Cigarbutt

It's hard to reconcile the "let's see how this plays out" attitude with a complete absence of market timing behavior (vs I'll buy whenever, when the price is right). No? It's hard to conceive (given what's been said over decades) that the secret sauce has soured with a virus episode which, by definition, should be a temporary shock (in the long term scheme of things). I guess a change of heart for airlines could make sense given the relative white swan virus episode. But the banking system? If JPM, WFC etc were well within the center of the plate just a short time ago why don't they respond to the fat pitches being thrown at them now (with the crowd yelling "Swing, you bum"). This is really fascinating.

Obviously, you're entitled to your own ethical opinions. A problem that is often seen is that drug companies find placebo control (no real treatment, sugar pill etc) to be a pain when trying to establish superior performance (to nothing) because, very often, a significant number of patients report better outcomes (!) and also higher incidence of side effects (!) in the placebo arm of the investigation. Sometimes, it's not what's real that counts, it's what you believe in. :) Speaking of placebo effects in the investing world, they happen all the time. The most impressive manifestation (from my humble perspective) was when accounting rules were relaxed for financial institutions' mark-to-market accounting in March 2009. The symbolic move really 'helped' from the proprietary data perspective i was looking at. The most impressive part is that the financial institutions (most of them anyway) most exposed to MBS and NPLs showed the most spectacular improvement in the market perception of risk for these entities. Eventually, it was discovered that most would have been fine anyhow but their stay in the ICU was shortened considerably. I've always had mixed feelings about placebo effects. Interesting but (the contrarian side keeps manifesting) they explain well how their results should be interpreted with caution for example when discussing their (major) assumption about specificity: "We consider our estimate to represent the best available current evidence, but recognize that new information, especially about the test kit performance, could result in updated estimates. For example, if new estimates indicate test specificity to be less than 97.9%, our SARS-CoV-2 prevalence estimate would change from 2.8% to less than 1%, and the lower uncertainty bound of our estimate would include zero." (my bold) The wording about caution reminds me of the present discussion about AMC. Some see it (the equity) coming through unscathed and some see the fulcrum security way down. One of the big problems with the false positive results is that a low but still significant positive antibody response may be related to other kinds (the old and common kinds) of CV. Those antibodies may or may not provide protection against the new CV and, obviously, would terribly reduce the value of the published 'random' prevalence data about the recent outbreak.

When does speculation become investment? When do you decide that conviction is sufficient to put 10% of your net worth in a specific investment? ---)You need to define a threshold. I fully realize that comparing an investment decision to a life or death situation is different but you (we) need a framework. It has been suggested (from various observational and rational reasons) that remdesivir could result in better outcomes than doing nothing for CV. We don't know the answer to this question. In order to answer that question, trials that involve randomized blind trials with control groups will be essential unless several trials done in different centers with different patients clearly show an advantage (pre-defined targets). When patients are recruited for the studies now, they have a choice to accept (and potentially get drugs that are potentially useful {or not and with negative side effects}) or not. Given the difficult situation, patients may get access to remdesivir through a company-sponsored expanded access program or through a compassionate program. The results do look promising and that should speed up the process. The approach is obviously not perfect but has provided the shoulders on which future generations could see. How could you know if you don't know? The pharma cemetery is full of ideas that looked good at some point. We need a controlled study - Remdesivir for Democrats, hcq for Trump supporters. Somebody has volunteered to head the ethics and advanced statistical analysis team: "It could have a very positive effect, or a positive effect, maybe not very, but maybe positive, it’s very, very exciting."

When does speculation become investment? When do you decide that conviction is sufficient to put 10% of your net worth in a specific investment? ---)You need to define a threshold. I fully realize that comparing an investment decision to a life or death situation is different but you (we) need a framework. It has been suggested (from various observational and rational reasons) that remdesivir could result in better outcomes than doing nothing for CV. We don't know the answer to this question. In order to answer that question, trials that involve randomized blind trials with control groups will be essential unless several trials done in different centers with different patients clearly show an advantage (pre-defined targets). When patients are recruited for the studies now, they have a choice to accept (and potentially get drugs that are potentially useful {or not and with negative side effects}) or not. Given the difficult situation, patients may get access to remdesivir through a company-sponsored expanded access program or through a compassionate program. The results do look promising and that should speed up the process. The approach is obviously not perfect but has provided the shoulders on which future generations could see. How could you know if you don't know? The pharma cemetery is full of ideas that looked good at some point.

