I’ve been having a difficult time coming up with a topics for my weekly articles. After brooding about it I decided my problem is that this endless Coronavirus crisis has gotten me feeling quite down. I’m suffering from the blues. I know my suffering is trivial compared to those who have lost loved ones to the virus or compared to those who have been infected with the virus. Compared to most I’ve got it quite good. I’m just so worried about everything that’s going on and I’m heartsick about all of the suffering everyone else is dealing with.
Like most I’m wishing and praying that this nightmare will soon end. Not knowing when the pandemic will end and how severe it will get before it’s all over are the two things weighing most heavily on me. Unfortunately no one has any answers to these questions. All of the original models and so many of the experts have been proved so wrong. It is wrong to blame anyone but the Chinese and the World Health Organization for this.
It is heartbreaking to know that so many have lost their livelihood because so many businesses have been forced to shut down. I’m worried that when this is finally over far too many businesses will never reopen their doors,
Going out to restaurants and bars with groups of friends and relatives was a pastime I engaged in quite often. It is something I miss a lot. Getting take out is not the same at all. Who knows when anyone will be able to just sit and enjoy themselves in one of those fine establishments again.
Not being able to go where I please is something that bothers me a great deal. I despise being told what I can and can’t do by the government at any level. There is something completely un-American about that. The American people will only put up with that for so long. The demonstrations have already begun and will soon spread. Hopefully those protesting take proper precautions against rapidly spreading the virus. Unreasonable measures taken by the different government levels will only make the protests worse,
I pray that this nightmare will soon end with a minimal amount of future death and suffering. That will be the best medicine for my blues and blues of everyone else,
SHREVEPORT – As this lockdown continues, I have seen more and more people comment on the disruption of their sleep patterns, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit to experiencing this myself.
In a normal world, I am in bed by 10 and up by 5:15. I am a teacher and have to be at work at 7:05 (although I always get there about 6:40.) On the weekend I might sleep until 7 or 7:30. In this new Covid-world, I have been waking up at all hours of the night and sleeping later in the morning. I mean, wide awake at 3:00 kind of awake. And what difference does it make? I don’t have to wake up at 5:15, I’ll tell myself.
It is odd to me because I don’t feel especially stressed or worried about anything; I haven’t lost my job or my pay. I do not suffer food insecurity. I’m not any more worried about bills than I ever am. Nobody in my immediate family is ill. And, overall, I’m basically perfectly content staying at home, so what’s the problem?
Many people are reporting disruptions in sleep right now and there is an explanation for this:
Stress is both the short and the long answer. Whether it’s insomnia, daytime sleepiness, struggling to stay awake in the evenings or waking earlier than usual (or, if you’re really lucky, a combination), sleep-disturbance is a well-documented manifestation of stress. And while stress is usually a precursor to the fight-or-flight response we’re in the slightly odd situation where having to reckon this stress is wreaking havoc on our bodies while we’re safe in lockdown in our homes. We are in a high-alert state; our brains busily preparing our bodies for dealing with disaster, even if it doesn’t fall into our direct path.
In short, our stress hormones are on overload. Compounding the problem, we are not releasing stress in some of our more typical ways like going to the gym or socializing with friends, so everything stays all bottled up. We eventually run out of closets to clean out, fences to paint, garages to clean out.
Experts have many recommendations for easing this sleep anxiety that many of us seem to be facing, such as limiting screen time before bed, avoiding too much news, avoiding sugar, and eliminating that afternoon nap.
Face it, our world is different now and may never be the same. Certainly many of the social distancing policies we now practice will remain part of our daily lives for some time to come. Maybe this is part of our anxiety.
As states now begin to figure out ways to reopen and get back to a new normal, perhaps we can all get a good sleep.
“As a result, Illinois government is a massive retirement system that, during work hours, also offers some services.” Chicago Tribune Editorial Board in 2016.
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” Rahm Emanuel in 2009.
Last week the president of the Illinois state Senate, Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), sent a letter the state congressional caucus, a gerrymandered lot–more on that latter–asking for $41 billion in aid in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The devil is in the details–Illinois is a hellish place—and in that letter from Harmon is a request of $10 billion to fund its woefully-underfinanced public pension plans.
Illinois’ pension crisis goes back decades. In 1989 Governor Jim Thompson, a Republican, signed into law an annual compounded three-percent cost-of-living-adjustment for the state’s public pensioners. But the funding wasn’t there. His successor, Jim Edgar, another Republican, seemingly placed a fix into the system in 1994, “the Edgar ramp,” which started with low payments for the 15 years of his plan. But by that time, when the “ramp” was to kick in, Great Recession arrived. And there were “pension contribution holidays” before then. When the 2008 economic collapse hit Rod Blagojevich, who was as bad as math as Edgar and Thompson, was governor.
In the early 1990s pension payments consumed four percent of the Illinois budget–now it’s 25 percent. The state-controlled public pension plans are only about 30 percent funded.
All that time–except for two years–powerful Chicago Democrat, Michael Madigan, has been speaker of the state House.
According to the Illinois Policy Institute, 19,000 state pensioners collect more than $100,000 annually. On average these pensioners paid a paltry $160,000 into their retirement plans. What a great deal!
