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fullspectrum-cbd-oil · 4 years

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What Did Eight Weeks and $3 Trillion Buy the US in the Fight Against Coronavirus?

Unemployment checks are flowing, $490 billion has been shipped to small businesses, and the U.S. Federal Reserve has put about $2.5 trillion and counting behind domestic and global markets.

Fears of overwhelmed hospitals and millions of U.S. deaths from the new coronavirus have diminished, if not disappeared.

Yet two months into the United States’ fight against the most severe pandemic to arise in the age of globalization, neither the health nor the economic war has been won. Many analysts fear the country has at best fought back worst-case outcomes.

For every community where case loads are declining, other hotspots arise and fester; for states like Wisconsin where bars are open and crowded, there are others such as Maryland that remain under strict limits.

There is no universal, uniform testing plan to reveal what is happening to public health in any of those communities.

Between 1,000 and 2,000 people a day continue to die from the COVID-19 disease in the United States, and between 20,000 and 25,000 are identified as infected.

If there is consensus on any point, it is that the struggle toward normal social and economic life will take much more time, effort and money than at first thought. The risks of a years-long economic Depression have risen; fact-driven officials have become increasingly sober in their outlook; and the coming weeks and coming set of choices have emerged as critical to the future.

Faced with two distinct paths – a cavalier acceptance of the mass deaths that would be needed for “herd immunity” or the truly strict lockdown needed to extinguish the virus – “we are not on either route,” Harvard University economist James Stock, among the first to model the health and economic tradeoffs the country faces, said last week.

That means no clear end in sight to the economic and health pain.

“I am really concerned we are just going to hang out. We will have reopened across the board, not in a smart way … and we will have months and months of 15% or 20% unemployment,” Stock said. “It is hard to state how damaging that will be.”

TAKING STOCK

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Fed chair Jerome Powell will appear via a remote internet feed before the Senate Banking committee on Tuesday to provide the first quarterly update on implementation of the CARES Act, which along with a follow up bill formed the signature $2.9 trillion legislative response to the pandemic. (See a graphic https://ift.tt/2SlP1Da of the full stimulus.)

They will likely face detailed questions about their efforts after a rocky few months. The Paycheck Protection Program in particular was originally overwhelmed with applicants and criticized for hundreds of loans doled https://ift.tt/3dSUfhZ out to publicly traded companies.

Yet, now two months in, a replenished program still has $120 billion in funding available – money on the table that analysts at TD Securities suggest people have refused to pick up because of confusion about the terms.

The hearing is also likely to be a platform for Democrats to coax Mnuchin and Powell toward acknowledging that more must be done – Powell said so directly in an appearance last week – and for Republicans arguing against quick new action.

DEATH PROJECTIONS DOWN, TESTING UP

The lockdowns and money have had an impact on the disease’s spread, as the postponement of sporting events and other mass gatherings, and restaurant and store closings curbed the spread of a virus that some early estimates saw killing as many as 2 million Americans.

Deaths as of Saturday stood at around 87,000 and are expected to pass 135,000 by early August. (Graphic https://ift.tt/33j250j)

After federal government missteps and delays, testing has ramped up to 1.5 to 2 million tests a day, still less than half what health experts say the country needs. (Graphic https://ift.tt/367RqqE)

Strict lockdowns slowed the rate of infection in the hardest-hit areas, “flattening the curve” so hospitals could retrain nurses, cobble together donations of personal protective equipment such masks, gloves and gowns, and were spared from the direst predictions about intensive care shortages.

However, the fight against the coronavirus may still be in its initial stages in more than a dozen U.S. states, where case numbers continue to rise. (Graphic https://ift.tt/3cun5ot)

And community agencies are noting increases in cases of domestic violence and suicide attempts after weeks of home confinement.

TRILLIONS MORE SPENDING AHEAD?

At its passage in late March the CARES Act was regarded as a major and perhaps sufficient prop to get the U.S. economy through a dilemma.

Fighting the spread of the virus came with a massive economic hit as stores closed, transportation networks scaled back, and tens of millions of people lost jobs or revenue at their businesses. (See a graphic https://ift.tt/2X4GzJT of the economic fallout.)

Facing a decline not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the main goal of the bill was to replace that lost income with checks to individuals and loans to small businesses that are designed to be forgiven.

JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli estimated recently that the loans and transfer payments under the act turned what would have been an annualized blow to income of nearly 60% from April through June into an annualized decline of 15% – sharp, but far more manageable.

GDP in the second quarter, however, will drop 40% on an annualized basis. The budget deficit this fiscal year is expected to nearly quadruple https://ift.tt/2ZhGTaX to $3.7 trillion.

Some of the deadlines in the CARES Act are approaching. The small business loans were meant to cover eight weeks of payroll, a period that has already lapsed for companies that closed in mid-March, when President Trump issued a national emergency declaration. The enhanced $600 per week unemployment benefit expires at the end of July.

The House on Friday passed a new https://ift.tt/3fUbDVc $3 trillion CARES Act to replenish some funding, but it is unclear whether the Republican-led Senate will take it up.

Weeks after a V-shaped economic recovery was predicted in March, most economists and health officials have a darker message.

“It is quite possible this thing will stay at how ever many deaths it is a day indefinitely, just wobbling up and down a little bit as epidemics move to different places around the country,” said economist and Princeton University professor Angus Deaton.

“The sort of social distancing we are prepared to put up with is not going to do very much.”

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Heather Timmons and Daniel Wallis)

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touristguidebuzz · 7 years

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Tour Operator That Brought American to North Korea Has Unprofessional Reputation

In this May 30, 2009 photo, Young Pioneer Tours founder Gareth Johnson poses while wearing a traditional costume during a visit to the Pyongyang Film Studio in Pyongyang in North Korea. Christopher Barbara / Associated Press

Skift Take: The founder of Young Pioneer Tours left the company to form GN Tours, which at one point stood for Gross Negligence tours. That about says it all.

— Dennis Schaal

Beer-soaked “booze cruises” down North Korea’s Taedong River. Scuba diving trips off the country’s eastern coast. Saint Patrick’s Day pub crawls in Pyongyang featuring drinking games with cheery locals.

Since 2008, the Young Pioneer Tours agency built up a business attracting young travelers with a competitively priced catalog of exotic-sounding, hard-partying adventures in one of the world’s most isolated countries.

But the death on Monday of 22-year-old American student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested during a Young Pioneer tour to North Korea in late 2015 and fell into a coma while in detention, has renewed questions about whether the company was adequately prepared for its trips into the hard-line communist state.

Although many details of Warmbier’s fateful trip are unknown, interviews with past Young Pioneer customers or those who have crossed paths with the tour operator describe a company with lapses in organization, a gung-ho drinking culture and a cavalier attitude that has long troubled industry peers and North Korea watchers.

Founded in 2008 by Briton Gareth Johnson in the central Chinese city of Xi’an, Young Pioneer’s fun and casual style was seen precisely as its calling card, a counterpoint to North Korea’s reputation as a draconian hermit kingdom. “Budget tours to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from,” its website touts, while describing North Korea as one of the safest places on Earth.

But the agency also known as YPT has been associated with a string of cautionary tales, including of the tourist who performed a handstand outside the most politically sensitive mausoleum in Pyongyang where two generations of the Kim family are buried, resulting in a North Korean guide losing her job.

In a July 2016 interview on the travel podcast Counting Countries, Johnson boasted of gaining notoriety after once stepping off a moving North Korean train while drunk on soju. That stunt resulted in Johnson breaking his ankle, leading to a stay at a Pyongyang hospital and visits from the British Embassy and United Nations doctors, who told Johnson he risked losing his foot within a week.

“I didn’t make (the jump), but I became a legend,” he said.

In the podcast, Johnson described himself as a 36-year old university dropout from London who traveled through Eastern Europe and lived in the Cayman Islands before arriving in North Korea for the first time a decade ago. He was immediately hooked.

“The first time you go to North Korea, it’s just an amazing experience, like nothing you’ve ever seen,” Johnson said. “After that first trip I knew I wanted to take people to North Korea.”

Adam Pitt, a 33-year old British expatriate who formerly lived in Beijing and went on a 2013 trip, described to the AP a party atmosphere led by Johnson, who was often heavily inebriated and “almost unable to stand and barely understandable when he did speak” at a tense border crossing where he needed to hand wads of cash to officials as bribes.