Looks promising. No control arm in the study is a caveat. Market seems to absolutely love this. GILD up 15% in after hours, SPY up 3.5%. Wow. isn't a control group re a life threatening disease (at least with respect to this severely ill cohort) an ethical issue? You keep asking fascinating questions. :) I guess it has to do with how to collectively define rules to deal with uncertainty. Let's say an institution has to decide who they choose in the future in order to invest an endowment. Cherzeca the great and cigarbutt the moron agree that the winner will be the one who has the greatest risk-adjusted return over ten years. After two years, cherzeca leads by 3% per year and declares victory. Is that OK? New drugs need to go through investigational trials before adoption. Bringing trials to an end is controversial but there are rules. 1-The safety criteria: If investigators 'see' an unusual degree of significant and more or less unexpected side effects, under the first do no harm principle, the trial needs to be stopped and published. This happened not long ago with hydroxychloroquine (QT lengthening stuff and arrhythmias). 2-The futility criteria: If it becomes clear that results will be inconclusive, stop and publish. 3-The benefit criteria: This is a tough one. If results are clearly better, trial is stopped so that all can benefit. The problem is defining "clearly better." Having a stock move up 15% after hours constitutes a significant incentive for positive results. The investigators need to pre-defined rules, rules have to reach statistical and clinical significance and need to meet peer recognition.

It's condominium or condo (i guess commonhold property for you) insurance. Premiums have rocketed higher recently in some parts of Canada. http://www.ibc.ca/on/home/types-of-coverage/condominium-or-strata-coverage

This is interesting. Netherlands used policies more or less intermediate compared to places like Austria on one side and Italy on the other with, as expected, more or less intermediate results. Netherlands has also produced interesting work on influenza vaccine effectiveness and is a good relative European student in terms of historical flu vaccinate rates. It looks like (picture developing) that the CV does behave (intrinsic features) similarly to the influenza virus, with the main difference being that the population tends to have a much lower natural immunity to it and there is no vaccine, not even a partially effective one. Reasonable extrapolation of data in the Netherlands suggests that the eventual death rate from CV (with some social distancing and other basic measures) will look like (compare to a reasonable degree) the typical death rate for influenza, had there been a 0% rate of vaccination. What society is doing is basically trying to adapt (with various levels of 'success') to this new and evolving reality. @LC Thank you for supplying the link for the European monitoring of mortality with seasonal variations. Apologies. To my own embarassment upon re-reading this I made a primary school calculation error here (my only defence: it was early). 3100 out of 500 000 obviously isn't 0.06%, but 0.6%, which makes quite a bit of difference here, Still not quite the 3% some are saying, but definitely not flu percentages either. https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1473-3099%2820%2930243-7 See Table 1. Estimated CFR 1.38%, >10x deadlier than the Flu. The best CFR from published studies is in the vicinity of 1% which is 10x deadlier than Flu. The 3% antibodies is not good news for feasibility of herd immunity as you note. British government backed off of that strategy quickly... "However, after further adjusting for demography and under-ascertainment..." what does this mean? oh, that the so-called scientists fudged their data to get the results they wanted, is what this means. garbage in, garbage out. good enough for Dalal though. FWIW, i find the study to be relatively strong: using framework and tools that deal with uncertainty, explaining limitations, written in a way to allow to make up one's own mind. It seems to me that the authors would be ready to change their conclusions with evolving appreciation of data, which can be a useful attribute. Given this article, other data and some personal 'adjustments', it appears likely that the final CFR value will be going down from here. i don't want to sound like the commander-in- chief but the virus is bright in a way and somehow preferentially finds its way to susceptible individuals with the potential risk to overestimate CFR in the early stages. @minten No problem for the calculation issue. One should always check the initial source for quality before commenting, so the responsibility is on me. BTW, it's not clear what the true results are and we'll know more as we go along. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/04/half-a-million-people-may-have-developed-coronavirus-antibodies-rivm/ Netherlands has an excellent reputation (well deserved IMO) for various health policy management initiatives. https://www.rivm.nl/en

