No end in sight

It's going great

“I have never seen infection in which you have such a broad range literally no symptoms at all in a substantial proportion of the population to some who get ill with minor symptoms to some who get ill enough to be in bed for weeks,” he said. “Others get hospitalized, require oxygen, intensive care, ventilation and death. The involvement with the same pathogen is very unique.”

Fauci said officials have to do better in containing the virus as states attempt to reopen. On Tuesday, he said state officials should adopt mask mandates and close bars. He said Wednesday that U.S. health officials do not see “an end in sight” to the pandemic.

“We are certainly not at the end of the game” of the pandemic, Fauci said. “Certainly we are not winning the game right now. We are not beating it.”

If we're going to be here a while we could choose to use this time to devise better ways of taking care of each other and protecting the most vulnerable.  OR we can just tell everyone to "get used to it."  Can we just get used to a more dangerous and unstable life where work is scarce and government support services are basically non-existent?  It sure looks like that is what we're trying to find out.

Louisiana in 1993 paid off the $1.3 billion it borrowed in 1987. Two years later, in a plan crafted by Richardson with business and labor leaders, the Legislature put the trust fund on solid footing -- until now -- by establishing the tax that businesses would pay and the amount that the unemployed would receive.

The plan included a trigger that would raise the business tax and lower the benefit payment if the trust fund went below $750 million.

Richardson said the trigger, with a delay, will take effect in January, with businesses paying about 10% more in taxes and the unemployed receiving about 10% less in benefits.

They rigged it to self-destruct during an emergency. Whatever scheme they replace it with will likely be worse. Congressional Republicans are arguing right now over how much worse it should be. As we've seen many times before, though, it can get pretty bad.  Benefits can be slashed, unions can be broken, scores of services people rely on can be eliminated or privatized. Everything is on the table when these situations arise. And they do seem to arise with greater and greater frequency.

.@nhannahjones: "I'm very worried. Some of the data I've seen show that Black kids are going to lose the most."

She compares the situation to New Orleans after Katrina or Puerto Rico after Maria and cautions that there are some that will take advantage to push privatization.

— Meghan Mangrum (@memangrum) July 22, 2020