A Big Scam? Cut Off Nose Because of Trump Hatred. Woe Is Us! Still Does Not Get It. Mental Tug Over Market. Tearing Our Fabric.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Sent to me by a very dear friend and fellow memo reader:

+++

The Great Grift

Scott Galloway

• 
  

The federal response to the pandemic has been massive — a $5 trillion effort. It has also been a con. Under the cloud cover of Covid-19, the shareholder class has used its outsized influence over government to toss a few loaves of bread at those suffering, all the while accruing trillions of dollars in wealth financed on the backs of younger, and future, generations.

How did we get here? In a healthy capitalist economy, wealth is always at risk. Competition spurs innovation, which disrupts the established order, creating winners — and also losers. Joseph Schumpeter called this the “gale of creative destruction.” Over the long term, the spoils (ideally) fund both a more empathetic society and the infrastructure for more innovation and prosperity — but this only happens if the gale is permitted to blow.

Naturally, the winners tend to lose enthusiasm for this process when their own wealth is creatively destroyed. So they fight back. And one of their preferred weapons of entrenchment is government policy.

Government by the Rich, for the Rich

The influence of money in politics is well known. Just 400 wealthy families provide about half the funding for presidential campaigns, and they speedball their influence through think tanks, legal advocacy groups, and friendly media. Rupert Murdoch, the Mercer family, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos all shape our views and influence national policy. 

The wealthy use this influence to expand their wealth and power. Consider the tax code: Income gained from selling stock in a firm is taxed at a lower rate than income gained from actually working at that firm. A second transfer from poor to rich: A homeowner may deduct mortgage interest on a first and second home, while the less wealthy pay non-deductible rent. If it makes no sense that we’ve functionally decided money (and the money it makes) is more noble than sweat … trust your instincts. 

These transfers are pitched to the American public as how to get wealthy (when in reality, it’s how to stay wealthy) and achieve the American dream (i.e., homeownership). But this messaging is nothing more than propaganda brought to you by the 10% of people who own 80% of the stocks in this country. The result is that since 1989, the wealthiest 1% of American households have increased their share of the nation’s wealth by a third, while the bottom 50% have seen their share halved. 

And that was before the pandemic.

Cloud Cover

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and Covid-19 provided the wealthy with the opportunity for the greatest economic grift in history. 

The pandemic and the measures taken in response to it have created an economic crisis of historic proportions. Unemployment leapt to 15% in April, and while it has gradually recovered, it remains twice as high as it was before the pandemic. Job losses and many other forms of harm have been concentrated among the lowest earners, and to a much greater degree than in other recent crises.

The response by the federal government has also been historic, and massive. But of the $5 trillion spent (so far), only around $1.5 trillion came in the form of direct aid to individuals. A quarter of that funded $1,200 and $600 stimulus checks, many of which went to people who had not suffered financially (only 15% of recipients of the first round of checks said they planned to spend the money). Read that last sentence: more than four in five recipients of money borrowed from future generations (debt) did not urgently need it. Another $1 trillion or so went to pandemic response (medicine, PPE, medical services), and while this was necessary, the money ended up largely in the pockets of health care company shareholders. 

The remaining $2.5 trillion came via mostly forgivable loans and handouts to businesses. But don’t let the name “paycheck protection program” fool you — recipients were not required to actually protect any paychecks. The final tally is about $1 trillion in direct aid to those who truly needed it, $1 trillion to the actual pandemic response … and a $3 trillion wealth transfer to the rich and powerful. We’re calling it: The Great Grift.  

What did we accomplish? $1 trillion in unemployment, food assistance, and other aid to those directly hit by the pandemic is an unalloyed good. We helped many of our most vulnerable American brothers and sisters. But it wasn’t enough. Huge swaths of America continue to suffer. In December, 18% of U.S. households with children could not meet their food budget, and 26% of renters with children were behind on their rent. These non-economic impacts have likewise fallen harshly on lower earning households (not to mention people of color, who have suffered disproportionately by every measure). 

Meanwhile, $3 trillion in new money and historically low interest rates have been the nitro and the glycerin, respectively, of the stock market’s ascent. The dirty secret is that there are two pandemics. While a quarter of America is food insecure and behind on rent, the shareholder class has experienced an explosion in net worth and spends less time commuting, more time with family and Netflix.  

