School privatization movement looks to go shock doctrine

Entirely predictable, but nonetheless disgusting.

COVID-19 has shuttered public schools across the nation, state governments are threatening to slash education budgets due to the economic collapse caused by the outbreak, and emergency aid provided by the federal government is far short of what is needed, according to a broad coalition of education groups, but the charter school industry may benefit from its unique status to seek public funding from multiple sources and expand these schools into many more communities traumatized by the pandemic and financial fallout. - Jeff Bryant/Raw Story

Trump's brilliant oil deal sure worked out well

You may recall the purportedly glorious agreement that Trump allegedly created between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and others, that would prop up oil prices and indeed the world economy as a whole. I would go so far to rate what has subsequently happened as Trump’s second biggest personal humiliation so far, behind only the way he got played by Kim Jong Un. (Incidentally, there are reports today that Kim may be dying.)

May contracts for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil went as low as -$37.63 on Monday. So report Jillian Ambrose and Martin Farrer at The Guardian. The price, well below zero, was a first for the US oil market, and showed the conviction of traders that the economy would not in fact start back up in May. Millions of gallons of oil are being stored on giant supertankers around the world, which costs money, and the below-zero price for a barrel reflected that storage cost.

There was a bit more confidence about the June situation, with prices skyrocketing to all of $1.10 a barrel in Tuesday morning trading in East Asian markets, according to Reuters. That is about the price of water. - Informed Comment

School shootings suddenly plummet to zero?

As a matter of fact, yes. I have nothing more to add to this one.

The nationwide lockdown to stem the rise of the coronavirus has had one silver lining—March 2020 was the first March since 2002 without a school shooting...

Washington Post reporter Robert Klemko made the observation Monday (April 13) on Twitter.

Schools around the country were ordered or recommended closed in mid-March to attempt to stem the spread of the disease, which (as of April 13 had) already infected a reported 576,695 Americans so far and killed 23,068.

"All it took was a pandemic and closing all the schools," tweeted Bloomberg editor Mark Gongloff. - Common Dreams

Private equity will never, ever stop screwing the rest of us

Not until it’s crushed. Obliterated. Annihilated. So that’s what needs to happen.

It’s tough to pull a really representative blockquote from this one. I can only respectfully ask that you take my sincere word that you should click and read it all.

It is part of a growing trend of private equity investment in health care in the United States. 

The pandemic has put into stark relief how these billionaire investors have fundamentally weakened the health care system...

Hospital acquisitions were popular among private equity firms from 2000 to 2012. But many firms struggled to make money from those acquisitions and have turned their attention to more profitable slices of the health care economy. 

In particular, private equity has been gobbling up staffing service for emergency rooms and then taking the doctors out of the hospital’s insurance network. As a result, many people return home from the emergency room with massive bills they thought would be covered by their insurance company. This phenomenon is known as “surprise billing.” - Popular Information

Keystone XL starts construction - Update

Update: Construction has been righteously blocked again.

Original story: Bad news. Specifically, at a site on the Montana/Canada border. Also, I hadn’t been aware that the government of Alberta, Canada, ended up funding it because private lenders wanted no part.

Alberta's recent announcement that it was investing more than $1 billion to build the Keystone XL pipeline gave a boost to a project that has faced more than a decade of delays and uncertainty.

But by dedicating government money to a pipeline the private sector has been reluctant to fund, the decision highlights how vulnerable Canada's oil sands industry has become, even before the coronavirus pandemic crashed global oil demand.

Last week, Alberta announced it would invest $1.1 billion in the pipeline and provide an additional $4.2 billion in loan guarantees to help developer TC Energy start construction immediately. Premier Jason Kenney said his government had been negotiating with the company for months, and that no private sector bidders were ready to finance the project. - Inside Climate News

On the same general subject, though this one is righteous:

Globally, renewable energy sectors including wind, solar, and hydropower are booming. The world is using more renewable energy than ever before. Over one third of the world’s electricity comes from renewable sources, according to data released by the International Renewable Energy Agency, or Irena, on Monday.

