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“Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. And then there are those who wonder, 'What the hell just happened?”
Attributed to many.
With just about ten and a half days left in office, President Trump this week seems to have broken the Republican Party. But did he also break America?
That is unlikely to be good for the US economy now that all three branches of the US government are in the hands of a very left wing Democrat Party.
True, the Democrats have only a Vice President casting vote majority in the Senate and only a four vote majority in the House, but Republican in name only (RINO) Senators make Democrat control of the Senate far easier, while in the House, RINO Congress members plus pork barrel trade offs, make Democrat control far easier.
I suspect that Wall Street, silly con valley, and US businesses in general are only slowly waking up to their coming comeuppance.
Below the new reality of 2021s USA.
Businesses Brace for a Democratic Congress
Georgia Senate victories, which surprised some business groups, could ease way for Biden cabinet picks, lead to increased oversight of financial, oil industries
Jan. 8, 2021 7:00 am ET
Businesses are scrambling to assess the impact of Democrats winning control of the Senate, a development that took some by surprise and is expected to accelerate Biden administration policy changes and increased regulatory scrutiny of industries such as finance and oil.
Companies and trade groups are bracing for further government oversight after Democrats won both seats in Tuesday’s Georgia runoff election. While narrow control of the Senate makes it difficult for Democrats to pursue ambitious legislation, it puts the party in control of key committees and clears the way for President-elect Joe Biden’s cabinet nominees to head agencies that regulate a wide array of industries.
The victories by Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff mean that each party will have 50 Senate seats at the start of Mr. Biden’s presidency, allowing Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to break any tie. That will give Democrats control of both the Senate and the House, and elevate Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to Senate majority leader.
Mr. Biden said in a statement that he intends to work with both parties, and that his nominees for key cabinet positions, such as the secretaries of state, defense, Treasury and homeland security, would have bipartisan support.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/businesses-brace-for-a-democratic-congress-11610107201?mod=hp_lead_pos6
Economy sees job loss in December for the first time in eight months as surging virus takes toll
Key Points
- Nonfarm payrolls fell by 140,000 in December against the consensus estimate for a 50,000 gain.
- The unemployment rate held steady at 6.7%.
- Hospitality accounted for most of the job losses, as bars and restaurants took a particularly hard hit.
- The level of permanent job losses actually fell for the month, an encouraging sign.
- Job gains came in professional and business services, retail and a handful of other industries.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/jobs-report-december-2020.html
Job Losses in 2020 Were Worst Since 1939, With Hispanics, Blacks, Teenagers Among Hardest Hit
Steep losses in leisure and hospitality drove up unemployment across groups already disproportionately affected by economic impact of coronavirus
Jan. 8, 2021 2:17 pm ET
December capped the worst year for U.S. job losses in records tracing back to 1939, with Hispanics, Blacks, teenagers and high-school dropouts hit particularly hard.
In 2020, the economy shed a net 9.37 million jobs, exceeding the 5.05 million jobs lost in 2009, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
Hardest hit last year were hotels, restaurants and related industries, driving up unemployment among minorities, the young and less educated workers—groups already disproportionately hit by the economic effects of the coronavirus.
Unemployment rates among those groups shot up in April, after the pandemic hit, and then started to decline. Then, cold December weather triggered another big increase in joblessness.
December’s 140,000 drop in payrolls was the first since April. But unlike in April, December’s job losses were concentrated in the leisure and hospitality industries, said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at job site ZipRecruiter.
More
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski calls on President Trump to resign, questions her future as a Republican
Author: Updated: 5 hours ago
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Friday that Donald Trump should resign the presidency immediately and that if the Republican Party cannot separate itself from Trump, she isn’t certain she has a future with the party.
“I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage,” Murkowski, R-Alaska, said during an interview from her small Capitol office, steps away from the Senate chambers that were invaded by pro-Trump rioters on Wednesday.
Murkowski is the first Senate Republican to call for Trump’s resignation, according to CNN and national congressional reporters.
