Castanza

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.

I was at the Toyota Dealership yesterday and it was as packed as ever. They took precautions in the waiting rooms and at the front desks, but it was business as usual (with some extra sanitation)

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?

http://clarkstreetvalue.blogspot.com/?_sm_au_=iVVRJKkSLk3H2HD62fFCLKQVsL14F Interesting take

You believe the market has priced in the chance coronavirus has hastened the end of these companies? The possibility of being made illegal? This is the kind of speculation that convinces me that these companies are amazing buys right now. You think such speculation is irrational? H.R. 2339 - Protecting American Lungs and Reversing the Youth Tobacco Epidemic Act of 2020 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2339 NYSAFP calls for ban on the sale of all tobacco and vaping products during pandemic https://wbng.com/2020/03/22/nysafp-calls-for-ban-on-the-sale-of-all-tobacco-and-vaping-products-during-pandemic/ Altria: The Potential Long-Term Impacts From The Coronavirus https://seekingalpha.com/article/4333611-altria-potential-long-term-impacts-from-coronavirus I agree, this is absolutely possible (although an outright ban is unlikely). Prohibition already happened in the US. You've got to love American politics. The same people calling for a ban on tobacco products are also advocating for the legalization of marijuana ;D

https://training.fema.gov/emiweb/downloads/is208sdmunit3.pdf Details local and State governments job in a crisis. Communication was poor all around (fed, state, local). Edit: It was only 5 days ago 48 states declared an emergency.

This is utter bullshit. This situation is why you have federal/national governments. In order to have a large coordinated response to large scale problems that don't care about borders or your political views. It doesn't get more textbook than a pandemic. I agree with rb. Cuomo just said today NYS is paying 7$/mask because they are competing with other states. This is where federal government is supposed to step in. And I don’t disagree with that....but states were slow to communicate to federal government what was needed. Who has better visibility into local hospitals and what supplies they do and don’t have? States do. That is all I’m saying.

This is utter bullshit. This situation is why you have federal/national governments. In order to have a large coordinated response to large scale problems that don't care about borders or your political views. It doesn't get more textbook than a pandemic. Did I say all responsibility? No....the states should have acted quickly to lockdown their own communities. Also is it the federal govts job to stockpile goods for local hospitals across the country or should that be up the the state? It’s not bullshit at all. The federal level is for directing at a high level. Federal is there to backup what States need assistance with. The State is responsible for localities and their response. They have much better visibility into supplies and needs than the federal government.

That could also be true and we could avoid blaming him for any delays prior to that. Pretty unrealistic to assume Trump's only info on COVID-19 prior to 1/14 was directly from China but it doesn't actual affect my argument so I'll concede the point. 10 days later the Senate was briefed by Fauci and others. By the end of January there was more than sufficient public information to begin preparing the US. During February, the standard line was that this was a Democratic hoax. I'm mostly referring to late-January to the end of February period. Senators accused of insider information said public information by January 24th convinced them that it was worth selling stocks (including CNBC's coverage of China). There must have been more than sufficient info for Trump, who has more non-public information than any human on the planet. I don't disagree, there probably could have and should have been action sooner. But to go along with this, there has to be some weight given to the discretion taken to shut down the US economy. When the US shuts down the whole world will feel it much more than if Italy shuts down. I'm just saying it's not an easy decision to make and it's certainly not a binary as some on here would like to proclaim. Don't disagree but so far it's been a location-based decision to shut down in the US. I'm sure those are simultaneous because of pressure from the federal government. Further, that all of Europe was simultaneously shutdown made it prudent for the US to act now if it was ever going to do it. It would be most effective in concert. Europe was likely waiting for US until Italy became overwhelmed and could no longer delay. Maybe US was waiting on Europe though? If we had all addressed this early, it would've been a short 2 weeks with a lot of optimism on the other side. To clarify: In 1918-1919, many large cities in the US had similar shutdowns to right now for weeks at a time. Many nations had shutdowns as the virus arrived. I don't think it's shocking that a shutdown was coming or necessary. For that reason, I don't blame Trump for pushing for a shutdown at all. I criticize the delay and the additional costs and time associated with that delay. That we still don't have a plan 7 weeks later is why I feel comfortable suggesting Trump will ultimately face much of the blame (no idea about politics, this is purely a history guess). I think some (not all) but some of the slow response and lack of leadership in the US is a result of the degradation of the state’s responsibilities. When all is said and done, I hope state examine themselves and how they responded.