New Jersey and Kentucky have public pension funding issues that are as bad, or perhaps slightly worse, than that of Illinois. Will they be asking for pension bailouts next?
Cutting the three-percent COLA has been tried–it was ruled unconstitutional in a unanimous decision by the Illinois Supreme Court because of the pension guarantee clause in the state constitution. Repealing that clause is the smart thing to do but it’s a politically tall hurdle. Such an amendment would likely have to pass both chambers of the General Assembly. Thanks to Madigan, a skilled gerrymanderer who is also the chairman of the state Democratic Party, there are Dem supermajorities in both chambers. Two attempts by petition to effectively ban gerrymandering by way of a constitutional amendment was struck down in court. Allies of Madigan were behind the anti-Fair Map suits. The petition process to amend the Illinois constitution is deeply flawed.
The organized labor wing of the Democratic Party, the public sector unions, won’t remain quiet if pensions are challenged. Hey there unions, you contributed to this problem too. In 2005 most public service unions signed on to that year’s pension holiday.
Last week Fitch lowered its bond rating for Illinois to BBB- with a negative outlook. That’s one level above junk.
I’m against an Illinois pension bailout by the federal government. For the most part. But if such aid comes in the form of an International Monetary Fund-style rescue package with conditions that Illinois cleans its fiscal house, such as dropping the 3-percent COLA and taking aim at the top pension earners, those six-figure retirees, I’m willing to listen.
But receivership is best. Okay, let me dream a bit. As Chicago architect Daniel Burnham said a century ago, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” I know, states are viewed as sovereign entities and cannot, as Detroit did in 2013, declare bankruptcy. But what if Illinois agrees to a strings-attached receivership deal? An emergency manager can be appointed. Pritzker, or whoever is governor if receivership comes about, can still handle the ceremonial stuff, such as ribbon cutting for a new bridge and placing bets with other governors when Chicago sports teams are playing for a league championship.
Oh, I’m thinking loans from the feds, not handouts.
As badly funded as Illinois’ pension plans are, many local government pension systems are in worse shape. Illinois municipalities and government agencies, unlike those in Michigan, cannot do so under current state law. That needs to change too.
On a personal note, several friends and relatives of mine are collecting state pensions. Money that was taken from their checks every two weeks for their retirement was instead spent on lord-knows-what. They deserve to be angry and that fury needs to be directed at every Illinois governor from Thompson through Blagojevich. And of course at the Where’s Waldo of Illinois failure, Boss Michael Madigan. He deserves the most rage.
Let me be clear: I don’t take my pension reform views lightly.
Prior to Harmon’s bailout request, the latest pension fix idea was a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Illinois flat income tax guarantee and replace it with a graduated one. That amendment will be presented to Prairie State voters in November. My guess is that it will fail. And even if the graduated income tax amendment passes, the additional revenue won’t be enough. Illinois, which has had negative population growth for six straight years, can’t tax its way of the mess.
John Ruberry regularly blogs from Illinois at Marathon Pundit.
The British government paid $20 million for COVID-19 antibody tests from two Chinese companies, only to later find they didn’t work properly, according to multiple reports.
Half a million of the China-made tests are now in storage, according to a New York Times report.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the kits “[a]s simple as a pregnancy test” in a March statement announcing negations to buy the product, adding “it has the potential to be a total game changer.”
“Because once you know that you have had it, you know that you are likely to be less vulnerable, you’re less likely to pass it on, and you can go back to work,” Johnson said, referring to the way widespread antibody testing could help the country cope with the outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, the novel coronavirus that emerged from mainland China last year and causes the disease COVID-19.
Good thing for Johnson that the one used on him worked.
But an Oxford University trial later found that the tests were faulty. The China-made tests did not pass sensitivity and specificity tests, according to British news outlet The Telegraph. (SNIP)
“Sadly, the tests we have looked at to date have not performed well,” he wrote in the post titled “Trouble in testing land.”
“We see many false negatives (tests where no antibody is detected despite the fact we know it is there) and we also see false positives,” [Oxford University professor Sir John Bell] noted. “None of the tests we have validated would meet the criteria for a good test as agreed with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). This is not a good result for test suppliers or for us.”
Last week, the Netherlands asked to return 600,000 face masks purchased from China that had inadequate filters and fit incorrectly. On Tuesday, Finland tested a shipment of personal protective equipment, or PPE, from China and found the items unsuitable for hospital use. Australian border officials have also reportedly seized 800,000 faulty or counterfeit masks from China.
The problem is worse at home [in China]. On March 12, officials at a State Council news briefing announced that authorities had seized more than 80 million counterfeit or faulty masks and 370,000 defective or fake disinfectants and other anti-coronavirus products in the prior month alone.
That many nations have learned an expensive lesson is no longer a new story. I simply wanted to point to the irony of the fact that the virus’s origin is China and that the PPE and medical equipment manufactured will neither protect a person against nor help a patient recover from this Chinese virus.
“Made in China” used to be a joke. It still is, but it’s not a funny one anymore.
By the way, be sure to search for the “Made in ____” on the labels of everything, even on items you thought was made in America.
Your bar soap, for example. Yes, I’ve had that surprise. Blessedly, there was no harm, but you never know.
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