Jurgis

Complement to Cobafdek, in the middle of the (tribal) fight. Your question is difficult to answer (it feels like: What's the risk of shorting Tesla stock?) and it includes the evaluation of tail risk. Since my background has some relevance and since i need to address this question now, here's a tentative answer. It seems that the opening will be gradual and the rate of opening will be inversely proportional to virus resurgence. So you'll need to adjust your risk management for your area and with the evolving picture. I work with a scenario of localized and limited resurgence activity during the opening with no second or third wave although this could become low-grade seasonal. I'd say testing will be useful for certain areas of concern but it's hard to see how testing at large will be useful for local decisions. I would also add that herd immunity is not a black or white concept. Relative herd immunity may be much lower than the often 60-70% quoted. 1st risk: risk that you become a spreader without being sick This is a population-level risk but also an individual risk as you may bring the disease to loved ones who may be susceptible (known risk factors or even rarely idiosyncratic). Then, your cumulative (i share DocSnowball's realism about molecules and timeline) individual risk is likely lowish (and will evolve over a fairly long time), especially if you take basic precautions (basic distance, washing hands, and avoiding social contacts with older (or frail) friends or family members). The concept of position sizing (extent of your social participation along the activity risk spectrum you describe) could be applied as a degree of conviction that your area is safe (from publicly announced statistics, hospital activity level etc). 2nd risk: risk that you become significantly sick Apart from idiosyncratic risk, which is very low, your risk will be proportional to risk factors (age, lung disease, obesity, diabetes etc) with individual risk factors being likely more than additive and serious event risk going up exponentially with the overall level of frailty. Assuming not super vulnerable means no major risk factors, it seems that your risk of becoming significantly sick is very low (do your own work :) ). What you do as an individual is also tied to your risk personality. If you used to go for the flu vaccine every year versus not even worrying about becoming sick will have an influence on future behavior vs CV. It's possible CV becomes old news very rapidly especially if other events take eyeballs off the bug (and its consequences). @Jurgis: personally I wait for one incubation period to start to trust the data - cases in your state have gone down and stayed down for 14 days; and for two incubation periods for giving the all clear - cases are in single digits or zero in your state for 28 days. Try to phase your return back towards activities in that way. The most essential activities come first, and the lowest risk will be where you're not within 3-6 feet of others and are outdoors. The highest risk will be going to healthcare facilities and crowded indoor gatherings. One thing I've learned is this virus is 2 SD beyond what I've expected of it in spreading, so better to be safe than sorry. The fact that it spreads so easily in healthcare facilities (10k healthcare workers infected in the US!!! cities with public transport really hit hard) tells me there is effective transmission beyond droplets, perhaps it lives well on surfaces + asymptomatic/presymptomatic people spread it early on...(you fill in your thoughts) Maybe a smart idea to build a checklist of do's and don't to follow before, during and after going out and test-drive/refine it when you start going out. I'll try to get it started. Is this activity essential? What is the risk in this activity? How can it be substituted or minimized? Hand sanitizer - check. Wipes - check. Mask - check. Keeping social distance, minimizing touches, minimizing time spent/risk incurred in the activity Sanitize when done, dispose mask and take footwear off safely on return Hand washing when home Dispose clothes for washing later, hand washing again These are good suggestions. Thanks.

Works for farmers, so why not! ::)

I'm trying to ask this uncontroversially mostly medical professionals here: assuming a gradual relaxation of the lockdown with no vaccine, no treatment, and no (or minimal) testing/tracking. Would you say going out is acceptable or too risky? Let's assume a medium-high risk state like MA. Let's assume not super vulnerable person. If we want to talk concrete "going out" categories, let's say going to parks, general shopping, meeting friends/family, going to office/work, going to a restaurant (I tried to order this from least risk to most risk). Outcome of "severe" infection sounds very scary. That has to be balanced with infection risks though. I know this is a bit theoretical and uncertain, but since there's a talk of "relaxation" even in NY state, maybe this could be useful. I could open a new topic... but probably not worth it. Thanks

Didn't they get a note to use bitcoin?

Tilson's cumulative return is ~8.4% annual. Let's call it 8.5%. So you deposit $1M into escrow. A contender sets up $50K account in which they invest as they like. If they outperform 8.5% annual in 5 years, the $1M is paid out to that person. Agreements/etc. are all public. Sounds right? And this is open to anyone on CoBF who contacts you with a contract. Well, maybe to first 10 comers just in case there's too much interest.

Right. Empty promises from anonymous guy on the Internetz. You should work on your selling grasshopper. Maybe read more Whitney Tilson manual.

It's a deal. You deposit $1M into escrow account at reliable mutually-agreed custodian. We write up a contract. All documents to be public and published on CoBF.

"for life" .... or until I shut down this newsletter and start another something...

This practice is spreading hugely: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/covid-19-checkpoints-targeting-out-of-state-residents-draw-complaints-and-legal-scrutiny/2020/04/14/3fc0ed42-774e-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html No-longer-United States of America. And people expect a "reopen" soon? LOLZ.

He's alive!

Herr Dicktator is pure Cialdini genius. Buying votes legally.

Thanks. I guess people reactions and behavior vary by country/location a lot. E.g. what I hear from Lithuania is closer to what you wrote about Poland vs what I hear from Germany and Austria.

The dissolution during a market drop/pandemic is quite unfortunate. Even with all the effort I'd guess it's hard to make decisions what positions to keep/sell/buy when dissolution is going to happen in short term. There's likely losses and opportunity losses due to this situation. I can see "sleepless nights" there. :( Tough luck. Best wishes to all involved.

