Month: December 2020

Authored by Jeffrey Jones via Gallup.com,

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• 18% name Trump as most admired man; Barack Obama places second at 15%

• Few Republicans name anyone other than Trump; Democrats split their votes

• Michelle Obama named most admired woman for third year in a row

Americans are most likely to name President Donald Trump and Michelle Obama as most admired man and woman in 2020.

Trump tied former President Barack Obama for the honor last year but edged out his predecessor this year. Trump’s first-place finish ends a 12-year run as most admired man for Obama, tied with Dwight Eisenhower for the most ever.

Meanwhile, Michelle Obama ranks as most admired woman for the third year in a row. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is second.

Most Admired Man

The incumbent president is usually top of mind when Gallup asks Americans to name, without prompting, which man living anywhere in the world they admire most. In the 74 times Gallup has asked the open-ended most admired man question since 1946, the incumbent president has topped the list 60 times. Harry Truman (1946-1947 and 1950-1952), Lyndon Johnson (1967-1968), Richard Nixon (1973), Gerald Ford (1974-1975), Jimmy Carter (1980), George W. Bush (2008) and Trump (2017-2018) are the incumbent presidents who did not finish first in past years.

When the sitting president is not the top choice, it is usually because he is unpopular politically. That was the case in 2017 and 2018 when Trump had 36% and 40% approval ratings, respectively, and finished second to Obama as most admired man.

Even though Trump is similarly unpopular now — 39% approve of his performance — his dominant performance among Republicans, contrasted with Democrats splitting their choices among multiple public figures, pushes him to the top of the 2020 most admired man list.

• Forty-eight percent of Republicans name Trump this year, with no other public figure receiving more than 2% of Republicans’ votes.

• Obama is the top choice among Democrats, at 32%, but that is down from 41% last year. President-elect Joe Biden (13%) is also commonly named by Democrats.

• Additionally, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, is named by 5% of Democrats but only 1% of Republicans, further contributing to Democrats’ relative dispersion of choices.

• Independents are evenly split between Trump (11%) and Obama (11%), with another 3% naming Biden and 2% Fauci.

Overall, 18% of Americans name Trump, 15% name Obama, 6% Biden and 3% Fauci. The remaining top 10 men include Pope Francis, businessman Elon Musk, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, basketball player LeBron James, and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists.

In addition to the public figures named by Americans, 11% name a relative or friend as the man they admire most. Twenty-one percent did not offer an opinion in response to the open-ended question.

This year marks the 10th time Trump has finished among the top 10 men, including four times before he entered party politics — 1988 through 1990 and 2011. Gates has finished in the top 10 a total of 21 times, while Obama has now done so 15 times and the Dalai Lama 11 times. Biden has been in the top 10 once before, in 2018, while Fauci and James are new to the list.

The Rev. Billy Graham, who passed away in 2018, finished among the top 10 a record 61 times during his life. Former President Jimmy Carter is the living man with the most top 10 finishes — 29 — putting him behind Graham and Ronald Reagan for third all-time. Carter finishes just outside the top 10 this year but made the 2019 list.

Pope John Paul II and Gen. Douglas MacArthur frequently made the top 10. They, along with Henry Kissinger, are the only men who were not future, current or former presidents to finish first overall in any year. MacArthur was most admired man in 1946, 1947 and 1951; Kissinger topped the list from 1973 through 1975, and Pope John Paul II did so in 1980.

Most Admired Woman

Just as men who were president have dominated the most admired man list, women who were first lady have commonly been named most admired woman. Gallup has asked the public to name the woman they admire most 71 times since 1948, with either a current (18) or a former (39) first lady winning a total of 57 times. That has been the case every year since 1997, with Hillary Clinton accounting for most of those — but Michelle Obama (2018 through 2020) and Laura Bush (2001) also finished first during that time span.

This year, 10% of Americans name Obama as most admired woman, 6% name Harris, and 4% name current first lady Melania Trump. Trump has been in the top 10 each of the past four years but has never finished first, joining Bess Truman and Lady Bird Johnson as former or current first ladies not to have received the distinction.

The remainder of the top 10 most admired women this year include television personality Oprah Winfrey, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Clinton, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Queen Elizabeth II, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and climate change activist Greta Thunberg.

Several other women were named by 1% of Americans, including singer Dolly Parton, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, actress Betty White and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. These women did not make the top 10 because they had fewer total mentions than Barrett and Thunberg.

