{"id":94619,"date":"2021-06-15T20:26:59","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T00:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=94619"},"modified":"2021-06-15T20:27:05","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T00:27:05","slug":"the-daily-gouge-archive-monday-june-14th-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=94619","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge Archive, Monday, June 14th, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Monday, June 14th, 2021…but before we begin, a picture and some prose, from Balls Cotton and our friend Ryan respectively, which bespeak the true nature of the world…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…and our country:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Any questions?!?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, owing to the fact we’re dead-dog tired after a long weekend preparing our garage for renovation, here’s a somewhat truncated edition of\u00a0The Gouge<\/em>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

First up, in reaction to the news\u00a0half of the pandemic’s unemployment money may have been stolen by criminals and funneled out of the country<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/strong>, Jim Freeman details…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Great American Rip-Off<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

A healthy debate over the amount of fraud in Covid relief programs<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/h2>\n

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“In the most predictable story<\/span><\/em> of the Covid era, it turns out that federal relief programs have been plagued with fraud and abuse<\/span><\/em>. <\/strong><\/span>As for waste<\/em><\/span>, well, that was always sort of<\/em><\/span> the point. Shutting down<\/em><\/span> much of the economy and attempting to replace it with federal spending, borrowing and money creation is not a strategy for productivity<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong> But when it comes to the amount<\/em><\/span> of theft, a new estimate<\/em><\/span> really is a surprise<\/em><\/span>\u2014and a truly stunning one<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Felix Salmon of Axios\u00a0reports<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year, some experts say<\/span>.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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What would we do<\/em><\/span> without experts? This column likes to maintain a robust skepticism<\/em><\/span> regarding government programs, but could the feds really<\/em><\/span> have handed over half<\/em><\/span> the unemployment benefits to crooks<\/em><\/span>?<\/span> One of Mr. Salmon\u2019s experts suggests that most<\/em><\/span> of the crooks don\u2019t even live here<\/em><\/span>. According to the Axios report:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, a service that tries to prevent this kind of fraud, tells Axios that America has lost more than $400 billion to fraudulent claims. As much as 50%<\/span> of all<\/span> unemployment monies might<\/span> have been stolen, he says.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, estimates that at least 70% of the money stolen by impostors ultimately left the country<\/span>, much<\/span> of it ending up in the hands of criminal syndicates in China, Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere<\/span>.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese groups are definitely backed by the state,\u201d Talcove tells Axios.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Much of the rest<\/span> of the money was stolen by street gangs domestically<\/span>, who have made up a greater share of the fraudsters in recent months.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

If forced to choose, your humble correspondent would probably prefer<\/em><\/span> independent domestic<\/em><\/span> street gangs to foreign state-backed criminal syndicates<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> But perhaps the economists in the crowd can opine on the relative impact of stuffing U.S. taxpayer money into one pair of undeserving hands versus another<\/em><\/span>. For that matter<\/em><\/span> perhaps the people who endorsed<\/em><\/span> the idea of shuttering much of the U.S. economy in response to Covid-19, expanding the Federal Reserve balance sheet by nearly $4 trillion and adding more than $4 trillion to the nation\u2019s publicly held debt can explain if their strategy depends on whether the recipients of cash are lawful or law-abiding<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> When one is dumping money out of a helicopter<\/em><\/span> it\u2019s not so easy to dictate who catches it<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The important thing now<\/em><\/span> is for Washingtonians<\/em><\/span> to try to evade responsibility<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/span>…”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

ONE<\/em><\/span> Washingtonian…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…in particular<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since we’re on the subject of fraud, waste and abuse, NRO<\/em>‘s Charlie Cooke relates…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sad Farce of Our \u2018Infrastructure Debate<\/span><\/a>\u2019<\/span><\/h1>\n

It would be a mistake for Congress to spend trillions of dollars more even if there were some compelling reason to do so \u2014 and there isn\u2019t<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/h3>\n

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In a related item from\u00a0Breitbart<\/em> via The Boss, we learn…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Biden Gives Nearly $1 Billion Back to California After Trump Rescinded Grant for Defunct Bullet Train<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

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Moving from the corrupt to the corruptors, the WSJ<\/em>‘s Holman Jenkins offers an intriguing perspective which serves to aid us in…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Understanding China\u2019s Covid Propaganda<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/h1>\n

Beijing wants questions unresolved so it can sell its people on the foreign-origin possibility<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n

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“…I may be wrong, but I don\u2019t see Beijing backtracking from this stance, which would require admitting error and repudiating a coverup. It would mean surrendering the party\u2019s time-tested strategy of shifting blame to foreigners for bad outcomes<\/span> (see Ian Johnson\u2019s\u00a0account<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0of this aspect of party history in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books).<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This will be a high-wire act. Like the lab-leak theory, China\u2019s preferred<\/em><\/span> narrative depends on\u00a0not finding<\/em><\/span>\u00a0early cases of Covid or transitional versions of the virus in China.<\/span> From the start<\/em><\/span>, China\u2019s government was frantic to write a narrative independent of the scientific evidence<\/em><\/span>. Recall the silencing of doctors<\/em><\/span>, the expulsion and jailing of journalists<\/em><\/span>, the destruction of Huanan market<\/span><\/em>.<\/span> Donald Trump may gripe about the unfairness of Covid arriving in his re-election year but China lacks any orderly means to replace a regime that discredits itself in a national crisis<\/em><\/span>. Its singularly draconian effort to suppress the virus wasn\u2019t<\/em><\/span> because it adopted the attitude of CNN announcers that no cost is too high to prevent a Covid death.<\/span> It was the prospect of Covid ripping through a country whose\u00a0intensive-care capacity<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span>is 10%<\/em><\/span> of what the U.S. and other Western countries could provide. A second<\/em><\/span> Wuhan, much less 40<\/em><\/span> of them, might<\/em><\/span> have meant the end of party rule<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span>…”<\/p>\n

In other words, the tyrannical ChiCom douche pumps who, together with their predecessors, are responsible for more deaths<\/em><\/span> than the REST of the world’s dictators COMBINED<\/em><\/span><\/strong>, are fighting for their continued capability<\/em><\/span> to personally profit<\/em><\/span> off the pain and torment of the masses.\u00a0\u00a0Not so very different than their Progressive American counterparts, eh?!?<\/strong><\/p>\n