cubsfan

1) You're not doing what you're saying your doing. You're not some epistemology geek trying to refine our thinking. You're just trying to score points with a few questions that don't really add any insight to the discussion, because we're clearly already aware of what you're saying here and then some. Meanwhile, you ignore all the other points that have been made to you and have no response for them and haven't updated your thinking on anything even when people point out the obvious flaws in what you say, so this isn't good faith discussion, just BS trolling on your part. Deaths from driving don't compound daily for weeks and weeks and risk destroying the healthcare sector of multiple countries by overwhelming it with patients while shutting down international travel and supply chains, btw. 2) The US definitely was on track for something in the magnitude of 500k deaths or more a few weeks ago when those numbers were floated, but changes in policy have changed the trajectory (mostly thanks to governors and mayors deciding to shut down in the face of a vacuum of leadership at the federal level, but many states were still much slower than they should've been if there had been leadership at the top, and they'll have bigger outbreaks than they otherwise would've -- was it the governor of Georgia who recently said he didn't know symptomatic people could transmit it and then shut down because of it?). There's reflexivity here, as high predictions lead to bigger actions which lead to fewer deaths (and then to dumbass saying "well, we did it for nothing, see how it wasn't as bad as initially predicted?"). It's Y2K all over again. If we do it right, the early predictions don't come to pass, but it doesn't mean that we should've done nothing. The variables are linked, not independent. Definitely one of your best answers Liberty. And yes, you made me see the light on the comparison to auto deaths - perfect - not exponential. I have NO idea if this one size fits all approach is the correct approach. I seriously mean that - it's humbling trying to figure it out. I do expect the deaths and costs to the country for an extended lockdown will be immense. That is pretty obvious. The sooner people get back to work the better. I read the Hammer and Dance a few times last month. I get it. It's highly contagious, and it's lethal depending on age/condition. I'm still not sure of the true cost to society. And if there are workarounds for areas of the country that do not look like NYC - they should be explored. Masks, hygiene, social distancing, isolating the vulnerable, etc - all seem to play reduce the problem. Either way - there are lots of lives at stake. I still think it pays to be humble given the unknowns.

What is the real forward total return on your portfolio? How many people working for companies you own have done something illegal in the past month? Thanks. (It's not because you can't know something with precision that you know nothing about it and should just do random things... you can look at past experience, base rates, mechanistic understanding of the situation, etc, to determine what's the best course of action based on the best available data at the time, while adjusting constantly as new data comes in and as what you're doing has an impact on the trajectory, and with probabilistic models (note the wide outcome distribution). Otherwise, if you really believe the line that you're trying to sell here, why are you investing at all? You can't know everything about what you invest in and you can't know the future, so might as well give up, right?) Just an honest question on how much trust you can put into a model where the underlying data is unknown. I know it might humble some people. At least it should. Does it look like we were headed to 500,000 deaths in the USA? Seems like we will save thousands of lives as well by the severe reduction in driving that is happening. Should we just stay on lockdown? Be nice to understand the real tradeoffs taking place by our esteemed scientific community.

Can someone answer these 2 questions for me? - What is the real CFR for Covid19? - How many people actually have or have had Covid19? I'd like to plug those into my model..

Topics like this are not up for discussion here.

Pretty sure Buffett and his friend Bill Gates don't think about this in soundbytes like you do and take very seriously all the best practices for pandemics from those who have been studying them their whole lives. In fact, logic would lead one to think that those most worried about the economic impacts of this would be the loudest voices decrying lack of preparation and competence and asking for the biggest investments in future preparations. The costs of pandemics are so high that doing things properly, and even over-reacting early on, pays for itself a zillion times over. So you are saying, as opposed to Cherzeca - that this "One size fits all" approach is the correct one. No other alternatives? What's right for NYC is right for Wyoming, etc? You are saying we know where the herd immunity may stand? The data they are stuffing in their models are known facts? They've not been offset the impact of this drastic increase in hygiene, mask wearing, social distancing prevention? We know this thing is lethal for the immune compromised and the elderly - but so will be a depression. No, I'm not saying what you're saying I'm saying. Great - when you figure out what the real CFR is, let us all know. And when you know how many people actually have CV, let us know that as well.

