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Mar 27, 2020: Record US Unemployment Claims
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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Record numbers of Americans are filing unemployment claims. But the stock market seems unconcerned – optimistic, even – after the Senate’s big corporate giveaway.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden address the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill now facing a House vote. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says the millions of Americans who’ve found themselves suddenly out of work don’t matter.

And lastly, the coronavirus death toll in America passes one thousand – officially. China closes its borders to foreigners, and US forces may be deployed to prevent Americans from fleeing to Canada – certainly, no one is running the other direction.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

New Labor Department figures released yesterday showed that some 3.3 million Americans filed unemployment benefit claims last week. It was a new record. Before the coronavirus pandemic and the oil price shock, only some 200,000 people had filed for benefits. The previous one-week record was set nearly four decades ago, in 1982. But back then fewer than 700,000 people filed unemployment claims. What’s happening now is much bigger. Analysts were using dire words like collapse, catastrophe, and Greater Depression to describe the US economy.

But the high-rolling gamblers on Wall Street don’t necessarily see it that way. The stock markets gained back some of their losses, led by higher prices for shares in companies that will receieve a chunk of the $2 trillion-plus Congressional bailout package passed unanimously by the Senate this week. It would be hard to find a more stark example than of how disconnected the economy of the elite is from the economy that most Americans inhabit. While tens of millions of people are suddenly afraid of being thrown out on the street, and wondering if help will ever come, corporate executives and financiers are thrilled that their hired help in Washington, DC, so quickly came to the rescue.

Action on the Congressional bailout -- or stimulis bill, as they prefer to call it – now moves to the House of Representatives. Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wants to bring the bill to a voice vote on the floor today, without requiring all four-hundred and twenty-nine

members to fly back to Washington. Some are under quarantine. But a Kentucky Republican, Thomas Massie, opposes the bill and threatened to delay the vote on procedural grounds. Outside Congress, many raised more substantive concerns about the bill passed by the Senate, particularly the aspects amounting to a blank check for lucky corporations, signed by taxpayers. Among the provisions it has emerged are buried in the 880-page legislation: a tax break worth $170 billion for America’s richest real estate investors. As The New York Times pointed out, Donald Trump, his family, and his inner circle, stand to directly benefit from the provision. The bailout tax break temporarily removes restrictions on how much wealthy individuals and corporations can write down as losses due to depreciation – although experts said these often amount to theoretical losses that exist only on paper. It sure pays to have money!

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders drew both criticism and praise for his actions leading up to the vote on the coronavirus spending bill. Many praised his actions to defend expanded unemployment insurance against Republican threats, but even some supporters said Sanders, along with Elizabeth Warren and other Senate progressives, should have held up the bill and demanded more aid for workers and less giveaways for corporations. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who currently holds a delegate lead over Sanders for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, had the luxury of not having to cast a vote on the bill. In a video statement yesterday, he called the Senate bill an important step and said the key would be in the execution – essentially letting Congress off the hook for the contents of the bill, and trusting that the public won’t bother to learn the details.

Sanders, by contrast, went through specific provisions he opposed, as well as what he favored, although he acknowledged the benefits for ordinary Americans did not come close to what he would have liked to see. Ultimately, he said, it is what it is – an answer that may or may not satisfy voters in the remaining future Democratic primary states, especially as the pandemic and its consequences unfold in the weeks and months to come. Sanders had proposed monthly payments of $2,000 for every American affected by the crisis, for however long it lasts. Instead what Congress is getting ready to pass will offer a one-time payment of $1,200 to a smaller group of Americans.

Trump’s Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs executive and tax-avoidant hedge fund manager Steve Mnuchin, said he expects most Americans to receieve that money via direct bank deposit within three weeks. He also told CNBC that the record jobless claims just announced by the Labor Department simply did not matter. Mnuchin said, QUOTE I just think these numbers right now are not relevant ENDQUOTE. Which should come as news to 3.3 million Americans – and counting.

It’s getting uglier out there. The United States yesterday officially reported more confirmed coronavirus cases than any other country: over eighty-two thousand. Deaths in the US attributable to COVID-19 also passed the one thousand mark yesterday. But some doctors told reporters at BuzzFeed News that the official numbers from the federal Centers for Disease Control do not reflect what they are seeing on the front lines. In short, deaths are being underreported. In some cases, that is due to a lag in reporting. But often, doctors say, it is because people they see who are clearly sick with COVID-19 symptoms are not being tested either before or after they die.

What’s worse, Trump is also engaged in a new kind of direct meddling in states and localities responding to the crisis. He sent a letter to the fifty state governors announcing a plan to designate counties as either high, medium, or low risk, based on unspecified criteria. The implication was that higher-risk areas will be targeted for more aggressive testing. But the full meaning of the designation was unclear, as are Trump’s intentions and authorities in saying what specific places may operate as normal or under some kind of lockdown.

Elsewhere, the picture was mixed. China closed its borders to foreigners, even those already living legally in the country. The World Health Organization said it saw encouraging signs that European countries were beginning to get the pandemic under control. Britain’s Prince Charles, was seen on video for the first time since announcing he had COVID-19. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was in talks with Trump to prevent the deployment of US troops to their shared border. A White House official told the CBC that they are considering new ways to QUOTE limit unauthorized travel ENDQUOTE. The planned domestic deployment was reported in Canada but not the US. Which is somewhat concerning!

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Venezuelan officials ridiculued drug trafficking charges against President Nicolas Maduro announced by the US Department of Justice yesterday. The Venezuelan Foreign Minister said the charges – and $15 million bounty for information -- reflected desperation and obsession of the Washington elite. US Attorney General William Barr has, in prior government roles, covered up at least one major drug trafficking scandal involving US intelligence agencies.

The Washington Post reported a new way in which Johnson & Johnson, the US-based multinational pharmaceutical firm, sought to profit from the opioid crisis that has savaged America. The company engineered a new variety of super poppy that produced vastly increased quantities of an opiate substance, while producing less of another kind of chemical. This allowed for much simpler purification and refinement into oxycodone and hydrocodone. Science marches on!

The main political rival of far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz of the Blue and White Party, reversed his previous promises and took a new position that set him up to form a government with Netanyahu’s Likud party. Remaining opposition leaders called it a dark day. A member of the Knesset from the Meretz party predicted that Gantz would QUOTE end up a rug ENDQUOTE under the feet of racist crook Netanyahu.

Not to be outdone by the singer Britney Spears, the comic actor Fran Drescher became the latest celebrity to condemn capitalism and call for nationwide work stoppages and protests. Drescher, best known for her role as TV’s The Nanny, attacked the wealthy owners of capital for hoarding coronavirus testing and treatment. She said labor was being treated as a sacrificial lamb, and concluded it was time for a general strike.

That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report.

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn