Episode 29- COVID-19 Breakdown and Biden/Sanders 1.0

Rich continues to break down the Covid-19 crisis, and throws a few punches at Biden and Sanders after debate 1.0... and why Tusli Gabbard should have been on that stage.

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Speaker 1 0:04

[inaudible] .

Speaker 2 0:05

Welcome to the podcast, the common bridge with Richard helpy . Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology, health and finance space. He and his wife, Leslie, are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors, but with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children. My name is Brian Kruger , and from time to time I'll be the moderator and host of this podcast. Rich, welcome to the common bridge. What a week we've had. Um, look, you, you , you can go off book this week if you'd like. And I know that we'll still have probably another podcast later on in the week, but what's your take on what's been going on around the country? This is, these are historic times. I think

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indeed, they are historic times and I think we can call out some , uh , policy matters because it's, it remains a time for good government. It remains a time for understanding our commonality. Uh, we are facing a pandemic. The world health organization does not throw that word around lightly. Uh , is a virus that does not discriminate , um, about national borders. It does not discriminate amongst race. It does not discriminate among genders. Although I did read that , uh , men are more susceptible, not only to the virus but , uh , for death from the virus. I hadn't heard that one, but is well documented that those that are aged or that have a underlying health concern are, are, are at risk. It does indeed, you know, remind me of the many things that we have faced. Um, you know, financial crises , uh, terrorist attacks, Y2K, probably even, you know , more , um, Jermaine , the things that affect all of us and how do we respond as a society at this point? I think we're doing pretty well. Um, although not all of the shoes have fallen to mix several metaphors .

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Right? Rich, do you think this is more of a three month thing than a three week thing? And I say that from March 16th. I don't ,

