Liberty Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signals-growing-weariness-with-social-distancing-and-other-steps-advocated-by-health-officials/2020/03/23/0920ea0a-6cfc-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html Trump has begun canvassing his advisers, GOP Senators and other allies about what his course of action should be, according to a senior administration official. He is worried about the impact of soaring unemployment and severe economic contraction on his 2020 presidential reelection bid, and fielded phone calls for much of the weekend from alarmed business leaders. He remains fixated on the plummeting stock market, is chafing at the idea of the country remaining closed until the summer and growing tired of talking only about coronavirus, one person said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERICOPOLY Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signals-growing-weariness-with-social-distancing-and-other-steps-advocated-by-health-officials/2020/03/23/0920ea0a-6cfc-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html Trump has begun canvassing his advisers, GOP Senators and other allies about what his course of action should be, according to a senior administration official. He is worried about the impact of soaring unemployment and severe economic contraction on his 2020 presidential reelection bid, and fielded phone calls for much of the weekend from alarmed business leaders. He remains fixated on the plummeting stock market, is chafing at the idea of the country remaining closed until the summer and growing tired of talking only about coronavirus, one person said. I was wondering when Trump would get bored of talking about coronavirus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/health/coronavirus-restrictions-us.html Also, maybe now would be a good time to lift the tariffs on China and others... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hjorth Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 Danish Health Authority [March 22nd 2020] : Managing COVID-19: forecast and capacity in Denmark for intensive therapy. [unfortunately only available in Danish.] - - - o 0 o - - - At least a stab at forward looking management of capacity - with regard to alone one scarce resource [ventilators - [in Danish called respirators]]. Better than nothing. - - - o 0 o - - - Has any fellow board member read something like this for any other country? [Personally, I find this report bold, because the trajectory of the Danish epedemic is still highly uncertain.] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 The real issue isn't the bats themselves, or even humans eating them per se, it's keeping bats and a host of other animals like civets, raccoon dogs, pangolins, etc. in so called wet markets where viruses endemic to bats have a chance to jump species and eventually make the jump to humans. Most of these viruses would never be a threat to humans if they weren't placed in crowded conditions with a number of species where they can rapidly mutate and become infectious to multiple species. SARS was a warning we never took seriously. Hopefully post-Covid19 we'll see these type of markets have much stricter requirements when it comes to separating different types of animals, if not shut down entirely. SARS was a warning that Chinese Communist Party never took seriously. I know you mean "we" as a humankind, but that absolves CCP of any responsibility. No one else was in position to shut down these wet markets. Once this ordeal is over, the world should unite and hold CCP accountable. H1N1 originated in Mexico and the Spanish flu most likely in the US. It is true that the Comunist party is at fault her, but let’s face it the condition in many 2nd world countries and perhaps even 1st world countries with industrialized animal breeder make something like this likely to occur. If you watch the series Pandemic in Netflix you get idea that there are several outbreaks in several places in the world at any time. Most of them stay under control , but if not we now know happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uccmal Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signals-growing-weariness-with-social-distancing-and-other-steps-advocated-by-health-officials/2020/03/23/0920ea0a-6cfc-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html Trump has begun canvassing his advisers, GOP Senators and other allies about what his course of action should be, according to a senior administration official. He is worried about the impact of soaring unemployment and severe economic contraction on his 2020 presidential reelection bid, and fielded phone calls for much of the weekend from alarmed business leaders. He remains fixated on the plummeting stock market, is chafing at the idea of the country remaining closed until the summer and growing tired of talking only about coronavirus, one person said. I was wondering when Trump would get bored of talking about coronavirus. The guy is so stupid it’s unreal. Hundreds of thousands of Americans dying from this would help his re-election chances? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perulv Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 Danish Health Authority [March 22nd 2020] : Managing COVID-19: forecast and capacity in Denmark for intensive therapy. [unfortunately only available in Danish.] - - - o 0 o - - - At least a stab at forward looking management of capacity - with regard to alone one scarce resource [ventilators - [in Danish called respirators]]. Better than nothing. - - - o 0 o - - - Has any fellow board member read something like this for any other country? [Personally, I find this report bold, because the trajectory of the Danish epedemic is still highly uncertain.] Actually, it was an interesting article in our regional paper today, where the local hospital (Helse Vest, Norways second largest) had made some prognosis based on the current social-distancing measures. It is in Norwegian, which I know you kan read John, but it is also behind a pay wall :/ (https://www.bt.no/nyheter/lokalt/i/50qVoK/haukeland-venter-under-200-koronapasienter-paa-topp) I've attached a couple of screenshots. The main idea is that "the curve is actually flattening" (Edit: "our prognosis indicate that this will actually flatten the curve enough" is probably a more correct description) , and never reaching the limit of intensive-care beds. This should probably taken with several grains of salt, but promising nevertheless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 This guy is great. Explains what the army corps of engineers will do to create temporary ICU-like spaces: I agree. I think people would have a whole lot more confidence if they let those “can do“ people do the talking rather than the muppets in the Oval Office. I think at least one “hotel hospital“ in my area is being worked on for needed surge capacity right now as I learned though my wife, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERICOPOLY Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 Trump is live on CNN. Beep... beep... beep... He's talking about getting things going again after this introductory 15 days is up. Said it will make a lot of corporations happy. Confirms what the Washington Post printed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hjorth Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 Danish Health Authority [March 22nd 2020] : Managing COVID-19: forecast and capacity in Denmark for intensive therapy. [unfortunately only available in Danish.] - - - o 0 o - - - At least a stab at forward looking management of capacity - with regard to alone one scarce resource [ventilators - [in Danish called respirators]]. Better than nothing. - - - o 0 o - - - Has any fellow board member read something like this for any other country? [Personally, I find this report bold, because the trajectory of the Danish epedemic is still highly uncertain.] Actually, it was an interesting article in our regional paper today, where the local hospital (Helse Vest, Norways second largest) had made some prognosis based on the current social-distancing measures. It is in Norwegian, which I know you kan read John, but it is also behind a pay wall :/ (https://www.bt.no/nyheter/lokalt/i/50qVoK/haukeland-venter-under-200-koronapasienter-paa-topp) I've attached a couple of screenshots. The main idea is that "the curve is actually flattening" (Edit: "our prognosis indicate that this will actually flatten the curve enough" is probably a more correct description) , and never reaching the limit of intensive-care beds. This should probably taken with several grains of salt, but promising nevertheless. Thank you so much for sharing, Per, Yes, it's actually a token of some kind of management of the situation, quantifying "where we are", and "what to do [next]", to stay ahead of how the situation evolves over time. -Much more important than "fire fighting" - here, there & everywhere ... - after which the next "surprise" is like doomed to be unpleasant - very - for all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signals-growing-weariness-with-social-distancing-and-other-steps-advocated-by-health-officials/2020/03/23/0920ea0a-6cfc-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html Trump has begun canvassing his advisers, GOP Senators and other allies about what his course of action should be, according to a senior administration official. He is worried about the impact of soaring unemployment and severe economic contraction on his 2020 presidential reelection bid, and fielded phone calls for much of the weekend from alarmed business leaders. He remains fixated on the plummeting stock market, is chafing at the idea of the country remaining closed until the summer and growing tired of talking only about coronavirus, one person said. I was wondering when Trump would get bored of talking about coronavirus. It's about two things: His hotels and resorts (and how much he's hurt financially), and his gambling that this might be better for the election. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 This guy is great. Explains what the army corps of engineers will do to create temporary ICU-like spaces: I agree. I think people would have a whole lot more confidence if they let those “can do“ people do the talking rather than the muppets in the Oval Office. I think at least one “hotel hospital“ in my area is being worked on for needed surge capacity right now as I learned though my wife, They should turn over the whole thing to the epidemiologists and the army engineers and such, get the politicians out of the daily briefings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 Trump is live on CNN. Beep... beep... beep... He's talking about getting things going again after this introductory 15 days is up. Said it will make a lot of corporations happy. Confirms what the Washington Post printed. So he's basically aiming for doing worse than Italy... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/23/coronavirus-trump-says-businesses-could-reopen-soon-while-fighting-covid.html Let's hope this thing just happens to be highly seasonal and his dumb luck holds one more time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viking Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 Trump is live on CNN. Beep... beep... beep... He's talking about getting things going again after this introductory 15 days is up. Said it will make a lot of corporations happy. Confirms what the Washington Post printed. So he's basically aiming for doing worse than Italy... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/23/coronavirus-trump-says-businesses-could-reopen-soon-while-fighting-covid.html Let's hope this thing just happens to be highly seasonal and his dumb luck holds one more time. Ok, as has been stated Trump is clearly wanting to get the economy moving in the next week or two. What exactly this means is up in the air. The question of the day was something like “will this message not submarine your social distancing message”. The answer was something like “no, this message will motivate people to do a good job over the next week with social distancing so they can get back to normal shortly thereafter”. I bought a bunch of stock today thinking buy and hold. If Trump ignores the advice of his medical experts and opens up the economy my guess is we may see a relief rally in stocks. And i will likely sell everything again and sit in cash. My guess is the virus will reemerge in clusters in many more parts of the country, we will then go back to lock down, and the stock market will plunge yet again. Trump really is doing the best he can. I believe that. And it scares the hell out of me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 Trump is live on CNN. Beep... beep... beep... He's talking about getting things going again after this introductory 15 days is up. Said it will make a lot of corporations happy. Confirms what the Washington Post printed. So he's basically aiming for doing worse than Italy... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/23/coronavirus-trump-says-businesses-could-reopen-soon-while-fighting-covid.html Let's hope this thing just happens to be highly seasonal and his dumb luck holds one more time. Ok, as has been stated Trump is clearly wanting to get the economy moving in the next week or two. What exactly this means is up in the air. The question of the day was something like “will this message not submarine your social distancing message”. The answer was something like “no, this message will motivate people to do a good job over the next week with social distancing so they can get back to normal shortly thereafter”. I bought a bunch of stock today thinking buy and hold. If Trump ignores the advice of his medical experts and opens up the economy my guess is we may see a relief rally in stocks. And i will likely sell everything again and sit in cash. My guess is the virus will reemerge in clusters in many more parts of the country, we will then go back to lock down, and the stock market will plunge yet again. Trump really is doing the best he can. I believe that. And it scares the hell out of me. He was talking about a big celebration, before in his first meeting. Clearly a big gamble is probably his bets chance to get re-elected, if it doesn’t work..oh well. In this crisis, we will see a huge difference between countries with strong leadership and and poor one sadly also good luck vs bad luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongHaul Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 BTW - Japan seems to be doing. Huge culture of wearing masks. Highly recommend it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubsfan Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 Capacity during non-pandemic times is low to begin with since there’s little demand. But also the entire global supply chain was outsourced to China. China is requisitioning all the masks made in China.. So there’s inadequate domestic industrial capacity to ramp up production. 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! https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/23/end-chinas-chokehold-on-pharmaceuticals/ One of the most important lessons here is that China controls our healthcare. This is no exaggeration. From pharmaceutical building blocks to finished drugs and components in diagnostic medical equipment, our chief global rival has complete monopoly on the tools we need to diagnose, treat, control and cure disease. A strong domestic healthcare manufacturing base is as much a matter of national security and defense as it is of public health and augurs the very survival of a nation. The current coronavirus epidemic arose from the very conditions due to which we lost our manufacturing independence: China lacks health and safety standards that allow it to price us out of competition by flooding the market with cheap and frequently substandard goods and medications. in an article in Xinhua, the state-run media agency considered the mouthpiece of the Communist party, China bragged that it could throttle pharmaceutical exports and plunge America into “the mighty sea of coronavirus.” This demonstrably underscores our vulnerability to the weaponization of foreign-sourced supply chains and its potential to be used as leverage in times of national crisis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
