Thread by @RickSmithShow

Pedro da Costa: I'm thankful for my job every day. The number of people who've filed for unemployment claims since the start of the pandemic is 54 million.
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Pedro da Costa: We've been in a state of suspended animation with fragile social safety nets that are disappearing, & the next quarter might be even worse.
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Pedro da Costa: Republicans appeared very motivated in the first round of stimulus when the political outlet was still somewhat different, but now that the pandemic response has been so botched, there's a sense of shrugging shoulders & letting it ride.
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Pedro da Costa: There's no good reason not to help people. I'm not expecting humanity from politicians, however.
Rick: Pat Toomey (R-PA) said he wanted a harder down. He wanted things to get worse so then we'd have a great reawakening.
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Pedro da Costa: Repubs are perfectly willing to bail out corporations & to make tax cuts for the rich. This liquidationist philosophy will create a depression on top of a depression.
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Pedro da Costa: 40 million renters face the risk of eviction over the next couple of months. I have this memory of Trump in a 2006 infomercial, saying how to make money in real estate. His actions then had a much narrower effect on society than they do now.
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Pedro da Costa: In the early 2000's when I used to warn my colleagues about inequality, they didn't believe me that even the well-off were always under fire b/c inequality was so vast. I'm seeing in D.C. the same inequality I'd seen in Brazil.
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Pedro da Costa: The lack of action [in the Senate] is appalling. The fact we can go through something as traumatic as we did in 2008-2009 & not develop some kind of automatic fiscal plan, a stimulus...
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Pedro da Costa: If we had a program in place for an automatic stimulus once the economy hit a certain point, people might not worry so much if they knew they'd have an extra $1200 in their acct. It would be automatic.
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Pedro da Costa: There's ample hope: Look at young people. They've faced the anti-racism fight with a whole new level our parents never had. An 18-yr old can give us a 1-hr lecture on the nature of racism, on reparation... It gives me hope.
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Pedro da Costa: I wish a had a Senator, being a D.C. resident. Puerto Rico doesn't have any senators, either. I think all the Senate wants to do is create a wobbly economy going into the election, now they think they'll lose.
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Pedro da Costa: It's amazing we can watch the country veer into a depression. We're already in a depression--it took 2 yrs for unemployment to hit today's levels during The Great Depression. The idea that we could reopen businesses & we'd go back to normal is laughable
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Check out Pedro da Costa's article on racism here:
forbes.com/sites/pedrodac…
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Here is Pedro da Costa's article on depression & deflation:
forbes.com/sites/pedrodac…
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