Trumps Amtsenthebung II: Auch dieses Mal wird der abgewählte Präsident nicht seines Amtes enthoben, so wie genau vor einem Jahr. Und zwar schon heute. Aber was ist da heute passiert?

1) Offene Fragen: Immer mehr Details zur Kommunikation zwischen Trump & im Kapitol befindlichen

1/Today's @bopinion post is about Trump's taxes, and what they show about how America allocates capital.

We appear to have some big problems.

2/Trump has a bunch of businesses that lose money. Our financial system has lent him money to throw into unsuccessful golf courses, hotels, and so

3/A lot of these loans are loans that Trump hasn't even paid back yet, using loopholes in the tax system to avoid paying taxes on those unpaid debts.

Why would creditors give money to a guy who wastes the money on bad businesses and doesn't even pay them back?

4/One seemingly obvious answer is that capital is just really cheap these days. Companies are able to borrow more easily than at any time in the last few decades.

5/But this presents us with a mystery.

Why hasn't an abundance of cheap capital caused the return on financial capital to fall? Interest rates are low, but stock returns have held up strongly.

THIS: It's a little late, but here is the final White House Coronavirus Task Force report from the Trump administration. It features some lessons learned from the federal officials on the panel, many that speak directly to the situation in

- Georgia is back to 6th in the country for new cases in the week leading up to 1.17 (not long ago we were doing better than nearly every other state)
- 5th in the country for test positivity
- 97 percent of all counties in the state in the "red zone"

2/n

It's the recommendations that are the most interesting (we know things are bad here).

"Mask mandates work," it reads. "Any indoor space where masks cannot be worn ... must be substantially curtailed or closed."

This rec has been here before, but not so bluntly.

3/n

3/n

"This virus can be mitigated and community spread can be curtailed, but action needs to be taken before an increase in hospitalizations is seen," it continues. " it needs to be more comprehensive and longer than the summer mitigation actions."

4/n

Then, finally: "Georgia is still experiencing widespread community spread and needs to accelerate mitigation to prevent ongoing fatalities."

This final one is a message that we've seen before, too, though again, not in so direct terms.

5/n

The 1776 Commission Report has been removed. Not to worry, I downloaded a copy.