Pretty sure Buffett and his friend Bill Gates don't think about this in soundbytes like you do and take very seriously all the best practices for pandemics from those who have been studying them their whole lives. In fact, logic would lead one to think that those most worried about the economic impacts of this would be the loudest voices decrying lack of preparation and competence and asking for the biggest investments in future preparations. The costs of pandemics are so high that doing things properly, and even over-reacting early on, pays for itself a zillion times over. So you are saying, as opposed to Cherzeca - that this "One size fits all" approach is the correct one. No other alternatives? What's right for NYC is right for Wyoming, etc? You are saying we know where the herd immunity may stand? The data they are stuffing in their models are known facts? They've not been offset the impact of this drastic increase in hygiene, mask wearing, social distancing prevention? We know this thing is lethal for the immune compromised and the elderly - but so will be a depression.

Like Buffett says - beware of geeks with models.

I think most people would also rather have a few difficult months than lose their parents/uncles/friends/coworkers/etc. It's not just the old, but those with other health issues, which includes obesity, diabetes, heart problems, compromised immune system, etc, and a lot of things that affect people of all ages. Some people act like "underlying health condition" means "not a real person who deserved to die anyway" when it's pointed out that a victim had some other illness... I guess people tend to see it all as statistics rather than think about their mom or favorite mentor. What proof actually is there that shutdowns work? Most of South East Asia countries (Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, etc) never had any shutdown and their numbers are low. Italy had lot of shutdown and their numbers are high. Empirically what proof exists that shutdowns work? Limiting social contacts clearly leads to slower progression of respiratory infections--there are just fewer chances to catch it. I think shutdowns are just a formal way of trying to require social distancing to lessen the load on the health care system. Based on what we've seen in Italy and NY, I really don't want to see what unmitigated spread looks like. Japan is now shutting down Tokyo FWIW, as cases are rapidly growing there. Ultimately, even epidemiologists think that we will need partial re-openings and then closings again if hotspots form again. The experts are saying that this will continue to burn until we have a vaccine or gain herd immunity. With most places only around 1-5% of the population estimated to be infected (which is multiples of the confirmed caseloads), and rising r0 estimates, herd immunity is a long way off. I don't think that the estimates of much higher incidence (50-100x confirmed cases) are credible. Social distancing is now the norm - it's getting drilled into everyone, which is great. So is mask wearing, hand washing, etc, etc. I've never seen anything like it. And obviously it's working to limit the spread. But we can also isolate the most vulnerable. IF that is the COST for SOME people to go back to work - we ought to be to discuss it here without the ridicule of the experts.

I think most people would also rather have a few difficult months than lose their parents/uncles/friends/coworkers/etc. It's not just the old, but those with other health issues, which includes obesity, diabetes, heart problems, compromised immune system, etc, and a lot of things that affect people of all ages. Some people act like "underlying health condition" means "not a real person who deserved to die anyway" when it's pointed out that a victim had some other illness... I guess people tend to see it all as statistics rather than think about their mom or favorite mentor. What proof actually is there that shutdowns work? Most of South East Asia countries (Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, etc) never had any shutdown and their numbers are low. Italy had lot of shutdown and their numbers are high. Empirically what proof exists that shutdowns work? What we know is we are working with imperfect and missing data. There is a ton we don't know. But many here do not have the intellectual humility to admit that. They are experts and they know their models are bulletproof. So don't rock the boat - or you too will be ridiculed endlessly.

I think most people would also rather have a few difficult months than lose their parents/uncles/friends/coworkers/etc. It's not just the old, but those with other health issues, which includes obesity, diabetes, heart problems, compromised immune system, etc, and a lot of things that affect people of all ages. Some people act like "underlying health condition" means "not a real person who deserved to die anyway" when it's pointed out that a victim had some other illness... I guess people tend to see it all as statistics rather than think about their mom or favorite mentor. Really appreciate you two geniuses stating the obvious. And leave out the tragedy occurring on the other side of the coin - premature deaths due to catastrophic unemployment as we enter the Great Depression.

