"If Large Numbers Of People Have To Die In Order For The Economy To Work, The Economy Doesn't Work."

In 1892, Karl Kautsky, a German journalist and philosopher, wrote: "As things stand today, capitalist civilization cannot continue; we must either move forward into socialism or fall back into barbarism."

Twenty-three years later, during what was known as The Great War, that sentiment resurfaced in Polish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg's pamphlet, The Crisis of German Social Democracy: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism."

It is beyond all doubt at this point: Donald Trump has chosen barbarism. His selfish disregard for human life is clear in all of his comments, whether they come by tweet, interview, or press conference. His mindset is clear in his executive decisions, which come so rapidly, each doused with an appalling amount of calculated cruelty, that it is next-to-impossible to keep track of his unrelenting crusade of destruction and personal enrichment.

CNN's Kevin Liptak reports that Trump's economic advisers have decided "that keeping the country shut down wasn't worth the economic pain". And so Trump is happy to consign thousands of people to their deaths if he can make a few more dollars. (Actually, he probably doesn't think about it enough to be happy.)

Trump steadfastly ignored the existence of the coronavirus, dismissing and denying the threat. He took things slightly more seriously for a short portion of one day before going back to his usual antics, "attacking the press, amplifying propagandists and spreading misinformation". And promising miracles.

Like an impatient five-year-old who cannot sit still while the adults are talking, Trump is now ready to give up after realizing that an instant cure is not riding over the horizon. He will admit defeat and walk away from this mess of his own creation, and thousands and thousands of Americans will die. Trump is already laying camouflage for a cowardly retreat, sending signals that he can see a light at the end of the tunnel

Yet no one knows — even now — how many Americans are sick or how many are asymptomatic. Testing is still minimal and the skyrocketing number of cases proves that there must be far more infections than what the official numbers can show. More cases will overwhelm the US's threadbare healthcare system. In Italy, where the number of patients vastly outnumbered hospital beds, the fatality rate was nearly 9 percent.

Trump and his sycophants in government and media have shown no concern for the human toll of this pandemic. Even as this crisis worsened, the Trump administration was busy in court trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act and also deny food stamps to 700,000 Americans.

In New York State, 30,000 additional ventilators are needed for critically-ill coronavirus patients, over and above the state's own supply of 4,000 machines, within the next 14 days. Trump says FEMA has sent 400 ventilators and that Governor Andrew Cuomo should go find the rest himself.

Cuomo has a clear message for Trump: "I need 30,000 ventilators. You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators? What are we going to do with 400 ventilators when we need 30,000 ventilators? ... You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die."

Shortly after Cuomo's Tuesday press conference, Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News that the government had shipped 2,000 ventilators to New York and would send 2,000 more on Wednesday. That could certainly be a lie — I mean, it's Pence and Fox — but even if it is true, that's still 22,000 ventilators short.

Cuomo: "We're not slowing it, and it is accelerating on its own. New York has 25,000 cases. It has 10 times the problem that California has, 10 times the problem that Washington State has ... In New York, you are looking at a problem that is of a totally different magnitude and dimension."

Trump's ugly and alarming callousness has been on full display as he says Cuomo is "supposed to be buying his own ventilators". Trump is blaming Cuomo for the current emergency, saying he should have bought thousands of ventilators in 2015.

Trump's excuse is both mind-boggling and completely expected. Trump has been in office for more than three years and he is still blaming Barack Obama, on a daily basis, for everything. What the hell has Trump been doing since January 20, 2017? Why hasn't this self-proclaimed "very stable genius", possessor of the "big abrain", the guy who insisted over and over during the 2016 campaign that "I alone can fix it!", been fixing all of those supposedly broken things? Trump claims he scrapped Obama's pandemic response team in 2018 (other times he claims he didn't do it or knows nothing about it) because it was a "broken old system". Okay. Then what? Trump hasn't done fuckall for more than three years to create a not-broken new system.

Trump has also repeated (multiple times, every day, for two or three weeks) that "no one could have predicted" this pandemic. Looking quickly through his March 21 press conference, I counted at least a dozen examples:

So there's never been a thing like this in the history of the world. ... This is unprecedented. ... This is unprecedented or just about unprecedented. ...It's really at a level that nobody would've believed. Nobody would've thought possible that this could happen. ... Nobody ever thought a thing like this could happen. ... [Y]ou think, in a modern age, a thing like that could never happen. Well, there's never been numbers like this. ... [N]obody has ever heard of a thing like this. ... Nobody has ever heard of a thing like that.