This is interesting. Netherlands used policies more or less intermediate compared to places like Austria on one side and Italy on the other with, as expected, more or less intermediate results. Netherlands has also produced interesting work on influenza vaccine effectiveness and is a good relative European student in terms of historical flu vaccinate rates. It looks like (picture developing) that the CV does behave (intrinsic features) similarly to the influenza virus, with the main difference being that the population tends to have a much lower natural immunity to it and there is no vaccine, not even a partially effective one. Reasonable extrapolation of data in the Netherlands suggests that the eventual death rate from CV (with some social distancing and other basic measures) will look like (compare to a reasonable degree) the typical death rate for influenza, had there been a 0% rate of vaccination. What society is doing is basically trying to adapt (with various levels of 'success') to this new and evolving reality. @LC Thank you for supplying the link for the European monitoring of mortality with seasonal variations.

The condo insurance rate issue is discussed here: https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/ca/news/breaking-news/experts-react-to-skyrocketing-condo-insurance-rates-208826.aspx So, basically three (four?) conceptual reasons that happen to move in the same direction: -reasons specific for the condo market in Western Canada (rising 'actuarial' costs, past, present and future) -hardening market at large -social inflation development (business interruption with threat of retroactive coverage change) -? changing perception about the price of risk ? Price adjustments came come slowly or suddenly and deviations from 'true' value can occur, sometimes wildly so. And it can work both ways.

Hi Petec, How did you conclude this? They've said numerous times, Sam Mitchell, Prem, Brian, Francis...there is no limitation to how much they can allocate to equities, be it float or equity, but they have to make sure the portfolio is in a position where they aren't risking a huge reduction in statutory surplus or liquidity. I asked and they told me. As I understand it regulation does not explicitly forbid it but as you say, they can't risk the surplus or their liquidity, so to all practical intents and purposes they are limited, and it shows in their behaviour, because IIRC they have never invested substantially more than book value in equities. I must check. They only had about 30% of shareholder equity in equities at the end of 2019...$5.3B versus $17.3B in shareholder equity. Assume book value fell 15% to date...to $14B, but their equity portfolio is off 40% to $3B...now equity investments to shareholder equity is 21%. They invested up to 60-70% of shareholder equity into equities at different times during their history...that means they could double or triple their current equity exposure if they wanted and still stay under historical ratios. I certainly don't think they are going to do that presently, but if stock market prices fell even more dramatically, there is no restriction on how much they could put in equities, and they could certainly go far higher than what they presently have. Cheers! Added for historical perspective and using the following for data: -table found towards the end of annual reports and labeled "investments" a few years back and "overview of investment performance" more recently -using total equity (including NCI) -keeping FI and FA in the consolidated numbers and including investments in associates as equity or equity-like -using total equity and equity-like over total shareholders equity, TE/TS -using total equity and equity-like over total investments, TE/TI -Period leading to the dot-com TE/TS 25-35%, TE/TI around 8 to 10% with significant hedges in place (index puts and short position on basket of tech stocks) Personal note: I remember fairly well (i'm quite sure it was) Roger Lace answering a question about the relevance of maintaining S&P puts around that time. i don't recall the exact words but the gist of it was that it would have been inappropriate NOT to have them, at that specific time. -Period leading to the GFC TE/TS 50-90%, TE/TI from about 12% rising to about 22% in 2008 with (from 2004 on) significant equity hedges in place (about 50%) -2009 TE/TS 74%, TE/TI 27% a time when FFH was wildly profitable and when markets were...lower than now (absolute and relative basis) -2010-2016 TE/TS 50-60%, TE/TI 18-22% with (from 2010 on) significant equity hedges in place (went from 30 to 100% hedge in 2010) -2017-9 TE/TS 49% rising to 59%, TE/TI 23% rising to 27% with no equity hedge IMHO, ratings agency (and regulators) have always kept an eye on the unusual degree of equity exposure for a typical P+C (re)insurer. The issue was dealt with lumpy but overall good results, keeping at least 1B at the holding level and...hedging. At this point, FFH maintains the same level of equity acrobatics but they're performing at a higher level with no net. It can still be an impressive show but i find it unusual for an insurer and wonder if they're not one step away from a share issue.