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no, and I don't think anyone knows. I think we need to maintain the posture of preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. Right? The data is coming in. Uh , although there's nothing definitive. I have spoken to , uh , two contexts that are scientists . One actually works for the NIH, national institutes of health. Um , another is a , uh , fairly recent PhD in molecular and cell biology. Um, they don't know each other, but what they tell me is that this virus as it passes through the population , um, and it may go dormant over the summer months and it may reappear again come fall. Um, and if it's in the same form, which we don't know that those of us that are, would be fortunate enough to not be killed by it , uh, would have some immunity built up because our immune systems are kicking in re relative to the death rate. We don't really know what it is yet because you can't just take the number of cases and the number of deaths and say that's the definitive answer because a person you could be infected two days ago and be on their way to expiring from that in 15 days. They're , they're a case today, but they're not a death. So we need to get more data on the number of infections, the severity of the infections , uh, the cure rates , um, as well as the , the death rates. And you know , everything in between, I'm sure there's going to be , uh , people disabled because of the severe impacts on the, the lungs, right. Um, the , uh, cases that you see being made from a policy standpoint about , uh , social distancing and um , shutting down places that people gather. Um, I don't know that anybody has a better idea. And what we're looking at here though is a country where I believe most households could not put together a thousand dollars in an emergency. And we have many people that have been living paycheck to paycheck who now are being told don't come into work. And I think a vigorous policy response that we've seen come from the house endorsed by the president make a lot of sense. Um , we have the mechanisms in place like unemployment insurance , uh , there's all the mechanisms to apply for unemployment to transmit that. And we need to be able to open that up for all the people that are, you know , gig workers, whether you're a landscaper, an Uber driver, food service worker to say, look here, here's my income. And that we replace enough of that so that people can get food and shelter, pay their rent, go to the grocery store and, and ride out the duration of this, however it may turn out. So you would see that in the form of a direct check to those gig workers and the folks you just talked about, a direct federal check that comes to them ideally every couple of weeks to fill that gap. Is that correct? Right. [inaudible] and again, the mechanisms there , uh , that we have an unemployment insurance so that it's not something that we have to invent. It's it, I don't know what the capacities of the computer systems are, but these things can be staged. You know, if your last name starts between a and C, you can apply on Tuesday and so forth to, to stagger it. Um, and the federal government does have a, a policy moving through that would fund the States for unemployment. And we can relieve , uh , anxiety of individuals and families who are dependent on these workers. Um , and as it's been wisely said, if you're ill, don't go to work. Other things that I've seen that I , that I'm cheered by that , uh, some of the school systems that I'm familiar with, some that I'm very familiar with in working with. They have many students who are dependent for basic needs. Students that get breakfast, lunch and dinner and then a bag of food to take home for the weekend. Yeah . That , that has changed in our, in our society hasn't it ? It has. And so now I am cheered by seeing that more schools are now finding a way to distribute some of those meals even though the school instruction may be shot down. So I'm looking at all of these policy responses as being good things. How would you see a good federal response to this next time and in , in lieu of what we're seeing right now, what do you think is missing and what do you think would be a lot more um, uh, advantageous for us when this kind of thing breaks out? What's missing is a sense of fairness. And this is not new to the current time because we are limiting where we travel. We've spent some time with Hulu and watched the series on Washington. It was a three part series. Um , I'll plug our native Michigan star, Jeff Daniels, who was the narrator, if I may. Jeff did a great job with that as he always does, but even in Washington's time, he was very frustrated with the partisanship. And today we've got it fueled with electronic media and a 24 hour news cycle and I've seen ridiculous things. There's a reporter or a political analyst guy named John Harwood. I don't think this guy's ever been outside the Washington New York corridor. Um , he says the stock markets panic selling is due due to the virus means Trump is a failed president. Oh , he cannot , he connects those two dots. Okay . So the virus is Trump's fault. He somehow manufactured the virus. We'll , we'll get to the president in a minute, but um, when the stock market rebounded the next day, crickets. Right, right . So you can't have it one way or the other. And just, you know, morphing into the president, the president staked his credibility for reelection on the stock market. And the risk of doing that is that the stock market is always going to overreact. It's going to overreact on the upside. It's going to overreact on the downside and things we cannot even imagine can impact the stock market. Um , there was a guy named Jonathan Bush was running a company called the Athena health. Uh, John was on CNBC. He was very happy to be there and they asked him about it, a stock price, and he said, look, a butterfly can fart in South America and that can change the direction of the stock market. And he's absolutely correct about that. So if you want to look at where we are right now in terms of the , uh, the equity