LC

To simplify: Get smarter, accept that you can’t see the future, or learn to see the future.

Cigarbutt, good point re Sweden particularly in relation to process vs outcome. I think that is a good way to consider the problem not just regarding COVID but any decision-making process where the stakes are very high, the nature of the problem is uncertain, and there is a time-limiting component. It pays to be generally right rather than specifically wrong. Also I do appreciate the link on US States vs Countries, I do have some comments on that because I am hesitant to lend much credit to these types of analyses, at least initially: In terms of comparison, I say this a lot because the topic of causation vs. correlation is discussed often on this board. For a valid comparison to take place, you need both intuitive and empirical evidence. In this case, it is not simply enough to say that Tennessee and Lebanon are similarly populated countries. One has to ask the question, "why is that a valid figure to use as comparison"? To answer that question, we need to understand the nature of the virus. OK, so it is a respiratory virus, it seems to be spread primarily by water droplets from person to person, it can withstand environmental conditions for XYZ length of time, etc. I don't know the answer to all these questions on the virus's characteristics - i.e. how significant does sunlight intensity, ambient humidity, etc. play a role in the virus' survivability, and other such questions. But they are important for a scientist/statistician to know, in order to make valid comparisons of treatment & outcomes. Ultimately, today our limited knowledge leads us to believe that (like most respiratory viruses), close human-to-human contact allows the virus to spread easily. In other words population density would be a significant factor. So personally to do such a comparison I would look at population size, average population density, and also the size of the tails of population density. But, let's look at Colorado vs. Denmark: Denver is 50% less dense than Copenhagen, and Colorado as a State is about 6x less dense than Denmark as a country. And yet Colorado has a significantly greater number of COVID deaths per thousand. So is population/population density not a significant predictor? Or is this just an outlier? Or is the divergence in due to some other factor (e.g. mask-wearing, weather, or something else?) Now we would need to somehow quantify the impact of mask-wearing. How can it be measured? How can it be compared? Not an easy task. Weather is a little easier, we have existing metrics (temperature, humidity, cloud cover, etc.) to track this. But ultimately these are difficult questions to answer and it goes back to the initial point on process vs. outcome in the face of very serious unknowns - in particular considering core values as you correctly put it. Appreciate the acknowledgement - it is in my opinion nearly the only useful, dependable statistic we have. At least "early in the game". To me this was quite obvious. What were the other options? Self reporting (too subjective)? Test results (early on the application was inconsistent, there were no control groups, questions on accuracy and timing of test results, etc.). But you make another interesting point on how it springboards discussion (core values). I did not even think of this (collaboration has benefits, it appears :D) In fact I like using yours & Castanza's references regarding life expectancy. This provides somewhat of an objective (or at least, apples vs. apples) method to measure impact of COVID vs. impact of lockdowns.

In many of these cases where, as you point out, the inputs and comparisons are "mucky" (to put it mildly), I would guess that the best solutions are the cheap, widespread ones. The low hanging fruit. Interestingly it is really an investment question - let's follow WB's advice and look for the one foot hurdles. Make generously conservative assumptions, and if the proposition STILL indicates success, that is a good sign. Wearing masks for example - minimal cost, incredible payoff. And you see compounded effects. Masks slow the viral spread which leads to reduced peak hospital utilization, leading to more flexibility when allocating capital (nurses, beds, ventilators, etc.), leading to better patient outcomes. Now instead of scrambling to provide ventilators, you can instead provide testing faster & universally. This leads to self-identified patients quarantining, again reducing the spread. The point - if you get a lot of people do to a few little things (high volume, low margins), the compound effects make it easier to allocate resources to high(er) cost, concentrated efforts. The difficulty I think with COVID, particularly the early months, was a combination of excessive emotion and lack of information, and a "time crunch" to deliver solutions. This of course leads to sub-optimal results. And here is where the politician and the investor diverge. The investor can toss anything in the "too hard" pile, governors and PMs do not have that luxury.

