Year: 2020

The real devastation from COVID-19: A destroyed economy imposed by government panic

2:01 pm

While many state governors across the United States dawdle and hesitate about lifting their panic-induced lock downs on their states out of fear it might cause a few more Wuhan virus deaths, the real devastation from their panic is propagating uncontrolled across the landscape, and will in the end kill far far more people.

Their actions have caused the entire economy to collapse, destroyed entire industrial sectors, prevented untold numbers from getting the proper healthcare when needed, and put millions of people out of work. In the end, this government-imposed depression will do far more harm that the Wuhan flu ever could, and do it for a much longer time spell.

Don’t believe me? Well let me count the ways, citing the numerous stories I have posted here on Behind the Black in only the past week.
» Read more

41 comments

8 million restaurant workers unemployed due to government-imposed shutdowns

9:41 pm

The beatings will continue until morale improves: Eight million restaurant workers out of work due to due to Wuhan panic and government-imposed shut downs.

In addition, the restaurant industry is predicting $240 billion (with a “b”) in losses by the end of the year. Moreover,

…roughly 3% of the restaurants in the US — or 30,000 restaurants — have already shuttered. In the early April survey, an additional 5% of operators said they anticipated closing in the next 30 days, meaning that more than 50,000 restaurants could shut down permanently.

In early April, UBS said that up to one in five restaurants in the US could close due to the coronavirus pandemic. Experts say that independent restaurants are particularly at risk, with many small businesses struggling to access PPP loans.

In my own neighborhood, I have already seen one restaurant go out of business, and another apparently destroyed just as it was about to open. Through the winter a new Indian restaurant was being built nearby, with signs saying it would soon open. Unfortunately the house arrest imposed by our fearless leader Governor Doug Ducey prevented them from opening as planned. Though the restaurant had signs up offering take-out this week, when Diane tried to pick up a menu so we could give them some business. the place was shut. I suspect they are out of business, a dream destroyed before it could even be born.

But hey, we can’t risk having anyone die from COVID-19, no matter how many other lives we destroy.

Are you enraged yet?

4 comments

Clean energy industry faces loss of a half million jobs

9:23 pm

The beatings will continue until morale improves: The clean energy sector faces the loss of a half million jobs due to Wuhan panic and government-imposed shut downs.

The coronavirus crisis is cutting a savage swath through the U.S. clean energy industry – some 106,000 jobs in the sector vanished in the month of March alone as demand evaporated amid nationwide stay-at-home orders Moreover, that one-month job loss was greater than what the industry gained in jobs in all of 2019.

By June of this year, the clean energy sector may lose up to 500,000 jobs – or 15% of the country’s entire clean energy workforce — according to a study by clean energy advocacy group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), in cooperation with the American Council on Renewable Energy, E4TheFuture and BW Research Partnership.

Let me repeat: More jobs vanished in just March than were created in all of last year.

If the states don’t start reopening soon, this will just be the beginning.

4 comments

Cancer and heart patients dying because of government-imposed shut downs

9:03 pm

The beatings will continue until morale improves: Because state governments nationwide have forbid the entire healthcare system from treating anyone for anything that might in a rare instant be considered “non-essential”, cancer and heart patients are dying from lack of treatment.

Two stories from the article:

Although canceling procedures such as elective hernia repairs and knee replacements is relatively straightforward, for many interventions the line between urgent and nonurgent can be drawn only in retrospect. As Brian Kolski, director of the structural heart disease program at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange County, California, told me, “A lot of procedures deemed ‘elective’ are not necessarily elective.” Two patients in his practice whose transthoracic aortic valvular replacements were postponed, for example, died while waiting. “These patients can’t wait 2 months,” Kolski said. “Some of them can’t wait 2 weeks.” Rather than a broad moratorium on elective procedures, Kolski believes we need a more granular approach. “What has been the actual toll on some of these patients?” he asked.