From 2018 to 2019, new renewable energy capacity construction slowed down slightly. But since the world also built less new fossil fuel infrastructure, renewables share in energy expansion grew. A record-breaking 72 percent of all the new electricity sources the world installed in 2019 were renewable. - Earther

Prognostications as to what the Trump Crash will mean for renewables are all over the place, from what I’ve seen.

Big problems for small-business loan program

It’s hard to believe that the Party of Trump would dare, politically, to not get this worked out. But we’ll see.

Under the policy, any business (or nonprofit, veterans organization, or tribal concern) with 500 or fewer employees is eligible for a government-backed loan equivalent to eight weeks of its prior average payroll, plus an additional 25 percent of that sum (unless that grand total adds up to more than $10 million, which is the cap for any individual firm). And these loans are really more like grants, which means free money: Firms don’t need to make any payments on their loans for six months — and if they maintain their workforces, then the government will forgive almost all of the loan (more fine details on this point below). The idea is to keep the small-business sector frozen in place, so that it can rapidly defrost once the coronavirus pandemic has passed.

But you can’t freeze something for later if it’s already spoiled. And many small firms directly impacted by social-distancing measures were already collapsing by the time Congress finally passed legislation. For these reasons, the Trump administration was eager to get the PPP up and running as quickly as possible. To that end, the administration has (1) made it possible for small-business owners to secure government-backed loans at any federally insured lender that wishes to participate in the program, regardless of whether such banks or credit unions are affiliated with the Small Business Administration, and (2) officially launched the program April 3.

Unfortunately, the small-business bailout season is off to a shaky start — and for entirely predictable reasons. - New York Magazine

Farmers are not being prioritized, to say the least, in COVID-19 response

This article summarizes a bunch of issues related to the pandemic. It’s from March 25, and “a slush fund type bailout for global corporations and Wall Street” is pretty much what was in fact delivered.

Farmers were already struggling to make ends meet prior to the COVID-19 crisis. For more than six years, farmers have been managing low incomes, rising costs, increasing debt and bankruptcy, volatile export markets (exacerbated by President Trump’s tariff fights) and a series of extreme weather events tied to climate change. Now, the fast-moving, unprecedented COVID-19 situation is creating new disruptive challenges for farmers and our food system. - IATP

This is from an email I got from Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), specifying some of what's in the package. You can decide for yourself, how much is actually likely to help traditional farmers, and how much is just more handouts to Big Ag.

 $9.5 billion dedicated disaster fund to help farmers who are experiencing financial losses from the coronavirus crisis, including targeted support for specialty crop farmers, dairy and livestock farmers, and local food producers.

$14 billion to fund the Farm Bill's farm safety net through the Commodity Credit Corporation.

Eligibility for farmers and agricultural and rural businesses to receive up to $10 million in small business interruption loans from eligible lenders, including Farm Credit institutions, through the Small Business Administration. Repayment forgiveness will be provided for funds used for payroll, rent or mortgage, and utility bills.

$3 million to increase capacity at the USDA Farm Service Agency to meet increased demand from farmers affected by the coronavirus crisis.

Here's a take on the "farmers or Big Ag" query.

Trump has screwed up worse than anyone, anywhere

A righteous, and totally accurate, screed.

The United States is in a very bad place in the novel coronavirus pandemic. With more cases than any other nation on the planet, health care systems under strain in cities across the nation, and a rising case fatality rate to accompany that growth, the outlook is nothing less than dire. As Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned, the U.S. could be looking at between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths related to COVID-19 before the primary pandemic is past. And there are reasons to believe those numbers may be optimistic.

No matter what Donald Trump says, that does not mean he did a “good job.” It means that, with months of warning and near-infinite resources, he did a worse job than every other government on the entire planet—a job so awful that when a decade from now someone is unlucky enough to think of Trump, this is what they will remember. This is all they will remember. There was a crisis, Trump failed the nation, and the cost was many, many times worse than 9/11. - Daily Kos