A secondary effect is the underwhelming fight against the virus itself. Had Covid-19 preyed on wealthy white people and cut the Nasdaq in half, our response would have made the South Korean and Taiwanese responses appear amateur. Instead, the wealth of billionaires is correlated to infections and deaths, and we continue to see a death toll greater than 9/11 every 18 hours.

In the longer term, we have suppressed the creative destruction of capitalism. That $3 trillion will build thousands of piers — not bridges — for firms that are not viable for a post-pandemic economy. Once we stop propping them up, they’ll still reach the end. 

In the meantime, however, we are denying the younger generation the opportunity to open their own businesses at a lower cost. If a restaurant or movie theater is allowed to fail, the cost of rents and other inputs falls, which creates opportunities for a new generation of entrepreneurs. When I started L2 in 2009, for instance, I was able to secure office space in SoHo for $27/foot because a printer or an apparel manufacturer had gone out of business years earlier, leaving its building behind for the next generation. 

Consider what else we could have done with that money:

I’m not advocating for all of these (cancelling all student loan debt, for example, would be yet another unearned wealth transfer) but they show the scale of the Grift. Anyway … if these programs seem too big-government liberal, consider this: Instead of $3 trillion in handouts to the wealthiest Americans, we could have given $30,000 to every single one of the 100 million Americans who reported pandemic-related wage losses in 2020. Thirty. Thousand. Dollars. Or, we could have just given every American adult $15,000. This would have gone much further toward repairing the economy, as more money would have ended up in the economy, rather than in the markets. And who better to determine which firms deserve to survive and are prepared for a post-corona economy than consumers? 

The Bill Will Come Due

Where are these trillions of dollars coming from? Some will come from working people. It is a lie that lower income people don’t pay taxes. Because while nearly half of Americans don’t pay much or any federal income tax, lower income people nonetheless carry a higher tax burden. Payroll and sales taxes, along with any income tax they do pay, eat up a much greater share of their income than do the shareholder class’s taxes. 

In a sense, our democracy is working too well, as the mark for the Great Grift are people who don’t vote: young people and the unborn. In 1989, people under 40 owned 13% of the wealth in this country. In 2019 — before the pandemic — they owned just 6%, despite representing nearly the same share of population. The younger you are, the more you’ve been grifted. While savings rates have reached an all-time high, a fifth of Gen Z-ers report needing to use the entirety of their life savings to weather the pandemic. Young people, and our children, will be paying off the debts of the Great Grift for decades. We have borrowed trillions to not fund the war against the virus, and have taken debt levels to those not seen since World War II.   

What Should be Done 

Going forward, our pandemic response, including any additional stimulus packages, should be limited to supporting people who are food and housing insecure — not Delta Airlines, or your neighbor who owns seven dry cleaners. 

But since we’re already $3 trillion in the hole, we need to recover some of those losses. That calls for taxes. A pandemic occurs once every several decades — what is unprecedented is the explosion of wealth … that too few of us have actually experienced. So why are we so quick to discuss bailouts and stimulus, while seemingly allergic to the idea of increased taxes, in the face of extraordinary events?

We should end the favorable tax treatment of capital gains income. Capital appreciation has been the primary vehicle of both our 40-year wealth transfer and of the Great Grift. When the grifters cash out these assets, they should at a minimum be paying the same tax rates on that income as working people pay on theirs, so we can begin to chip away at the debt(s) incurred. 

We should impose a one-time wealth tax. A 2% tax on the richest 5% of households would raise up to $1 trillion. (The initial stock market bump triggered by the CARES Act’s passage led to the richest American-stock owners accruing an additional $2 trillion.) 

These measures only address the symptoms. How do we arrest the ongoing wealth transfer, and prevent the shareholder class from future grifting? 

The classic conservative answer to this problem is to weaken the government so it cannot be used in this way. It’s an attractive theory, but the reality of our modern world is that there are simply too many challenges that require collective solutions. From ensuring access to clean air, soil, and water to breaking up big tech, big(ish) government is here to stay, so we need it to be more robust, and more effective. 

We must reduce the impact of money on politics. Money is not speech, and if we can’t convince the grifters on the Supreme Court of that, we should override them with a constitutional amendment. We need greater transparency from our elected representatives about who they meet with and where their money comes from.  