Mr. R., a 75-year-old man with advanced heart failure, is another of Kolski’s patients for whom the toll has been great. Because he had progressive volume overload and delirium, Kolski referred him to a hospital for an LVAD workup in early March. Then, as his wife, Ms. R., told me, “the world went wonky, and everything went down the toilet.” Having begun admitting patients with coronavirus, the hospital told the couple it was kicking everyone else out. “They are telling me my husband has 6 to 12 months to live without this procedure,” Ms. R. said, “and now they are canceling it on us.” They were then quarantined at home — 2 hours away from the hospital — with no plan in place. Mr. R.’s health quickly deteriorated again, but his wife had been advised to keep him out of the hospital. When they finally had a video visit on April 9, he’d become so ill that the heart failure physician didn’t recognize him. Mr. R. was promptly admitted, and the LVAD was placed. Though Ms. R. is relieved, ongoing challenges include her husband’s persistent delirium, a visitor policy that allows her to be at the bedside only intermittently, and the need for nearby lodging that they can’t afford.

There are others. Read it all. I will also bet these doctors then wrote a fraudulent death certificate, claiming the heart patients died of the Wuhan flu.

This reminds me of my experience with my lung specialist. Unlike these people, I would not take no for an answer. How dare these doctors allow a heart patient to die because of a government edict?!

But we can’t let COVID-19 kill anyone, even if it means more people die from other causes!

This is madness, at a very high level.

And are you enraged yet? Or will you sit with folded hands while these tyrants smash their boots into your face?

13 comments

100K airline jobs facing elimination due to Wuhan panic shut downs

3:44 pm

The beatings will continue until morale improves: Because of the panic over the Wuhan flu, the airlines are contemplating eliminating more than hundred thousand jobs as well as shrinking their fleets.

Unable to cut jobs or salaries while receiving grants to cover payroll, airlines will staff their typical summer peak largely as usual, even with millions of fewer travelers. But come fall, it could get ugly for employees. “We’re going to be smaller coming out of this,” Delta Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson told employees last month. “Certainly quite a bit smaller than when we went into it.”

The reversal of fortune comes as a shock for an industry that just last year was breaking passenger traffic records. Last week, the average number of U.S. daily passengers declined 96%, to 95,531, compared with 2.39 million last year, according to Transportation Security Administration data compiled by Bloomberg. United shares fell Monday after it gave a snapshot of the industry bloodbath triggered by the pandemic, projecting a $2.1 billion loss in the first quarter. Delta, American and Southwest Airlines Co. will release their earnings in the coming days.

Such anemic demand means that anything less than a robust rebound over the coming months will prompt airlines to cut more employees, jettison older aircraft and cut more salaries, which in turn could persuade more workers to depart. During the past two months, at least 87,000 employees—more than one quarter of the Big Three airlines’ workforce—have taken voluntary leaves, early retirement or reduced work hours.

Carriers face “the worst cash crisis in the history of flight,” with booked revenues down 103% year over year, according to industry lobby Airlines for America. Domestic flights are averaging just 10 passengers while international flights average 24, the group said. “We could see the airlines look to shed 800 to 1,000 aircraft, which could result in a reduction of 95,000 to 105,000 airline jobs.”

In this case, the government shut downs only have had an indirect effect. By panicking and overstating the threat from COVID-19, the authorities and the press have made people terrified of flying. Even if the shutdowns end, the airlines will not recover until the public decides it is safe to fly again.

4 comments

Rural hospitals in eastern Washington state face bankruptcy

3:14 pm

The beatings will continue until morale improves: Because the state government’s panicked reaction to the Wuhan virus resulting in a banning of almost all procedures, rural hospitals in eastern Washington state now face financial collapse, bankruptcy, and possible closure.