Sixteen percent of Americans name a relative or friend as the woman they admire most, and 19% do not have an opinion.

Partisans tend to name public figures aligned with their own party when answering the most admired woman question. Trump leads among Republicans at 8%, followed by Barrett (4%) and Haley (4%). Democrats are about equally likely to name Obama (17%) and Harris (16%), and 5% name Ocasio-Cortez.

Obama leads among independents (11%), with Trump second at 4%.

Queen Extends Record of Top 10 Finishes

Queen Elizabeth’s top 10 finish this year is her 52nd, far more than any other woman. Margaret Thatcher is second on the list with 34 top 10 appearances, followed by Winfrey at 33 and Clinton with 29.

Clinton, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Mamie Eisenhower, Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, Betty Ford and Pat Nixon are the current or former first ladies who have placed in the top 10 at least 15 times. Obama has finished among the leaders 13 times to date.

Non-first ladies who have finished first in past years include Sister Elizabeth Kenny (1951); Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Robert Kennedy (1968); former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (1971, 1973-1974); Mother Teresa (1980, 1986, 1995-1996); and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1982-1984 and 1988-1990).

Bottom Line

Past, present and future White House occupants, whether presidents or first ladies, have figured prominently when Gallup has asked Americans to name the man and woman they admire most. As such, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are likely to remain strong contenders for the most admired man title in the coming years. Should Trump continue to dominate Republicans’ consciousnesses — currently, Republicans rarely name any other public person than him — he will have a good chance of winning in future years, especially if Democrats continue to split their choices between Obama and Biden. Still, former presidents typically have not been top of mind for Americans — only Obama and Eisenhower received 10% or more mentions in any year after they left office.

Harris’ prominent role in the forthcoming Biden administration should raise her national profile in the coming year, and possibly position her to overtake Michelle Obama as most admired woman.

Summary:

• Dr. Fauci complains about lagging vaccinations in US
• Parts of Beijing locked down for first time since July
• Data delays continue in US
• Global cases near 81.5MM
• Arizona sees record daily deaths
• Ireland weighs even tighter restrictions
• Netherlands outbreak slows
• “Limited” vaccine doses allocated to House members

* * *

As the haggling over the $2K stimulus check continues to occupy headlines in the US, Dr. Fauci on Tuesday reiterated his warnings about January being even worse than December in terms of the severity of the COVID outbreak, taxing hospital staff already stretched to the breaking point in places like LA.

Dr. Fauci also pointed out in an interview that Operation Warp Speed is on track to miss its year-end vaccination target by a massive margin (with roughly 2.13MM doses administered in the US, we’re on track to see just 10% of the 20MM goal). He told CNN that he had hoped more Americans would have been vaccinated by now.

Data from across the US remained incomplete for yet another day, as various states struggled to catch up with holiday-related delays.

According to the COVID Tracking Project, over the next couple of days, states will catch up on some reporting, but we’re unlikely to see data return to normal for quite some time.

Globally, the world has confirmed just under 81.5K cases, according to Johns Hopkins, while the official death toll has reached 1.778MM. More than 4.6MM doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been doled out internationally, along with the official vaccination numbers from Russia and China (though China is believed to have quietly vaccinated millions under accelerated emergency-use measures).

NYC has vaccinated nearly 70K people,

On the China front, what started as enhanced travel restrictions has escalated in Beijing on Tuesday amid whispers about another wave of outbreaks in China.

Yesterday, footage purporting to show health workers spraying disinfectant in Dalian helped to stoke the rumors on western social media.

CHINA: New video from the city of Dalian spreading on social media pic.twitter.com/0XztpLikyD

— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) December 28, 2020

But just a few hours ago, as night spreads across China, reports emerged that 10 areas of Shunyi district in the Chinese capital were sealed off on Tuesday after seven native COVID-19 cases were recorded. The alarming spike in “native” (as opposed to “imported”) cases has inspired the biggest lockdown in the capital since July. Xinhua previously reported that more than 1MM people in the city were tested Monday during a mass-testing campaign.

In what appeared to be another attempt to distract from this latest outbreak, Chinese state-backed media reported that traces of the virus had been discovered on the packaging of meat shipped from Mexico. China has repeatedly circulated reports exaggerating the prospects of contaminated foreign meat and fish.

Over in Europe, as the first week of EU vaccinations continues, Brussels has agreed to purchase an additional 100MM doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.

