Castanza

I agree, life is not a SIMS game and everything doesn’t boil down to efficiency. Life is inefficient and humans are particularly inefficient. There is no magic input/output control mechanism that will magically create a utopia where everyone has their needs met and is happy. Why? Because we are human. Socialism reduces individuals to numbers (drones basically) and ignores everything that makes people human. Yes, the end goal of socialism tries to address “humanity” but you can’t have humanity without the good and bad aspects of being human. https://www.tsowell.com/spquestc.html

For me, socialism is insurance against catastrophic outcomes as a result of bad luck--unemployment insurance, medical insurance, insurance against being born in a dysfunctional family.... In socialism, you give up some extreme rewards to eliminate a some extreme catastrophes. In equity, you're taking socialism from 10% to 100%, and eliminating any and all differential outcomes. You're giving up 100% of your rewards to eliminate 100% of catastrophes. That's why I think it's reasonable to believe in socialism but not equity. If I'm shivering in the cold, it's reasonable to want to stand near a fire, but also reasonable to not want to be lit on fire. Sure sounds good on paper doesn't it?

Have been adding to $INTC the past two weeks.

I don't know, it really depends. My personal opinion is you're an asshole if you as a CEO make ridiculous sums of money. But would reducing these salaries actually make a difference? Walmart CEO makes 22m and there are 1.5m employees. Even if you assume they are all minimum wage (which they are not) then employees get what...$20 a year? As RK said, it really depends on the company (and I'm sure you agree). I think the change would be more of a perception change than anything. Some of these big tech companies could also choose to build centers or offices in less trendy areas to help "revitalize" areas. Should that also be forced though? I would say no. Not saying you think this way, but I don't like the thought process of "Well this would benefit everyone therefore it's good." as a justification for legislation. I think that's very dangerous thinking. I think this will change organically by itself over time. The current hyperbolic environment will usher in some changed at corporate levels. Hell you could probably argue that a lack of government action is forcing corporations to look internally for solutions.

LC what are your thoughts on this? I've personally seen a smallish business do this when I lived in Ohio. They manufactured precision parts for the medical and defense industry. The owner chose to pay employees a base salary of 60K. The company was very well regarded in the area and did quite well. I think it needs to be a choice though.

NIO is pretty interesting. A state backed luxury EV play with a battery as a service model that allows them to sell their cars at a 20ish% discount to Tesla. I picked up 100 "eff it" shares in May of 2019. We'll see what happens. I don't follow this space closely, but from the little I've seen they seem more mature/further along than many EV companies. Looking at the price today I'd say I've gotten pretty lucky so far ;D What about LI, have you looked into it at all? On a first look it seems less overpriced than NIO, but I know very little about the Chinese EV market. I haven't, maybe Liberty could comment? He seems to follow the industry closely. NIO at least is selling vehicles and actually rolling out their BaaS infrastructure. they have 143 stations and have completed 800,000 battery swaps. This industry is inevitable and Tesla is with 100% certainty not going to be the only big player. Lucid Motors (not publicly traded yet) also seems compelling from a product standpoint. The board seems to have some quality individuals as well (ex.) former head Tesla Model S engineer Peter Rawlinson. "Peter was Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla and Chief Engineer of the Model S, where he led the engineering of the Model S from a clean sheet to production readiness while building the engineering team. A graduate of Imperial College, University of London, Peter was formerly Head of Vehicle Engineering at Corus Automotive, Chief Engineer at Lotus Cars, and Principal Engineer at Jaguar Cars." https://lucidmotors.com/company/board

NIO is pretty interesting. A state backed luxury EV play with a battery as a service model that allows them to sell their cars at a 20ish% discount to Tesla. I picked up 100 "eff it" shares in May of 2019. We'll see what happens. I don't follow this space closely, but from the little I've seen they seem more mature/further along than many EV companies. Looking at the price today I'd say I've gotten pretty lucky so far ;D

Starter a position in PPL. Looks like they are trying to sell WPD (UK asset) and either pay down debt or acquire another US based utility. Some have speculated BRK could be interested in WPD assets.