With the state’s support, federal aid and advanced Medicare loans, the critical access hospital will be able to stay afloat – for now. But the financial impact of COVID-19 on Washington state’s rural hospitals cannot be understated. “This is unprecedented. There’s no way you could be financially prepared for this,” Jacqueline Barton True, vice president of rural health programs at the Washington State Hospital Association, said. “This sort of financial devastation is not something that we could have prepared for, and I have a lot of concerns about what happens if help doesn’t come soon enough.”

Some rural hospitals have received their first installment of funds from the federal CARES Act. Those payments are about $400,000 to $600,000 on average for smaller hospitals, according to WSHA.

Despite having a robust way for most rural hospitals to access community taxpayer support through the public hospital district model, rural hospitals in Eastern Washington are losing money on a daily basis as they balance pandemic preparations with canceled elective surgeries, primary care or patient therapy.

The article is long, outlining in frightening detail the impending collapse of the entire rural hospital network. The bottom line however remains the same: The state government arbitrarily decided that most medical procedures were “non-essential” and banned them so that the hospital would not be overwhelmed by Wuhan flu patients.

Those patients have never arrived in the feared numbers however. Instead we are looking at a normal flu season, when you combine coronavirus with flu cases. Lacking the revenue stream from all other cases, the hospitals are losing money and face bankruptcy.

5 comments

First exoplanet imaged was nothing more than a debris cloud

2:41 pm

The uncertainty of science: What had originally been thought to be the first image ever taken of an exoplanet has now turned out to be only the fading and expanding cloud of debris, left over from a collusion.

The object, called Fomalhaut b, was first announced in 2008, based on data taken in 2004 and 2006. It was clearly visible in several years of Hubble observations that revealed it was a moving dot. Until then, evidence for exoplanets had mostly been inferred through indirect detection methods, such as subtle back-and-forth stellar wobbles, and shadows from planets passing in front of their stars.

Unlike other directly imaged exoplanets, however, nagging puzzles arose with Fomalhaut b early on. The object was unusually bright in visible light, but did not have any detectable infrared heat signature. Astronomers conjectured that the added brightness came from a huge shell or ring of dust encircling the planet that may possibly have been collision-related. The orbit of Fomalhaut b also appeared unusual, possibly very eccentric. “Our study, which analyzed all available archival Hubble data on Fomalhaut revealed several characteristics that together paint a picture that the planet-sized object may never have existed in the first place,” said Gáspár.

The team emphasizes that the final nail in the coffin came when their data analysis of Hubble images taken in 2014 showed the object had vanished, to their disbelief. Adding to the mystery, earlier images showed the object to continuously fade over time, they say. “Clearly, Fomalhaut b was doing things a bona fide planet should not be doing,” said Gáspár.

The interpretation is that Fomalhaut b is slowly expanding from the smashup that blasted a dissipating dust cloud into space. Taking into account all available data, Gáspár and Rieke think the collision occurred not too long prior to the first observations taken in 2004. By now the debris cloud, consisting of dust particles around 1 micron (1/50th the diameter of a human hair), is below Hubble’s detection limit. The dust cloud is estimated to have expanded by now to a size larger than the orbit of Earth around our Sun.

This is not the first exoplanet that astronauts thought they had imaged, only to find out later that it was no such thing.

Remember this when next you hear or read some scientist telling you they are certain about their results, or that the science is “settled.” Unless you can get close enough to get a real picture in high resolution, or have tons of data from many different sources over a considerable period of time, and conclusions must always be subject to skepticism

5 comments

Price of oil crashes, goes negative

1:31 pm

The beatings will continue until morale improves: Due to the crash in demand due to the government-imposed Wuhan panic shutdowns, oil producers, who can’t turn off their oil wells, have run out of storage space and are now forced to pay others to take the oil off their hands, thus sending the price of oil into negative numbers.

Physical demand for crude has dried up, creating a global supply glut as billions of people stay home to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery fell more than 100% to settle at negative $37.63 per barrel.

Meanwhile, international benchmark, Brent crude, which has already rolled to the June contract, traded 8.9% lower at $25.58 per barrel.