markets, companies cannot forecast their revenue and they cannot forecast their costs, therefore they can't give guidance to what their earnings are. And earnings and revenue are the underpinnings of stock market valuation. And when there are that many unknowns, particularly at this fundamental level, the stock market is not a place most people want to put their money. Right? So there will be a day when the virus is managed in some form or fashion and the economy will begin to regenerate and people will get back to work and there will be revenue forecast and earnings forecasts . And then there will be opportunity for investment. And this great capitalist engine that has lifted the standard of living for so many people will once again be going right now. In the meantime we can expect to see a great deal of opportunism. But again , I've been impressed with some governors , uh , doing a better job than the feds. The president does not give us confidence as a crisis manager that would be much better had he been able to talk about steps that we need to take versus don't worry, this is going to be over at some point. I mean, and he's right about that. We shouldn't be panicking. It will be over at some point. Um , but people are looking for , um, a little bit better guidance. Um, and also the balance between attempting to reassure the financial markets. You're not the president of the financial markets. You're the president of the United States of America. And the citizens of the United States of America. You need to be telling people, we will make sure you have income spilled , that you can pay your rent and buy groceries. We will make sure that there are healthcare services and there are many policy levers we can pull. First of all, we have great capacity in our country in healthcare and we have that because of the way that our , one of the bad parts about our healthcare is it was very expensive. We buy a lot of capacity with that expense. We can get emergency hospitals set up, we can utilize the VA network. All of these things could be done to assure people that if you are symptomatic, you can get tested and if you are infected, you can get treated. And those three simple pillars, you're going to have money for rent, you're going to have money to go to the grocery store, you're going to have a healthcare services throughout this crisis would be the three appropriate policy responses that would keep the anxiety down. Let's, yeah. And then we can deal with the equity markets and liquidity and the , and again, it's the president's job and the Fed's job to make sure that the banking system stays intact. Um, and you know, attempting to fix it from the end through the fed. Yeah, that stuff's gotta be done. But that's how we're going to get to the bottom of this. The problem is waiters can't get to work to make a living, to go to the grocery store to pay their rent. That's the problem. We will respond to this. Well , um , in spite of our government and you know, since I've been beaten up the president a little bit today, I don't know if you're going to ask me at all about the Democrats and their debate. I was, but I was going to save that for the middle of the week. But , um , Hey, it's , it's here. So if you want to fire it up, that was last night . So, so look , um, you , you , you could see the debate last night. You know, Senator Sanders sees this as an, as an opportunity to toss out the entire system of private property rights and all of the things that make up the fabric of America. And indeed, I've seen left-wing commentators suggesting that , uh, hotels that aren't being used could simply be taken over. And we all saw dr shebango and we couldn't see the end of that. If you haven't seen dr shebango right in your cut and your , and your , you know, you can stream it from someplace, wherever, whoever has it streaming, streaming it . And then we see a , um, a very well-prepared Joe Biden , uh, have a great night. He looked good. He looked good. Yeah . And it , and the thought flash to me where I'm watching and I go, wow, he's really well-prepared. It's almost like he knows the questions that are coming. Interesting . And then I stopped myself and said, Oh boy, they did that before, but I don't want to be a guide doing laundry . Um , but you do get a different Joe Biden when he's speaking , uh, extemporaneously than when he's putting on a show. And by way of example , uh , look at the confrontation that he had with an auto worker in Detroit. And remember blue collar workers at one time was the core of the Democrat party. That's correct. Right . That doesn't, it's not true any longer. Here's what's crazy about that. The auto worker tells him there's a lot of people here that like to carry guns. Biden suggested that they take it outside to settle it. It's like I'm, the guy just told you he might be carrying Joe . This is not a guy you want to challenge the business and he wants to go. It was go time for Joe. Well, you know, he Joe's , you know, he challenged an 80 year old guy in Iowa who asked him about his son's job as the Ukraine don't want to do to have a pushup contest or , or a fist fight with the guy , um, Biden's response about guns. He says, look, I've got shotguns and my sons are hunters and you know, the de , can you imagine that following the revolutionary war that the framers of the constitution sat down and said, alright , we need to make sure that future generations of Americans can go hunting with firearms. Hey, let's put in an amendment to protect that. That's not what they were doing. They said, because of a protection against a tyrannical government, the rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be a bridge. Now we also says about, well regulation and you've heard my proposals about regulation. I thought they were good. And folks, if you haven't heard those, go back to early episodes and rich will talk about them. You can pick it up. Um, and the title of those episodes, it's great. Has gun control one is great. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah. And what I would have preferred to see the man who may become the next president. The right response to that auto worker would have been, I'm a second amendment backer and I will do nothing to impair your right to keep arms. But we all share a goal and a responsibility to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of people that shouldn't have them. Right. That would have been a walkaway comment to tell that auto worker. Exactly. Happy with that. Yeah . And instead along with his Beto or work commentary, it leads people to believe that uh, there is a confiscation coming or something and it's up . It's a problem of his own making and they're going to try to blame it on some right wing thing or Trump or whatever. But it's , this is a situation we have a president, and I've said this since he came onto the scene, not prepared for the job, not interested in learning the job and with massive personal issues. I mean, it's astonishing to see that the first process that president Trump appears to go through is what's the implication on his rating? It just, I mean that's what we've seen over and over again. And then we've seen the opposition party behave like little kids throwing a tantrum, one fate crisis after another. And with this opportunity, we're going to end up with a guy who clearly is suffering from age related. I don't know, I'm not a doctor, I can't say dementia, but clearly he has got issues in mental acuity who also brings decades long history of making really inane comments, racially tinge to remarks. He's got his own issues with women and boundaries and he's got clear corruption issues that he will have to answer for. And I look at this and I look at these two major parties and I go, is this the best we can do? And I have to conclude the whole reason the common bridge was , was started that we've reached the end of partisan politics as a way of addressing the issues in the country and in seizing the opportunities that this great nation has. And do you think the , uh, uh, uh, covert 19 crisis we're having right now, we'll put a magnifying glass on that. Do you think it changes politics going forward? Do you think it brings some folks together you think that rips us more apart or do you think it all depends on how long it lasts? I would be hopeful. The optimist in me says, can we all agree that the cough or sneeze that transmits the virus knows no party? Can we all agree that Americans and American families out of work unable to meet basic needs is something that affects us all? How can we all agree that school children not going to class are going to be impacted by this and what kind of example can we set as adults? I would want people to behave better. I would love to see the president invite the heads of both parties, top two officers of each one into the white house and then issue a joint statement. Here's what we're going to do. You're not going to get that because of the partisanship and still too many people in the political class, too many people in the media are benefiting too much from the division. I agree with that. I absolutely agree with that. There's too much ad revenue and eyeballs looking at both ends of those polar spectrums on their TV shows and their media outlets to let those folks down. So they just keep hitting and keep beating that drum. Right. And look this , despite his decades of elected office kid , does anybody in their heart of hearts say in this time what we need is Joe Biden in the oval office? The only argument I hear is who's not Trump. Okay, okay, okay. That's no more, more, more partisan. Are they Brian ? Look at , I don't like to call out a problem without having a solution. So we've been very good about that. This whole series of the podcast , um, uh, I , I want to make mention , uh , of an idea. It can't happen by the way, but let me throw it out there in case a movement gets going. What if Nikki Haley, a Republican and John Hickenlooper Democrat were available as a unification ticket? I don't know if there's a party that is qualified in all 50 States for the national election. You can do a coin toss to see who gets to be president, who gets to be vice president or you know, each get two years. Sure. But think about this. You have two very capable people who did great jobs as governors who have a moral and loyal following based on what they've done in office, who are of the age and have the balance to actually deliver great government. I think it would be amazing, I think. I think [inaudible] I think you get a lot of people that would say, Hey, let's do this thing all over again because I don't like what we've ended up with. This changes everything. And now these people, like you say like Haley and Hickenlooper, they look a lot better at Kelsey Gabbert looks a whole lot. There's a whole bunch of people look better that you might want to have in the driver's seat going forward on this. So now you're just poking me. I bought Tulsi gabber never stop . I get it. That's been four episodes in a row qualified for the debate. And can you imagine Tulsa Gabard standing either between vice president Biden and Senator Sanders or to one side. The contrast would be stark hope would be elevated and she'd probably take 25% of the vote in tomorrow's primary site . Absolutely agree. And you would hear a collective around the war around the country. No wait, wait. Well and you'd hear absolute panic inside the Democrat national committee establishment who's trying to engineer this to an end. Yep . All right . Well I look, I have to roll. Okay . I am looking for an expert on a food supply chain. Okay . Um , and if I can get the right person , um, uh, connected, we'll try to do a little piece on that. That sounds great. Meantime , I will say a quote from a good friend of mine. Uh, he said, I used to run a Sharman factory. He said we can produce enough toilet paper for the whole world in a month. You don't need to hoard the stuff. Good. I love that. Great, great ending . Go podcast rich. Thanks a whole lot. We'll try to catch you again sometime at the end of the week. Thanks for joining us again. All right . Thanks Brian . Be good now. Swollen so long.

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