On March 14, Trump said: "We have a problem that a month ago nobody ever thought about." By Trump's own admission, he never thought about a crisis like this on February 14, 2020*, but he's blaming Cuomo for not anticipating this "unprecedented" crisis five years ago?

*: Trump's statement is also a lie because he publicly mentioned the virus for the first time on January 22, 2020, assuring everyone: "We have it totally under control."

Cuomo held a press conference on Tuesday:

There is no other way for us to get these ventilators. We've tried everything else. The only way we can obtain these ventilators is from the federal government. Period. And there's two ways the federal government can do it. One is to use the federal Defense Production Act. There is a federal law, where the federal government can say to manufacturers, you must produce this product. I understand the federal government's point that many companies have come forward and said we want to help, General Motors and Ford, and people are willing to get into the ventilator business.

It does us no good if they start to create a ventilator in three weeks or four weeks or five weeks. We are looking at an apex of 14 days. If we don't have the ventilators in 14 days, it does us no good. The federal Defense Production Act can actually help companies because the federal government can say, look, I need you to go into this business. I will contract with you today for X number of ventilators. Here is the start-up capital you need, here's the start-up capital you need to hire workers to do it around the clock. But I need the ventilators in 14 days.

Only the federal government has that power. And not to exercise that power is inexplicable to me. Volunteerism is nice and it is a beautiful thing and it's nice that these companies are coming forward and saying they want to help. That is not going to get us there. And I do not, for the life of me, understand the reluctance to use the Defence Production Act.

Trump continues to resist invoking the Defense Production Act, which would require companies to produce essential equipment in a national emergency, in this case ventilators and protective masks. Corporations have told Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that invoking the act would be bad for corporate profits. So Trump has done nothing.

However, Trump has also said that General Motors and Ford have come forward to offer their help. So why wouldn't Trump accept these companies' generous offers? He would not be forcing them to do anything. They want to help, he says, and they would get piles of government money to get started.

Trump's hesitation about allegedly hurting business does not apply in this case because GM and Ford volunteered to help. The only possible reason why Trump is so reluctant to act is because it would suddenly become obvious that no companies have come forward to volunteer anything or that it would take many months before equipment was produced.

It gets more confusing. Last weekend, Trump said twice that GM and Ford were already making ventilators. Which was yet another lie. On Sunday, March 22, Trump tweeted: "Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products". He also stated that evening: "General Motors, Ford, so many companies ... these companies are making them right now."

Again, none of this is true. Neither Ford nor General Motors is making ventilators. Tesla stated that it is "working on it", but there's no evidence that production is underway. Ford's chief executive, Jim Hackett, announced on Tuesday that his company would team up with General Electric to build ventilators, but nothing would be available until "early June". That timeline suggests that if Trump had reacted in an appropriately timely manner, this lifesaving equipment might have been available in mid- to late April. Any company's capacity would be months away — if not longer. Also, the companies do not need the president's permission to move forward, if they chose.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced on Tuesday that Trump had mandated the production of 60,000 coronavirus test kits. While 60,000 tests are certainly better than 0 tests, it is a tiny fraction of the tens of millions of tests that are needed right now. Again, where would the US be now if Trump had took seriously the numerous warnings he received back in January that a serious pandemic was only weeks away?

Medtronic, one of the leading manufacturers of ventilators, is now making 225 machines each week, up from 100 in more normal times. However, there are 1,500 unique parts coming from 14 different countries. That takes time. Even increasing production to 500 machines a week will not satisfy the current demand (forget about the future demand).

Knowing all of this makes Trump's on-going refusal (since January 3, and right up to this minute) to take the virus seriously all the more damning. His administration also spent most of 2019 running huge simulations to test the government's readiness in the face of a major pandemic. Trump officials were also given an extensive briefing from outgoing Obama officials on the serious threat of pandemics right before the 2017 inauguration. The final report of the 2019 simulations stated the US was massively unprepared on all fronts, including not having enough equipment. That report was finished only two months before Trump was first told about the coronavirus.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: "Our hospitals, in a matter of days or weeks ... are going to be stressed to the point that they cannot provide the kind of health care we're used to unless we can get them a huge resupply of equipment, supplies, personnel. The only force I think that can keep up with the need to constantly move supplies and equipment where they're needed, and doctors, nurses, other medical personnel where they're needed, is the United States military."

Trump complains that the market for face masks and ventilators "is crazy" and getting the necessary equipment is "not easy". Yet he still refuses to use the powers of his office to speed up the process.