While this crash is indicative of the entire crash of the economy, in the near long term it might be a good thing. If the government ever decides to release us from house arrest and people decide it is time to go back to normal, the low price of oil will help stricken businesses get back on their feet.

Then again, there is a very big “if” in that last sentence. I see no indication that our fascist state governors, especially in states run by Democrat governors, have the slightest interest in ending the shut downs. They like the almost absolute power it has given them over everyone, and that absolute power is corrupting them quite effectively. They might be making noises about “easing” the restrictions, but that is only political dishonesty. The bottom line will remain: They are now in control of everything everyone does, and have the right to give or take, as they please, whenever they please.

11 comments

Rock droplets hitting a Martian plain

12:42 pm

Depressions in Amazonis Planitia
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, is not only cool, it contains a punchline. It was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on February 11, 2020 and shows one small area between two regions in the northern lowlands of Mars, dubbed Amazonia Planitia (to the south) and Arcadia Planitia (to the north) respectively.

This region is thought to have a lot of water ice just below the surface., so much in fact that Donna Viola of the University of Arizona has said, “I think you could dig anywhere to get your water ice.”

I think this image illustrates this fact nicely. Assuming the numerous depressions seen here were caused by impacts, either primary or secondary, it appears that when they hit the ground the heat of that impact was able to immediately melt a wide circular area. My guess is that an underwater ice table immediately turned to gas so that the dusty material mantling the surface then sagged, creating these wider circular depressions.

Of course, this is merely an off-the-cuff theory, and not to be taken too seriously. Other processes having nothing to do with impacts could explain what we see. For example, vents at the center of these craters might have allowed the underground ice to sublimate away, thus allowing the surface to sag.

So what’s the punchline?
» Read more

1 comment

Social distancing and lockdowns killing craft beer industry

10:46 am

The beating will continue until morale improves: The new normal of “social distancing”, combined with the government-imposed lock downs, threatens to bankrupt the craft beer industry nationwide.

As much as 15% of craft breweries expect to close by the end of the month if social distancing remains in place, according to a national survey from the Boulder-based Brewers Association, and more than 60% don’t expect to survive beyond June.

If applied to Colorado — which now counts about 420 breweries — the projections suggest 250 would close by summer. That would represent a huge dent for an industry woven into the state’s identity and one that contributes more than $3 billion a year to the state’s economy.

Our society, our culture, our economy, and even the human race itself cannot survive if we accept the premise that no one can ever be closer than six feet to another. It isn’t practical, and it certainly isn’t sane.

5 comments

Study finds COVID-19 infecting homeless in large numbers, with few ill effects

9:25 am

A CDC study that established universal testing for Wuhan virus antibodies at a homeless shelter in Boston has found that almost forty percent of those tested had been infected previously, with no symptoms.

The broad-scale testing took place at the shelter in Boston’s South End a week and a half ago because of a small cluster of cases there. Of the 397 people tested, 146 people tested positive. Not a single one had any symptoms.

“It was like a double knockout punch. The number of positives was shocking, but the fact that 100 percent of the positives had no symptoms was equally shocking,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which provides medical care at the city’s shelters. [emphasis mine]

Not only does this reinforce results from previous studies (here and here) suggesting that the mortality of coronavirus is much smaller than so far measured and quite likely comparable to the flu, it shows that it is not a threat to the general population.

Think about it. The homeless population is usually unhealthy, with alcoholism and drug use prevalent. Yet, even here a large number got infected, exhibited no symptoms, and were unbothered by the virus. It is possible that their normal ill health disguised their symptoms, but nonetheless the Wuhan flu did not kill them.

If it couldn’t kill large numbers in this population, it means it certainly will not kill large numbers in the normal population. Which means that the lockdowns, social distancing, and coming economic crash, all imposed by government and media panic, were all unnecessary.

14 comments
1 … 120 121 122 123 124 … 169