PA added another 0.4% yesterday, bringing the total to over 23% unemployment. Not sure what the unemployment rate was before all this in PA. Let's say the average age of CV death is around 80 total coronavirus death count 240 today current unemployed 1,500,000 or 23% so for every 1 CV death - there are 6250 unemployed in PA I'd love to hear your "adjustment" to get to the true figure and cost And what is the real tragedy - the number of unemployed (destroying lives) or the tragic early death of someone due to having CV? Unemployment was 4.7% in February (308,900/6,558,000) I don't really see how society could go on normally if 1%+ of the population was dying all around them. I also think if we "open up", doctors will walk off the job as they won't be able to handle what would happen to the health care system. The way doctors describe it to me is that this is a sliding scale where deaths under normal health care system resources are over 1%, and as capacity is reached deaths will increase as the number of patients who could have been saved, but cannot due to lack of resources (ventilators, trained staff, etc) climbs significantly. I think basically no matter what we are headed towards a severe recession, and I think re-opening will not change that, but will in fact make things worse as the virus will spread uncontrolled until people are ordered back home or just quit and don't go to work. I don't really see a world in which people go back to restaurants/bars/theme parks/planes/hotels/cruises at any normal levels in any case, and thus the gains from closing down is increasing the health improvement by better social distancing. Lots of the layoffs would be happening no matter what the govt did regarding "stay at home". Thanks - I agree with you - I think we are headed toward a severe recession as well. And I agree with your comments on large gatherings for some period of time. Won't be the same. Question is: Is there a way to "wall off" the immune compromised, the elderly, etc - and get SOME people back to work? If I understand your math - the answer to my question at this point is: 1,200,000 newly unemployed for 240 deaths. 1 death for every 5000 UNEMPLOYED. (cost of Corona Virus) And certainly, among the unemployed, we will have many premature deaths - suicide, depression, anxiety, drug overdoses, not to mention financially ruined lives. I don't have the answer - but these data modelers better know what they are doing.

PA added another 0.4% yesterday, bringing the total to over 23% unemployment. Not sure what the unemployment rate was before all this in PA. Let's say the average age of CV death is around 80 total coronavirus death count 240 today current unemployed 1,500,000 or 23% so for every 1 CV death - there are 6250 unemployed in PA I'd love to hear your "adjustment" to get to the true figure and cost And what is the real tragedy - the number of unemployed (destroying lives) or the tragic early death of someone due to having CV? The number I'd like to get to : for every CV death - how many are newly unemployed in PA?

That article on Europe is devastating...Thanks John

Being a Taiwanese, here people believe that in this corona virus outbreak, the more a government believes what the official Chinese government says, the more its citizens will suffer. The health minister leading the Taiwanese COVID task force was quoted saying that "what they (CCP) did not allow us to see really worried us. So We (the Taiwanese government) kicked the initiatives into high gears." Excellent and very interesting feedback.

Damn - just read WHO has a $2B/yr annual budget! What the hell do they do - and can't get stuff like this right!

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-world-health-organization-failed/ Nice summary of WHO / China corruption: When the WHO emergency committee discussed whether to declare COVID-19 a public-health emergency on January 23, international observers had definitively discredited Chinese health data. Yet Tedros relied on those data in arguing against declaring an emergency — over the objections of other committee members. That decision delayed the mobilization of public-health resources around the world. John Mackenzie, a committee member, attributed the delay to “very poor reporting” and “very poor communication” from the CCP. After finally declaring an emergency on January 30, Tedros continued to lavish praise on China. As late as February 20, he argued that Chinese actions were “slowing the spread [of coronavirus] to the rest of the world.” The record is clear: The WHO has lent its imprimatur to Chinese disinformation and blessed China’s slow response to its domestic outbreak, which likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases, according to a University of Southampton study. The Chinese government must believe they have invested very wisely. They backed Tedros’s bid to run the WHO in 2017, seeking to plant an ally in the U.N. leadership. Who was better suited for the role than a leftist political operative with a history of covering up health emergencies? As one of his first actions at the helm, Tedros assured the Chinese that he would adhere to the “One China” policy, barring Taiwanese participation.

You were right - burned at the stake he is!

https://www.dailywire.com/news/neeleman-stanford-professors-coronavirus-study-could-be-game-changer Stanford Professors’ Coronavirus Study Could Be Game Changer

https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-looking-at-freezing-funding-to-w-h-o-over-coronavirus-mistakes Trump Looking At Freezing Funding To W.H.O. Over Coronavirus Mistakes Seems like the right thing to do - considering the corruption. Worked to get NATO back in line. Maybe this will get there attention.

Thanks Gary - it's a big IF... - point is - how confident are you in those models? Garbage in, garbage out. It's a wide range of possibilities - and is it worth the kind of destruction we are seeing? What is the price of faulty data leading us over the cliff? It's a pretty damn big price Destroy a booming economy and hundreds of thousands of lives? You sure about the data? I am not downplaying the lethal nature of this virus for the old, immune compromised - it's serious. Is there no way to wall this off and isolate those groups and NOT wreck the kind of destruction we are at this point. You have to know that an extended shutdown is going to kill an awful lot of people - through depression, drugs, stress, suicides. It could easily be more than Covid19. Not to mention years worth of economic damage to the survivors and a staggering amount of debt for their children. These "experts", many who have secure jobs - better know what the hell they are doing.