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).

And now this: "Whoa, 147 (36%) out of 408 people tested positive for the #coronavirus at a large homeless shelter in Boston https://medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.12.20059618v1. More interestingly, only ~1/6 showed symptoms among those tested positive, i.e. 1:5 for symptomatic vs asymptomatic. #COVID19" No way, I don't believe it. So we have germany, pregnant woman, homeless people. Critics will note, not a totally representative study but very interesting. Need to see what the Stanford study says. Mortality rate will likely trend down still. Will be interesting to watch. As more data come in, it looks like the CV is more contagious, less deadly and "natural" immunity looks higher than initially assumed in basic R0 assumptions. There are major problems with the Boston data. The most important limitation is selection bias (population and timing). The idea of the "random" sampling was triggered by a "cluster". To provide more value, it would be nice to see if positive-test people become symptomatic over time. In my area, clusters in areas where people are vulnerable has caused impressive growth in ICU and morgue admissions. Exit scenarios will need to take critical variables of the virus that are becoming clearer. Isn't that the whole idea? To shift the trajectory of the new virus to the influenza curve or better?

In a way, this is typical contract clause haggling and social insurance (redistribution) at play, only on a much larger scale. People are trying to share the pain. It's perhaps helpful to read the last memo from Mr. Howard Marks who has been unusually bipolar lately. His last message (Knowledge of the Future) includes interesting passages. He seems to be troubled by the extent of collateral stretch by the Great Redistributor (and maybe that's preventing him from making money now, so potential bias). "Markets work best when participants have a healthy fear of loss. It shouldn't be the role of the Fed or government to eradicate it." Sometimes one shouldn't fear about fear but sometimes one should fear the relative absence of fear.

Yes. When people discuss the sit on your a$$ strategy described by Mr. Munger, people get that the idea revolves around selective decisions and focus on the never sell decision aspect. However, Mr. Munger also described that one has to be ready to act decisively with a prepared mind. Outside of index investing, it's a tough act to follow (to various degrees of differentiation) and individual positioning is what makes a market. :) You can call this the fifty shades of grey of investing. I would say you're entirely correct 95 to 99% of the times which makes the timing issue challenging. I'd like to remind you (f i understand correctly) that investing in FFH after 2010 involved a thesis in large part resting on the possibility of a 100-year event. This time is always different in a way and we (most of us anyways) entirely and always feel that the present is unusual and special to some degree but, on the topic of investing, if one decides that this is part of the unknowables, the present financial system environment is characterized an extreme level of unusual forces. One could say that we're going through the greatest monetary experiment of all times. If the goal is to sleep well, it may be best to make abstraction of that.

Regarding the “bank holding company” issue, the threshold was indeed 10%: http://www.klgates.com/non-controlling-investments-in-banking-institutions-and-their-holding-companies-10-07-2008/ https://www.omaha.com/money/warren-buffett-says-relax-he-s-just-buying-and-selling/article_2caf0c38-1f09-576a-b4d5-75843c8cc1e3.html Do you have evidence that the bank holding company threshold has changed from 10%? ======= Regarding your assertion that 16b “is not triggered when you go over 10% without having made a buy (ie due to portfolio company repurchases shrinking the outstanding)”, can you provide a link to a credible source? For the bank holding rule, see reply #50. For the 16b trigger, this was fairly easy to locate: https://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-15-commerce-and-trade/15-usc-sect-78p.html See section 78p(b) In English, for the rule to apply, the beneficial owner has to be above the 10% threshold when both the purchase and the sale were made.