We decided to take an additional 100 million doses of the #BioNTech /@Pfizer vaccine, which is already being used to vaccinate people across the EU.

We will therefore have 300 million doses of this vaccine, which was assessed as safe and effective.

More vaccines will follow!

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 29, 2020

Here’s some more news from Tuesday morning:

• Arizona on Tuesday reported 171 new deaths from Covid-19, the largest single-day toll since late July. The latest fatalities pushed the state’s total number to 8,640 since the pandemic began. With 2,799 new cases recorded, the state has seen 507,222 total (Source: Bloomberg).
• The number of coronavirus cases in the Netherlands fell in the past seven days, according to health agency RIVM. In the week ending Dec. 29, 67,388 new Covid-19 cases were confirmed, down from the 82,340 reported in the prior seven days (Source: Bloomberg).
• Ireland’s government will meet on Wednesday to weigh tighter restrictions to limit the virus’s spread, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly told RTE Radio (Source: Bloomberg).
• A limited supply of coronavirus vaccine is now available to staff in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to a memo House Attending Physician Brian Monahan sent to lawmakers (Source: Bloomberg).

* * *

One more note on the vaccine front: In the latest blow to vaccine credibility in Europe, thee European Medicines Agency is reportedly planning to delay approval of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, claiming that it hasn’t received enough information to evaluate it properly.

Authored by Annaliese Levy via SaraACarter.com,

Sara Carter joined “The Next Revolution” on Fox News with Steve Hilton Sunday night to discuss the interaction between big business and big government and exposing corruption.

“I’ve always said, you can always find bipartisanship in lobbying firms,” Carter said.

“You’ll always find bipartisanship there because that’s where they go to line their pockets after they leave office or once they move around the bureaucracy, they figure out ways to make money.”

.@SaraCarterDC on the revolving door of politics: You can always find bipartisanship in lobbying firms… you’ll always find bipartisanship there because that’s where they go to line their pockets after they leave office…#NextRevFNC pic.twitter.com/1G7DWMMpV5

— The Next Revolution (@NextRevFNC) December 28, 2020

Hilton compared the Biden scandal to a symbol of everything that is wrong with Washington and emphasized the importance of exposing corruption.

“From the House all the way down to the Senate, to the bureaucrats and everyone else, I think that we got to look at overall the complexity of this. How do we take care of this machine? How do we take care of this beast?” Carter asked referring to the corruption in Washington.

According to Carter, the corruption in Washington is why Trump faced such retaliation during this time in office.

“It’s a beast and it feeds on itself and it knows how to slow roll. Which is why the Trump administration had such a difficult time. No matter how many times President Trump tried to do something or enact some kind of policy, if there were people opposed to it at the Pentagon, if there were people opposed to it at the state department, we might never know their names, but they just sat back and said you know what, we’re going to slow roll this policy so that it never comes to fruition,” Carter said.

Carter credited Trump for his dedication to the American people and exposing the truth.

“Thank God for President Trump because it exposed it in such a way that it will never be able to hide again.”

Senate Republicans are facing an optics nightmare after 44 House Republicans joined 231 Democrats on Monday to pass a bill which would increase stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000. The move, staunchly opposed by Senate GOP leaders, followed President Trump’s surprise demand last week that lawmakers include the increase in a $900 billion package which he ultimately signed – instead calling on a separate bill to boost the payments.

“The House and the President are in agreement: we must deliver $2,000 checks to American families struggling this Holiday Season,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a tweet, according to Bloomberg.

And so, with Democrats, Trump, and nearly 25% of House GOP endorsing the increased payouts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is now in the uncomfortable position of denying Americans a hefty stimulus increase after the same Senate approved a $1.4 trillion appropriations package which was full of pork. Handouts include billions in foreign aid ($10 million for Pakistani ‘gender programs’), missile procurement, and a plethora of other items which don’t benefit the general American public.

What’s more, Georgia Sens. David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler, who have a runoff election in a week, now support the $2,000 checks as well according to Bloomberg. In addition, Sens. Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley also support it.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn’t said whether the Senate would take up the House bill, attempt to vote on a different one that would also increase direct payments or simply ignore the issue. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he’ll seek unanimous consent to pass the House bill on Tuesday. But the move is expected to draw an objection from a Republican, effectively shutting down the effort.