Unless someone moves to a cheaper area there can be increased costs to remote work. Increased air-conditioning/electricity costs, office/computer/networking/bandwidth costs, etc, so I'm not sure people would be happy with decreased wages. But there is also a substantial decrease in transportation costs, so it might still be on the money saving side for most employees, I don't know. Do you think WFH would change usage that much? Most people seem to run a pretty good internet plan in their house already because of all their devices and streaming. Personally I have't changed much. I have changed my A/C habits a bit, but my bill has generally been in line with the prior year. I have saved about 3-4k miles driven from this so far which probably offsets any consumption costs. I guess it depends on the individual setup.

If the remote work idea takes off and we truly do have a reduction in urban office occupancy, wouldn't it be reasonable to suggest a decrease in wages due to a reduction in cost of living? Perhaps employees would still live in the general area for lifestyle choices. Either way, I haven't seen it mentioned but it could provide some incentive for companies to push remote work with possible trade offs in productivity. Thoughts?

Adding more to RTX

Post delivered in 3 parts. Part 1 The Who did rectify the information after (it was some kind of misunderstanding). The simple answer is that 'we' don't really know the extent of asymptomatic transmission at this point. It appears that 20% of spreaders may be responsible for 80% of the cases and asymptomatic is probably less than symptomatic transmission. In the meantime, you have to deal with incomplete information unless you possess magical thinking abilities. https://globalnews.ca/news/7043306/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-who/ Part 2 If you want to go fundamental, i would read the following. TL;DR: It appears that asymptomatic carriers develop similar viral loads and so, in theory and potentially, could spread the virus but asymptomatic people, by definition, don't sneeze or cough. But they can sing, yell, shake hands, ride the subway etc. If interested, in my area, asymptomatic (or minimally symptomatic) transmission was likely a significant killer of older and institutionalized people. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2769235 Part 3 It seems to me the best way to deal with those questions (bullshit or Nobel Prize idea) is to do a fundamental analysis first and then to look at the sources (the driving force). i couldn't resist doing some limited digging. It looks like the interviewee is a prostate specialist spreading some controversial theories whose main claim (shame) to fame has been an unusual ability in creative billing. Not that it's relevant to you, at some point in my life, in order to self-regulate and to efficiently but fairly maximize profit potential, i was responsible, within my organization to periodically team up with the main payer with the goal to identify aberrant payments. The payer had great AI-type tools but a very rewarding area to look at involved the "high flyers" (it looks like your referenced urologist was one of those). In that group, one would find extremely hard-working or very well organized and productive individuals. But investigations sometimes revealed individuals billing in a way that could not be reconciled with human abilities (ie doing procedures simultaneously in various locations etc; it looks like your referenced urologist may have been one of those). i always wonder about opinions formulated by super-humans, they simply know too much. Edit: @Castanza: i suspect i finally made it to your ignore list which is fine. Just in case though, if you formulate a more precise question about frontline healthcare workers' exposure, i may potentially be of limited help. What? I don’t put anyone on my ignore list, and I certainly wouldn’t put you on it. I’d say your posts are always high quality and challenging. I don’t always agree with your opinions but I respect them. This “area” seems to be in your level of competence judging by what little I know of your public health background. I didn’t see a response to the healthcare workers post. Sorry if I missed it. I guess my question would be, shouldn’t we expect more deaths on the front lines if Covid is truly as bad as we are hearing? It’s probably a good mix of age, ethnicity, and underlying conditions to pull data from. Plus we can assume they are almost in constant contact or at a higher level of risk of catching it. Makes more sense to use data from this group than from elderly homes where we know it’s not a good outcome. Just a quick look at the numbers I posted it seems like SARs was 3x as bad as Covid. But we also really have no idea on the total number of infected in the US. 5.5m still seems low with the length of time that’s gone by. I am not an expert on this and make no claim to be. Also not a professional “googler”. I just don’t remember seeing anyone post about healthcare workers.

I agree with this. I wasn’t too sure at first, but have really grown to like it a lot. The flexibility and schedule planning is perfect for me. Nothing like doing some early morning fly fishing before work. Or come deer season, sitting in the stand.