New York Times Health and Science reporter Donald McNeil Jr.:

What he's [Trump] talking about "15 days and the doors are open" is like having a lead-lined room next to the Chernobyl power plant and you fling open the doors and say, "Hey, the flowers are still sprouting out there, it's a sunny day, I think it's okay to go out." It's not okay to go out. There are things you haven't seen yet because so many people are getting infected but they're not going to be hospitalized for on average another 10 days after they show symptoms.

[What would it take for Trump to change his views?] It's only going to be forced home in the same way that AIDS was forced home to Ronald Reagan after four years of not mentioning it by the death of his friend Rock Hudson. Something is going to have to wake the President up to the realization that this is a very serious danger including to him and his family.

That will be tough, because he doesn't care about anyone but himself. The only decisions Donald Trump can make are purely selfish ones. His European travel restrictions on March 12 exempted countries in which he owns golf courses. Trump Turnberry and Trump International Golf Links are in the United Kingdom and there is a Trump hotel/golf course at Doonbeg, in Ireland. All three resorts are struggling financially. (I cannot believe that announcement was only two weeks ago.)

Trump is re-considering the country's social restrictions because his company had to close six of its top seven clubs and hotels. As David Fahrenthold reports: "(And the one that's open is doing pretty bad, too)."

I didn’t realize until today how corona closures have hit @realdonaldtrump’s biggest revenue generators. Six out of the top seven. (And the one that’s open is doing pretty bad, too). pic.twitter.com/9i6Sn97udm

— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) March 24, 2020

Anat Shenker-Osorio: "If large numbers of people have to die in order for the economy to work, the economy doesn't work."

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, March 23, 2020:

Fourteen Days. That's the Most Time We Have to Defeat Coronavirus.

America is losing the war against Covid-19 ... Health experts have not been overreacting. Models from Imperial College London and others suggest that up to 2.2 million Americans could die within a year without sufficient efforts to "flatten the curve."

At the same time, it is right to worry about how Covid-19 will wreck the economy. ... But the economy cannot be fixed without solving the pandemic. Only after the virus is contained can we reopen restaurants, bars, gyms and stores; allow people to travel, attend conferences and visit museums; and persuade them to buy cars and houses.

The window to win this war is about seven to 14 days. If the United States intervenes immediately on the scale that China did, our death toll could be under 100,000. Within three to four months we might be able to begin a return to more normal lives. ...

President Trump needs to immediately order the closing of all schools and nonessential businesses and impose a shelter-in-place policy for the entire country. ... If these measures are complied with fully, then we may be able to lift them slowly in two to three months, when the percentage of people infected has plateaued and the number of new infections is near zero.

The president needs to establish a system of social pressure for local governments to wield to enforce physical distancing strictly but compassionately. He must order mayors to close most streets to vehicular traffic to make them pedestrian spaces, open enough for Americans to be outside at a safe distance. Exceptions can be made for traffic with a clinical purpose (going to a doctor's office or pharmacy). ...

It would help for officials themselves to model these physical distancing measures — such as no longer holding news conferences with numerous officials on the podium. ...

The president must be honest with the American public: The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies failed to roll out testing quickly enough. Such a program needs to be accelerated now. ...

The federal testing director needs expanded authority so he can invoke the Defense Production Act to secure the emergency production and national distribution of testing components like swabs and viral culture media. Over the next two weeks, all Covid-19 testing should be removed from hospitals and clinics so these institutions can focus on treating patients.

Instead, we should immediately use the military, the National Guard, and even a new Public Works Corps made up of unemployed Americans to erect thousands of walk-up and drive-through testing sites nationwide. ...

The lack of masks, gowns and ventilators endangers both patients and health care workers, and stymies the nation's ability to respond to the crisis. We need a national manufacturing director to assess and allocate national supplies and ramp up production and distribution of what is needed. ...

Hospitals must be ordered to suspend elective surgeries and other procedures, because they use valuable health care personnel, equipment and operating theaters that could be converted to intensive care units. Visitors must be banned (except for terminally ill patients) to reduce coronavirus spread and the need for personal protective equipment.

All hospitals must be directed to institute policies that decrease demand for supplies. For instance, intravenous machines for Covid-19 patients should be kept outside their room when possible so workers can adjust medications without donning protective gear. ...

We should encourage the reactivation of all retired and nonpracticing physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and other clinicians who can work. ... We should ask for volunteers to travel to cities with more urgent demand, providing salaries and housing stipends. ... Nurse practitioners and physician assistants should be allowed to prescribe medications without restrictions. ... We should provide day care or home schooling for children of health care workers ...

