The Lost Month

New marketing campaign from the city: signs where you write what you're excited to do after this is all over.

Cantrell and Arnold say they want to promote optimism, see residents have some fun with it. pic.twitter.com/28O58etu3s

— The Lens (@TheLensNOLA) April 14, 2020

"What are you gonna do when this is over?" What hypothetical imaginary spring-festival-in-the-fall are were you most looking forward to? What sports are you planning to not go watch? Immediately after Katrina there was a similar thought experiment going around. What were we gonna do to celebrate when evacuation ended and the emergency was over? It took a while for people to realize that the Katrina emergency would never be over. Katrina changed everyone's life forever.  This event will as well.

I don't think people fully understand what's happening yet. This isn't just a lost month. It's not just an act of nature. Like every major disaster of the 21st Century, it is a moment when the oligarchic classes will further tighten their grip on wealth and power. It is a moment when grifters and political cronies will take advantage to steal whatever the panic shakes loose.The bosses are winning the pandemic.  The bosses and the thieves.

We've seen it all before up close. 

If Katrina is any guide, profiteering amid the current COVID-19 pandemic seems inevitable given the hundreds of billions of dollars that will be sloshing through the hands of businesses and officials. Within 10 days of Katrina, Congress approved $62 billion in emergency relief for the Gulf Coast. That pales in comparison to the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package already passed, including a $500 billion corporate bailout fund. Yet corporate profiteering still reached epic proportions in New Orleans and the region after Katrina.

One thing Katrina taught us was you can't put off raising questions about profiteering and corruption while the disaster is happening just because "now is not the time." The chaos is precisely the time when it all happens. Shortly after Katrina, George W Bush used the emergency to justify suspension of the prevailing wage requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act.   Last month, labor leaders in New Orleans were upset to learn that emergency contracts to set up the Convention Center field hospital had been let to out of state operators.

Some local union leaders are angered that dozens of workers have been brought in from Texas to help convert the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center into a medical facility to deal with the coronavirus crisis, at a time when hundreds of their members are out of work.

The order to convert the convention center into a facility to provide up to 3,000 beds for spillover COVID-19 patients was made by Governor John Bel Edwards two weeks ago.

Two contracts for just over $76 million were quickly put out to bid. One for about $38 million, primarily to provide medical staff and services, went to BCFS Health and Human Services, a faith-based non-profit based in San Antonio, Texas that was formerly known as Baptist Child and Family Services. The other contract to build patient's tented cubicles and related work went to Baton Rouge contractor Dynamic Construction Group.

BCFS is an umbrella non-profit that has been paid hundreds of millions of dollars for constructing and maintaining border detention facilities.  Meanwhile there is also this. 

The governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, or OHSEP, also mandated that a previous $12.79 million contract to provide isolation housing units in Bayou Segnette be changed to instead put up trailers for patients "under investigation" adjacent to the convention center, according to Casey Tingle, OHSEP deputy director and chief of staff.

Tingle said that trailer park facility will initially by staffed by medical personnel from the Medical Corps of the U.S. Navy and may later be staffed by BCFS doctors and nurses.

The contract for that spillover trailer park and associated services went to Garner Environmental Services from Deer Park, Texas, whose sub-contractors include Energy Mechanical Services from Waller, northwest of Houston, both of whose trucks and workers were parked alongside Hall G at the convention center for the past week.

The "Government Laison (sic)"  for Garner Environmental Services happens to be disgraced former Louisiana State Police Superintendent Mike Edmondson.

Maybe it seems petty to point this stuff out. But it matters because everything that slips through in a matter of minutes now is infinitely more difficult to claw back later. And sometimes that is more than just a few million misplaced dollars. Sometimes it's 351 affordable housing units.

In 2016, then-New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu adopted a five-year housing plan featuring a commitment to “build or preserve” 7,500 affordable housing units by the end of 2020. But with the deadline right around the corner, the city won’t come close to meeting that goal.

In fact, the city lost 351 affordable housing units in just the last six months, and 671 over the last two and half years.

That’s according to a new semi-annual data report from HousingNOLA, an affordable housing advocacy non-profit. HousingNOLA issues comprehensive annual report cards on the city’s progress battling the city’s affordable housing crisis, as well as semi-annual data reports to give people an idea of what to expect when the full report comes in the fall.

That's not a direct result of the COVID crisis, of course. (Although good luck affording anything anymore now that nobody has a job!)  I really wanted to bring it up here because last month we also found Mitch Landrieu on Twitter telling us about what "we saw" after Katrina.

We saw this with Katrina. The communities that had generational wealth came back much faster. You’ll see that with the people that have access to transportation and health care. The same is true with food security. Focus on equitable response.

— Mitch Landrieu (@MitchLandrieu) April 6, 2020

Which is a weird thing to say for the person who oversaw a massive exacerbation of these inequalities during his term as mayor. It isn't going into too much of a stretch to say that Mitch Landrieu helped give us the New Orleans where the consequences of COVID 19 would inevitably distribute so unevenly.


Are we, though?

Anyway, everything is broken now and whatever new normal we're left with after the grifters are done picking everything over will again greatly advantage the "generational wealth" communities Mitch is talking about. So we're going to have to think very carefully about the kinds of changes that slip through now that we won't be able to undo later. Heightened surveillance. New parade rules. There are a lot of things happening we aren't thinking about. Can you think of any reason to roll back regulations on toxic chemical emissions right now?

Also, what was going on here?

Orleans Parish School Board members on Thursday backed off a fleeting proposal to extend their superintendent’s contract after hearing criticism about the unclear, last-minute process — amid a pandemic — that members of the public said failed to rationalize the proposed move.

It’s unclear why the extension was being pushed now. NOLA Public Schools district Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr.’s contract doesn’t expire until next year. Between now and then, there will be an election for OPSB members, and any newly elected board members will take their seats. Lewis’ annual evaluation won’t be completed until this fall.

It could be nobody knows what day it is or what time it is or in what order to do things anymore so everything tries to happen at once. Or maybe they just saw an opportunity to sneak a major decision by during a moment of minimal public access. It's already a problem that public business has had to improvise virtual proceedings more likely to deviate from open meetings laws with access limited to those who can afford to surmount "digital divide" issues. This is going to become an even bigger problem as this kind of negligence gets baked into the "new normal."

It certainly seems like a moment when you would not want to be laying off reporters but here we are. The news business is really an advertising business that's spent the better part of the past four decades seeing local outlets squeezed to death by mega-corporate consolidation and then by Big Tech. So, like pretty much any other industry, journalism needs a stimulus.  However..

The stimulus package proposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) included aid for community newspaper publishers, but that provision did not make it into the final bipartisan bill passed last week. Many newspapers can apply for small business loans, but executives say those won’t cure the industry’s underlying problems.

Speaking of the stimulus legislation, nobody seems to understand  how profoundly awful the "CARES Act" bailout is. We can't afford to fuck this up this badly in this moment. We've been asking for weeks that Congress roll out the big money gun in order to help workers and small businesses affected by the shut downs.  Instead they've been given a sclerotic SBA loan program and a $1200 check that may take months to arrive.  The money gun only fires in one direction, it seems. It fires up to where the Masters of the Universe roam.

The Fed responded by dusting off emergency lending facilities like the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility, and the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility, all of which saw action after the crash of 2008. Each would be used to step in and buy financial products in the various markets frozen due to virus panic.

The Fed furthermore announced that on March 23rd it would begin buying $50 billion in government-backed mortgage securities, in addition to $75 billion in Treasury bills, every day.

They’ve since lowered those numbers, but the scale of these interventions dwarfs any of the Fed’s actions post-2008. A $50 billion buying spree roughly represents as much Fed support of mortgage markets in one day as was done across a month at the peak of the last round of Quantitative Easing. Taken in conjunction with the CARES Act, the Fed and the Treasury were now positioned to become a major ongoing buyer of everything from mortgages to U.S. government debt to exchange-traded funds  to corporate bonds to money-market funds.