Meanwhile every home builder is trading at all time highs (GRBK, MTH, PHM, DHI)

ATCO, PCYO

Has anyone looked at healthcare worker deaths due to Covid? Best numbers I could find...(if anyone has better sources feel free to share) - 900 Covid-19 related deaths in the US according to (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/11/covid-19-healthcare-workers-nearly-900-have-died) - Covid-19 cases among healthcare workers is estimated at 200kish - 5.54m total US cases -173k total deaths Comparison with SARS (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3371777/) "According to the World Health Organization, 8,098 cases occurred during the outbreak, and 774 (9.6%) persons died." - 8k number is total healthcare worker cases. - 102k total US cases 3.2k total US deaths

How does that look rough? He looks like he has a fever and a headache....lucid enough to make jokes.

I've often wondered if China would have the balls to forcefully take over operations of the Tesla factory in China and blatantly steal their IP. I could see it happening if tensions got high enough between the western world and China.

Yes, avoiding/mitigating the virus causes lots of issues. There is the other side of the coin which is... the virus itself. What are the health (and death) issues for those who get the virus, their family member, their social network, work network and the community where they live? And those who have been around someone shortly before they tested positive? What happens to a family when a member is diagnosed positive. Lots of mental anguish for everyone. First waiting (feeling sick but not knowing if it is the virus). Then getting tested. Then waiting for results (Sometimes a week). Then contacting everyone they have been in close contact with that you may have spread the virus to them and their ‘bubble’. But you do not know. Once results come in, if it is positive, then return phone calls to lots of people. Lots of explanations. Other people then need to decide if they need to quarantine (or physically distance). Testing? Notify others? I can see how individuals can get ostracized over being around a positive test. And it you test positive yourself... not good. Think about all the mental anguish the millions who have tested positive (and their families and their social networks have gone through). And of course there are the tens of thousands who have lost their life to the virus... lots of stress and anguish for everydoby there too. And tragedy of course. Not to mention what all the front line workers are going through every day (health care, food production, grocery stores etc). Soon teachers are going to be in the thick of it. The virus is wickedly complicated. That is why it should be managed by health care professionals and the politicians should stay in the shadows. In terms of how it has been handled by developed countries the US response to the virus is near the bottom of the list. 7 days to get a test result? In August? Gates said delays that long make testing useless. Crazy. But that is what you get with Trump as President. (And yes, it really is that simple.) 323m in lockdown > 5m positive Covid. Of the 20ish people I know who have had Covid. Not a single one has had “anguish”. Maybe one of them, but they were elderly so it’s understandable as they’re high risk. Perhaps the media should stops making it sound like if you get Covid you have been diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer. 13% of the population takes anti depressants. And the AMA agrees that the majority of cases go undiagnosed. 48k people already commit suicide in the US every year. https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/advance-article/doi/10.1093/qjmed/hcaa202/5857612 Ben Franklin “A working man is a happy man. And idle man, is a most unhappy man.” I’m not saying open everything up. Just saying I think it deserves more attention.

Is anyone aware of more current studies touching in the correlation between unemployment and deaths? There is an older study often referenced which says for every 1% unemployment goes up, roughly 35k people die. Well sitting at 11% in the US (if true) we’re looking at 300k plus deaths. This is going to be a balancing game longterm. You can only overlook suicides, poor home situations, elderly people locked up wasting away, and general mental health concerns so long. Cabin fever isn’t good.

Same, not to mention there are over a dozen segments which AMD doesn't compete with Intel in.

Classic. Xenophobic rant when called out for using misleading stats. Didn’t you claim protests had no substantial influence on spread? 30m+ people protesting and rioting in the streets for over two months....

WFC - Broke even on my position. Plenty of other good banks out there at good prices. I think the thesis should be kept relatively simple. Too many "if they dos" for my liking. Couple that with the current environment and I'd rather try to find a better place for my money. I do believe there will be plenty of opportunities to re-enter a position within the next year should I change my mind.

Grocery store price increases aren't necessarily due to inflation. I think they can be more attributed to a lack of production in the meat slaughterhouses and produce farms. Also price gouging to prevent hording is also an aspect. It probably would be better to watch prices on consumer goods that are not "necessary". You very well may find inflation there, but I cannot speak to that.

Bullshit! You pretty much have to wear a mask anywhere you go in Ontario for a long time. I was a Skeptical too. But they do live in a small town so maybe the guidelines there are different. At the very least I figured Toronto and big cities would have mandates.