Not sure I can compare thousands of deaths to a guy not affording his benz as the same scale of tragedy 70,000 died from the flu in 2017 - should we have locked down the country? Your point about the Benz guy is fine. You ok with so many of these other small business guy's having their businesses and associated job going up in smoke? Is there an excessive "price to pay" on the other side of the lockdown?

I've said it before Richard. I voted for Obama in 2008. I did not like Trump at all during the election process. I could not stand Hillary. But it's Ground Hog Day once again - Russia Hoax, Ukraine Corruption, Kavanaugh, Stormy Daniels, etc, etc, etc, Another shot to get rid of the dictator - where the opposition party and/or media share no responsibility for the state of the country. In spite of being voted in - from Day 1 - the resistance began - the enormous bitterness - I've never seen anything like it. I'm in favor of moving the country forward - which the President has done - love him or hate him. Now Trump is a BLUNT INSTRUMENT for sure. Many, many people love him - although many also do not approve of his tactics. So you are free to keep going. There is an election right around the corner. It will all be settled soon.

I don't get your point. Probably because you don't have one. The criticism was never that Trump should've seen the future in January and done everything with perfect foresight, and so if the democratic candidates didn't get it perfectly back then either, then Trump can't be blamed. That's a total strawman that you made up, as is your habit. It's also insane to claim that candidates have all the info that a sitting president has. When you're the president, there's someone in charge of a certain area (terrorism, public health, cybersecurity, whatever) that comes to you and briefs you, they don't go to candidates or journalists. The idea is that stuff with the federal response started going wrong in January with the data they had at the time, kept going wrong in February with the data they had at the time, and kept going wrong in March, and is still going wrong today, and the US infection curve is clearly one of the worst in the world and the president has mostly been improvising/bullshitting through this whole thing, mostly caring about the impact on his reelection. Oh, yeah, but they have Adam Schiff - Head of the Intelligence Committee - whispering in their ear - all the nations defense secrets/risks from overseas. Oh - I forgot - Schiff was too tied up with Nadler & Pelosi trying to Impeach the President in February. Thanks for keeping the country safe! I guess they took their eye off the ball and didn't do their job - no problem....just blame the President...after all, it's not like they are trying to "score political points" anyway? And thanks for that lesson on how the US Federal Government works - it's much appreciated!

What a word thinker you are. Conversely, if they had talked about it, you still wouldn't be happy, because you don't care about what you're saying here, just about trying to score points. Meanwhile, Trump was praising China and Xi: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1220818115354923009?s=20 The president runs the CDC/FDA/DHS/HHS/NSA/CIA/CENTCOM/etc, he gets briefed on everything that's going on, he's the one in charge, the one governing. He picks his advisors and secretaries, and if they're incompetent and don't bring stuff up to him or manage it well, it's also his fault. Candidates in a party's primary don't. Governors either. Saying that others' didn't do the president's job is pointless. They're not the president. They have a different job. But I'm pretty sure that if any rando off the street was currently president, his son-in-law wouldn't be running a pandemic response, though. They probably would've also studied up enough on the situation to not make the most dumbass comments about the virus at every press conference. And what genius you are! These candidates had EVERYTHING to say about what the President does right and wrong. They cover all the critical issues of Presidency - but of course, in February - they did not give a rat's ass about Coronavirus. They have opinions about all the critical issues facing the country like diversity, green new deal, failed impeachment, crooked Hunter Biden, and political correctness. You should watch it - you'd be real proud. NO BODY GAVE TWO SHITS ABOUT CV - NOT EVEN THE MEDIA. NOT ONE FRICKIN' QUESTION! What hypocrisy! TODAY THEY ARE ALL EXPERT SECOND GUESSERS. Just like the media. Oh, yeah, the candidates ....."It's not their job" .... BUT THEY WANT TO BE PRESIDENT. They really "nailed" the "issues" those critical thinkers... Hilarious

Damn right - you got to love revisionist history - it's so pathetic. I was listening to one of the February Democratic Presidential Debates again - NOT ONE WORD ABOUT CORONA VIRUS. NOT ONE! THE BIGGEST CRISIS OF OUR LIFETIME - BUT NOW - THEY HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS! Just like the media - what hypocrisy!