As if the American people have not suffered enough now they must endure El Trumpo’s virus revenge as cases, hospitalisations and deaths all skyrocket:
The moving averages are not pretty:
As the mortality rate bottoms out:
I have every confidence that EL Trumpo will spend his last few months in office aiming to make this as bad as possible to punish the American people for failing to uphold his mighty person.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
Latest posts by David Llewellyn-Smith (see all)
- The economic outlook all China apologists must read - June 23, 2021
- Nassim Taleb annihilates Shitcoin - June 23, 2021
- Commodity supercyclers begin to squirm - June 23, 2021
YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN
Morgan Stanley: We're passed "peak Fed"
Morgan Stanley with the note. Rate of change is
Wall Street traitors rush into China
You can show a traitor a noose but you can't stop
How the Fed hawked up
Goldman with the note: The FOMC left the funds
US property boomlet to pop
BofA with the note: The economy is facing an
He has the mannerisms, facial expressions of Mussolini
Mango Mussolini
Hell hath no fury like a narcissist scorned.
Yes, absolutely spot on.
Yep. As someone who had an ex with NPD, I know all about it…
Me too, a sister. Sympathies. Only you will ever know what you’ve gone through.
+100
Spot on.
I’ve been calling him Trumpollini quite deliberately, for quite a while.
Very similar personality type to Mussolini.
+1
This comparison is always eye opening, against a convicted serial killer
https://gfycat.com/slimyminoririomotecat-charles-manson-donald-trump
At least super spreader events are out.
Especially for Melania. No more spreading for the loser.
Wonder if she will divorce him after this?
The only question is how much the pre-nup is worth.
Renegotiated before she would move to the White House.
Like Hazel H, probably being paid well to hang around. Now, the Abbotts ???
The pre nup is worth $450 million plus debt to Deutsche Bank.
she’ll get her ‘handler’s fee’ ….
I’m here all week.
Super spreaders? Like huge BLM rallies? I mean at least be consistent.
I really hope your last paragraph is wrong.
“I have every confidence that EL Trumpo will spend his last few months in office aiming to make this as bad as possible to punish the American people for failing to uphold his mighty person.”
As sick as this is, I think it’s very true. CV did us a disservice by passing him by.
But did he have CV or was it reality TV to show what a big man he was?
If he actually had CV, he should also be able to walk on water.
Meh this narrative is getting as bad as CNN
Covid Deaths per million
Belgium – 1055
Spain – 775
Brazil – 760
USA – 705.8
UK – 705.6
Italy – 654
But sure, US deaths are way out of proportion to the rest of the world and all those deaths are Trumps fault.
🤔
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
Most cases in the world. Most deaths in the world.
Pretty simple maths here.
To be fair, there are worse countries per capita
On Oz per capita does not count. Just ask Josh and Scumo. 😜
The only counting you should be doing is how many debt dollarydos you are eligible for housing speculation
Lol I see what you did there.
The problem with per capita stats for deaths is that, unlike most other things measured this way, you can’t bring someone back from the dead. You can print more money, start a new business, benefit for a later improvement in standard of living.
If you’re dead then it doesn’t matter, but if you’ve lost someone or have long term complications, then it is very much forever. Given this is the third wave in the US, Trump does need to be put over a barrel and given the pineapple treatment.
Funny mental image, that. A Trumpian orange fruit getting rammed into him one end would would see it lost at the other end.
Yawn – still having trouble with the concept of per capita Mig?
Is it surprising that one of the largest countries in the world should have one of the highest number of deaths from Covid?
Of course Trump could have locked down the US like China or Dictator Dan and stomped it out…. but then weren’t you one of the loudest squealers in that regard? Hypocrisy much.
Stewie history will show the lockdowns to have resulted in more deaths than the virus due to economic stressed violence and suicide. You are correct re per capita and also to consider is size and sparce the country is.
Stewie history will show the lockdowns to have resulted in more deaths than the virus due to economic stressed violence and suicide.
Unlikely. The economic stress would have come regardless. The alternative to “lock it down” was never “business as usual”.
India and Brazil aren’t at close to the daily case numbers.
They have a younger, healthier population and no doubt they are unable to test as widely as the US.
…it is also still only just getting started in India – out of a population of 1.3 billion only a tiny percentage of the population are currently infected. However their death tally is rising steeply…. give it time.
Brazil is in the Southern Hemisphere, so as a seasonal bug infection rates would be expected to fall away.
Of course Trump could have locked down the US like China or Dictator Dan and stomped it out […]
Or encouraged people to act responsibly.