Stop, Stop … It Hurts So Good

Finally, if we don’t align financial reward and penalties with the health of our commonwealth and its citizenry, we are doomed to a pattern of failed responses to crises. The explosion of wealth among the already wealthy has created unprecedented moral hazard, as the arbiters of policy haven’t even felt the real pain of this pandemic. 

Case in point: Doordash, a beneficiary of the explosion in meal delivery brought on by the pandemic went public last month, and is now valued at more than FedEx at $68 billion. In contrast, the TA-125, an index of the 125 largest companies in Israel, was down for 2020. And Israel has vaccinated its citizens at 7 times the rate of the U.S. If Amazon stock had been cut in half — vs. accelerating 87% since March lows — the 82% of households who are Prime members would be vaccinated by an Amazon delivery person and Chick-fil-A would offer to stick your arm at their drive-throughs. Let’s admit it: We’ve been conned.

Life is so rich,

P.S. Registration for my next Brand Strategy Sprint, where I teach the frameworks and strategies leveraged by the world’s most successful brands, closes on Tuesday. There are only a few spots left — Sign up now before it fills up.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

They hate Trump because he was crude, not presidential and a tough man to deal with. He was very opinionated, a narcosis and, like Gen. Patton, arrogant but a winner who got things done that his many predecessors tried and failed to accomplish.

As president, he did what he said he would and against untold odds and politicians who lied about him, a  mass media that shill for the Democrats.  He was the first Republican who knew how to fight, to get in the gutter with the Democrats who live there like Schumer, Pelosi, Waters, Schiff et al and, yes, go toe  to toe with the mass media  as well.(In this mix I include senior FBI and members of the intelligence agencies.)

So voters rejected him and voted for the man in this video and everything Trump told us came to pass. 

 Now Biden voters have become silent but they still are attacking Trump hoping they can destroy any chance he can come back and he is helping them succeed because his ego will not permit him to modify that which voters find distasteful.  Trump is a winner who lost because he could not restrain his self destructive ways.  That is sad for him and tragic for the nation because we need his talents for accomplishment now more than ever.

AND:

Those fixated on their hatred of Trump will never see and/or accept the truth

 .

He is telling it as I have been trying to do:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Clinton Lawyer Used Status in Attempts To Discredit Trump and Manipulate Elections

Hillary Clinton. Just the name alone evokes a wide variety of emotions in the American people, but the most heard reaction is to simply call her evil. From former Secret Service agents who remember her during Bill’s time in office to Veterans who worked K-9 guard duty for her overseas, to her constituents of NY. Her cold, lifeless, and conniving eyes and rigid movements make her seem more like a corpse than a human.

The people she has working for her are just as dishonest and untrustworthy. Michael Sussmann is an attorney who worked for Clinton’s 2016 campaign and became a privileged and high-powered person rather quickly. He misused these connections within the FBI to try and destroy President Trump’s election hopes. He didn’t play games either, he knew exactly what he was trying to do, and did everything he could to make it happen.

With opening arguments being delivered in Washington, prosecutor Brittain Shaw painted the story of Sussmann and his activities. How he met with the FBI’s top lawyer on September 19th, 2016, intending to provide him with false tips alleging computer communication between Trump’s business and the Russians. Allegations that were later investigated and found to be false.

 [Continue Reading] 

Finally:

Even if true, Trump still does not get the bigger picture and his contribution to his own problem(s.)

He is the American equivalent of  the Don Quixote of  of Politics and does not understand voters chose to cut off their noses because of their discontent with Trump's personality:

+++
I am going to teach you Democracy even if I have to kill every one  of you:

+++

Biden and Oil: Destroy America in Order to Save It

By Victor Davis Hanson 

Our current oil shortage did not arise from a foreign war or tsunami, but from a deliberate policy to curtail oil production to force a more rapid transition to battery-powered transportation.

Try to follow the Joe Biden energy plan of frantically trying to get his hands on more of something that his own party despises. 

During the Democratic primaries, Biden ran on the premise that he would end all fossil fuels during his tenure. In 2019-2020 that bluster seemed easy demagoguery at a time of near-record low gas and diesel prices. The American people shrugged at such utopianism since they often were filling up their cars for less than $50.

Biden’s video clips from the primary campaign now seem surreal, as he tried to out-green Bernie Sanders in boasting about what has now become his own self-created energy disaster.

