I've long debated addressing the matter of social welfare in the United States.  Well, Senator Joe Manchin's NO to the White House about the Build Back Better Act could well be a wake up call for the nation. First, Manchin left the  door wide open for some compromise next month.  He blamed the White House staff and not the President.  So something less than $2 trillion will get through by reconciliation. But the larger point that I'll address today is:  can we build a society to motivate people?  We need to get to the root cause of what ails America.  Homelessness, poverty, racial strife...things seem to be getting worse rather than better. Starting with  homelessness , here are some numbers that will surprise, if not shock, you.  In terms of homeless/100,000 population: Syria  3753 Nigeria  1658 Somalia  1867 Central African Republic  1421 South Sudan  1378 Grenada  1300 Yemen  1294 Honduras  1235 Egypt  1200 Colombia  971 Germany  82 UK  57 France  45 Sweden  36 South Afr

  From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):          DAY    USA    WORLD     Brazil      India      South Africa June     9    1093     4732        1185        246       82 July    22     1205     7128        1293      1120      572 Aug    12     1504     6556        1242       835      130 Sept     9     1208      6222       1136      1168       82 Oct     21     1225      6849         571       703       85 Nov    25     2304    12025        620         518      118 Dec     30      3880    14748      1224        299      465 Jan      14     4142    15512       1151        189      712                  Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398           25       2414    10578        1582       119      144 Mar     2        1989     9490        1726        110      194           17        1289     9736        2736       171       74           24          936   10206        3158       277       55           25        1405   10470        2244       249     1

I'm skipping the COVID-19 information today, for Monday deaths are always underreported.  To refresh your mind, though, typically these days, 6000 people in the world die , 1000 from the USA.  The pandemic has entered a dangerous new wave for the USA and World.  Yet, to place this tragedy in perspective, on Planet Earth yesterday : 120,595 died, with about 5% being COVID-19 deaths but 287,324 were born the net gain yesterday was 166,389, even with the 6,000 deaths people who died from hunger just yesterday:  23,167 abortions yesterday:  117,000 deaths from HIV/AIDS yesterday:  around 4,000 deaths from cancer yesterday: 25,000 traffic deaths yesterday:  3717 More than five times more people died from hunger than from COVID-19.  Some other data for your general knowledge, showing that life goes on: TV sets sold just today:  half a million cellular phones sold today:  5 million money spent just on video games today:  $222 million e-mails sent today:  201 billion blog posts today:  5.5