Much depends on whether the president moves on from the issue or uses it to attack Senate Republicans. –Bloomberg

As Bloomberg notes, Trump’s push for $2,000 checks may have been revenge for abandoning his bid to overturn the results of the November election based on claims of widespread fraud, irregularities, and illegal 11th hour changes to election law permitting an unprecedented number of otherwise invalid absentee ballots to count.

“Give the people $2000, not $600,” said Trump on Tuesday morning, adding “They have suffered enough from the China Virus!!!”

$2000 for our great people, not $600! They have suffered enough from the China Virus!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2020

McConnell, meanwhile, is expected to discuss the matter when he opens the Senate for debate Tuesday afternoon, as the chamber will likely need unanimous consent to be both override Trump’s veto of a defense bill, as well as bat down the $2,000 checks — which is unlikely to happen anytime soon. If that’s the case, the matter may fall into the hands of the Biden administration, particularly if Democrats win in the Georgia runoff on January 5, which will hand the Senate to the Democrats.

In addition to boosting checks to $2,000, the House bill expands the number of people eligible to receive them, including child dependents. Currently, only children of adults under the income caps qualify.

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget estimates that the bigger payments would raise disposable income in the first quarter to as much as 25% above pre-pandemic levels. The legislation would produce an additional 1.5% in GDP output, but not all of the growth would occur in 2021, according to Marc Goldwein, an economist who co-authored the CRFB projections.

But many Republicans had opposed stimulus payments larger than the $600 in the existing law, in part over concerns about the price tag. Bumping the payments to $2,000 would cost roughly $463.8 billion, according to estimates by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. –Bloomberg

“I worry that this whopping $463 billion won’t do what’s needed, stimulate the economy or help workers get back to work,” said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) before the House vote, adding “It’s hard to stimulate the economy that is locked down by local politicians.“

As Apple continues to lobby against the Uygher Forced Labor Prevention Act, a bill intended to punish Chinese companies that utilize forced labor from the persecuted Muslim minority group, the Washington Post has just rolled out a lengthy investigation, conducted in partnership with a human-rights group, exposing Apple suppliers’ links to forced labor.

Breaking news that threatens to revive the outrage over the fraught ethical status of Apple’s supply chain. 10 years ago, when stories about Foxconn’s labor abuses first emerged, coverage seemed to focus on macabre stories of long shifts, low pay and suicide nets strung up around manufacturing facilities to stop workers from leaping to their deaths.

Over the past ten years, as China’s currency has appreciated and its economy has continued the (state-orchestrated) transition toward a more “developed” services-based economy, wage-growth has accelerated and stories about labor abuses in the “People’s Republic” have tapered off.

As cheap labor disappeared, China’s manufacturers have, according to WaPo, turned to forced labor in the form of Uyghers and, presumably, others entangled in China’s penal system.

The CCP has reportedly placed more than 1MM Muslims in concentration camps or forced them to work in factories that produce everything from cotton to electronics.

Apple’s products are produced by an extremely complex array of more than 1K suppliers around the world, many of which interact with Apple through middlemen. The consumer tech behemoth has gone to extreme lengths to try and whitewash labor abuses. It publishes the results of an annual supply chain audit (the latest edition can be read here).

But even as Apple has continued to deny any knowledge of labor abuses among its biggest suppliers, documents procured by human rights group “the Tech Transparency Project” and shared with the Washington Post offer evidence to the contrary. The documents reportedly detail how thousands of prisoners from the far-western Xinjiang Province were dispatched to work as forced laborers in factories run by Lens Technology, one of Apple’s most critical and longest-serving suppliers. The company makes touch-panel glass critical to the iPhone’s functionality.

Lens was one of five Apple suppliers fingered for alleged use of forced labor by the TTP. Lens also has business ties with Amazon and Tesla.

The documents, discovered by the Tech Transparency Project and shared exclusively with The Washington Post, detail how thousands of Uighur workers from the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang were sent to work for Lens Technology. Lens also supplies Amazon and Tesla, according to its annual report.

Lens Technology is one of at least five companies connected to Apple’s supply chain that have now been linked to alleged forced labor from the Xinjiang region, according to human rights groups. Lens Technology stands out from other Apple component suppliers because of its high-profile founder and long, well-documented history going back to the early days of the iPhone.

“Our research shows that Apple’s use of forced labor in its supply chain goes far beyond what the company has acknowledged,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project.

Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said the company has confirmed that Lens Technology has not received any labor transfers of Uighur workers from Xinjiang. He said Apple earlier this year ensured that none of its other suppliers are using Uighur labor transferred from Xinjiang.

“Apple has zero tolerance for forced labor,” Rosenstock said. “Looking for the presence of forced labor is part of every supplier assessment we conduct, including surprise audits. These protections apply across the supply chain, regardless of a person’s job or location. Any violation of our policies has immediate consequences, including possible business termination. As always, our focus is on making sure everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and we will continue doing all we can to protect workers in our supply chain.”

Approached for comment by WaPo, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing insisted that forced labor is “non-existent” in China.

In response to faxed questions from The Post, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing called forced labor in China “nonexistent” and accused people with “ulterior motives“ of fabricating it. It said a number of companies had hired auditors to conduct investigations, which “confirmed the nonexistence of ‘forced labor.’“ It did not name the companies.

Interestingly, the TTP was apparently tipped off to the forced labor at Lens by an article in the state press, which quoted one of the workers talking about how they aimed to make more money to help their family rise out of poverty.

In February, Uighur workers from Xinjiang destined for a Lens Technology factory were among the first passengers to fly on a chartered flight within China after the pandemic shut down civil aviation, according to an article highlighted in the Tech Transparency Project’s report. The China Southern Arlines flight from Hotan to Hunan was covered by a Chinese news agency focused on the airline industry.

“Although they are young, most of them have two years of experience,” the article says. “In the new year, I still want to continue to work hard, learn more skills, earn more money, so that my family can live a good life out of poverty and let parents rest assured,” one of the workers is quoted as saying in the article. Human rights workers say news articles like these are the result of coordinated government propaganda.

Lens founder Zhou Qunfei won plaudits in the Western Press after she rose to prominence in 2015, when the company she founded from the ground up went public. Born into poverty in a small village, Qunfei eventually rose to become one of the world’s only truly self-made billionaires (sorry, Kylie).

According to the report, the government-orchestrated forced labor transfers to Lens have been going on for at least 2 years, accelerating during 2017, as the CCP ramped up its crackdown on the Uyghers. Going into more detail about the nature of the bondage, the report claims that the CCP typically gives workers two choices: either work in a factory, or languish in a detention camp. In the US, we call that an “offer you can’t refuse.”

What’s even more shocking is that Beijing isn’t even trying to hide this activity. Instead, state media has published a flood of propaganda videos seeking to portray the indentured servants as upwardly mobile social climbers.

Judging by the length and detail of the WaPo report, we suspect this might be the first in a series as the Bezos-owned paper launches a full-on assault against one of its owners biggest rivals.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Well, it looks like we are going to get $600 stimulus payments from the federal government after all.  Oh goody!  For the millions of Americans that are on the brink of being evicted from their homes, that will be enough for about half a mortgage payment or about half a month of rent.  Many are referring to this as America’s “let them eat cake moment”, and that probably is not too far off target.  As our politicians spend hundreds of billions of dollars on other nonsense, we are supposed to be deeply grateful to them for tossing a few hundred bucks our way.  But the truth is that $600 dollars does not go as far as it once did.  20 years ago, it would have bought more groceries than any of us could have possibly put into a single vehicle, but today it will buy about two carts of food and maybe a tank of gas.

If we are going to go “full Weimar” and destroy any hope of ever getting our national finances under control, we might as well make the checks big enough to smile about.

But while you get a measly $600, the federal government is spending $6,900,000 on a “smart toilet” which can actually recognize a user’s “analprint”…

In his latest report on federal government waste, a project he completes every year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) highlights $54.7 billion in government spending that he deems wasteful. Among the items noted this year is the creation of a $6.9 million “smart toilet,” which operates with three cameras, one of which can identify a user’s “analprint.”

As explained in The Festivus Report 2020, researchers at Stanford University used $6,973,057 in funds granted through the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create a so-called “smart toilet.”

Really?

Just when I think that it can’t possibly get any worse, the federal government comes up with even more bizarre ways to waste our tax dollars.

At least if we were only spending what we brought in I could live with that.  But instead, we have been stealing more than $100,000,000 dollars from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day ever since Barack Obama first entered the White House.

I am not just picking on the Democrats.  At this point most Republicans have abandoned any pretense of fiscal responsibility, and that fact makes me sick to my stomach.

Today, we are 27.5 trillion dollars in debt, and soon it will be 30 trillion dollars.