While all of this was being negotiated, the public was led to believe that, unlike in 2008, this time we weren't going to let them steal all the money. This time there would be real oversight.

A $500 billion corporate assistance program for distressed industries proposed in the $2 trillion Senate coronavirus stimulus bill will include an inspector general and oversight committee, according to a senior administration official.

The inspector general for what Democrats initially bashed as a corporate “slush fund” will be confirmed by the Senate, just like any inspector general, according to the official.

But later we found out that, no, actually the Treasury Secretary has authority to overrule whatever the  committee might decree. Oh and Trump has already fired the Inspector General so then so much for that.  Meanwhile, an underfunded SBA loan program ostensibly meant to help small businesses cover payroll was immediately looted by hedge funds. 

The SBA debacle was so bad that it actually shamed Republicans back to the table one more time to try and fix it. This could have been a bonus leverage opportunity for Democrats to win critical funding for state and local governments whose budgets have been cratered by the crisis. Of course, they whiffed on that and now every state and every city in the country has to wait another month to find out if we're all facing severe austerity cuts on top of the economic disaster that is already unfolding.

In New Orleans, for example, the mayor and CAO will be before City Council on Tuesday with a plan to borrow $100 million in order to fill a massive budget gap. (There is a federal program designed specifically to help them do that. You can read about it here.) The deficit is projected to be as much as $150 million, though, so they're going to have to find more.  Hey I wonder who might have hundreds of millions of dollars in public money just laying around right now....actually, let's come back to that later.  For now, it's still up to Congress. The May stimulus might be their last chance to try bailing out the people instead of the one percent.  We'll see how they do. Seems like a tall order.


Shouldn't these say, "Go Home?"

Eventually they're just going to make everyone go back to work. The Brennans will send a six foot rabbit to force us there at the point of a sword. Those of us there are even jobs for, that is. Those of us that can be used under whatever temporary and tenuous conditions that are set down. It will happen before anyone is safe from the virus. If there is no further action from congress and the status quo order is already maintained, everything will still be as broken as it is now and we will all be several orders of magnitude poorer for it.  Poorer workers are cheaper workers. When unemployment is high they are more disposable. The conditions that force them to work despite the danger make them easily exploitable. The bosses have won the pandemic.

They understand this, of course. This is why they're so eager to "reopen the economy now."  Which, in turn, is why the momentum for doing that has been spurred by a national astroturf "protest" movement funded by the DeVos and Koch political networks. Two weeks ago, about 17 people showed up at the Governor's mansion. Having gained the blessing of elected Republican state legislators, the latest demonstration brought out 250 people in Baton Rouge on Saturday. 

The protest was put together in the five days since Edwards extended his stay-at-home directives Monday, said state Rep. Danny McCormick, R-Oil City, who organized the effort on social media and by contacting churches and other groups.

When the Governor extended the statewide "stay-at-home" order to May 15 he put it in line with the date the city currently has in place.  It remains to be seen whether the state or the city will be ready to "reopen" at that time or what such a thing will even look like. But the political winds seem to be blowing them in that direction.

State and local governments have been chasing White House issued "metrics" intended to gauge the rate of spread and its effect on health care resources. But no one really knows if or when it will be safe to relax the restrictions that get us to meet those numbers. The whole thing could start right back up.

 “So, what happens when we reopen,” mused Dr. Susan Hassig, associate professor of epidemiology at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.  “It’s probably going to explode with a second wave.  The virus is still active, as we still see new cases, if even to a lesser degree.”

To mitigate the potential harm from reopening, every scientist The Lens spoke with re-emphasized that now more than ever is the time to take this virus seriously.  Both infectious disease specialists and epidemiologists alike said that washing one’s hands, wearing a mask and social distancing will go a long way to curb whatever second wave may just be around the corner.

“With a reopening comes a lack of social distancing, and it’s still not mandatory in Louisiana to wear a mask,” Hassig said. “Maybe 40% of people in New Orleans have already been infected. But, who knows?  Until we have the ability to rapidly test people and find out whether they’ve been exposed, it’s a guessing game.  I tell people to be cautious.  People want to take their chances, but it may be foolhardy. Just because we’re currently not running out of hospital beds doesn’t mean it’s time to let down our guard.”