Just skip if: -you don't ever care about macro for any investments -you think that the global economy was humming along fine before the outbreak -you find that the long term monetary and fiscal experiment since the GFC is irrelevant or great (again) -you expect a rapid "V"-shaped recovery and back to business as usual environment Here's their latest review that, for some reason, may be their best, at least up to now. https://hoisingtonmgt.com/pdf/HIM2020Q1NP.pdf Some comments: -They find that the MMT threshold has not been reached, yet. -They conclude that continuing on that slippery slope and going through the true MMT threshold will be globally detrimental. -They've been wrong on timing before but have been roughly right in the direction, for a very long time. -At this point, they expect a painful deflationary recession and negative risk-free rates.. For disclosure, I'm out of long term US treasuries because of changing odds and possible non-linear changes but wonder how to deal with the transition. Their performance numbers are food for though. https://wasatchglobal.com/wasatch-hoisington-us-treasury-fund/ The WSJ recently had a nice complementary piece: https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-crisis-legacy-mountains-of-debt-11586447687 if difficulty with access, summary: How to move from a Great to a Leveraged Society. Recently, there was thread on corporate leverage and I learned a lot from thepupil. There's one graph that still needs further explanation: Use Fred data and plot: Nonfinancial Corporate Business; Debt Securities and Loans; Liability, Level/Nonfinancial Corporate Business; Earnings Before Interest and Tax (FSIs), Flow*1000 Is the corporate sector ready for higher business borrowing interest rates? Lately, I've looked at Japan capital flows and they are taking advantage (?) of the international Fed USD swap lines. I think they will be the first domino to fall. The bug will find its windshield. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-13/how-the-boj-s-massive-market-operations-make-and-break-investors?srnd=markets-vp

The case you mention in the initial post seems to be a particularly poor example of what is perhaps more typical across the board. The private home in question was charging between 3-10k per month (depending on level of care) but they obviously had great difficulty with employee recruitment and retention. The direction mentioned that employees had "deserted" the place but the evidence seems to show that they were actually becoming positively sick..It's becoming clear that this will trigger a higher level of oversight by public institutions and may give rise to a need for registries (this can take many forms) for homes and for licensed (and not so licensed) direct-care providers. In some of these instances, it appears that the case load was so elevated that transmission precautions were simply disregarded and some have mentioned that those in charge possibly focused too much on the bottom line. This will happen to various degrees across many jurisdictions and there will be opportunities. Good luck. The government entities will be ready to outsource some of that but they are looking for reliable and reasonable partners. Potentially relevant: https://cnpea.ca/images/futureoflong-termcare_v7_final-09-09-2019.pdf

Can anyone think of any reason why late-pregnant women would be more exposed to COVID than the average NY-er (frequent hospital visits maybe)? 13.7% of an asymptomatic subgroup is (obviously) really, really high. 1st question: What is the avg NY-er's %? Possibilities: -This may be a representative sub-population -End of term women often go to medical clinics, hospitals etc (exposure out of home, during transportation and at medical sites) -The immunity during pregnancy changes (only partially understood) but the idea is not to reject the uterine-contained allograft :) so there is an element of immuno-suppression Based on some of your previous posts, you may be interested in the following: In the Italian areas qualified as hot spots, trauma units typically see a 50% decline of trauma visits, with the lower energy traumas especially less frequent. However, in people coming in with low energy traumas, COVID-19 antigen tests are done and prevalence numbers come below and above what's mentioned for pregnant women in NY (careful:anecdotal).

This is interesting. This is an area where there are various levels of public-private partnerships and many inefficiencies. A few years ago (in my area at least), there was a shortage of registered nurses and demand exceeded supply. It was an ideal situation for private parties to close the gap. Set up an entity that recruits (using filters, certification, competence etc), act as a middleman and charge the public or private customers for the service. Recruited RNs obtain a better salary, better conditions and you get to keep a slice of the pie. Private and public (typically with a significant time lag) eventually close the loop and adjust but first movers do benefit. There appears to be a huge opportunity here. The dynamics will be specific to your state or provincial jurisdiction. Long term care is a growth business. Most of the work (about 75%) is done by personal support workers (level of training and regulation varies) and the rest is done by nurses with various levels of certification. To have an idea of the number hands that will be required, look a projections of older folks in the population and multiply by 2 to 5 hours of active presence per day for each. The virus has caused a certain intensity in focus but that will settle down to a slow but long term grind. Outside of a minority, most people happily delegate the adult diaper changing to others and will only show up when there is a problem. Here's a link for Ontario (i won't compete with you there): https://www.oltca.com/OLTCA/Documents/Reports/TILTC2019web.pdf

I think this is an authentic quote from the Master: "I think you have to report within to or three business days every purchase you make once you're over that 10% factor. So, you're advertising to the world, but the world tends to follow us some, so it really...it has a huge execution cost attached to it." It would be nice to see a PET scan of Mr. Buffett's brain activity at this point. It may be that he is unusually focused now.

