Tuna Melt

What day is today? Our Ground Hog Day experience continues.

2020 will be remembered for many things, on the list will be comfort food.

Apple Pie, Biscuits and gravy, Burrito, Chicken Fried Steak, French Fries, Mac and Cheese, Meatloaf, Pizza, and Tuna Melt, among the many.

Whatever is your fancy, they have helped get us through now our seventh week of quarantine.

But their magic is beginning to dwindle. Enough of the comfort food, I want to play golf (playing this Friday), I no longer want to watch daily so called POTUS press conferences, I miss my movie theatre, I have had enough of viewing on Instagram airbrushed selfies and dog tricks and above all else I miss my pub.

What is your Tuna melt? I hope and pray you and your families are well.

WE'VE MADE IT TO WEDNESDAY, and we have to admit we weren't quite ready for the Pentagon to acknowledge the existence of "unidentified aerial phenomena." Ron “Owl” Harris has returned.

This is especially worth celebrating for those of us using the seven-day-a-week hoodie wardrobe: Today marks 107 years since a Swedish-American engineer named Gideon Sundback received a patent for the zipper, then known as the "Separable Fastener." (Side note: Happy National Zipper Day.)

COVID-19 NOTES – More than 1 million people in the U.S. have tested positive for the coronavirus, accounting for about a third of the world's total confirmed cases.

JetBlue became the first major U.S. airline to require passengers to wear a face covering (nose and mouth), beginning May 4.

CNN, NBC, CBS, & ABC are set to announce that they will no longer televise Trumps announcements from the White House, saying that they are not in the public interest. They are standing firm, claiming that they are actually protecting the American public.

Officials at the Health and Human Services department headquarters, have worked around the clock since mid-January to first prepare for the possible Covid-19 outbreak and then manage the pandemic it became. But the Trump administration's repeated stumbles have provoked a daily deluge of attacks, watchdog probes and open speculation about the future of the department's leader, Secretary Alex Azar, culminating in a spate of reports about

how White House officials were discussing Azar's potential replacements this past weekend.

Quieter roads but more deadly crashes. The number of auto fatalities in some states has risen despite declines in traffic volume, evidence some motorists are driving faster and more recklessly than before the pandemic.

LEADERSHIP – What is a trustworthy leader?

1.      They take a look at themselves first: Being trustworthy is taking a look at your own behavior before judging others.

2.      They increase their “flex” ability: Trustworthy leaders are flexible. They do not avoid change instead they make the change work.

3.      They tell it like it is: Trustworthy leaders know hot to communicate with those they lead. Keeping team members informed is critical.

4.      They look for the best in people: A trustworthy leader is a person that believes the best in people.

5.      They are firm and fair: Trustworthy leaders know how to be firm and fair. You know where you stand with this leader.

Thank you Theodore Roosevelt Jr. 26^th President of the United States; 1901 - 1909

BLAME GAME - The Olympics Games are postponed, but the Coronavirus Blame Games are taking their place.

There's plenty to go around. Blame Trump. Blame China. Blame the wet markets. Blame the Spring Breakers. Blame the cruise industry. Blame export bans. Blame online influencers. Blame governors who ignored numbers and the wisdom of their neighbors. Blame Bill de Blasio telling you to keep living your life. Blame Fox News for telling viewers one thing and staff another.

They all deserve it. It is probably fair to blame everyone who contributed to this system failure. There is no one scapegoat. The virus defies neat blame just as easily as it defies borders.

But there are others who do not deserve the fingers pointed their way. Coronavirus is a cover for existing prejudice: You do not have to look hard to find racist forms of blame.

And never blame the infected. Well, almost never.

This week, blame seemed like it was tipping over into shame. "You got Covid-19 and it's your fault," is a message already being cast at those who continue to worship in public or go on vacation. Who has not wondered about the blameworthiness of those still boarding cruises in late March? They are the last on most people's sympathy list. But is it fair to scorn parents who use public playgrounds with their kids to stay sane? What about the health care workers on subway trains, or the people staffing your supermarket register? They are doing the right thing by going to work and still might infect themselves — or you.

Like most things in America these days, the blame game is probably headed for court. "I got Covid-19 and it's your fault" arguments are just lawsuits that haven't happened yet. Who was thoughtless and who was negligent? The answer will determine if death by Covid-19 becomes a tragic, iconic white-collar crime.