Biden monotonously promised at rallies, such as they were, that he would cancel pipelines, stop new federal leasing to oil and gas companies, persuade lenders to restrict loans to them, put the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve off limits, and embrace the green new deal. Those were certainly campaign boasts that he has followed up on. 

His environmental czar John Kerry has just insulted Americans by lecturing them that there is no need to pump more gas and oil to reduce gas prices that are well over $6 a gallon in many of the Western states. The billionaire Kerry exudes Antoinette disdain for the muscular classes, a hubris that now characterizes the elite rich leadership of the Left in general. 

Kerry and his progressive ilk make no effort to disguise that they feel the credentialed such as themselves, the wealthy, and the progressive enjoy the birthright to fly private, to be limousined, and to bounce between multiple energy-hungry mansions. Those compensations are all necessary, to allow them to focus on the divine task of directing and herding the unthinking and blinkered chumps, dregs, crazies and clingers to do what is for their own good—now most recently defined as paying more than $6 a gallon for gas.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also reassures the country that there is no reason to pump more oil and gas. Instead, she says, we just need to refine more. At her press conferences, she reads all her answers from prepared notes. But apparently Jean-Pierre’s twenty-something press preppers were oblivious that the United States, thanks to hard-left green opposition, has not built a major refinery since 1976, back when there were 110 million fewer Americans. 

Jean-Pierre has no idea why she cannot now and will never in the future answer a question about fossil fuels honestly. She knows that Left for now got what it wanted. Since January 2021 it has all but destroyed the idea of American energy self-sufficiency. 

Think of the mindset: the Left for decades deliberately restricts refinery capacity; then when the public demands it increase oil production that it has curtailed, it complains that increased pumping would do no good because—there is not enough refinery capacity. Yet Biden remains shocked that his long-sought victory to make fossil fuels unaffordable is despised by the American people, whose votes he now needs to stay in power.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg talks of abortion, racist freeway overpasses, mass transit—almost anything other than strapped commuters on clogged roads watching their livelihoods melt away by staggering fuel and energy costs. 

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm calls “hilarious” any suggestion she might think out of the box to find ways to encourage more energy production. Granholm is right only in that she could not say or do a thing that any CEO or foreign head of state would take seriously. 

So, her administration is panicking that its prior arrogance has insulted, enraged, and alienated 60-70 percent of the country. But political reality to such ideologues does not mean that they will pump or refine more oil. We all know they prefer high gas prices and only object to politically damaging steep climbs before midterm or general elections—rather than, say, continuous dollar-a-gallon increases every six months to a year.

So how does Biden square his circle of continuing or accelerating policies that ensure high gas prices while trying desperately to lower fuel prices before elections?

The Biden people have three strategies.

One is denial and a resort to the blame game. Vladimir Putin supposedly caused the American gas crisis. Take away the Ukraine war, and gas would be what it was during the Trump Administration. But that is not even half-true given the fact that gas and diesel prices had already reached $4.60 a gallon in California, for example, before the Russo-Ukrainian war had begun. 

No matter. The Biden finger-pointing strategy is a shotgun approach with many targets other than the president’s own deliberate efforts to raise fuel prices. Besides the “Putin price hike,” Biden blasts “greedy” oil companies that are price-gouging Americans. 

Perhaps. But if so, why were they not doing that before Biden entered office? Did corporate CEOs love Donald Trump and hate Joe Biden? 

Why do some other corporations, for example the Left’s beloved Apple, earn higher profit margins on their sales than do the large oil companies? 

OK—if Putin and rapacious CEOs are not to blame for the Biden fuel disaster, then how about “refiners”?

These villains supposedly have all the oil they need, but they strangely refuse to speed up turning crude into gasoline. Again, the Left wants something now that, for political purposes, it had sought to destroy in the past for political purposes.

To learn why there are now supposedly too few refineries, just review clips from the 2020 Democratic primary debates in which a dozen candidates attacked one another for supposedly appeasing the oil companies that were producing too much fossil fuels. 

The second Biden strategy is to talk green, but to find ways other than pumping more oil to reduce gas prices before the midterms. Biden has announced that Vladimir Putin is a thug, a killer, and should be removed. But his hostility never stopped him earlier from beseeching Putin to pump more oil that he is now currently selling for nearly two-thirds below market prices to China and India. 