On the side of "pent up demand and V-shape recovery", what I hear from Germany and Austria people are going out a lot and not taking the social isolation precautions very seriously. This might be true in other locations too. So perhaps even without vaccine/treatment there will be a (large?) proportion of the population who will go out shopping/travelling/eating-out once forceful restrictions are lifted. Although there still remains the question whether this will lead to big reinfection flare-ups. Personally, I don't plan to go out much even if restrictions are lifted if treatment/vaccine is not available. OTOH, I am currently going out more than a bunch of US people, who only go out to grocery store once a month. So clearly it's all very anecdotal.

It's more that low income people are f&*cked ... again. John Oliver Coronavirus IV Haven't watched this yet. As I get older, I get more cynical and realize that people can make careers out of telling people that they are the oppressed. I wonder what these celebrities are like in person. The question is "Do the guy broadcasting to millions about structural unfairness eat caviar?" So in your opinion the fact that a guy on TV (or a person on CoBF) is rich means that they cannot talk about the issues faced by poor people? You realize that this would remove yet another way for poor people issues to be heard? Let's sweep them under the rug, yeah? You already sit here in the CoBF echo chamber of rich and entitled self-made people who mostly assume that being poor comes from being dumb or making bad choices and "everyone could be rich if they only applied themselves". Perhaps it's not such a bad thing that there are people who show the real situation.

Herr Dictator announced: "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

I skipped everything as you requested. Just looked at the performance numbers. Aren't these just what you get if you expect low/zero/negative rates and you sit in the longest-end of treasury curve? This clearly has worked wonders for last 20-30 years. But will it really work going forward? (Of course, people wondered that for the last 20-30 years lol).

It's more that low income people are f&*cked ... again. John Oliver Coronavirus IV

Some time ago there was a completely horrible article about the scam in the US retirement homes. People were scammed to move into the retirement facilities, lost their property, got drugged in the retirement home so they wouldn't raise issues. If you don't have relatives who care and fight for you, you are screwed. Even if you have relatives, the retirement home mafia got court orders from friendly judges to remove/restrict relative access to the seniors they were mistreating. Overall, I am not sure if this can be solved. Especially for people with no relatives. Doubly especially if a person has any cognitive slowdown. Even if there is a well intentioned government agency, how easy is it to figure out if someone with dementia is being abused/overmedicated/under-cared/etc? Oh yes, blockchain! Just what the doctor ordered.

What happened with "Live free or die"?

Thanks. Bought it.

We are still ordering for pickup or delivery. We went for pickup yesterday and my wife said something like "they are doing good business". I thought, "hmm it's 7-10 cars vs 60-100 patrons". But then I thought that the cars stay there for 5-10 minutes max and patrons stayed for hour+. So maybe they are doing OK. Depends on a restaurant clearly. Holes in the wall that mostly did delivery before pandemic are probably doing OK (maybe better? not sure). A lot of places just shut down. The ones that are trying to convert from (somewhat fancy) sit-down to delivery are probably not doing very well. But it does depend. Places that are doing half-a$$ job in trying to convert are very likely faring worse than the ones who are really making effort to show that they are there for customers and community. And pre-pandemic reputation also helps.

But that's the key point, isn't it? Sure, if (when) all is clear, we all happily go to 2019-normal. But what exactly is "all clear" and when is it going to happen? The economic impact will depend on the answer to this question. The effects are going to be very different if "all clear" is in June 2020 vs if it is in December 2021. Also Yes, and it took 2+ years. If Covid takes 2+ years to resolve, then the economic impact will be worse than Great Recession for sure. And yeah 5-10+ years into the future the economy will likely recover and grow. But if you think that 2 years of social isolation is not going to be bad for economy, then you are very overoptimistic. So really anyone expecting mild impact is just betting on "all clear" within couple months. For me the partial-tentative "reopening" without a vaccine and/or cure is not "all clear". JMHO.

It depends how Covid pandemic ends. The best case: THE PILL! Antiviral that treats the disease is found. You get symptoms, you take the pill, you are cured. Everyone goes back to 2019 behavior. We win. The next best case: Near 100% (think measles) preventative vaccine is created. Same as above though probably takes longer than above. The not so good case: 70-80% (think flu) vaccine is created. People may go back to 2019 behavior but who knows. The bad case: No vaccine. Wait for herd immunity. Drawn out process, tons of deaths, people may go back to 2019 behavior, but not very likely. The very bad case: No vaccine or 70-80% vaccine, but virus mutates like flu virus does. Social distancing forever or a risk of dying through social contact every year. This is probably very unlikely case. IMO, we will end up with "not so good case" (although I am not a vaccine expert - perhaps "the next best case" is also likely). IMO it's very hard to predict how people will deal with this. Quite possibly economic outcome will be bad. Apparently Bill Gates is somewhat optimistic about THE PILL. So maybe it's gonna be better than I think. Edit: I did not cover the case of "no vaccine, no cure, just track and test". IMO that's not a sustainable solution long term. I might be wrong though.

- Yesterday parking lot in Fells dog-walking meadow was closed and police car was parked outside likely to discourage illegal parking on the highway. I guess someone decided that a ton of people coming to dog walk in meadow/forest is creating transmission risk. Of course the unintended consequence is that other parking lots that are even less equipped to handle the dog walker/casual walker traffic were swamped. If you prevent people from walking in one part of the forest, they go elsewhere and you might end up with even more people density. ::) - We are watching movies and our reaction is "wow people are not socially distancing, what kind of crazies are they". Now, this is mostly a joke so far, but there is some cognitive effect. I hope we don't end with social-distancing-forever and looking nostalgically at movies/documentaries where people shook hands, kissed, etc.