That could also be true and we could avoid blaming him for any delays prior to that. Pretty unrealistic to assume Trump's only info on COVID-19 prior to 1/14 was directly from China but it doesn't actual affect my argument so I'll concede the point. 10 days later the Senate was briefed by Fauci and others. By the end of January there was more than sufficient public information to begin preparing the US. During February, the standard line was that this was a Democratic hoax. I'm mostly referring to late-January to the end of February period. Senators accused of insider information said public information by January 24th convinced them that it was worth selling stocks (including CNBC's coverage of China). There must have been more than sufficient info for Trump, who has more non-public information than any human on the planet. I don't disagree, there probably could have and should have been action sooner. But to go along with this, there has to be some weight given to the discretion taken to shut down the US economy. When the US shuts down the whole world will feel it much more than if Italy shuts down. I'm just saying it's not an easy decision to make and it's certainly not a binary as some on here would like to proclaim.

Is this not also a disservice? Trump isn’t wrong that China was not very cooperative in the beginning. Not saying he isn’t guilty of any “coverup” himself. Simply saying misinformation and lack of accurate information was rampant from the start.

That's known facts but US is/was a manufacturing powerhouse - it won't take long to catchup. It's about people's will. Rollup the sleeves and get to work! i think big companies will rethink supply chain moving forward - China is holding too many cards - the manufacturing, and the intellectual properties! Good luck with the mobster unions around

A good read about charity and governments role as we enter this time of lockdown and economic stagnation. https://fee.org/resources/not-your-to-give/

Never let a good crisis go to waste right? This type of request has never been granted. Absolutely insane. The closes thing was the despicable handling of the Japanese during wwii. Katrina also had some similar stuff happen. Hundreds of law abiding citizens had their guns confiscated leaving their homes, businesses, vulnerable to looting. What exactly is the text of the request that you're saying has never been granted before? Many district courts, on their own authority, have already suspended all civil and criminal trials and have excluded that time from counting toward the requirements of the Speedy Trial Act, with specific exceptions to be granted on a case-by-case basis. To my knowledge, however, no district court has suspended proceedings entirely, which would effectively suspend the writ of habeas corpus in that district (but query whether, in the event a federal district court was closed and thus there were no federal habeas venue, a state court could assume jurisdiction to grant a writ even to a federal prisoner, assuming Congress had not suspending the writ). The primary qualm is the request to detain individuals without due process indefinitely without trial.

Never let a good crisis go to waste right? This type of request has never been granted. Absolutely insane. The closes thing was the despicable handling of the Japanese during wwii. Katrina also had some similar stuff happen. Hundreds of law abiding citizens had their guns confiscated leaving their homes, businesses, vulnerable to looting.

Let’s not forget all the stuff behind the scenes being passed. Patriot Act signed again DOJ just asked congress if it could suspend due process.

RTN still relatively cheap, and will probably see another leg down.

I don't see Spirit on there. Interesting. They have been excluded from pretty much all coverage. It is kind of strange.

SARS was primarily treated with antibiotics. A vaccine didn’t arrive until the end of the outbreak. For those in the medical community wouldn’t antibiotics generally have a quicker response? Vaccines typical take a week or so to build immunity and still might not be effective.

Yes, I am looking at this thread as a means to develop a framework. I am not keen on predicting the future, but I do want to have a framework in place, in order to understand what might happen. It is easier to make sense of events as they unfold, if you have a mental model (or several of them ideally) and then test them against the new developments and data coming in. Simple example - Andrew Young’s UBI. This was fringe idea proposed by a fringe candidate and seems outlandish and quite frankly it is socialist, but look at where we are know? This idea has gone from fringe to mainstream and Trump may sent out checks very soon. That’s a huge paradigm shift. I asked in the Coronavorus Thread if a health insurer could go bankrupt. Most seem to think no, which probably is right. But what happens if we get a pandemic and it makes a large insurer like UNH insolvent? Quite frankly, their capital cushion isn’t all that impressive and if there is a huge surge in claims, I could see that happen. What would happen then? Nationalization? Bailout? In what Form? And what would happen to the insured? Medicare for all? It‘s just a possible scenarios and purely speculative, but I guess we will see in the next 12 month things that we never thought to be possible. At least that’s my thinking. I also like the term New Deal 2.0 because I think that what I think we will be getting. I have no idea what it will look like though. It’s an interesting time to be alive and hopefully stay that way. My opinion of this bailout is changing very quickly. Seems like there is no hope of it being a loan and therefore no personal responsibility attached. I plan on mailing mine back if this is nothing but a handout.