Unleash Prosperity Hotline
Issue #49 Written by Stephen Moore
1) Some Upbeat Economic News from Laffer
The latest report from Laffer Associates has some good news on the economy and stocks in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic:
• The stock market initially fell over 37% and is now back to within almost 7% of its February 12, 2020 peak.• The hardest hit states have been the slowest to reopen. The states fastest to reopen are outperforming the states slowest to reopen.
• Weekly initial unemployment claims jumped to 6.9 million in mid-March and are now down to 1.9 million by late May.
• Total unemployment peaked in April and is now falling. The U.S. added 2.5 million jobs in May.
• The pandemic is exiting stage left and if the gods be kind, this will be the last of the coronavirus and the fastest economic rebound in U.S. history.
2) For the Umpteenth Time: The Lockdown Killed Jobs Not the Coronavirus
This Wall Street Journal front page story from Wednesday infuriated us: “Coronavirus Obliterated Best African-American Job Market on Record”
Yes, Trump did create an exceptional economic environment for blacks, but no, no, no: coronavirus didn’t “obliterate” the millions of new jobs filled by minorities thanks to the amazing Trump economy.
POLITICIANS – mostly Democrats, who have enthusiastically endorsed and militarily enforced business lockdowns – killed black jobs, white jobs, Hispanic jobs. And the amazing thing is that Governors like Andrew Cuomo (NY), Phil Murphy (NJ), J.B. Pritzker (IL), Jay Inslee, and Gretchen Whitmer (MI) call Trump and Republicans racists.
3) Kerpen Testifies to House Coronavirus Subcommittee Today!
CTUP’s president Phil Kerpen will testify today before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on the subject of nursing homes. Give credit to the House Democrats for having a hearing on this issue, despite the abject failure of policies from governors like Cuomo, Murphy, and Wolf that forced infectious patients into nursing homes that were not equipped to isolate them from staff and other residents.
Kerpen’s written testimony is posted here:
https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/covid-19-the-nursing-home-disease?/
You can watch the hearing at noon here:
https://coronavirus.house.gov/subcommittee-activity/briefings/devastating-impact-coronavirus-crisis-america-s-nursing-homes
4) Testing Casualties Of The Lockdown Riots
The recent civil unrest claimed over 20 lives and saw the looting of hundreds of businesses. Now add to the casualty list over 70 destroyed coronavirus testing sites.
Dr. Deborah Birx, President Trump’s Coronavirus coordinator, told the nation’s governors on Tuesday that the sites were put out of commission during the protests. She said public health officials would have to “scramble now to make sure there is testing available in urban areas.”
As columnist Rich Lowry notes “If any anti-lockdown protestors had even looked crosswise at a testing site, it would of course have been a national scandal.” Under these circumstances we largely hear crickets.
5) Come a Little Bit Closer
Boris Johnson’s government is making a decision that will have a potentially huge impact on U.S. states emerging from lockdowns. He plans to scrap the rule setting the proper social distancing at two meters (6.56 feet), and make it one (3.28 feet) instead. Throughout the virus crisis, many US experts have followed a lead set by their British counterparts.
Such a move shouldn’t be controversial since it’s exactly what the World Health Organization recommends. Johnson hopes to fully implement the change in time for schools to reopen fully at the start of the school year. If the Brits can do it safely, why not here in America?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/10/two-metre-rule-scrapped-time-new-school-year/
6) Blessed Be the Children
The latest age-profile data of corona deaths provide further iron-clad confirmation of what we have been saying from the start: that this is an older-persons disease. Roughly 9 of 10 deaths have been those over the age of 55.
Someone above the age of 85 is about 5,000 times more likely to die of coronavirus than the average person under the age of 25. Why aren’t the camps opening this summer, again? 
7) In Hollywood, Cops Are Now the Bad Guys
Earlier this week, we ran an item about Washington Post columnist Alyssa Rosenberg’s demand that Hollywood “shut down all police movies and TV shows.”
We ran the item to satirize mob calls for censorship. Little did we know that life would so soon imitate insanity.
Paramount has just canceled the half-hour reality program Cops after 32 years. Its crime? It was said to “glorify” police.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/cops-canceled-at-paramount-network-1297778
8) Anti-Hero Of The Day
One of the reasons we created our rankings on how the nation’s governors have handled the lockdowns was our worry that many would insist on keeping the confinement orders to the bitter end.
That’s certainly the case with Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. The GOP-controlled State Legislature passed a resolution on Tuesday directing him to end the emergency powers he invoked on March 6 and renewed as recently as last week. Republicans say the constitution gives the legislature the authority to terminate a disaster emergency at any time. Wolf has responded he plans to ignore them.
After 13 weeks of lockdown, pennlive.com reports that “even some Democratic lawmakers in both chambers agreed with their GOP counterparts.” The vote in the Senate was 31 to 19, with two Democrats siding with Republicans. In the House, the vote was 121 to 81, with 12 Democrats siding with the GOP majority. (Finally, some bipartisan agreement.)
The issue of who gets to decide when the lockdown ends will now head to the courts.
9) Steve Moore’s Handy Guide to the Left and the Right
