Mexican protesters have shut a US southern border crossing amid fears that untested American travellers will spread coronavirus.
Residents in Sonora, south of the US state of Arizona, have promised to block traffic into Mexico for a second day after closing a checkpoint for hours on Wednesday.
They wore face masks and held signs telling Americans to "stay at home".
Mexico has fewer than 500 confirmed Covid-19 cases and the US over 65,000.
The border is supposed to be closed to all except "essential" business, but protesters said there has been little enforcement and no testing by authorities.
The blockade was led by members of the group Sonorans for Health and Life, who called for medical testing to be done on anyone who crosses from the US into Mexico.
Read more ....
Update: Mexicans Will Block Southern Border Crossing Again Over Concerns Untested Americans Will Spread Coronavirus (Newsweek)
WNU Editor: I think these Mexicans are more afraid of Mexicans living in the U.S. returning home because their jobs are now gone in the U.S.. I do not see Americans rushing into Mexico unless they have family there.
ReplyDeleteSurgeon General says some states will still be battling coronavirus by LABOR DAY and that it'll travel through entire country in yet ANOTHER rejection of Trump's 'Easter' deadline
ReplyDeleteAdvisers steer Trump to drop back-to-work Easter coronavirus deadline
Jonathan Swan
4-5 minutes
Believing the worst is yet to come, some top advisers to President Trump are struggling to steer him away from Easter as an arbitrary deadline for much of the nation to reopen.
State of play: The operating assumption among administration officials involved in the coronavirus planning is that the April 12 mark — 16 days away — will not, in fact, turn out to be the starting gun for businesses across America to reopen.
But Trump is far from chastened. "I don’t think he feels in any way that his messaging was off," a top official said. "He feels more convinced than ever that America needs to get back to work."
One person close to Trump expressed concern about market reaction the day after Easter, if the president allows that to be set up too rigidly as Open Day.
If the reality is worse than Trump hopes — and large numbers of Americans have to stay isolated — some close to Trump think a false Easter expectation could send markets downward.
Between the lines: The reality is that the administration is unlikely to go from red light to green light.
ReplyDeleteFirst Response
As we’ve discussed, the bailout package scheduled for a vote in the House today includes $454 billion for the Treasury Department to hand over to the Federal Reserve. (This was initially $425 billion but they topped it up in the final bill.) That money could then be placed into a “credit facility” and levered up 10-1, creating a $4.5 trillion money cannon aimed at the largest corporations in America.
You’re right to ask, “Why does the Federal Reserve need any money from the Treasury?” The Fed has a printing press (a computer really) and can conjure up whatever cash it needs. Nathan Tankus calls this an accounting gimmick, and if one-quarter of the total package is unnecessary, that should be news.
Pam and Russ Martens say this enables the Fed to hide the credit facility off its balance sheet. Making it a “special purpose vehicle” could shield the money cannon from Freedom of Information Act requests. Bloomberg famously used FOIA to discover the terrible collateral the Fed allowed banks and other companies to use for lending in the 2008 bailout. In addition, the coronavirus bailout law repeals public meeting and recordkeeping requirements for Fed-related programs. And the oversight built into the bill comes after the money is out the door. So secrecy, long a Fed staple, could be the answer.
The Fed announced another whole bailout program on Monday, which is a year ago in coronavirus time. Again supported by Treasury Department cash, this credit facility supports the corporate bond market, which has been seizing up. Here’s the situation: lots of companies feasted on highly leveraged loans in the past decade. This was particularly true in the energy sector, and the current crash in commodities is likely to create a lot of defaults. Other debt, like commercial real estate, could collapse as well. Think of this Fed program as like a bank; Treasury makes a deposit, and that’s the capital for lending and trading. By buying up corporate debt, the Fed would keep corporate bond interest rates from spiraling.
The debt could be rated pretty low by credit rating agencies, meaning they think there’s a likelihood of default. Since the rating agencies are reassessing these bonds, the Fed can scoop in before the downgrades to junk status. So many of these loans were overrated; Moody’s highly rated a debt instrument on two large Las Vegas casinos on March 5, when the effects of COVID-19 on the travel sector were already well-known. That deal has already disintegrated.
This is a bailout, then, of a highly irresponsible bonanza of corporate lending. All of this debt was run up well before any coronavirus crisis; what is the rationale that the Fed has to backstop this market? Plus, the Fed already has the $4.5 trillion bazooka, why do they also need a program to buy up increasingly worthless corporate debt?
Incredibly, the Fed put BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, in charge of this and two other bond-buying programs. One of the programs involves buying up exchange-traded funds, and nobody has issued more of those than BlackRock. The firm can theoretically direct itself to buy up its own troubled funds and take fees on it! Whatever the purchases, BlackRock unquestionably stands to make hundreds of billions of dollars.
BlackRock managed a lot of financial crisis-era programs too; this kind of financial industry backscratching is par for the course. So is the hide-the-ball manner in which the government conceals its bailout by hooking Congress into passing a law, when the real action takes place at the Fed. What Senator has the standing to cry foul? They all just voted for part of the same bailout.
See Mexicans don't want other Mexicans. Why should the USA?
ReplyDelete12:02
ReplyDeleteCrap post by crap poster.
"I give it two weeks. I guess by Monday or Tuesday, it's about two weeks. We will assess at that time and give it more time if we need a little more time. We have to open this country up." Trump March 24, 2020
12:02 is shit for brains. If 12:02 didn't have shit, they would have no brains at all.
When will 12:02 ever learn to read with comprehension?
t took more than competence and ability to resolve the crisis of the 1930s. President Herbert Hoover was competent (in the early 1920s he spearheaded a relief effort that saved millions of Russians from starvation in the wake of famine and civil war); Hoover was able. But Hoover was committed to a failed orthodoxy, unable to think beyond the dogma of the past. Roosevelt wasn’t a blank slate, but he was flexible. He could think creatively about government, and his allies were eager to experiment. They brought openness and imagination to Washington and helped save the country in the process.
ReplyDeleteAs we face what may become the great crisis of our age, we need that Rooseveltian leadership: flexible, creative and deeply aware of the power of words. Roosevelt’s first inaugural wasn’t just an impressive speech; it was a harbinger of things to come. Like nearly all of the most memorable presidential rhetoric, it cleared the way for action, pointing the country toward a singular goal. Put another way, the Roosevelt of March 1933 did not know how the future would unfold, but he understood the power he had to shape the limits of what was possible — and he didn’t hesitate to put it to work.
Trump said one thing one day...and changed what he had said the next day
ReplyDeletedo not tell me to read what Trump says but rather tell me which day I am to see what he says for that moment
Crap poster posted crap again at 4:12. Should be arrested like other bums and vagrants.
ReplyDelete"I give it two weeks. I guess by Monday or Tuesday, it's about two weeks. We will assess at that time and give it more time if we need a little more time. We have to open this country up." Trump March 24, 2020