“I think he should leave. He said he’s not going to show up. He’s not going to appear at the inauguration. He hasn’t been focused on what is going on with COVID. He’s either been golfing or he’s been inside the Oval Office fuming and throwing every single person who has been loyal and faithful to him under the bus, starting with the vice president. He doesn’t want to stay there. He only wants to stay there for the title. He only wants to stay there for his ego. He needs to get out. He needs to do the good thing, but I don’t think he’s capable of doing a good thing,” she said.
Trump to blame for riot, Murkowski says
Murkowski said that while “there may have been many, many, many, many good Americans who came to Washington, D.C., because they felt strongly in support of this president,” Trump incited them to storm the Capitol after a speech near the Washington Monument.
Even before Election Day, the president refused to say whether he would accept the election results, Murkowski said, and then tried to overturn the results.
“I will attribute it to the president, who said, even after his vice president told him that morning, ‘I do not have the constitutional authority to do what you have asked me to do. I cannot do it. I have to protect and uphold the Constitution.’ Even after the vice president told President Trump that, he still told his supporters to fight. How are they supposed to take that? It’s an order from the president. And so that’s what they did. They came up and they fought and people were harmed, and injured and died,” Murkowski said.
Could Murkowski become an independent?
Asked whether she intends to remain a Republican, Murkowski said that depends on the party itself.
“Well, you know, there’s a lot of people who actually thought that I did that in 2010, think that I became an independent. I didn’t have any reason to leave my party in 2010. I was a Republican who ran a write-in campaign and I was successful. But I will tell you, if the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me,” she said.
----Later Friday, Murkowski told Alaska Public Media that she will not join the Senate’s new Democratic majority but is talking to moderates in both parties, and in the House as well as the Senate.
She said Republicans who did not repudiate Trump earlier — including herself — bear some responsibility for the state of Congress and the nation.
More
DoJ warns national secrets may have been stolen after mob ransacked offices filled with dossiers and laptops as DC cop claims off-duty personnel were among rioters and 'flashed ID badges' at on-duty colleagues
· DoJ raised fears of stolen electronic items from a senators' offices at Capitol
· It comes after hundreds gained access to offices during Wednesday's riot
· At least one Democrat Senator has already reported a laptop stolen and the DoJ is urgently trying to take stock of what secrets may have been lifted by looters
· Comes amid grave concerns over the lax security at the seat of American democracy with claims that military and police personnel were among the mob
The Department of Justice has warned that national security secrets may have been stolen from the Capitol after hundreds of Donald Trump's mob ransacked its offices.
Rioters were pictured at the desks of high-ranking members of Congress, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with unfettered access to dossiers, computers and phones.
It comes amid questions over the lax security and claims from a Metro DC cop that off-duty military and police personnel were among the thugs and 'flashing their ID badges' at their on-duty colleagues.
Michael Sherwin, acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, said 'items, electronic items were stolen from senators' offices, documents and ... we have to identify what was done to mitigate that.'
The prosecutor said an investigation could take 'several days to flesh out exactly what happened, what was stolen, what wasn't.'
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Study: Symptom-free infected people cause at least half of COVID-19 spread
Jan. 7, 2021 / 11:00 AM
Jan. 7 (UPI) -- At least half of COVID-19 transmission globally may have been caused by symptom-free infected people unknowingly spreading the virus to others, a study published Thursday by JAMA Network Open found.
In addition, nearly one in four cases of virus spread involves infected people who remain asymptomatic, the researchers estimated.
The findings highlight the importance of public health measures such as social distancing, mask-wearing and hand-washing -- even for people who don't feel sick -- in preventing the spread of the virus, they said.
"To control the pandemic, we must address the 'silent pandemic' of spread from persons without symptoms," study co-author Dr. Jay Butler told UPI.
"Community mitigation measures will continue to be important for the time being to control COVID-19 spread as vaccine uptake increases and we continue to work together to return life to normal," said Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Through Thursday morning, there have been more than 21 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States, and more than 360,000 deaths attributed to the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.
As cases surge in many parts of the country, so-called "super-spreader" events have been reported, but the origins of many outbreaks remain unknown.
This could be due to higher-than-expected asymptomatic transmission, or spread by people who don't feel sick, Butler and his colleagues said.
