Big winds blowing

We had over a week of all the networks presenting nonstop reporting over hurricanes Harvey and Irma. It started with predictions of their impacts and ended with the reality of those impacts. There was some hyping at the predicting stage but that's probably not a bad idea. It's a lot better than understating the potential. The reality of those impacts was grim. FEMA will pay for infrastructure repair but it does not pay for the repair or replacement of private properties to any great extent. Flood insurance, for those lucky to have it, maxes out at $250,000. The reaction to this devastation is that we as a country and states and municipalities need to act collectively to help the people who bore the brunt of these storms. There is a certain irony in the fact that Gov. Rick Scott of Florida has been a climate change denier and even instructed State government employees not to use any such terminology. Despite his private enterprise bias, he will be groveling for state and federal tax dollars.

What would happen if the major networks spent a week with nearly nonstop coverage of the plight of those in this country who live at or near the poverty level. We could see the struggles they have for food, clothing and housing and how it affects the ability of their children to get educations. Would there be a similar reaction calling for collective action at the national and state level to help these people with tax dollars?

Speaking of big winds, we are getting more of Trump now again. He continues to contradict himself, make up facts, and generally concentrating on how to make all issues and problems to be about him. Trump will deliver an address at the United Nations this week. You may recall his disparaging remarks about the United Nations on the campaign trail. Will he now say things are improved, probably because of his remarks? We can bet he will say that other countries are not doing enough and that the United States is unfairly burdened and gets nothing in return. We can also expect him to say that Isis is very very bad, and terrorism is very very bad, and North Korea is very very bad and a very very serious problem, and Iran is a very very serious problem, and we have to do something about Iraq and Syria because it is a very very serious problem and there are very very evil people there. This will of course be revelatory to the other countries represented at the United Nations because none of these things have ever occured to them. We do not expect Trump to be very very specific about what should be done.

We cannot expect Trump to say anything intelligent about holloween need to deal with China and what are the real issues there because it is highly complicated and Trump cannot even deal with simple problems rationally. He seems unable to understand why China does not adopt an America first policy. He also remains fixated on trade deficits. Apparently no one has told him that trade deficits results from the fact that our country collectively does not save enough. We cannot expect any great improvement arising from the fact that Trump now wants to do stupid things in a bipartisan way because he gets better press.