Or not undermined the institutions, processes and people in place to address such events.
Or not condoned (if not encouraged) absurd conspiracy theories and bad behaviour.
Or not politicised it (LOL).
Or generally just shown a hint of empathy, maturity and leadership in taking his job seriously.
The false dilemma being peddled between the extremes of ROLL IN THE TANKS AND LOCK IT ALL DOWN FEDS and whatever-Trump-did is prima-facie bullsh!t. A vast gulf of alternatives exists between the two.
+1
He’s not your drunken uncle at a Christmas party. He’s the POTUS.
(Was the POTUS? Too soon?)
Sure Trump could have been a little more polished or recommended face masks or lockdowns or whatever, but at the end of the day, unless you are prepared to radically suppress freedoms, like China or Dictator Dan, then the outcome is pretty much EXACTLY the same.
USA – 705.8
UK – 705.6
Numbers don’t lie – not as entertaining as your rhetoric, but much more accurate than the maybe’s, might have, possibly’s, that your connected outrage rests on.
+1 to this. The numbers are comparable but the Trump approach could not have made it worse if he had tried. Maybe the US could have had far better numbers and gone down the Sweden path with dignity rather than mockery and ridicule for protective measures. There is a long way between a dictatorship and encouraging being a sensible member of the community.
All of the above. Or if he’d just done one simple thing – worn a mask and condoned it in others, no doubt thousands would not have died.
Like all the lives Boris saved with his recommendation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdUNneg1PJ4
USA – 705.8
UK – 705.6
Trumps biggest sin was failing to squeeze out enough tears and implement restrictions strong enough to justify the terror that couch fainting emotes are feeling following a six month terror campaign by the media, of a virus that for most people is no deadlier than the flu.*
*Unless you are older than 65, fat, unfit and overweight or suffering from some other medical condition like immune or respiratory disease – and even then it is a sliding scale based mainly around age… which is why the average WuFlu victim is 84 a full two years above the average Australian life expectancy of 82!!!
If you are at risk do what you can to mitigate it – don’t expect society to immolate itself for you. Lose weight, move away or if you are old and sickly, find solace in your life and prepare yourself for what awaits us all.
How would anyone know what percentage of the population in India has had it ?.
It might be 9% or it might be 90%.
And in which would you prefer to be? USA or Straya?
Plus US testing is a shambles
“Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people’s ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.”
We are no different to America, just luckier.
Simple numbers for simple folk. Agreed.
You’re partly right; but he didn’t do what he could to shape the culture constructively, and minimise spreading by exhortation and example. Quite the opposite. Leadership and process both matter – I think you’d agree.
You’re trying to project Asian or Australian values on Americans.
Australia is an extreme nanny state and Aussies are sticklers for the rules.
It’s also much easier to keep the virus out of a country with 5 major cities compared to a country of 25 million. That’s the population of the New York metro area extending into Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Yup – Trump closed the door on China early, and for his efforts was called a rac!st by both the msm and many commentators on this site too. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, Italy was busy seeding Europe and the East coast of the US with the virulent strain that has subsequently infected much of the world.
The two nations with the biggest global travel hubs, New York and London, then went on to seed the rest of their respective countries with the virus. Unlike the US the UK is a Westminster based system with highly centralised Federal Govt powers and thus more capable of directly controlling and micromanaging the internal virus response than the US’s Republic model.
So how did they fair – two countries both of which were seeded early in the outbreak, yet whose Executive leadership have radically different powers in terms of influencing internal policy? Why they are doing exactly the same.
Sure Trump could have been a little more polished or recommended face masks or lockdowns or whatever, but at the end of the day, unless you are prepared to radically suppress freedoms, like China or Dictator Dan, then the outcome is pretty much EXACTLY the same.
Population points accepted.
Extreme nanny state?
Sticklers for rules?
Private citizenry in Australia were locking down weeks before govts made us do it – I, and many, many of my friends and acquaintances were doing it.
Australia is different to the US, sure: we are more cohesive, and generally less wilful and generally more sensible.
I this the same population that created a toilet paper shortage?
Phase 1 yes, phase 2 onwards they were not once the severity question was answered. As has been shared on this site previously, Roy Morgan polls clearly showed a desire for loosening restrictions all while Victoria was tightening.
Stewie is right on deaths the data at John Hopkins validates what he is saying. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/cumulative-cases
Deaths per 100K are capping at 100 with some countries much lower than that. Look at the logarithmic scale – the secondary mutated strains are not as dangerous, its peaked and is going nowhere fast on those countries who copped it hard in April/May.
