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Monty Bennett's companies did NOT receive $46 million or even $58.7 million in PPP loans.
Bennett's companies received a total of $96.1 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans out of applications for $126 million.
And he's NOT giving any of the money back. He insists that big companies like his also deserve corporate welfare.
According to filings with the SEC, Bennett's three companies have secured $96.1 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans. And more may be on the way. According to a fact sheet produced by the three companies, they've applied for a total of $126 million in Paycheck Protection Act loans.
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Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said there would be “severe consequences” for companies that did not return the money by May 7. But Bennett says his companies will keep the Paycheck Protection Program money.
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Bennett, who inherited his business from his father, has been defiant about his thirst for government money despite his enormous personal wealth. "I won’t apologize for being a capitalist in America, or for being reasonably successful at it. But even a capitalist system with companies only and no government backstop does not work,"
Source: Multi-millionaire Trump donor is top recipient of funds intended for struggling small businesses
Bennett thinks that "every American" should support corporate welfare for his companies:
"I’m proud of our accomplishments, of the hotels I’ve bought and built, and of the thousands of folks I’ve hired who have become like family to me. I won’t apologize for being a capitalist in America, or for being reasonably successful at it. But even a capitalist system with companies only and no government backstop does not work. Just as a system with government and no companies to fund it does not work.
"Government needs to play its role in a big way right now. It should make up for its failures to protect our economy, its citizens and, yes, its companies. No one is asking our government to make up for the catastrophic losses caused by its negligence. But today, every American should expect just enough from government that our businesses can survive. Is that too much to ask?"
Source:
More corporate welfare for big businesses under Paycheck Protection Program:
Intellinetics, a software company in Ohio, got $838,700 from the government program — and then agreed, the following week, to spend at least $300,000 to purchase a rival firm.
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Legacy Housing, a Texas company that manufactures premade homes, announced on April 1 that it had access to a new $25 million credit line. Curtis D. Hodgson, Legacy’s executive chairman, told investors that he expected any damage from the coronavirus to be short-lived. “Our order book is still strong, and we are well-positioned once the situation begins to normalize,” he said.
Less than two weeks later, on April 10, the company announced that a local lender, Peoples Bank, had approved it for $6.5 million under the S.B.A. loan program.
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Escalade Sports, which makes things like table tennis tables and basketball hoops, already had a $50 million credit line from JPMorgan Chase. The company’s chief executive, Dave Fetherman, told investors this month that the company, based in Evansville, Ind., had “a strong balance sheet” and was seeing rising demand for its products, with so many Americans cooped up in their homes.
Days earlier, Escalade got a $5.6 million federally backed loan. A spokesman for Escalade said the company “fully met all required conditions at the time we applied for the P.P.P. loan.”
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MiMedx Group, a biopharmaceutical company in Marietta, Ga., got a $10 million loan on April 21. On April 6, the company had agreed to pay the Justice Department $6.5 million to resolve allegations that it violated federal law by knowingly overcharging the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical supplies.
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Infinite Group, a cybersecurity firm in Pittsford, N.Y., had been borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars from its board members and the brother of a top executive at annual interest rates as high as 7.5 percent. This month, Infinite secured a nearly $1 million federally backed loan whose 1 percent interest rate could allow the company to dramatically lower its funding costs. Company officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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And Manning & Napier, an investment firm in Fairport, N.Y., that has about $20 billion in assets under management, disclosed in March that its chief executive, Marc O. Mayer, earned nearly $5 million last year. On April 19, the company was approved for $6.7 million in the paycheck protection loans — even as the company said it would pay out a quarterly dividend to its shareholders.
Source: Large, Troubled Companies Got Bailout Money in Small-Business Loan Program
Wealthiest Hospitals Got Billions in Bailout for Struggling Health Providers
Twenty large chains received more than $5 billion in federal grants even while sitting on more than $100 billion in cash.
A multibillion-dollar institution in the Seattle area invests in hedge funds, runs a pair of venture capital funds and works with elite private equity firms like the Carlyle Group.
But it is not just another deep-pocketed investor hunting for high returns. It is the Providence Health System, one of the country’s largest and richest hospital chains. It is sitting on nearly $12 billion in cash, which it invests, Wall Street-style, in a good year generating more than $1 billion in profits.
And this spring, Providence received at least $509 million in government funds, one of many wealthy beneficiaries of a federal program that is supposed to prevent health care providers from capsizing during the coronavirus pandemic.
So far, the riches are flowing in large part to hospitals that had already built up deep financial reserves to help them withstand an economic storm. Smaller, poorer hospitals are receiving tiny amounts of federal aid by comparison.