If we are going to liquidate the nation anyway, let’s give people checks that are so large that they will be dancing in the streets.

Because giving people $600 checks in this economic environment is essentially the equivalent of spitting into Niagara Falls.

Let me try to illustrate what I am talking about.  Right now, there are 12 million U.S. renters that are more than $5,000 behind on their rent and utilities…

The newest data from Moody’s Analytics shows about 12 million renters are now at least $5,850 behind in rent and utilities payments — and eviction protections expire in weeks.

Okay, so let’s assume that all of those people get $600 payments on a timely basis.

In the end, on average they will still be about $5000 behind on their payments, and the start of a new month is right around the corner.

And there are millions of other Americans that are living so close to the edge financially that they have been putting their rent payments on a credit card…

There’s been as much as a 70% percent increase from last year in people paying rent on a credit card, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

“If you’re putting your rent payments on to a credit card, that shows you’re really at risk of eviction,” says Shamus Roller, executive director of the nonprofit National Housing Law Project. “That means you’ve run out of savings; you’ve probably run out of calls to family members to get them to loan you money.”

Yes, $600 will help.

But not much.

For 32-year-old Jo Marie Hernandez, $600 might buy a little bit of time, but what she really needs is a new job…

Jo Marie Hernandez doesn’t know how she and her 4-year-old daughter will survive after her unemployment aid lapsed this weekend.

Hernandez, who lives in Olean, New York, is on the brink of losing her home in days after she lost her job as a customer service associate at a gas station in the spring. Enduring prolonged unemployment, she’s struggled to make ends meet and has nothing left in savings to keep her afloat.

I can’t even imagine the emotional pain that she must be going through right now.

When you have a young child and you are about to be thrown out into the streets, nothing else really matters…

“I only have $100 left to my name. My whole world is shattered,” says Hernandez, 32, who was forced to put her car up for sale. “We can’t wait a few weeks for help. We’re starving and will be out on the street soon.”

Sadly, there are millions and millions of other Americans that are facing similar scenarios right now.

This is what an economic depression looks like, and economic conditions are going to continue to deteriorate moving forward.

Many on the left are assuming that future stimulus checks will be bigger once Joe Biden gets into the White House.  But every additional dollar that we borrow makes our long-term problems even worse.

Our national debt continues to spiral wildly out of control, the money supply is shooting up at an exponential rate, and we are mired in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s despite unprecedented government intervention.

This is the big meltdown that everyone has been waiting for, and we are still only in the very early chapters.

So no, $600 stimulus payments won’t actually fix anything.

But hopefully they will ease the suffering slightly as the U.S. economy continues to relentlessly steamroll toward oblivion.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

Boeing’s troubled 737 Max plane was grounded in March 2019 for 20 months after two crashes killed 346 people. The Max is expected to return to the skies on Tuesday morning, carrying passengers between Miami and New York’s LaGuardia, according to Reuters.  

The Max’s grounding was lifted in November by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after Boeing made critical changes and software upgrades to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), an automated flight control system that was responsible for two crashes. 

American Airlines Flight 718 (N314RH) is expected to depart from Miami around 1032 ET and land in New York at 1330 ET, ending a near two-year debacle for the US planemaker. 

Earlier this month, American Airlines held the first test flight of a 737 MAX 8 since the grounding. The flight involved mostly members of the media, to prove the jet is safe for passengers, an issue that the crash victims’ family members protest the return to service.

The flight from the airline’s base in Dallas, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, was in preparation for Tuesday’s flight, as was a PR effort by Boeing and the airlines that are its biggest customers to rehabilitate the jet’s image following a record 20-month ban.

Flightradar24 shows N314RH has had a busy December, with multiple test flights across the country. 

Aeronews recently tweeted a video of a 737 MAX conducting a test flight from Miami. 

@BoeingAirplanes 737 MAX 8 @AmericanAir (N308RD) departing @iflymia, flight AA9750 operated for employees. AA’s MAXs will return to commercial service on December 29th. Video: Alexandru Pascale. 🇺🇸 @Boeing pic.twitter.com/K5A5bnnkrV

— Aeronews (@AeronewsGlobal) December 22, 2020

After N314RH lands in New York this afternoon, the plane will prepare for another flight back to Miami later this evening. 

CBS Miami provides more details on today’s historic return to service for Max jets. 

Arguably, the Max debacle has been the company’s worst crisis in its 104-year history.