I disagree with Stewie that Trump made the right call based on data or science. He just doesn’t care so took the path of least resistance. Boris has succumbed to public pressure on UK lockdowns, would bet that even with exploding cases the death rate will remain peaked out. If this happens, locking the public down is scientifically and statistically the wrong course action.
We are more asianised in more ways than one. The old Australia is gone.
Gareth, I’m not saying at all that Trump’s performance was exemplary or was in accordance with the science by any means – what I’m saying is that it would not have made much of a difference.
All Trump is guilty of is ignoring the feelings of those couch fainting emotes who wanted to see tears of blood and strong restrictions on freedom, to match the terror that the media has filled them with over a virus that for the vast majority of the population is no deadlier than the flu.*
*Unless you are older than 65, fat, unfit and overweight or suffering from some other medical condition like immune or respiratory disease – and even then it is a sliding scale based mainly around age… which is why the average WuFlu victim is 84 a full two years above the average Australian life expectancy of 82!!!
Yup and they will still need to “radically suppress freedoms” in the US, just even more so, in the coming months, as the virus keeps ripping through. There is no magical land where you have increasing disease load, and human populations are NOT forced – BY THE VIRUS, to change behavior. ie. Behaviour change is an INEVITABLE function of increasing disease load – not some “leftie” plot to control our lives.
Many Americans will literally be dying in their homes and in the streets on account of the health system being overwhelmed this winter. “Rounding the corner” to a head-on collision with Destination Fxxked.
Where have you been FUD? That is the most sensible statements made on this board for months!
Looking at the graphs, mortality has not necessarily bottomed out (implying a march upward), similar deaths aren’t really on the march yet (‘skyrocket”, are they.
I have no dog in the game, just observing
Still puzzled the Belgians found a way to run De Ronde, but Paris Roubaix, non.
Compliant Belgians though, honouring the stay home request.
Be interesting to see what happens in TDF21 with a two time summit of the Geant. (Have I regaled you all of the time I completed Les Cingles, now that was hard yakka)
agree.
Correct. The virus is much worse in the EU yet all anyone can talk about is Trump as if the US is the only place on Earth suffering from a worldwide pandemic.
Orange Man Bad though.
and to add to it doctors in US get paid more when diagnosing deaths as covid. A person who was dying from cancer and had 30 days to live get covid and dies 2 weeks earlier than doctors gave him/her is market as covid victim. This issue has been recorded in may European countries too.
In the Italian parliament a politician described a case where motorcycle rider who got killed in an accident was marked as covid victim because autopsy showed he had covid.
I trust data about infections but I am bit sceptical on mortality rates. There are lot of incentives for US hospitals to report more covid deaths. Sad but true.
1
Perhaps (Perhaps) when numbers were low and statistics were poor, per capita was not relevant. But to now spin data in anything other than per capita terms is dishonest or blinkered.
Where is the equivalent call for failure of UK etal?
Where is the analysis about demographic differences in rural v urban, education v not and its effect on viral expansion rates?
Per capita is all that matters.
Kinda like:
% of total profits lost?
% of total population lost?
Maybe that’s an easier way to understand a per-capita measure.
It’s surprising how many people struggle to understand it.
Okay, here we go! I’ve read several times that Belgium counts its CV deaths differently and that inflates them. Brazil?? A third world country, you want to compare the US to them, come on, be fair! I’m fairly certain that CV had a head start in Spain and Italy and the UK, with all their stuffs is doing slightly better.
How about comparing the US and us, since we closed our borders to China the same day? I don’t think Trump has responsibility for all the CV deaths in the US, but he sure as sh!t3 is responsible for them being inflated as what they are. He did nothing and encouraged his base and republican states to do nothing (as does Boris “the idiot” Johnson). Same as Morrison was trying to do here.
Hi Dennis – see above.
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2020/11/el-trumpos-virus-revenge-takes-shape/#comment-4022804
Comparing the US to Australia is not a fair comparison – being the ass end of the world, we were neither heavily seeded early nor have global travel hubs anywhere in the league of the London or NY.
Our lockdowns were effective because of the above fact plus our relatively mild winters – and yet even then Victoria came within a bee’s d!ck of going the same was as Europe, in which case the virus would still be endemic down there too.
Could Trump have done better – sure. But it would have only made the smallest difference at the margins, as the presence of many other first world nations on that list attest to.
I think that’s going to be a factor in the end analysis: perception.