Ah, I see you are familiar with the politics sub-forum :D Yes, in my opinion. I attribute it to "basic human decency". It is akin to asking loaded questions ("are you still beating your wife?") and then hiding behind the "Well I am only asking questions..." defense. In the long run, all it does is waste valuable time and effort for those willing to refute the nonsense, and ultimately costs reputation damage to the person presenting such nonsense. Of course, in this day and age it seems reputation is less-and-less valued. Buffett has spoken on this point quite well. On unemployment: Forgive me but I am hungover and am not going to read these entire studies. I will say that the language in these conclusions indicate mortality risk is correlated with income loss. It also appears the results are somewhat aligned. Hazard ratio 1.6 falls right in the 50-100% results from the second study. There are some concerns: As you mention, COVID unemployment is due to voluntary policies - compared to "involuntary" recessions used to drive the conclusions in these studies. It is unclear if the same conclusion is applicable here. I am not sure if these studies include the effect of increased resources (e.g. increased unemployment benefits, one-time stimulus check). Again, not clear if the conclusion will be applicable. Thirdly in terms of impact. The below is very crude analysis, and, quite unpalatable (but important to think about regardless of the taste it leaves, sadly): If we take a 1.25 average reduction in life expectancy per unemployed individual per the above references. In July, the number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job declined by 463,000 to 7.7 million; this measure is 2.8 million higher than in February (BLS) So we have 2.8MM unemployed, therefore about 3.5MM expected years-of-life which have been lost due to voluntary COVID precautions. On those who have died, let's put the weighted average age at 60 - essentially with 18 years of expected life remaining. Now, this implies that if the voluntary COVID precautions saved about 195,000 lives, it is economically "worth it". Actually this number should be adjusted downwards as (1) the marginal individual within those 195,000 is probably younger than 60, (2) there is a "cost savings" of the government not having to provide social security/medicaid to those deceased, (3) the 1.25 life expectancy reduction is probably high as it does not account for elevated unemployment benefits. So you can make adjustments from there.

The first giant quote on that nonsense, "regenerative medicine", book-shilling website you posted is patently false. From CDC data, 2020 has the lowest weekly death rate in a decade - so far Although some of this lower death rate may be due to reporting lag, that lag is likely too small to explain the lower weekly death rate in 2020 than in previous years. Go to the CDC dashboard and you can plainly see the exact opposite. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Thoughts on competition from cheaper producers (mostly foreign e.g. tp-link)? Ubiquiti makes great products. And I think from an investment perspective they are attractive in certain lights (crackdown on Chinese networking gear, for example). But ultimately how do you get comfortable paying 35-40x earnings for a networking hardware producer? That is what is keeping me from dipping toes in.

Lot of reduction in financials. And interestingly, bought barrick gold.

Good help is hard to find. A tale as old as time.

Welcome to the club of 5 folks here invested in tobacco. We're always craving the next dividend hit and afraid of cancerous price movement.

Oh they're absolutely lower - for sure. And hopefully every other state in the USA stays well below NY's peak. Texas, Florida etc. all have the benefit of (1) three months of preparedness vs NY, and (2) much, much lower population densities. What is despairing is that despite these two significant advantages, Texas still suffered a brutal July. I attribute this to a portion of Texans simply not giving a damn, which is tragic.

That's quite the claim. For something so obvious, I'm sure you'll have no trouble providing us with the evidence. Perhaps, but at what cost? Texans have been travelling to neighboring states over those weeks to escape such onerous requirements. Somewhere between 5-10k Texans died from COVID in the past few weeks. I guess these are necessary sacrifices to the COVID-god, so the rest of Texas can drink in air-conditioned bars without wearing a face mask. There have been 8K TOTAL covid related deaths in TX since this whole thing started. That is simply not true. What was the "law" that it requires more effort to refute bullshit than it is to generate it? Here is what I said: Somewhere between 5-10k Texans died from COVID in the past few weeks Here is the data: Note: As of today, the most recent weekly excess mortality report for Texas is dated July 25. WE 7/25: 1316 excess deaths (this week's reporting is still in progress i.e. the number here is under-reported) WE 7/18: 2274 excess deaths WE 7/11: 1948 excess deaths WE 7/4: 1227 excess deaths Total for July is about 7k COVID deaths.