Biden has in the recent past blasted the Saudi royal family for its illiberality. Yet now he is begging another former favorite target Mohammed bin Salman to help his administration by driving down the price of American gasoline down before the midterms. 

Biden perhaps feels more comfortable similarly supplicating the nightmarish and failed nations of Venezuela and Iran. He is perfectly willing through such appeasement to lose any deterrent leverage over such odious regimes for the short-term gain of avoiding a November electoral disaster. 

Yet do Biden and his EPA experts believe that Iran or Russia are better stewards of Mother Earth than are U.S. oil companies subject to the Environmental Protection Agency? In our shared global village do they really believe that a fungible barrel of oil is pumped and refined under greener protocols in Iran or Russia than in Texas or North Dakota?

But this second strategy of having others produce oil that we will not is also doomed for failure. Follow the Biden logic, incoherent as it is: 

I, Joe Biden, hate Russia and Saudi Arabia. Some in my government tell me I am supposed to despise Iran and Venezuela. But I want all four nations as a favor to me personally to increase their dirty fossil fuel production that I certainly don’t wish to stoop to do here in my own country—all in order to keep my presidency temporarily viable, by appeasing the gas-guzzling mindless middle class while bowing to my hallowed green base.

 That smug incoherence is welcome schadenfreude to all our enemies.

The third Biden strategy has now turned to the strategic petroleum reserve.  

When oil was cheap, Trump—to much criticism—tried to top the reserve off with cheap petroleum. 

And for the most part, he did. 

Now Biden is draining the reserve in order to lower prices for a crisis that he created in large part by reducing U.S. production and eliminating any chances to expand it over his tenure. 

Again, consider the twisted logic: the administration does not wish to increase the supply of hated petroleum, but needs more of it. So apparently if nearly 700 million barrels of oil have already been pumped out of the earth and back into four vast underground caverns near the Gulf, then repumping the black goo back out is not the same sin as pumping fresh goo from underground. 

The idea of the strategic petroleum reserve grew out of the Arab boycotts of the United States in the early ’70s and the anti-Western power of the OPEC cartel. The reserve was an effort to ensure that foreign entities during crises could not blackmail or leverage the United States for political concessions. It was also designed to offer a temporary buffer in times of natural or manmade crises such as war or devastating earthquakes, fires, or storms.

But Biden’s policies have ensured that bad foreign actors will and can hold the United States over the proverbial oil barrel and receive concessions in the bargain. And our current oil shortage did not arise from a foreign war or tsunami, but from a deliberate policy to curtail oil production to force a more rapid transition to battery-powered transportation and mass transit. 

So, Biden is tapping a public reserve to aid his own private political survival, not as a result of a collective assault on U.S. energy independence. In other words, he is putting America at risk to drain a reserve intended for purposes other than his own reelection efforts. 

All these unhinged and desperate measures will fail. 

So, what will end the Biden-created oil crisis? Only one consideration, and it is a medicine worse than the disease: the Biden-created recession or depression. 

That is, Biden’s hyperinflation and ensuing stagflation are already beginning to result in reduced spending, as his printed money runs out and spiraling prices are beginning to exceed even the 2021-22 infusion of new trillions of dollars. No wonder we are currently in an era of negative economic growth.

But given Biden’s discouragement of productive industries, subsidies for labor nonparticipation, quantitative easing, historic low-interest rates, and a growing global recession we are likely to see continued negative economic growth, higher unemployment, and closed businesses. 

In other words, 1970s-style stagflation will radically curb consumer demand as the targeted middle class has less to spend, and, of course, drives less. Eventually stagflation will lead to severe recession and ultimately to crashes in current prices. 

The Left’s reaction to that national tragedy will be interesting since it seemed to love the COVID lockdown, and not just because the devastating quarantine sparked radical changes in voting laws and an aggrandizement of government power, as well as the end of Donald Trump. 

The shelter-in-place mandates bridled the middle class and slowed the economy—and thus gave us desirable reduced carbon emissions. 

For the left-wing green ideologue, a recession in the age of oil is as welcome as $7 a gallon gas. Or perhaps economic stagnation of the middle class is more fortuitous, a “never let a crisis go to waste,” since it will mean a general reduction in fossil-fuel energy use well beyond transportation as millions of Americans become inert.

In sum, under the Biden energy logic, we must destroy the American economy in order to save it. 