Twenty large recipients, including Providence, have received a total of more than $5 billion in recent weeks, according to an analysis of federal data by Good Jobs First, a research group. Those hospital chains were already sitting on more than $108 billion in cash, according to regulatory filings and the bond-rating firms S&P Global and Fitch. A Providence spokeswoman said the grants helped make up for losses from the coronavirus.
Source: Wealthiest Hospitals Got Billions in Bailout for Struggling Health Providers
. Instead, the virus was mostly carried around the hospital by staff and on the surfaces of medical equipment.
.
However, a large proportion of the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) appears to be occurring through airborne transmission of aerosols produced by asymptomatic individuals during breathing and speaking. Aerosols can accumulate, remain infectious in indoor air for hours, and be easily inhaled deep into the lungs.
absolutely your best post to date. 4 syllable word. Wowrandom big worded, nonsensical pile of shit
Hydroxychloroquine did not prevent healthy people exposed to covid-19 from getting the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to a study being published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study is the first randomized clinical trial that tested the antimalarial drug, touted by President Trump, as a preventive measure. It showed that hydroxychloroquine was no more effective than a placebo — in this case, a vitamin — in protecting people exposed to covid-19.
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Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School launched the trial in mid-March. They enrolled more than 800 adults in the United States and Canada who were exposed to someone with covid-19 because of their jobs as health care workers or first responders, or because they lived with someone with the disease. The study was a randomized placebo-controlled trial, and was double-blinded, meaning neither the participants nor the researchers knew what the participants received. Such a study is considered the gold standard for clinical trials.
The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine did not help prevent people who had been exposed to others with Covid-19 from developing the disease, according to the results of an eagerly awaited study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Despite a lack of evidence, many people began taking the medicine to try to prevent infection early in the Covid-19 pandemic, following anecdotal reports it could be effective and claims by President Trump and conservative commentators. Trump, too, said he took hydroxychloroquine to prevent infection.
But the new study, the first double-blind randomized, placebo-controlled trial of hydroxychloroquine, found otherwise.
The same group of researchers is also planning to publish the results of trials testing the drug as a treatment and as a “pre-exposure prophylaxis” — that is, before any exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
The latest trial enrolled 821 patients who were either living in the same household as someone with Covid-19 or who were health care workers who had been exposed to someone with Covid-19 without adequate protective gear. While the initial infections had to be confirmed with a diagnostic test, the researchers also counted patients who had symptoms consistent with disease, in part because testing wasn’t available.
Approximately 12% of those given hydroxychloroquine developed Covid-19, compared to 14% who were given the vitamin folate as a placebo. There was no further benefit among patients who chose to take zinc or vitamin C. Nearly 40% of patients on hydroxychloroquine experienced side effects such as nausea, upset stomach, or diarrhea. However, the study did not see a significant increase in disturbances of heart rhythms, or an imbalance of deaths.
BACKGROUND - Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) occurs after exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). For persons who are exposed, the standard of care is observation and quarantine. Whether hydroxychloroquine can prevent symptomatic infection after SARS-CoV-2 exposure is unknown.
METHODS - We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial across the United States and parts of Canada testing hydroxychloroquine as postexposure prophylaxis. We enrolled adults who had household or occupational exposure to someone with confirmed Covid-19 at a distance of less than 6 ft for more than 10 minutes while wearing neither a face mask nor an eye shield (high-risk exposure) or while wearing a face mask but no eye shield (moderate-risk exposure).
Within 4 days after exposure, we randomly assigned participants to receive either placebo or hydroxychloroquine (800 mg once, followed by 600 mg in 6 to 8 hours, then 600 mg daily for 4 additional days). The primary outcome was the incidence of either laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 or illness compatible with Covid-19 within 14 days.
RESULTS - We enrolled 821 asymptomatic participants. Overall, 87.6% of the participants (719 of 821) reported a high-risk exposure to a confirmed Covid-19 contact. The incidence of new illness compatible with Covid-19 did not differ significantly between participants receiving hydroxychloroquine (49 of 414 [11.8%]) and those receiving placebo (58 of 407 [14.3%]); the absolute difference was −2.4 percentage points (95% confidence interval, −7.0 to 2.2; P=0.35). Side effects were more common with hydroxychloroquine than with placebo (40.1% vs. 16.8%), but no serious adverse reactions were reported.
CONCLUSIONS - After high-risk or moderate-risk exposure to Covid-19, hydroxychloroquine did not prevent illness compatible with Covid-19 or confirmed infection when used as postexposure prophylaxis within 4 days after exposure. (Funded by David Baszucki and Jan Ellison Baszucki and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04308668. opens in new tab.)
Boulware DR, Pullen MF, Bangdiwala AS, et al. A Randomized Trial of Hydroxychloroquine as Postexposure Prophylaxis for Covid-19. New England Journal of Medicine 2020. https://www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638