That's quite the claim. For something so obvious, I'm sure you'll have no trouble providing us with the evidence. Perhaps, but at what cost? Texans have been travelling to neighboring states over those weeks to escape such onerous requirements. Somewhere between 5-10k Texans died from COVID in the past few weeks. I guess these are necessary sacrifices to the COVID-god, so the rest of Texas can drink in air-conditioned bars without wearing a face mask.

Not in the past few weeks! Otherwise, you'll get no argument from me about how bad New Jersey is. In fact as a New Yorker, I'd be happy to contribute a few lines if you'd like...shall we start with the smell? ;D

How right you are! 10,000 or so (I just eyeballed it) people died from COVID in Az & Tx over the past few weeks. Morgue capacity is probably more necessary at this point.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/losing-money-is-a-winning-pandemic-tax-strategy-for-some-companies-11596879000?mod=hp_lead_pos5 There’s a simple rule for corporate tax planning in 2020: If you’re going to lose money, lose a lot of money. That’s because companies can now use losses incurred before and during the pandemic to offset up to five years of past profits. What makes this moment particularly attractive: Congress is letting companies get refunds of taxes they paid at the 35% corporate rate that existed before 2018 rather than at today’s 21% rate. Companies can generate big losses now by packing deductions into 2020 and pushing income into the future. Nearly two dozen large publicly traded companies are already reporting more than $2 billion in combined tax benefits using this rate arbitrage, according to a review of securities filings. Tax advisers and experts expect more soon.

A novel use of sewage testing to track coronavirus density:

Yeah this is very surprising given how much he was talking about the Great Depression. He talks to Gates frequently. Gates initially thought 5 years of doom. Now Gates has changed his mind about it and thinks rich countries will be done with virus issue by the end of 2021. Range of outcome has become narrower. I am just speculating here. I agree with this

Curious where you've seen 'severity falling?' Awesome news if so. I'd read that it was unlikely for this virus to mutate/change too quickly (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01315-7) I meant "severity is falling" in regards to Portugal, as corroborated by this post: https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/coronavirus/msg425878/#msg425878 No comment on the virus's severity, I am certainly not qualified to opine on that.

Congratulations, you have exhibited exactly why one needs to use data to inform and derive knowledge, rather than blindly follow.

As a Portuguese I can say there was a huge heat wave last month and even though I drank more water than ever I still was dehidrated. Old people tend to dye a lot in this circumpstances. Also the lockdown delayed other diseases management, so we will also have increased mortality for that reason. COVID is under Control except for some places in lisbon and even there it has been falling. We do have mandatory masks in indoor places...until recently there were no covid patients in our local ICU for over 2 months. Interesting, thank you for providing the context. I would imagine dehydration/weather-related items are (partially) controlled for when computing baseline weekly death rates - but as you mention if there are other medical emergencies which were delayed due to COVID, that would not be controlled for. Actually, I was going to ask, "If there is a boardmember in Portugal or Spain..." but I mistakenly assumed there was not. Thank you for correcting my misconception! ;D

Looks like there was some abnormal excess mortality in Portugal & Spain, based on Euromomo. However these statistics lag by aprox 2 weeks. Recent reports indicate COVID severity is falling: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-portugal/portugal-reports-no-coronavirus-deaths-for-first-time-since-march-idUSKCN24Z1VB

Oh buddy, if you know the instapot moves... :)

Hey, Fair enough! Whether it's real or placebo, like the saying goes..."if it's stupid and it works, then it ain't stupid" For me the biggest productivity booster has always been necessity. There's another saying which I love, and it took me a long time to learn: "Life's greatest shortcut is constant effort".

Cashed in my self-imposed last "average down" chip on WFC.

None of this stuff has ever worked for me. With the exception of chemical stimulants (coffee). I figure as long as you're reasonable in your diet, sleep, and health patterns, the rest of this is all placebo.