Guaranteed income

Liberal politicians often push government benefits to help people while conservatives stress the importance of jobs. Nancy Pelosi yesterday suggested that it may be time for a guaranteed income for all Americans and this would be the ultimate in benefits. Would the beneficiaries lose any of this money if they worked or would that be in addition to their wages? Does this kind of public assistance discourage people from working? Will it cause people to become more dependent on government and if so is that a bad thing?

News

I spend more time than the average person watching cable news and since I am not working even more time. The news is no longer used to form opinions but rather to reinforce opinions. Liberals watch MSNBC and CNN and conservatives watch Fox and everyday they get to hear what they want to hear. The most recent example centers around the allegations of sexual misconduct by Joe Biden. Every day Fox poses the question as to why no one is asking Biden about these charges and the other net works never bring up the subject. I highly recommend that viewers watch more than one network to get a better understanding of what is going on.

OPM's

Business people are familiar with the phrase, OPM's or other peoples money. Regular citizens use this concept in car loans and mortgages but business people use it for inventory, payroll, expenses and expansion. OPM's are the life blood of business and no business makes use of this idea more than the real estate business. President Trump has used OPM's for his entire business career and so borrowing money to make money is not new to him. He is willing to spend freely during this virus crisis and time will tell if these loans or grants will hurt or help the economy. Congress is more than willing to go along with this approach and if things work out OK they will all claim the credit but if things do not work out they will say the buck stops with Trump. This is what it means to be president.

Open or not

A tale of two workers. John works for the government and he is at home and nothing has changed economically in his life. His pay check keeps coming in and all of his benefits continue and when this is over his job will be waiting for him as if nothing had happened. Joe started his new business five years ago and beat the odds since half of all new businesses do not make it five years. Joe used his life's savings, borrowed all the bank would allow, got a second mortgage on his house, got help from his parents and worked 80 hours per week and has kept his doors open. Now the virus has taken all that away from him. He has applied for grant money to pay his employees but his request is tied up in red tape. Joe is anxious to open up the country but John says wait so we won't have a second virus attack. Its all in the eye of the beholder or in this case the wallet of the beholder.

Virus deaths

Black Americans are dying at disproportionate rates from the virus because they are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, overweight, smoking, diabetes and asthma. The biggest case of discrimination is with the elderly as 80% of all deaths are people over age 65 and half of those are over age 80 and half of those were in nursing homes. The numbers are 38,000, 19,000 and 9,500 respectively. All other deaths number 10,000.

Lunch programs

There are reports that some people are going without food because of the virus but these are the same people who were doing without proper nutrition before the virus. All government workers, including federal, state, county and city employees along with school teachers and administrators are still getting paid. The government is giving money to small business to pay their employees and those who are laid off qualify for unemployment which, for most, is more than they were making while working. This is to continue for four months and may be extended if need be. All the people who were living on public assistance before the virus will continue to receive benefits. One area where people are short are those who depend on school lunch programs and in this area most school are making arrangement to compensate. This may take some time so they can be hurting during the interim. Many of these people are using food banks but they are running out. About 60% of students receive free or reduced meals.

World virus

Over the past 30 years world poverty has been on the decline. This is the result of continuous economic growth in the western world plus the opening of free markets in Asia. During this time over one billion people have been removed from extreme poverty status and world was on tract to getting rid of extreme poverty in ten years but all that has come to a halt with the virus. There is an old saying that when America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold and the poorest people get pneumonia. During the infamous Spanish flu in 1918 about 6% of the worlds population died but 30% of those in India died. As bad as this virus is in the west it will be much worse if and when it hits the underdeveloped countries particularly those in Africa.