There are still many people who believe this won’t be truly over until and if we can produce a vaccine that generates universal immunity

No one can say for certain when a vaccine like that might be ready.  But the consensus opinion tends toward 18 months at the very least but probably longer than that. So it's entirely reasonable to expect that over the next year and a half we'll be functioning under some sort of social distancing directive punctuated by future stay home orders from time to time if things spike.  Which is why the mayor said Tuesday that we may have to think about canceling Mardi Gras parades next year.

You can get mad at the mayor for saying these things out loud if you want to. But she's not just making it up. We need to talk honestly about the scale and scope of this thing so we can plan to keep everyone safe and secure throughout the....

Ahh who am I kidding? You know they're just going to bring on a bunch of politically connected business people to tell them what to do, right?  Said business people are already drawing up the orders, in fact.

Michael Hecht, president and CEO of GNO Inc., said that while health care considerations are paramount, it's time to start focusing on limiting damage to the economy.

"There is a general sense of urgency, from small businesses to large, to get the wheels of the economy moving again," he said. "Slowly re-opening the economy has practical implications like jobs, but also psychological implications because it gives people hope that we’re trying to move back to some new normal."

Moving too slowly to resuscitate the economy could prolong the recovery, which could lead to other health concerns that stem from joblessness and poverty, Hecht argues.

Hecht is echoing sentiments expressed in a full page ad placed by area patricians in the Advocate last week.  In this Washington Post interview, the mayor reiterates her response to that ad saying she "will not be bullied" by these business leaders. We hope that remains true. But the bosses have a lot of power. In fact, they probably have more power than the mayor does.

Friday, Cantrell talked to the press about developing a phased reopening strategy. Among the persons and entities listed on her advisory committee, we find businesses and "philanthropists" but not much about workers' voices.

It is unclear yet which businesses fall under the risk categories, but it will be determined in upcoming weeks by a multi-disciplinary, 14-member panel that includes (besides Cantrell): Tanya Blunt-Haynes of Friends Salon & Spa; Susan Brennan of Second Line Stages; Mavis Early of Greater New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association; Joe Exnicios of Hancock Whitney Bank; Vaughn Fauria of NewCorp; Michael Fitts ofTulane University; Trivia Frazier of Obatala Sciences; Andy Kopplin of Greater New Orleans Foundation; Calvin Mackie of STEM NOLA; Alden J. McDonald Jr. of Liberty Bank and Trust; Rick Tallant of Shell Oil; Warner Thomas of Ochsner Health System; and Greg Tillery of We Dat’s Chicken & Shrimp.

This is similar to the infamous post-Katrina "Bring Back New Orleans Commission" Ironically Cantrell began her career in politics resisting that panel's plan to replace much of her neighborhood with green space. Now it looks like she's working for them. It's just an inescapable truth that the city we "rebuild" in the wake of any disaster will be shaped according to the whims of the bosses. The office holder they use to implement their agenda is really kind of irrelevant. It could be anybody... so long as they are careful not to get too out of line.

Of course the mayor's council of bosses isn't the only such panel plotting out an economic reopening. The Governor's Resilient Louisiana Commission held its initial meeting, over the phone of course, on April 22nd.  And the extremely right wing Legislature we just elected also has a task force. What are they like?

The task force is charged with developing comprehensive policy, legislative, and regulatory recommendations to immediately re-start the Louisiana economy and to invest in the long-term recovery of households, workers, and businesses, according to the press release.

“With every challenge, there is opportunity,” said chairman Jason DeCuir, a Baton Rouge-based tax expert. ”It’s a long road ahead, and gathering input to develop solutions is a critical first step.”

The task force's membership skews heavily towards white Republican males.

Hmmm.. I might check again to make sure there aren't any large pink rabbits there just in case. Anyway, what are you going to do when this is all over? You may not have your plans in place yet but rest assured, someone is working out a plan for you.  Right now it only feels like we've lost a month.  But just wait. We're sure to lose much more than that.