Could Trump have done better in the end game? Debatable (actually I’d argue long-term, probably not)
Could he have perceived himself doing a better job with containment, particularly in the early stages Feb-May? Absolutely.
Now again, end result might not have been different, but people want to know their concerns are being taken seriously. He struggled in that regard, but that’s just who he is. Again, debatable whether that is a good quality in a head of state.
I’d agree with everything you’ve just said – all fair criticism.
Anyway, the bigger, badder question for the US and the rest of the planet (ourselves included) is:
What now?
Get on with life is the answer, its much less deadly now…I am sure whoever is the Next President will claim “great success” for what is a biological phenomenon.
Good. Then add in that we are an island, non porous borders with a largely submissive (rule following) and educated population. Why did Canada get more covid than us?
If Hillary had been President, the number of deaths per million would definitely have been below 100. She had an in-depth knowledge of the health care system, she knew how to manage a crisis, she would have listened to the experts, and she would not have gutted the CDC.
Mmmm… I don’t know that I entirely agree with that take. Yes she might have got experts around her and got the message out their sooner, but unless she had closed all flights at the same time (east and west coast), forcibly stopped people movement and rolled out a nationwide “test-and-trace” program through a highly fragmented primary care health system, I think the result would have been similar. Maybe not the extreme magnitude I’ll give you that, but her major limitation would be a large number of people in a large number of areas simply don’t trust government in the US, and there are no shortage of commentators ready to adopt an contrarian position.
You mean 1000 per 1 Million?
Hillary or any president would have had similar luck – they got the early euro strain which has a fatality rate approaching 100/100K or 1000/1M – very little could have been done to stop it considering their state regulations and controls.
Interestingly, some US states (Nth/St Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin), if they were countries, would be the worst per Capita for Covid cases in the world.
USA is a hard place to run a pandemic response out of. 40% of the country on either side are pretty set in their ways. The “liberty” lot demand small government, freedom of movement, etc etc. (That’s not a character flaw analysis; that’s just what you’ve got to deal with). I’d think even if Ebola broke out there, they might just go “meh, we’ll take our chances with the fatality rate”.
What can ya do?
let her rip?
Overlay obesity, coronary diseases and diabetes statistics with COVID deaths and you sha’ll see a trend.
https://www.consumerprotect.com/hot-topics/worst-eating-and-exercise-habits-in-america/
Salt the land!
Use those nuke codes!
Just poisoning faith in the democratic process, and unleashing Nationalistic rationalism is enough to do extraordinary damage to the US that was/is….
Lots of right wing media (Youtube) right now is trying to say the results are being rigged that voter fraud is underway. Trumps useful idiots / apologists I guess.
plenty around here too.
years talking about the left are whingers and when their man loses they’ll grab any quarter-baked theory to say the game was rigged. take the L. toughen up.
He’ll announce his scorched earth policy in the coming days.
The Nero Decree comes to mind, but issued from the Oval Office in the dying days of the regime rather than the Führerbunker.
“I have every confidence that EL Trumpo will spend his last few months in office aiming to make this as bad as possible to punish the American people for failing to uphold his mighty person.” Goebbels and Hitler felt the same as Berlin was turned into dust and rubble. The Volk had failed.
And all because the ‘Biden crime family’ has stolen the election!
https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1324098069445660674?s=20
It might well be that Biden is a dirty shirt.
It’s also likely that he’s a less dirty shirt than Trump with respect to his corrosivity on the USA’s fundamental democracy (OK, flawed democracy).
At least if Biden wins, there might be just enough democracy left to wash his dirty shirt one day, too. I think Trump care about democracy only as long as it keeps working for him.
You’re seeing who Trump really is now.
When Hillary got humiliated in 2016, she called to concede. No grandstanding. No telling everyone to stay on alert. Just took it on the chin and walked off into the sunset.
Trump is losing. But he doesn’t have the class in him. So now, on full display, is why over half the voters didn’t want him.
Trump’s daddy taught him that only losers accept defeat, and that he must never be a loser or else he’ll be worthless.
And what about the false Russian collusion course of evebts? Yes the democrats were completely honourable and stoic….
My God, an absolute nutter.
But par for the course in Murka!
A true patriot. Kudos! Cool shirt too hey bloke.
A typo in your last graph- it reads “Morality Rate”, but thats probably also accurate.
So if the trends hold Arizona might be back in play, Nevada is a black box until Friday, but Pennsylvania is slowly slipping out of Trump’s grasp and this could all be over as soon as their 20 delegates flip blue, irrespective of what Arizona does.