When it comes to political blame at least, the truth wins out in the end. There will be commissions and campaigns to add to the court cases. In the United Kingdom, a top medical official was forced to apologize for misleading the public on testing. In the United States, November's election will be a moment of national political reckoning, and potentially its own huge logistical mess.

So, who are you going to be? The person who airbrushed their January and February actions, or the one who switched focus to what they can fix tomorrow?

ECONOMICS 101 - Economics—as if understanding its facts and figures, number and statistics, and charts and graphs isn’t challenging enough.

Economics also relies on some tough terms. No, we don’t just mean the more advanced argot of arbitrage or leveraged buyout. Even more familiar economic terms many of us encounter in the news (or, more frighteningly, feel in our pocketbooks), like recession, can be confusing.

That confusion isn’t only because a word like recession is often used in contrast to a word like depression. It’s also because there aren’t any hard-and-fast, across-the-board, one-size-fits-all rules about when an economic tailspin becomes a recession—or worse.

What is a recession?

In economics, a recession is a period of an economic contraction, sometimes limited in scope or duration. Characteristics of a recession generally include significant declines in:

industrial production

international trade

employment

household income and spending

investments

construction

stock-market values

There aren’t exact declines which trigger universal agreement that an economy is in recession. In fact, economists’ debate whether an economy is in recession well into one. But, some analysts do use one conventional benchmark: two consecutive quarters of decline in a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), adjusted for inflation.

Yeah, let’s break these terms down some more.

GDP is the total monetary value of all final goods and services produced in a country during one year—excluding payments on foreign investments. Inflation is a persistent, substantial rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of currency. When GDP is adjusted for inflation, it means economists are examining monetary values at present, not historic, levels.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which officially tracks the cycles of expansion and contraction in US business, explicitly does not use that informal, two-quarter-decline standard. Instead, NBER defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.”

Bear market vs. bull market

When prices are falling in the stock market, it’s called a bear market. Investors often sell stocks during a bear market. When prices are rising in the market, it’s a bull market, when investors frequently like to buy. The use of bear and bull for these distinctions trace back to some old proverbs and financial jargon.

The causes of recessions are complex and often interrelated. But, in very general terms, recessions can be caused by such factors as:

high inflation

high interest rates

overproduction

asset bubbles (unsustainable increase in the value of goods, property, or other investment)

overextended credit and high debt

bank runs and lack of consumer confidence

trade wars

problems in financial markets, policies, and regulation

What is a depression?

Compared to a recession, a depression is much more severe and sustained. A depression is a period during which business, employment, and stock-market values decline severely or remain at a very low level of activity.

Production, employment, consumption, trade, investment, income, spending—all of these aspects of the economy are reduced sharply and widely, often across the entire globe. A recession can be global in scale, but it can also restrict the economies of smaller regions or just even individual countries.

There’s no magic number for when an economy is in a depression. Nor does the NERB offer a definition of a depression. But, some conventional indicators of a depression may include:

over 10% decline in GDP

around 20% unemployment

downturn lasts more than 1–2 years

In economic contexts, the word depression probably brings to mind one depression in particular: the Great Depression. This was the economic crisis and period of low business activity in the US and other countries, roughly beginning with the stock-market crash in October 1929 and continuing through most of the 1930s.

If we measure a depression by that yardstick of a 10% decline in GDP, the Great Depression was the last depression experienced by the US and many other major economies around the world. (By that measure, many economists say Finland underwent a depression in the early 1990s after the breakup of the Soviet Union.)

Let’s look closer at some of the statistics of the Great Depression. Between 1929–33, it’s estimated that, in the US, industrial production plummeted nearly 50%, the GDP plunged 30%, and unemployment surpassed 20%. Translation: that’s bad.

This was the worst downturn the US and other economies faced until what’s often called the Great Recession of 2007–09. Now, if we compare the figures between the Great Depression and Great Recession, we can see just how much more severe a depression is: GDP sank over 4% and unemployment rose to 10%. That’s still bad, but not depression-level bad.

Economic slumps, slowdowns, downswings, downturns—whatever we may call these contractions of the economy, and whether these crises reach the proportions of recessions or worse, they can certainly make us feel, well, depressed and like we want to recede. But there may be some consolation in better understanding economic recessions and depressions, and that all things have their cycles, their ups and downs.

BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK – Birthday wishes and thoughts this week to Aaron Baker… famous Psychology Professor, Megan Granquist ….famous FAR, Nickolas Lidstrom (50), Loretta Lynn (88), Willie Nelson (87), Barbara Streisand (78), Julie Wright …Seattle’s Best, Joe Zanetta…please visit Frankie’s Old World Italian Bakery in Cathedral City, CA. (the best)

COLLEGE CHRONICLES – SCIAC Champs

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES) signed by President Trump on March 27, 2020 authorized $2.4 trillion.

