a second-rate country

Texas, Arizona, and Florida all have higher growth rates than Michigan, before this is over they will have more deaths except maybe for Arizona which has a higher population.  There are so many different measures of the corona and it's hard to see them all in one place at the current time.  My comment on dubious calculations was the decision of those states to open up way early, if ever, and now they are having to lockdown, except for maybe Florida, though I think they are allowing some cities to make their own decisions now.

I'm sure we have all seen this graph https://www.gzeromedia.com/the-graphic-truth-two-different-pandemics-eu-vs-us  And I think are all aware that nobody in Europe will let us step on their soil, and that goes for Mexico and Canada too.  100 years ago when the first pandemic hit we had just made our bones in the hierarchy of nations through our performance in WW I.  And now with the passage of pandemic II we are about to begin our descent from that lofty post.

And maybe that's not that bad, look at Canada,  They do alright aye?  When something goes on in the world they are like what can we do about it we're just Canada, while we are all like this is America and we are proud to be the world cops, let us at them, and there goes American lives and fortunes.

This great big army that costs us a fortune, what has it done for us since the 50's when we fought the North Koreans to a standstill?  Well no actually we have had a couple small successes.

Being a peacenik and all I was not for Desert Storm at the time.  In retrospect I think it was well done.  We had the approval of the world and we had a simple goal which we achieved and then we got out.  At the time there were some who were pissed off that we didn't take out Saddam, but in the light of the results of the war by the much lesser son and his madcap gang of neocons, it turned out that the elder Bush had it just right.

And who remembers Kosovo anymore?  A most peculiar war in that we had no national interest and we did not lose a man.  Some would say doesn't the UN still have to man the borders to keep the Serbs at bay?  And yes we do, but it seems like a small price to pay to keep people out of concentration camps.

Now that our economy is going to be in the toilet, unlike those Europeans who saw the train coming down the tracks and dealt with it instead of pretending it was a mirage, we will no longer be the world cops we won't need this huge army anymore.

But we do we defund it?  If we let our boys go, won't they all be unemployed?  If we sell all our fancy weapons that would probably raise some good money. but then what if they get turned on us?

China seems to have come through this corona pretty well so far, and this might be a silver lining.  We owe them a ton of money and if we go kaput there goes that cash, so maybe they will look out for us.