Castanza

I was gonna say that this is a joke thread. But you post is in keeping with the spirit. The guy who votes no on everything but voted for the Trump tax cut. Yes. Thomas Massey... Paragon of fiscal responsibility! LOL!!! He voted for less taxes being paid. He would vote for less taxes for individuals as well. You’re making a false equivalence and then drawing your own conclusion. That’s the joke. What’s even funnier is you’re saying a congressman is an asshole for upholding his oath to obey the constitution...

It doesn't have to be 100% effective. More effective it is, the shorter it is, but I saw something that ~90% reduction in interactions lowers Ro such that infections will decline. 90% is not the same for every area and not exact Depending on how familiar you are with exponential behavior, the talk of Ro may or may not be helpful. What's important is non-perfect shutdowns work if they are generally effective Italy has clamped down and the lockdown is working. If they can do it, everyone can. Yes we can! Didn’t Italy just see a spike in cases?

Massie was right about a lot of his justification. I would link his tweet but my company has now blocked twitter to save bandwidth.... No, that guy is just an asshole. Read the tweet too. Btw, when John Kerry and Donald Trump can agree on one thing. You know it's true.... No, he was right. Fiscal responsibility shouldn’t be abandoned simply because emotions are high and people are losing their shit.

Maybe Canada can go ask China for military support.....

The American people are applauding a Bill that is a worse deal than any payday loan shop is guilty of. Think about that.

Massie was right about a lot of his justification. I would link his tweet but my company has now blocked twitter to save bandwidth....

I don't think it's possible to do a hard lock down in the US. Too many logistics involved. One way or another you are going to have millions of people making hundreds of interactions a day. No, I don't think the economy will keep chugging along on cruise control. But I think it would coast. I absolutely think people will go out to bars, go shopping, if they are allowed to work. But as I said, I think it would be best for High Risk individuals to stay home and quarantine. I also think some precaution of social distancing etc should take place. I'm not saying to allow stuff like Spring Break, or allow flights, concerts, sports, etc. I think people who are arguing for a hard shutdown are greatly misrepresenting the long term economic costs of that. To quote Bernanke "We just open up the computer and move the decimal point a few spots."

Everyone is trying to understand where we go from here. How long will the economic shut down last? Bill Gates, pretty smart guy, with access to virus experts. No dog in the race. His take is even with the current shut downs in New York and Washington State the virus numbers will not peak there until late April (think about that curve that is shown everywhere). And the shut downs will need to last another month afterwards. And that is if the whole US quickly follows suit. So his take is we might start to be able to open the economy up in early June (and based on what we see in China the restart of the economy is very slow and consumers are slow to spend given continuing fears of catching the virus and fear of job loss). A county by county approach will not work for the simple reason that peoples movements are not controlled. And the counties that go back to work will allow the virus to resume its exponential growth in those areas (their low numbers today will eventually become big numbers). Trying a county by county approach will only extend the economic shut down to even longer than indicated above. Counties that go back to work early will simply start seeding new clusters in their area and they will silently spread to other counties. Again, the movement of people is not controlled within the US. At some point you have to let people go back to work. The government cannot provide stimulus indefinitely. I think society needs to understand there is going to be pain with this....The idea that this could have been handled different with less pain is also not completely accurate (specific to the US). I said earlier it's impossible to lock down a country of this size which relies on personal transportation. I also don't think there is a realistic method (in the US) of squishing down the curve enough to avoid overwhelming a healthcare system which is built for AVERAGES. Tell people over 55 to stay home. If they have jobs provide them a loan which should be repaid. Otherwise let others get on with life. Encourage them to social distance outside of working hours. But, I have a hard time believing individuals are going to stay put for more than a month as it is. I'm sure a lot of you will disagree with this...But frankly I don't care. What's on the other side of a long term lock down is far more scary. With all due respect, it cracks me up when people say ‘can’t do it’. That is a completely false statement. If we have learned anything the last 2,000 years it is that humans survive because they adapt. The virus does not give a shit what you think you can or can’t do. I do know one thing: eventually a country will do what it takes to get the virus under control. They will need to make the pain stop. So they simply will have no choice in the end. All that matters is if you do the right thing or not. Right now you have a model staring you in the face that works: 6-10 week national lock down. If you try a different approach you are likely going to have a much worse health and economic outcome than the 6-10 weeks lock down plan. You just do not know it yet. But you will in another 2 or 3 weeks :-) And the longer you dither the worse the health and economic damage gets. The virus has hit well over 100 countries in the world. We have lots of examples as countries have tried to fight the virus. We also have decades of history of past virus outbreaks that provide useful information (obviously not the same but still useful). Lots is known about how to deal with this virus. Based on what is known once a country gets to the community transfer stage it has two options: 1.) lock down: if done china style, 6 weeks of pain. Radical lifestyle changes and manic testing regime. 2.) no lock down = prolonged shit show 300k National Guard members 900k Law Enforcement Officers Roughly 26k per state. Cities on a good day have 3-4k police officers. If you go full scale China lock down you will easily eat up half of the state resources for just the 2-3 major cities in each state. So you direct the rest to block highways and major roads? What about back roads? Who will deliver all the food to individuals doors like they did in China? Are ou going to tell people they can't go to the grocery store? It's a logistical nightmare. _________________ On the financial side what do we do? Let the Fed keep printing? None of these small businesses are going to get bailed out. Anything more than a month is ludicrous.

Yeah, everything you say in this paragraph after the first three sentences is pretty silly, so it's good that you don't care about people disagreeing with it. I find it very strange that some people are convinced that in a massively complex environment, shades of grey do not exist. Then provide a realistic solution to the last part "I said earlier it's impossible to lock down a country of this size which relies on personal transportation. I also don't think there is a realistic method (in the US) of squishing down the curve enough to avoid overwhelming a healthcare system which is built for AVERAGES" Locking down SK is very different than locking down the US. The US is 99x larger than SK and has over 250M more people....Is our healthcare system not designed based on averages?

Everyone is trying to understand where we go from here. How long will the economic shut down last? Bill Gates, pretty smart guy, with access to virus experts. No dog in the race. His take is even with the current shut downs in New York and Washington State the virus numbers will not peak there until late April (think about that curve that is shown everywhere). And the shut downs will need to last another month afterwards. And that is if the whole US quickly follows suit. So his take is we might start to be able to open the economy up in early June (and based on what we see in China the restart of the economy is very slow and consumers are slow to spend given continuing fears of catching the virus and fear of job loss). A county by county approach will not work for the simple reason that peoples movements are not controlled. And the counties that go back to work will allow the virus to resume its exponential growth in those areas (their low numbers today will eventually become big numbers). Trying a county by county approach will only extend the economic shut down to even longer than indicated above. Counties that go back to work early will simply start seeding new clusters in their area and they will silently spread to other counties. Again, the movement of people is not controlled within the US. At some point you have to let people go back to work. The government cannot provide stimulus indefinitely. I think society needs to understand there is going to be pain with this....The idea that this could have been handled different with less pain is also not completely accurate (specific to the US). I said earlier it's impossible to lock down a country of this size which relies on personal transportation. I also don't think there is a realistic method (in the US) of squishing down the curve enough to avoid overwhelming a healthcare system which is built for AVERAGES. Tell people over 55 to stay home. If they have jobs provide them a loan which should be repaid. Otherwise let others get on with life. Encourage them to social distance outside of working hours. But, I have a hard time believing individuals are going to stay put for more than a month as it is. I'm sure a lot of you will disagree with this...But frankly I don't care. What's on the other side of a long term lock down is far more scary.

Wife and I are doing the same. Also potentially have a volunteer position at her hospital restocking rooms, carts, and whatever else they need. Apparently they are asking spouses who are "working from home" and not exposed to others (except their spouse) since it cuts down on risk.

The causation of unemployment is very different in this situation when compared to the GFC. One was mandated by government, the other was not. The underlying factors as to why unemployment is spiking is important. “The underlying factors as to why unemployment is spiking is important.” Why? PS: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall BY MOTHER GOOSE Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again. Because on the other end of this there will be demand for workers (fill the positions they left). During the GFC there was not. That will be the difference in how the US economy starts back up.

The causation of unemployment is very different in this situation when compared to the GFC. One was mandated by government, the other was not. The underlying factors as to why unemployment is spiking is important.

Sold 50% INMD will let the rest ride.

Nobody was disagreeing with that.

This is an extremely good question (though I think you really mean "counter productive"), and is totally right. It's a hard one to answer. I'd certainly say that stocking up on PPE makes sense, as PPE is relatively inexpensive, and there could be large stores of PPE that get cycled through before expiry. Devices, not so much, but I think going forward, 3D printers could actually solve "just in time" device problem for most countries. I think it's pretty clear that the AOC crowd who seem to be saying "no price is too high for a life" doesn't make any sense. And it's clear that the "don't do anything" crowd has also been wrong, since USA could look like South Korea or Taiwan, but by not doing anything has ended up in a situation where the economy has crashed. 3D printing is interesting I don't think this question "And it's clear that the "don't do anything" crowd has also been wrong, since USA could look like South Korea or Taiwan, but by not doing anything has ended up in a situation where the economy has crashed." can be answered yet. The likely answer will be what it always is.....somewhere in the middle.

Best post on this thread so far. Thanks Sorry guys: The presence of these comorbidities might have increased the risk of mortality independent of COVID-19 infection. This is incorrect. Are you suggesting that people with preexisting conditions are not at a higher risk of dying? Not at all. They are definitely at a higher risk of dying. Without Covid-19, they would die at an expected rate. Right now in Italy, there is one exit door in a crowded theater that has suddenly caught on fire. So what was your point?

Best post on this thread so far. Thanks Sorry guys: The presence of these comorbidities might have increased the risk of mortality independent of COVID-19 infection. This is incorrect. Are you suggesting that people with preexisting conditions are not at a higher risk of dying?

I agree with this, and then of course the inevitable political bickering that will result from it. "Skeptics will think they are right." This is the type of thinking that allows for overreactions an emotions to bleed into inefficient and negligible policy. The idea that the most "hedged" response is always best response because it's the only guarantee against a worst case scenario is ridiculous. Healthcare capacity is built for averages. I said this in the beginning and it's still amazing that individuals on here are surprised that it's becoming overwhelmed in certain areas. So if we apply your extreme hedge mentality above to healthcare capacity what should the future look like? Should the government stockpile millions of various medical devices for every potential type of outbreak and thousands of pop up hospitals for the potential one in a hundred year pandemic? If we ran a cost benefit analysis of such a program are you confident that this stance would be correct? When does a hedge become counter intuitive? The current extreme hedge response of shutting down the US is adding 17k of debt per citizen, or 68k per family of 4. That is the average yearly income.

Best post on this thread so far. Thanks

I fully agree with you on the simplicity of bills. Sadly we don't live in that environment. But c'mon, this is a 2 trillion dollar there's room in there for everyone's hobbies - Republican and Democrat. Usually those are pretty cheap too. But they wanted a 500 billion fund with no oversight to be used at the discretion of the Treasury - read "Trump". Now seriously, I don't care who you are lefty, righty, republican, democrat, agnostic, stoner, libertarian, extraterrestrial you can't tell me with a straight face that you trust Trump with 500 billion, no strings attached. Start at 2:30 and see just a glimpse of all the add-ons. And no, I don’t trust Trump with 500B and I also don’t like the anonymity that was proposed for companies.

Went with a classic Yuengling tonight. The second best cheap beer (Hamms #1)

All I have to say about this Bill nonsense is that I agree with Justin Amash. Bills should be simple and on single issues. Every bill that hits the floor has hidden agendas and a bunch of unrelated nonsense attached to further degrade the freedoms of Americans while also further intrenching government. I mean how many times in the last two decades have we seen thousand page documents submitted and voted in all within 24hours. This is something everyone should be outraged about. From Obamacare to Omnibus the whole thing has been a joke. ————————— Investment wise, I think a bill (regardless of what it is) will bring some much needed stability to the market. Then again, I kind of like the volatility.

It took from January to March 5 to get to 100k cases. It took from March 5th to March 24th to get 400k. ^to test

Have been trading BRK and GOOG the past two weeks with good success with about 20% of my cash pile while also establishing a long position. A bottom is a best guess at this point. Near term, the only thing that seems likely to continue is high volatility. Why not use this to your advantage on stocks you would feel comfortable holding? Anyone else on the trading?