Businesses need to retain workers and keep up their facilities so they can rapidly return to operation when Covid-19 is under control. The Treasury Department should issue grants for up to 12 months to closed businesses with fewer than 1,000 workers to cover 80 percent of the equivalent of 2019 wages and benefits for their furloughed employees. These companies should also be allowed to borrow at zero interest up to last year's revenue.

States should get block grants to create temporary jobs needed to control the public health crisis, such as workers for testing centers, thermal screening in public places, widespread contact tracing, quarantine monitoring and disinfecting public transportation and public places.

To win this war, we need Americans to mobilize faster than they ever have before. We have already lost valuable months. These measures [are] only a start ... If they are successful, then, as China has shown, in two to three months the country can begin to return to normal, stores can reopen, people can work ...

If the United States fails to act decisively now, it will follow Italy's course or, worse, that of Iran, and recovery may take a decade or more with extraordinary levels of death and dislocation.

Frank Bruni, New York Times, March 24, 2020:

We're Relying on Trump to Care About Our Lives

The president's obsession with the economy is an extension of his obsession with wealth. He has only two lenses through which he sees the world, two yardsticks by which he measures everyone and everything: money and celebrity. He can't pretend otherwise because he doesn't bother to try. ...

During Sunday evening's briefing, when he was supposed to be comforting Americans on the precipice of financial ruin, he instead lamented the billions of dollars he had supposedly forgone to be president. Our self-glorifying "wartime president" morphed into a self-pitying Daddy Warbucks.

"I think it's very hard for rich people to run for office," he said. "It's far more costly. It's a very tough thing. Now, with all of that being said, I'm so glad I've done it. Because, you know, there are a lot rich people around. I've got a lot of rich friends, but they can't help and they can't do what I've done, in terms of helping this country." ...

It has been observed, accurately, that he's exactly the wrong leader for this crisis because he has thinned the ranks of responsible professionals in government, because he has hollowed out relevant departments and agencies, because he devalues science, because he degrades information and because he parted ways with credibility years ago.

But it's worse than that. He's facing judgment calls that require an emotional depth and a moral finesse that simply don't exist in him. ... [The economy is] all-defining and all-consuming [to Trump], the repository of his vanity and an expression of his virility.

David Leonhardt, New York Times, March 22, 2020:

How Trump Is Worsening the Virus Now

He has repeatedly decided not to get out in front of the virus. ... [H]e has moved slowly, presumably in the hope that things would somehow work out for the best. Only when it's clear that they aren't working for the best has he followed the advice that experts had been offering for weeks. He has then tried to rewrite recent history and claimed that his response had been aggressive from the start. ...

The biggest current example of Trump's relaxed response is his refusal to use his authority — from a 1950 law, the Defense Production Act — to order a sweeping mobilization of medical supplies. It could resemble the old overhaul of Detroit, with companies directed to produce millions of masks, ventilators, gowns, inhalers, prescription drugs, virus tests and more.

If you spend any time talking with doctors, nurses and other front-line workers, you will hear how badly they need these supplies. You will also hear them explain, sometimes in tears, that the lack of supplies will have deadly consequences. Patients will die needlessly, and so will doctors and nurses. ...

The federal government has lamely suggested that doctors and nurses use bandanas or scarves to shield their faces "as a last resort" — even though those items may not offer protection. It's a far cry from the can-do spirit of 1940. ...

Instead, Trump has taken to the White House lectern [and] made vague and often incorrect claims about all the good [he's] doing. ...

[B]laming Trump for the appearance of coronavirus would be deeply unfair. ... But it's also important to be clear about the responsibility that does fall on Trump. His months of denial — and his acceptance of the testing fiasco — meant that the United States failed to isolate people with the virus, as South Korea and Singapore did. His refusal to fix the medical-supply crisis means that the virus is unnecessarily spreading in hospitals and that Americans will unnecessarily die.

The severity of the virus, in turn, will make the economic downtown worse and longer lasting. And Trump will be partly at fault. A reality-based response in January and February would have produced a different economy in April and May.

Trump's comment that individual states were completely on their own put in huge, neon lights how poorly prepared (and seemingly deliberately so) the US was for a pandemic.

Trump et al. will not pay a steep price (or any real price at all) for their deliberate delays and failures, which are still on-going. The only people who will pay a significant price for this avoidable catastrophe are our families, friends, co-workers, and neighbours who will die because indifferent and unresponsive politicians were focused only on their own wallets and public images.