LC

In tragic news, Charlotte Figi died from COVID complications: https://coloradosun.com/2020/04/08/charlotte-figi-cbd-coronavirus/ For those who aren't aware, she was a de facto figurehead of the marijuana legalization movement.

The travel restriction was put into place on Jan 30 and was sadly flawed: The ban applied only to foreign nationals who had been in China during the previous 14 days, and included 11 categories of exceptions. Since the restrictions took effect, nearly 40,000 passengers have entered the United States from China, subjected to inconsistent screenings, The New York Times reported.

Thanks Liberty. Your username is especially relevant in such case :D

Traders have received special consideration to WFH but that function should remain on site post-corona. Most middle and back office can be done remotely.

Was speaking about this with two coworkers today. One loved the idea because it saves him 2hrs of commute daily into the city. The other hates it because he lives in the city (brighton) and is in his apt with wife/kids. I think now everyone is testing it, so we may see an uptick of people who are WFH for the first time and decide to stick with it.

If WB and CM died tomorrow and sold everything to Gates, I think a fair valuation would be around 600, 625B Call it 250/sh.

Imagine, if Trump did more to help NYC, maybe his numbers would look better. But of course, he doesn't actually care because it's a blue state The two states with 20% of the nation's GDP are the biggest mess, you must be kidding!

Yes - I hate using book value and think it is an outdated metric. Maybe the exception is pure and simple financial companies but I would argue Berkshire is not in that category anymore. Earnings power, replacement value, sum of the parts...I would use any of these methodologies before BV. Just my opinion!

I am not looking but I heard prices are dirt cheap right now as dealers are trying to move anything off their lot. Also, apparently a fire near the Ft Lauderdale airport destroyed a giant fleet of rental cars. Now, I'm not saying it was for the insurance payout or anything like that, but I'm also not not saying that either.

Personally I agreed with Buffett. I did think stocks were cheap (or fairly priced) in the context of 2-3% long term rates and nobody knowing what a coronavirus was. But I've got Buffett beat because I didn't get on CNBC and publicly say so (not that they would have me), so I don't have to deal with anyone's ire :D

Don't forget weed stocks - they're the great equalizer ;D

I think the first-order effects are well known and probably easily imagined. Things like, large unemployment and subsequent "frictional" re-hiring. Missed debt repayments leading to bankruptcies, loan modifications, or other financing arrangements (i.e. debt-for-equity/PIKs etc.) My question is what will the second or third order effects be? Will we see manufacturing exit China at an accelerated pace, due to "concentration risk"? (I don't think so) Will we see companies globally de-leverage and hold more cash on the B/S? (Perhaps - I think moreso in "vulnerable" industries) Will we see international trade relations deteriorate, to ensure critical industry is maintained "at home"? (I think no) Playing off that, will we see countries allocate funds to build critical industry (think PPE, pharma production) "at home", to the same end? (I think maybe in the short term) What will the political fallout be? Higher taxes to ensure national supplies of critical equipment, bolster unemployment funds? There were two major world-events in the new century (at least from the myopic American view): 9/11 and the GFC. In both cases we saw decade-long consequences (never-ending war in the Middle East ; massive TARP spending, increased regulation etc. for the finance industry globally). Will COVID elicit the same reaction? If so, what will that reaction look like and how will it affect economies?

This. I was thinking about exactly this the other day. Also what happens to the inventory of all those F&B places? The commercial/wholesale food suppliers can not easily sell their stuff to the grocers I assume; packages, sizes very different. What about the farmers, do they have enough (seasonal) manpower to harvest/process everything? And what happens to all that food when governments don't allow the market to adjust to the changes? https://reason.com/2020/03/31/los-angeles-bureaucrats-barbara-ferrer-shut-down-restaurants-for-selling-groceries-without-a-permit Yeah obviously a case of bureaucracy gone wrong. Food safety regulation provides value when things are normal, a grocery store is building out and can apply for permits and provide evidence of safe food handling, but obviously these are not normal times and so should be suspended or altered in times of crisis.

I posted about this a while back. I have some friends who are nurses/MDs at NYC facilities, they have replaced their morgue vans with trailers as the twitter thread mentions. I think I even posted the picture. This happened about...1.5 weeks ago? Not sure where he is getting the rest of the information (burial trenches in city parks?) but it seems the most effective way to manage the bodies would be cremation,but I am no professional in this area. Can they cremate bodies against the wills of the deceased/families, if they had wanted to be buried? Probably wasn't an issue in China, but here the law may prevent it. I don't know. It's very touchy here particularly NY which is pretty diverse religiously. I am not sure about those laws, whether the governor can suspend them in times of crisis, and if so whether there will be fallout in the future if families decide to sue the city/state. I would think in crisis situation the governor would be able to order cremations but I am guessing the logic now is, "let's spend some short-term cash, do whatever we can today to build body preservation capacity, rather than risk a slew of multi-million dollar lawsuits in the future".