While it’s expected for tourists to relax and enjoy a few drinks while traveling, tour operators and tourists say YPT has long stood out for its party-hearty tour groups. In respective interviews with Fairfax Media and the Independent newspaper, Nick Calder, a New Zealander, and Darragh O Tuathail, an Irish tourist, both recalled the New Year’s Party tour group Warmbier traveled with in Pyongyang in late December 2015 carousing until early morning. O Tuathail declined to discuss his recollections of the trip with the AP, saying he wanted to let Warmbier’s family grieve in peace.

On the return leg from that YPT trip, a YPT guide pulled a prank on a customer taking the train back to Beijing by helping hide her husband’s passport from border agents. That resulted in a scramble to find the passport and a confrontation with irked North Korean soldiers who briefly held the husband.

In an emotional news conference last week after Warmbier was medically evacuated from North Korea, his father, Fred Warmbier, lashed out at tour agencies that “advertise slick ads on the internet proclaiming, ‘No American ever gets detained on our tours’ and ‘This is a safe place to go.'”

After Warmbier’s death in an Ohio hospital, YPT issued a statement saying it would no longer accept American customers because “the assessment of risk for Americans visiting North Korea has become too high.”

Pitt, who is Mormon and does not drink, said the company’s statement appeared to shift blame onto tourists rather than examining its own laissez-faire culture.

“It’s not about who goes, it’s about how their groups behave that causes problems,” said Pitt.

In response to multiple requests for comment, Johnson sent two brief emails discussing only his experiences outside of North Korea.

YPT co-owner Rowan Beard said most reviewers have attested to the company’s professionalism and preparation.

“Frankly everyone has different perceptions on things like drinking and what concerns it raises,” Beard wrote in an email. “With the recent tragedy it’s human nature for some people to over-emphasize certain aspects of their experience.”

Beard noted that the mausoleum incident did not involve alcohol and that YPT had warned all customers about the political sensitivities of the site.

He added that YPT has taken over 8,000 tourists to North Korea with only one incident, and boasts a 5-star rating and certificate of excellence on the TripAdvisor review website. Beard said Johnson was in North Korea on business when Warmbier was detained but was not part of his tour.

John Delury, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul, said tour groups barely existed 10 years ago, and any sliver of “responsible engagement” between the U.S. and North Korea is valuable. But he worried about tours that do not educate customers on the nuances and political realities of what they’re seeing.

“Hipster adventure tourism, where it’s like going to a zoo and staring at North Koreans, is problematic,” said Delury, who is familiar with several of the companies running tours into North Korea. “It seems like the framing of Warmbier’s trip was ‘go party and have a good time in Pyongyang.’ That is obviously not how responsible tour companies would frame what they’re about.”

YPT has in recent years expanded its North Korea tours and boasts of other so-called “dark tourism” offerings, ranging from trips to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site in Ukraine to jaunts through Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region.

In another instance Johnson described on the June 2016 podcast, he led a YPT tour group into the Eastern European breakaway state of Trans-Dniester, where a confrontation with authorities escalated into a policeman pulling out a gun. Johnson talked his way out of the situation because “luckily I had my vodka overcoat on at that point, so I wasn’t that scared,” he said, referring to his drunken state.

“I really shouldn’t have as many stories about being arrested or robbed, but I’ve got quite a lot,” Johnson said in the interview.

Christopher Barbara, a legal consultant who splits his time between Montreal and Shanghai, said he joined a YPT trip to North Korea in 2009 headed by Johnson.

“It was so laid back that it was hard to take seriously,” Barbara said. “The way Young Pioneers managed the trip made it feel like the priority was having fun, not staying safe.”

One morning after they arrived, Barbara told the group’s North Korean minders who were looking for Johnson that he was ill, when he was in fact hungover and asleep after a long night.

“I was worried that Gareth’s behavior was going to get us in trouble,” Barbara said.

Johnson has since stepped back from leading YPT tours to found another business called GN Tours — which used to be short for Gross Negligence Tours, according to cached Facebook and Google pages. Johnson said GN Tours is not associated with YPT.

GN Tours advertises itself as the leading planner of bachelor parties in Southeast Asia featuring: “Beaches, babes, bullets and booze (all cheap).”

This article was written by Gerry Shih from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].

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rollinbrigittenv8 · 7 years