I suspect Trump is digging himself in to negotiate his exit from the WH – pardons for everyone, a promise not to prosecute, multiple other lawsuits dropped, let me go off into the ether.
I’d call his bluff. Biden holds all the chips here, and I bet people will be flooding the DoJ with resumes as soon as January rolls around.
“I suspect Trump is digging himself in to negotiate his exit from the WH – pardons for everyone, a promise not to prosecute, multiple other lawsuits dropped, let me go off into the ether.”
What exactly will they prosecute Trump for? I’m genuinely curious?
Tax fraud for the Trump org in NY.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/nyregion/donald-trump-taxes-cyrus-vance.html
No federal pardon power over that either.
Federally – well, there’ll be a lot of ex-WH staff who will know where the skeletons are buried. We’ll see what the appetite is to settle old scores, or just draw a line under it and move on.
Arizona is a Dem win, albeit 86% count. Do you mean it could go GOP or did you mean another state?
Fox called it early but the vote there is still close and not breaking for Biden as it is in other states. So if PA goes to Biden then AZ is irrelevant.
Politico and NPR both have it Dem. Trump/GoP are not exercised by the result even with 86% in. It’s not in dispute as a Dem win.
Betting odds have plunged on Dem victories in Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Trump might not win any more states in play at this point.
It’s because of Arizona’s Maricopa County is late in reporting. The result will be heavily pro-Biden. That’s why even Fox’s News called it for Biden.
I expect he is going to Pardon Snowden before he exits.
I’ll take that bet. I can afford some high end soba noodles to stir fry in my woke
I really hope he does. Assange too. Snowden i think has a really good shot. Assange unfortunately not.
I think it would be good to pardon them – what do you think?
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/politics/justice-department-armed-officers-election.html
Armed agents to oversee ballot-counting.
Trumpolini seeking more ‘ammo’ with which to poison the narrative!
‘My upstanding agents saw this, that and this! Fraud!’
For personalities such as this, everything is ammo; everything is a tool; everything is a resource to be exploited; everything is expendable as required to achieve the desired objectives.
The Democrats, BLM, Antifa would be rioting already if Trump was behind and millions of Trump votes were seemingly pulled out of a hat.
If the greater context wasn’t that Trump is actively poisoning and undermining the otherwise decent electoral process, then I might agree with you somewhat…
Remember, too: Antifa have raised their heads to the degree they have precisely because they are Anti-Fascist, and Trump is quite clearly a rationalist, Nationalist and aspiring fascist….these aren’t normal times, and this isn’t a normal election fighting the normal fights…
Yeah.
But they’re not.
So they’re not.
Seems like a weeeeeee double standard.
“……..and millions of Trump votes were seemingly pulled out of a hat.”
And where has this happened, other than in Trump’s mind?
What the left might do is always worse than what the right are doing. 😉
40k at the footy
This!
no way biden will last 2 years, its a stressful job, so Kamal it is hey, whats that gunna mean
That is going to be insufferable and I suspect will poison the chalice for another woman of colour to run for President.
Ergh, who cares about the idpol nonsense. She is Hillary Clinton 2.0. Same old Democrat corporate type with a nasty authoritarian streak. Her record as California DA speaks for itself. Got 3% in the primaries before being destroyed by Tulsi Gabbard. It’s my view that Kamala was the real candidate running all along under cover. Notice she’s been very quiet the whole time?
She’ll be in within 6 months. Be careful what you wish for.
I agree, she’s definitely a lawyer type. Wiesel words and all.
Let’s be real SuS, Biden won’t actually be doing the job. He will be in his PJ’s eating ice cream. They will wheel him out for the odd sound bite.
Precisely.
The two you have been watching too much tv.
I’ve spent the last few weeks re-watching “House of Cards” on Netflix.
The parallels are uncanny.
… or the people who want to take evasive action are free to do so. Novel concept, I know.
Europe is suffering too thanks to el Trumpo
Yeah. It aint the China virus. It’s the Trump virus and history will record it’s his fault! Sick barsted!!
Brilliant… you are the perfect anecdote to the pathological nutters on this website. I am surprised they haven’t thrown you off yet???
Similar strategies. Govts around Europe decided to keep pretty much everything open including travel during the summer months to keep the populace relatively happy instead of getting it significantly under control and deciding to live with the consequences/take stronger action in winter when lots of Europe would be indoors most of the time anyway. Now there is very little chance to get it under control in the US/Europe so it will need to burn through the population with the hope that you don’t lose immunity in 3-6 months.
crash the market Trumpo – you can blame it on fear of the Biden.