I posted about this a while back. I have some friends who are nurses/MDs at NYC facilities, they have replaced their morgue vans with trailers as the twitter thread mentions. I think I even posted the picture. This happened about...1.5 weeks ago? Not sure where he is getting the rest of the information (burial trenches in city parks?) but it seems the most effective way to manage the bodies would be cremation,but I am no professional in this area.

https://theconversation.com/a-small-trial-finds-that-hydroxychloroquine-is-not-effective-for-treating-coronavirus-135484 A small trial finds that hydroxychloroquine is not effective for treating coronavirus I'd encourage a read, it details the previous studies which claimed some efficacy of these drugs and why that may not be an appropriate conclusion to draw.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-prime-minister-admitted-to-hospital-for-coronavirus-tests-11969053 Boris Johnson has been admitted to an NHS hospital in central London for tests 10 days after confirming he had contracted coronavirus. The prime minister, 55, still has persistent symptoms and went on the advice of his doctor, Downing Street said. Sky News understands that Mr Johnson will remain in hospital overnight. His persistent symptoms are understood to include a high temperature.

Cesspool? That's rich, coming from a Jersey-ite! Jersey...person? No, that can't be right...Jersey....swampthing? ;D ;D In all seriousness, I can't help but love the irony of the haters of NY and CA - essentially hating on 20-25% of the country's productivity! Imagine that - two states making up a quarter of the nation's usefulness! And if you include Texas (mostly black and hispanic, FYI), now you've got 3 states carrying a third of the entire country! I mean, what are the rest of these bums doing!!??? It's gotta be the unemployed neckbeards who are complaining - living in dying coal towns, busy making america great again (from their parent's basement, no doubt). Who else has the time? The folks in NY, CA, and TX are too busy working!

It’s because the wealth line has become so steep that 200k is closer to middle class than wealthy.

China true friend of Canada? As an dual citizen I am pretty upset how Trump is treating Canada. Even a purely sentimental gesture would have been better than straight-up saying "Screw you Canada!" and having China look like a better friend. It's appalling and Canada has the right to blame Trump and every jingoistic American that Trump is catering to with these actions.

That's crazy because about 34 states have anti-price gouging laws and yet I don't see 34 states devolving into the picture that rukawa paints. In fact here in Denver I don't see any shortages as all, despite Whole Foods still charging a paltry $4 for a pack of TP. Perhaps it's regional?

I don't agree with Trump on this but lc's source is very, very much left. Here ya go buddy. Hope this makes you feel better: https://apnews.com/2858fbaa2dd5460fa2988b888fc53748

What the absolute hell is this nonsense: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/us-blocks-medical-aid-to-cuba-in-show-of-wild-west-brutality “Cuba denounces the fact that medical supplies from Alibaba Foundation to help combat Covid-19 have not arrived in the country due to the criminal US blockade against the island nation,” President Miguel Canel-Diaz blasted. More than two million masks, 400,000 rapid diagnostic kits and 104 ventilators have been donated by China’s Alibaba Foundation to fight the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The supplies were destined for 24 countries in the region including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Peru. But they were blocked from the socialist island because of the crippling US embargo, in particular the Helms-Burton Act, according to Cuba’s ambassador to China, Miguel Pereira Hernandez.

I was looking at this (first I ever heard of it) and I was thinking, if I was president and this happened, how would I deal with it? Just from a pure federal resource-allocation perspective, how does DT communicate what he wants, and how does it get done? Well I'd imagine you have a circle of lieutenants, and they each over see a federal department, and under those departments you've got 5-10 units of which something like the Air Force or CDC is one of. So I'm thinking, OK if I'm president I would need people exploring treatment/vaccine solutions; I would need purchasing/manufacturing of PPE and test kits, I would need distribution for all this, I would need projections for the needs of the states in order to allocate, etc. etc. etc. And so I keep thinking (already my brain is hurting at this point), well if we've got this Air Mobility Command, I'm sure there are a bunch of these specialized groups within various departments who are best suited towards these tasks. So I don't expect the president to have all these answers, they depend on their own lieutenants to know these things. Whichever one of Trump's guys took over Department XYZ for example should know all the capabilities of that Department, so he would get the job of procuring PPE from overseas, as an example. And finally I remember reading that Michael Lewis article about a year ago, where he interviews the guys running the Dept of Energy. They were transitioning from Obama's administration to Trump's administration. And they were saying how they prepared entire dossiers for Trump's guy, as a primer to get to know the DOE. And I remember them just absolutely befuddled at how little Trump's lieutenant cared about any of it. They made a big deal about it, which at the time I was reading it I thought, "well OK that's pretty stupid, but as long as these guys are still running the DOE, at least they still know all this stuff and can keep the mission-critical stuff functioning, despite zero interest from the White House". Well now I realize that this same story probably happened all across the federal government. And I'm thinking, well if DT is sitting there in some situation room and trying to allocate tasks and resources - well the people he assigned to these various federal departments probably have zero clue what their own dept. is capable of. I guess it's a long-winded explanation of how unsurprising I am that there is a total lack of federal coordination. It's not just Trump - it's people like Trump all the way down in his administration, and that's kind of frightening.

Yea those are my thoughts too. Cheers ;D