++++++++++++++++++++

(RoyalPatriot.com )- Save America PAC, the political action committee of former President Donald Trump, has begun running a video ad campaign criticizing the “partisan witch-hunt” being conducted by the select committee appointed by the House on January 6.

The 30-second advertisement began airing on Thursday and was given the headline, “Stop the partisan games, Tackle our real problems.”

The voice-over says that gas prices range from $5 to $6 or even $7 per gallon. A shortage of infant formula is causing problems for new families. Illegal immigrants are inundating the border. There is inflation and war. Our country is in jeopardy.

The ad continues, saying that Biden is failing and failing badly, but the Democratic Congress continues to overlook our problems in favor of spending millions of dollars on yet another politicized witch hunt. It’s a scandalous disgrace.

The voice-over concludes with this directive:

“Tell your representatives in Congress. Stop the partisan games and tackle our real problems.”

The advertisement featured accompanying visuals to back up each of its claims. The ad comes to a close with a shot of Trump saluting.


According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, the political action committee (PAC) will spend $500,000 on a nationwide digital and TV campaign that will run through the weekend.

The January 6 select committee comprises seven Democrats and two Republicans who oppose Trump. 

The Republicans are Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, as rabid as any partisan hack Democrat.

On Thursday evening, the committee staged a hearing broadcast live across the nation during prime time.

Thursday night and Friday morning, President Trump turned to his social media network, Truth Social, to slam committee members for their “negative” activities.

According to a report published by the Labor Department on Friday, the cost of gas, food, and other necessities increased during May. Inflation reached a record four-decade high and left American households with little relief from the rising cost of living.

These are the real problems. According to a June 7th Rasmussen poll, the Capitol riot is the 2nd most urgent issue according to the media. It doesn’t appear in the top 6 for U.S. likely voters.

Trump is right. Again.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am in a sort of mental tug of war with one of the brightest investors I have had the pleasure of knowing. I recently put the following to him: "what is the basis of your bullishness? Is it long term related and if so how can you be short term bullish? Me"

His response: "Because I believe inflation has already peaked, gold, silver and now oil have all declined from peaks. When the Fed realizes this they will not keep raising rates. The stock market will see this before the Fed does. T--."

My response to his: "Thanks. let your word's reach Powell's ears.  I believe there is a likely possibility you may be right but I still see the market lower because negative sentiment is driving it there for the moment and investors have yet to to fully vomit their guts out.  Also, as the economy slows, estimates must come somewhat lower as well as PE's.  Me"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Americans continue their self-infliction as well:

+++

American decimation: On the front lines of the tearing of our social fabric

By Salena Zito

PITTSBURGH — When the Hampton Battery was dedicated here in 1871 to a young Civil War soldier who lost his life protecting the Union at Chancellorsville, Virginia, the granite monument was a point of pride for residents of this neighborhood. They would stroll along the trails of the lush park filled with trees located across the street from their homes along Cedar Avenue to honor the local hero. 

Today, the battery's founder, Capt. Robert B. Hampton, who was remembered by the men who served under him as a born commander with "the chivalric nature of an honorable gentleman," is now part of a different carnage in America as he stands watch over an open heroin market that has taken over the once grand park. 

The Civil War statue is literally surrounded by drug dealers, buyers, and users around the clock. Residents say they are getting more aggressive with panhandling, trespassing, and theft. 

Just yards away, along the old Pennsylvania canal, a man walks down the street, carrying a brand new patio chair stolen from the porch of a nearby home, toward the new and growing homeless camp. Last week, there were two tents or makeshift abodes. Now, there are over a dozen. 

On the sidewalk, a woman dances erratically in her socks, her hoodie pulled up over her head. She then abruptly collapses in the street — within minutes, the medics arrive, and she is revived. She then continues on despite having overdosed minutes earlier. 

Heroin and opioids make people desperate. Yet all that residents say they hear from elected leaders is “we can’t do this" or "we can’t do that.” No one is saying, “Let’s try this,” or “We need to come up with a solution.” 

Last week, the city of Pittsburgh announced that it was delaying the opening of the Sue Murray city pool, where hundreds of children, predominantly black and often living below the poverty line, would normally be enjoying each other's company and a cool dunk. Instead, it is shuttered. City officials say the reason: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/american-decimation-on-the-front-lines-of-the-tearing-of-our-social-fabric

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"