginning to see damage to trust in public policy and confidence in government. Governors who continue to keep their economies locked up when there is no consent to do so and no justification for doing so are whittling away at that “consent of the governed” concept.
Politicians urgently need to pay attention to this. There is danger of long-term damage which nobody is going to like. More on the risks at the end of this post.
The growing resistance to the harshness of state policies is becoming more visible with each day that passes.
This discussion will be posted on several of my blogs.
Many churches planning to open in California on May 31
I just came across this issue in the news. It has been brewing for a couple of weeks.
Production data in North Dakota is routinely released on about the 15th of each month reflecting data for the second previous month. So the info just released on May 15, 2020 reports the March 2020 activity.
The radical drop in price due to the demand shock and supply shock will show up in production data for April, expected to be released about 6/15/20.
On my daily walk yesterday I noticed a girl’s softball team (high school or younger) practicing. In other corner of park, six or eight boys were in football scrimmage (high school age). At another park I noticed a boy’s baseball team (elementary school age) practicing and half a dozen high school age boys working on their pitching arms. Also saw a few coaches, one coach, six parents, one coach, and one coach. Not a mask in sight.
I have noticed surface traffic on main streets in my area is picking up over the last week or two. Have had opportunity to be on the freeway during evening commute time recently and noticed the traffic volume has definitely picked up over what it was a couple weeks ago.
Other indications compliance with statewide house arrest is evaporating:
5/16/20 – Daily Bulletin – Some Inland Empire businesses reopened – defying coronavirus orders – Reporter was able to find eight businesses in Riverside and San Bernardino counties that have opened. Officials report they received a number of complaints about some of those businesses.
Lots of people are starting to make guesses on what the impact will be from the pandemic on different industries over the next few years. No guess is better than another, so here is some speculation for your consideration.
The longer the economy of major states stay closed by deliberate choice of multiple governors the worse the effect is going to be. At some point there will be a disproportionately compounding effect with every extra week.
Discussion in this post brings together speculation for
higher education,
retail, and
airlines.
This discussion will be posted on several of my blogs.
Higher Education
A flood of articles are discussing damage to the higher education world. Eventually all colleges and universities will concede they have to refund something in the range of half a semester of room and board.
More institutions are getting pressure, if not getting served with litigation papers, to refund a portion of Spring 2020 tuition. Pressure is growing to discount tuition in the fall if classes are held online.
There is a growing probability there will be a severe impact over the next few years. One of many articles discussing the possibilities:
New York order sending people sick from coronavirus to nursing homes.
Multiple states, including New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania required nursing homes to admit or readmit people who were sick with COVID-19. A lot of articles have appeared describing the impact of these intentional policies.
In case you are like me and have a hard time believing reports that government officials would knowingly implement such policies, a copy of the New York order is provided above.
Just a small selection of the articles appearing of late:
