Castanza

Why would anyone waste their time with this when we are in the middle of a 30+ percent off sale for the broader market?

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1245876816922972162?s=21

You guys make me feel like a peasant shitting all over my Dunkin ;D Yeah it’s not private coffee shop quality, but it does the job and is cheap. My indifference towards bad coffee drives my brother in-law crazy since he owns a coffee company, meets with Starbucks big wigs and has some fancy certification in coffee tasting. ;D (whatever the hell that means) FWIW I enjoy a good coffee and pastry like the next guy. Best coffee/bakery I’ve ever been to has to be Fox In The Snow Cafe in Columbus. If you ever make it out there it’s worth a stop. @Spek, I agree on the “grunt” statement. Exactly why I put it in the too hard pile. Starbucks is simply the “Apple” of coffee and that warrants some amount of premium.

I edged back into RTN today. Nothing substantial, but hoping to add in pretty good size over the next few trading days/weeks (pending price movement). Not many thoughts on the merger. Simply adds to the already diverse portfolio of RTN. Long term play for sure.

I was hoping to see this dip back into the 40’s. DNKN also looks a bit interesting although their leverage and the whole “asset lite” thing always gives me pause. I never know how to views companies like them, MCD and other franchise chains because of that. So generally I just stay away.

AER CTL

Exactly. Once I got past the laughter of yet another Chinese company fudging numbers I was wondering the same thing. Hopefully this presents a better buy opportunity in SBUX.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/luckin-coffee-shares-sink-83-after-special-committee-investigates-misconduct-suspends-chief-operating-officer-2020-04-02

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-04-01/how-much-water-do-google-data-centers-use-billions-of-gallons

This is great and noble. And I got a laugh out of it because I picture the real Castanza doing this, which would be comical. ;D Dr. Art Vandelay

Overall doing well. I have taken a good thumping initially but have had enough cash to average down on a few long positions. I have also had some good luck trading a few equities and buying some puts to free up more cash. Trying to be patient from here as I was quick to jump back in initially. There seems to be a lack of activity on the "What Are You Buying?" thread lately so I'm guessing others are doing the same? Jobwise my wife is busy (healthcare). It's an odd situation because financially it's comforting to be in healthcare yet from the personal risk standpoint it's somewhat concerning. We are both young and healthy so lord willing if we happen to come down with it we should live to see another day. I have to say my wife is encouraging in this situation because she has the mentality of "I signed up to provide care and care I will provide through hell or high water." I do not condemn those in healthcare who take a leave of absence, quit or have some type of underlying condition or potentially pose a risk to loved ones. Also if they feel they aren't properly protected it's completely understandable! But my wife being young, also having no kids and only being exposed to each other is taking all of this in stride. On the side of this I actually got a call last night about the volunteer position at her hospital. I begin next week (at least training) and will work just a few days a week (evening shift) to help run errands, resupply carts, stock rooms, etc. Don't really know what to expect. I have to fill out daily reports on my health and the hospital will be taking my temp upon arrival of my shift. My guess (and my wifes) is that I will be running supplies from the hospital staging area to the tents they put up outside. It seems like they are trying to create a buffer zone between the hospital and covid central as best they can. This will be a good way to get out of the house and do something supportive of the real heroes out there. I've been pent up for a little over 4 weeks now and the only thing that placates my stir craziness currently is my daily 5 mile lunch break jog.

Yeah you should go spend your time posting more nonsense like this: "If patient is a male and rolls vagina = anus first then repeat test with same used swab in their own throat If patient is a female and rolls penis = anus first then repeat test with same used swab in their own throat." "Maybe I should borrow a petri dish from VIDO SK of corvo19 and redeplloy it on to Trumps wife's orifices and whils the supposedly Manchild Broods with little mama he may just perish ims a week or sol? Just saying cuz you Americans our Fuked you know dominoes fell dudes so step up maybe and grow a pair maybe Enough is Enough when little Canada can put him in his place and not his own residents geesh"

Please go seek help. But I meant to say "Roughneck" which admittedly has a much different connotation. But is widely used in the industry to describe the low men on the totem pole.

At my wife’s hospital, managements response to all of this has been complete nonsense. They told staff they aren’t allowed to wear masks unless they are in direct oversight of a patient with a confirmed case because it “scares” other patients. They also said you’re not allowed to wear your scrubs outside of the hospital because it could cause public panic. At least blame it on supply issues. This is one of the highest level hospitals on the east coast....people want to blame leadership all the way at the top (and they deserve a lot) but the leadership at “boots in the ground” levels have been abysmal as well.

Skilled worked shouldn’t be a problem. The article quoted by LC seems to say that "Skilled worked shouldn’t be a problem" is a myth. But what about all those people fired from factories in Midwest? IDK. Maybe they are not skilled enough? Maybe they are in a wrong place (labor geographic mobility is way lower than needed). Or all the O&G rubber necks

+1 If you need laptop only functionality and ergonomics etc. But... A dock and a pair of screens also makes a huge difference working from home. I'd rather have some $300 Walmart laptop with a dock and 2-3 screens than only a 15in + Macbook Pro to work from. I guess it depends what you'll be running but even for tedious document filling two screens is better. edit: I will add, there is no way I would buy a $2300 laptop for a temporary work from home situation. But that's just me.

Knicks fans rejoicing everywhere. (Sarcasm of course....although I’m sure some assholes are) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/sports/basketball/coronavirus-james-dolan-knicks.html

Why do you have an obsession with me? Literally every comment I make you immediately respond. Half the time you say something either extremely cryptic or unreadable as if your in a drunken stupor. My guess is you think my opinion is far different than what it actually is.

The second doctor is a boob. He is making some very interesting logical errors. Firstly, he claims, without proof that covid-19 is widespread - at some points he conflates covid-19 with other strains of coronavirus, which he says represent 10-17% of common colds, and then uses that conflation to claim that covid-19 is probably as widespread as the common cold. Then he takes the unfounded leap that if covid-19 is so widespread, maybe we are mis-attributing mortality. Someone who dies and tests positive with covid-19, according to this guys faulty logic, may have died from something else. Musk made a similar dubious argument regarding the Italy death data on twitter, arguing since the dead often had other underlying conditions, maybe it was those conditions that resulted in their death and not covid-19. This line of reasoning lacks even the most basic understanding of pathology and causation. If an elderly person with heart disease, for example, died and tested positive for covid-19, the cause of death can be reasonably determined. Covid-19 infection serious enough to cause death presents with a severe ground-glass pattern pneumonia, decreased oxygenation, fever, increased white blood cell count (and a myriad of other objective measurements) that are NOT present in a cardiac death. To disingeniously claim that we can not tell the difference is so ignorant of the basic facts it would be laughable in any other circumstance. M. I’m not claiming the validity of eithers arguments. Simply saying it’s interesting to see differing opinions. Hence the (fwiw). What were your thoughts on the first?

FWIW: Differing opinions from doctors. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=793985471088619&id=100014315194592&_rdr https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=793945707759262&id=100014315194592&_rdr

Could be supplier issues on the backend as well. Just because a restaurant is ready to open doesn’t mean their special flour supplier will be up and running. Breweries could have issues with hops and other perishable supplies or possibly oversupply of beer and no bottle to put it in. Just a guess, but there will probably be 2nd and 3rd order supply chain issues at least for some amount of time.

The definition of "Affluenflammation"

Oh, yeah - don't disagree with the CoBF experts here. They have everyone's motivations figured out. And they just love to pile on. So far I've gathered this: 1. Only Republicans can practice cognitive dissidence. 2. Multiple individuals have now said that regardless of outcome and regardless of hindsight analysis, their approach will still be correct and any rebuttal will be wrong. 3. There is no such things as riding the fence and trying to approach issues/decisions with some amount of skepticism. If you're not 100% with the herd you're a charlatan, denier, etc.

Some mostly unrelated thought what might happen: 1) There will be an onslaught of lawsuits. Covid-19 infection at work - lawsuit. Restaurant (preferably a deep pocketed chain) has a Covid-19 infected worker who may infect people - lawsuit. US sues China? 2) Cheesecake Factory told landlords they that don’t pay rent in April. It’s not that they can’t pay, they just decided not too. Evict us, if you don’t like it. unlikely that they will remain the only one. Just not paying your bill might become a national sport? Calvinball time? 3) Bankruptcy courts may get clogged up for a long time from the volume of cases. What happens if you declare bankruptcy and can’t get court date? I’ have no idea. 4) UK’s credit rating just got downgraded from AA to AA-. What about hard hit countries like Italy or Spain? This is probably causing another debt crisis in Europe and elsewhere. Is the US safe? 5) Even with the aid packet, I don’t think the airlines will last a long time - they will run out of cash in a couple of month, due to operating leverage. how can they restart national flights with hotspots all over the place. NY and NJ quarantined? other hotspots will flare up? International flights are even worse. 6) Even if you open up restaurants and small service business open up, will customer come back? What is safe, how can we tell? This is our first recession that is led by the service industry, which employs way more people than manufacturing or any other sector 7) President talk a out quarantining NY and NJ, what are the consequence of this. Are other states going to be closing borders too? I don’t think this was ever done before - US becoming more like the EU? Less than an hour after the stimulus bill was signed UAL said they won’t be able to pay workers past September....Simply amazing. This type of talk is coming from anyone and everyone big and small business. Just last night there was a lady who called in to the Joe Biden townhall and said she and her husband owned 3 bars and a spa in NYC. They needed cash to stay afloat. The kicker is she threw out the sympathy card that she was pregnant and quickly followed up with “we don’t believe in loans, we believe in grants.” Most other callers said the same thing. Point being, this could be interesting moving forward in terms of which group will be receiving more money and in which form.

The partisan nature is primarily media driven in my opinion. Conservatives don’t want to feel like morons who overreact to a “little old flu.” And Democrats don’t want to be left feeling like a “selfish asshole” who has no sympathy for the struggling family. There is probably a good quote to sum that up. Personally I’m back and forth with it. I try to avoid the bandwagon herd mentality and approach stuff with some level of skepticism. I also can’t get past the idea of building models on flawed numbers or insufficient data. I said it before but if I had to guess this will end up being between H1N1 number infected and SARS deaths. What I care more about is the approach and how it affects the economy and the future of this country. I think any type of lockdown beyond 1 month is going to be very difficult in the US. Both from a logistical and social acceptance standpoint. Some have said fear is a good motivator. It absolutely is, and every dictator would agree with that haha. But judging from the lockdown videos I’ve seen online in India and other countries. You’re going to end up with a lot of dead law enforcement if you have police beating individuals with sticks because they broke curfew. Have we forgotten the Hong Kong protests? Do we think the Wuhan approach was much different than that? For the record , I’m not against a lockdown of that duration (1mo). But beyond that I think it would be time to re-evaluate the situation and consider some type of “soft opening” for lower risk individuals. I guess time will tell. I like your insight into “context”. Makes sense on a societal level.