To derive their estimates of asymptomatic transmission, the CDC researchers analyzed data from 10 studies and meta-analyses, or research papers that crunch data from multiple sources, they said.
As a result, their estimates are based on data from thousands of cases globally, covering outbreaks through July, the researchers said.
After accounting for a number of factors, including the time it takes for infected people to become contagious, at least 50% of new COVID-19 cases globally may have originated from exposure to infected individuals without symptoms, they said.
More
Britain approves Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for use
January 8, 2021 12:28 PM
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s medical regulator on Friday approved Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for use, the health ministry said, adding that it had agreed to purchase an additional 10 million doses of the shot as it eyed a spring rollout of the shot.
Three COVID-19 vaccines have now been approved for use in Britain, with Pfizer//BioNTech’s shot and one developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca already being rolled out.
The Moderna shot is not expected to play a part in the first stage of Britain’s vaccine rollout. Britain now has 17 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine on order, and supplies will begin to be delivered to the UK from the spring once Moderna expands its production capability.
“We have already vaccinated nearly 1.5 million people across the UK and Moderna’s vaccine will allow us to accelerate our vaccination programme even further once doses become available from the spring,” health minister Matt Hancock said.
Britain was the first to approve Pfizer’s and AstraZeneca’s vaccines as it bids to ramp up its vaccine rollout quickly but is behind some other major countries in giving the go-ahead to the Moderna shot.
Moderna’s vaccine was 94% effective in preventing disease in late-stage clinical trials, and it has already been given regulatory approval for use in the United States, Canada, the European Union and Israel.
Britain is attempting to vaccinate the elderly, the vulnerable and frontline workers - around 15 million people - by mid-February, to ease a new strict lockdown imposed after a spike in cases to daily records.
More
A SARS medical summary of where we currently stand. It's probably the best, summation of the current, pre-mass vaccine position. Sorry, it’s approximately 39 minutes long.
If You Get COVID 19: Optimize Immune System (Vitamin D, Monoclonal Antibodies, NAC, Quercetin etc.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN30emwcNS4
Next, some very useful vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.
World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Stanford Website. https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132
FDA information. https://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download
Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some more useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
Covid19info.live
The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)
https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national
Technology Update.
With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards.
Finally, part two of last week’s edition on wind turbines. So you really want a job inside a wind turbine?
What's inside a wind turbine? (Approx. 10 mins.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNXTm7aHvWc
How do Wind Turbines work ? (Approx. 5 mins.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSWm_nprfqE
The Future of Wind Power? - Kite Power Systems (Approx. 7 mins.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMTchVXedkk
A Monster Wind Turbine Is Upending an Industry
G.E.’s giant machine, which can light up a small town, is stoking a renewable-energy arms race.
Jan. 1, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
Twirling above a strip of land at the mouth of Rotterdam’s harbor is a wind turbine so large it is difficult to photograph. The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end. Later models will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe.
Packed with sensors gathering data on wind speeds, electricity output and stresses on its components, the giant whirling machine in the Netherlands is a test model for a new series of giant offshore wind turbines planned by General Electric. When assembled in arrays, the wind machines have the potential to power cities, supplanting the emissions-spewing coal- or natural gas-fired plants that form the backbones of many electric systems today.
G.E. has yet to install one of these machines in ocean water. As a relative newcomer to the offshore wind business, the company faces questions about how quickly and efficiently it can scale up production to build and install hundreds of the turbines.
But already the giant turbines have turned heads in the industry. A top executive at the world’s leading wind farm developer called it a “bit of a leapfrog over the latest technology.” And an analyst said the machine’s size and advance sales had “shaken the industry.”
More
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/business/GE-wind-turbine.html
This weekend’s musical diversion. Vivaldi’s best slow movement in major? He probably thought so. He dedicated it to the best violin pupil, Chiaretta del Violino at the Ospedale della Pietà
A. VIVALDI: Violin Concerto «per Chiareta» in B flat major RV 372a [Andante], Gli incogniti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOdI1Dw8FHQ
This weekend’s chess masterclass.
Beating Everyone with the Same Opening Trap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Q6Po-s6Gs
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
Oscar Wilde.
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