$14 billion was allocated to higher education students and institutions, here are the SCIAC allocations:

Institution                                          Total                Grants to Students

Univ. of La Verne                               $5,658,977      $2,829,489

Chapman Univ.                                  $5,505,229       $2,752,615

California Lutheran Univ.                 $3,451,376      $1,725,688

Whittier College                                $1,879,550      $   939,775

California Institute of Tech.              $1,535,401      $   767,701

Occidental College                             $1,474,674      $   737,337

Pomona College                                 $1,285,644     $   642,822

Claremont McKenna College            $   855,579      $   427,790

Pitzer College                                     $   625,861      $   312,931

Scripps College                                  $   546,083      $   273,042

Harvey Mudd College                        $   516,332     $   258,166

Others:

St. Lawrence Univ.                             $1,808,349      $   904,175

Ithaca College                                    $4,583,253      $2,291,627

Cornell Univ.                                      $12,800,980    $6,400,490

Univ. of Southern California             $19,278,560   $9,639,280

Here's a comprehensive list of what schools around the nation are receiving as part of the CARES Act. (link)                              

MARKET WEEK - The US economy contracted for the first time in nearly six years between January and March, as the coronavirus crisis put the world in a choke hold.

America's first-quarter GDP fell at a 4.8% annualized rate, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today (Wednesday).

It was the first contraction of the US economy since the first quarter of 2014, and the worst drop since the fourth quarter of 2008.

This Friday, we'll learn that the unemployment rate is somewhere close to 20 percent (though perhaps lower if the labor force shrinks by a large amount). In July, we'll find out the economy probably is tanking an annualized 30 percent or more in the second quarter. And it's worth remembering than when the third quarter comes out and looks strong it will in fact be coming back from a very deep hole. We'll have to annualize that number as well.

WHAT TO WATCH - So, what day is it? It is Thursday (or maybe Wednesday?), an ideal time for your early Weekend Watch. After all, you are at home, I am at home. How about the 1951 film noir “His Kind of Woman”? A classic black and white film starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. An even better supporting cast; Vincent Price, Raymond Burr (Perry Mason), and Charles McGraw. Watch it, a classic.

RIP, Mr. Tiger: Al Kaline, who spent his entire 22-season Hall of Fame career in Detroit and was known as "Mr. Tiger," died in his home Monday. He was 85. "When you talk about all-around ballplayers ... best I ever played against," said Orioles Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson in 1974.

🏈 This just in: "Hard Knocks" is planning to feature two teams for the first time this summer (assuming there's training camp): The Rams and Chargers.

THIS OR THAT:

Putting or Driving                             Putting

9 Holes or 18 Holes                           18 Holes

Walking or Riding                             Riding

Pitching Wedge or Sand Wedge      Pitching Wedge

Draw or Fade                                     Draw

Morning or Afternoon                      Morning

Whiskey or Beer                               Beer

SPEAKING OF WHERE AM I??? - 18 years, 21 teams: Journeyman goalie Michael Leighton announced his retirement from professional hockey last week, concluding an 18-year career that saw him play for 21 different pro teams.

Leighton: "You want to be that guy who ... plays a thousand games with the same organization and has a house, family all established in one city. People don't realize it's only a handful of people on every team that get that opportunity to do that."

SWAMI’S WEEK TOP PICKS – No more sports for a while, The Swami tries his skills elsewhere:

1).  Over and under when we can go back to the workplace – August 1, The Swami likes the overs.

2). Over and under when I can get a haircut – July 1, The Swami picks the overs.

3). Over and under on when we pay attention to Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates explaining the coronavirus management AND not President Trump – June 1, The Swami says the under on this one.

2020 Season to Date (3-3)

Next Blog:  Jack Ass of the Month and Dear Rink Rats

Until Monday May 11, 2020 Adios.

Claremont, California

April 29, 2020

#X-17-406

2,640 words, eight minute read

CARTOON OF THE WEEK – Lockdown Haircuts

RINK RATS POLL – What is your comfort food?

______   Pizza

______   Tuna Melt

______   Mac n’ Cheese

______   French Fires

______   Other

QUOTE OF THE MONTH – “Pour yourself a drink. Put on some lipstick and pull yourself together.”

—    Elizabeth Taylor