Interesting! The topic is a nice change from all the financial re-engineering and please-bail-may-out-Jay stuff that is going on now. The deal sounds good. A way to see it is that you could increase the rent that you pay to yourself and, assuming the lease term has a minimum of 5 years left, to obtain a breakeven result from on an undiscounted payback perspective and to get the extra cash flows in the interim as well as the 'goodwill' associated with the business. You could also try to improve the economics of the business, as you describe. There would be one area of concern. Maybe the present operator is simply looking for an exit but the self-storage business has a local feel to it. There is another octogenarian who has smell for things and who, last year, sold his position in an alternative CDN mortgage market player and who, just recently, sold his newspaper position. A tougher economic environment would be a potential relative positive as excess capacity would be dampened and people's need to store items may paradoxically rise for some time.

Always beware of self-congratulatory praise but policy action in the right direction can make a significant difference: https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/portugal-quicker-to-take-action-than-italy-spain-and-uk/53552 However, urban population rate is somewhat higher in Spain and it appears (looking at evolving data, SARS and others) that the density of international traffic (travel and trade) matters. The % of direct trade with China is higher in Spain. What many people in this forum and in other places forget is that for a complex system (social, economic and biology) there will always be many contributing factors that are in many cases closely intertwined. The above example and COVID-19 related deaths due to other pre-existing conditions are good examples. That should not make us interpret that some of these measures being prescribed by experts (such as imposing shelter-in-place early) are not effective. In-fact, by imposing shelter-in-place early on in the pandemic affects other variables described above in a positive way. It becomes less likely that international travelers will go to a region where there is such shelter imposed, trade to that regions will go down as well, etc. So the argument of what is the *real* cause and effect is not always helpful, there will be many. The goal should be to come up with as short a list of policy prescriptions as possible that will address most of these factors. Good point. But much that is talked about is related to secondary and tertiary prevention of the virus. The typical person that goes to an emergency room with a heart issue will carry pre-existing conditions (reversible risk factors that could be dealt with by primary prevention), will go through a very expensive process that will include a stent or two (shown to be of limited or no value in large number of cases) and will get discharged with a list of pills that basically allow to go back to the previous lifestyle. Doing the best-practice policy prescription during the acute phase fails to deal with the underlying primary issue. This virus episode is shining a light on the weakness of institutions and processes, on the inequality pattern that will only be exacerbated, on the amazing poor relative value of the health care system, on the corporate leverage (no buffer for unforeseen risks as decreased share count doesn't help paying loans), on the monetary easing that was still going on 10 years after the last episode, on the fiscal weakness with tax cuts and fiscal stimulus increased late in the cycle. This virus will go away. It's the continuation of previous trends and the residual resilience that will be interesting to follow and people should spend time on primary prevention. Maybe that's too much to ask. Those who put COVID-19 as the primary cause of the next recession have never filled a death certificate.

Wages, dividends, progress and prosperity says a chicken in every pot has become Wages, dividends, progress and prosperity says the latest thing on your doorstep :)

Always beware of self-congratulatory praise but policy action in the right direction can make a significant difference: https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/portugal-quicker-to-take-action-than-italy-spain-and-uk/53552 However, urban population rate is somewhat higher in Spain and it appears (looking at evolving data, SARS and others) that the density of international traffic (travel and trade) matters. The % of direct trade with China is higher in Spain.

Mortality is indeed very high in the very sick. The typical person comes with respiratory distress, with the COVID-19 component being responsible for 1-99% of the presentation , with the % causation graph very highly skewed to the left. It's interesting, at least for some places, that a significant % of people coming with breathing difficulty already have DNR status or acquire it during their stay. Dying with a tube in your throat is no fun. This COVID-19 episode may provide an oppotunity to think about end of life care (individual or society level). If interested, this is a relevant recent example: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2004500?query=featured_home