Year: 2020
Trump Administration Gives Big Pharma a Blank Check
“We would want to ensure that we work to make it affordable, but we can’t control that price, because we need the private sector to invest… Price controls won’t get us there.”
— Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar refused to promise a coronavirus vaccine will be affordable, The Verge reports.
Goldman Sachs Predicts Zero Growth for American Firms in 2020
0%
Goldman Sachs revised its earnings estimate for the year for U.S. companies to $165 per share, representing 0% growth in 2020, as a result of the coronavirus, CNBC reports. This is a dramatic break from the consensus forecast of Wall Street, which still calls for earnings to climb 7% this year.
Election Integrity Skepticism Runs High
3 thirds
A new AP-NORC poll finds considerable skepticism about the democratic process in the United States. “While a third of Americans say they have high confidence in an accurate count, roughly another third are only moderately confident and a remaining third say they have little confidence.”
Rudy Is Down to His Last Five Friends
“He’s trying to sell a book. Even if we would have had that conversation, it would have been privileged between a mayor and a governor … He’s an honorable guy. I can’t believe he would do that. I just keep getting disappointed. I got about five friends left.”
— “Rudy Giuliani is having phone trouble again — and this time, it’s sad,” the New York Daily News reports. “The former New York mayor forgot to hang up on a Daily News reporter Wednesday and, thinking he was off the line, started trash-talking ex-Gov. George Pataki while complaining he only has ‘five friends left.’”
Dems May Spend $1 Billion on Ads Before Super Tuesday
$1 billion
The Wesleyan Media Project suggests political ad spending in the 2020 presidential race may reach $1 billion in ad spending before Super Tuesday.
The Government Can Quarantine You and Probably ‘Quarantine’ You
“Regulations set forth by the CDC give health officials broad authority to quarantine or isolate anyone ‘reasonably believed’ to have been exposed to a range of highly infectious diseases. The list includes cholera, infectious tuberculosis and flus that can cause a pandemic. … The government’s powers to sequester people in the name of public health are rooted in the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which allows Congress to regulate foreign and interstate commerce.”
— Washington Post
Stock Market Doctor
Donald Trump’s approach to governing doesn’t inspire us,
And if we worked for him, he’d probably fire us.
But when it comes to our health
Versus protecting the wealth,
He’d sacrifice us to save the markets from coronavirus.