no_free_lunch Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 I am at just under 90% equity allocation. All based on a rough estimate that it will soon peak in Italy and Spain. I don't feel great about the valuation s but what can you do. Relative to treasuries equities are cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary17 Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 Ramp up max production ask people over 60 stay home people under 60 wear masks to work / school for 1 month until this whole thing is under control or drugs found economy not killed yes wearing masks sucks for western society - better than completely killing the economy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samwise Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56 Another good read: The Hammer and the Dance Liberty, thanks for sharing. First article I’ve seen which describes a plausible long term strategy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Schwab711 Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 We do have to get back at some point but the economy isn't going to recover instantly if stay at home not mandated. Restaurant eating and entertainment spend will severely decline either way now that the population has been educated. Savings rate will sky rocket in the face of layoffs. No matter what we do or did, we were going into a severe recession and UE was going to skyrocket. Trump's ideas are and have been selfish and short sighted. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and we are computer keystrokes away from getting money to people. Stay the course. It would be foolish to allow mass death just to find we are still getting a severe recession either way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Schwab711 Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 There's no penalty right now for printing away problems. All money is relative. If all our trade partners spend the same amount proportionally to solve the same problems as the US, then FX and trade is preserved between states and wealth is preserved between citizens. Trump is suggesting bad ideas because he saw great depression talk in an election year. He's been wrong this whole time. We will be fine. Pandemics destroy capital and come with near-term economic pain. We can't pretend that away but we can save lives for a few hundred thousand a piece. Easiest deal in the world to make. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arcube Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 We do have to get back at some point but the economy isn't going to recover instantly if stay at home not mandated. Restaurant eating and entertainment spend will severely decline either way now that the population has been educated. Savings rate will sky rocket in the face of layoffs. No matter what we do or did, we were going into a severe recession and UE was going to skyrocket. Trump's ideas are and have been selfish and short sighted. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and we are computer keystrokes away from getting money to people. Stay the course. It would be foolish to allow mass death just to find we are still getting a severe recession either way. Spot on. Waiting for California numbers to start showing. I believe CA will eventually surpass NY and from all the local anecdotes, the worse is yet to come in CA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samwise Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 There's no penalty right now for printing away problems. All money is relative. If all our trade partners spend the same amount proportionally to solve the same problems as the US, then FX and trade is preserved between states and wealth is preserved between citizens. Trump is suggesting bad ideas because he saw great depression talk in an election year. He's been wrong this whole time. We will be fine. Pandemics destroy capital and come with near-term economic pain. We can't pretend that away but we can save lives for a few hundred thousand a piece. Easiest deal in the world to make. +1 printing money is one way to share the costs among society, but it won’t be equally shared. Those with fixed claims(cash or bonds) will suffer as the value of money goes down. Those with debt will have it easier. So it’s not quite a free pass with no redistribution of wealth. But I don’t see a better way either. This is possibly the best available option, unless you accept mass bankruptcy in people and businesses with its long term effects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardGibbons Posted March 24, 2020 Share Posted March 24, 2020 Hey Orthopa, you said that when you realized that you were wrong, you'd eat crow. I don't care about you eating crow, but took that as a statement that you'll be intellectually honest enough to change your hypothesis when the evidence contradicts your view. So, I'm curious when you'll decide that your hypothesis is incorrect. Quite a while ago, you seemed to believe COVID-19 would likely not be a big deal because you believed that there were already millions of cases in the USA (but almost none of it had showed up at the hospitals)? Have the exploding number of cases in New York changed your perspective yet? (Note that right now, New York state has 5% of the worldwide diagnosed COVID-19 cases, with 2,635 patients bad enough to be in hospitals, 621 in the ICU, and 114 deaths.) If you haven't changed your mind yet, do you have any thoughts about evidence that would make you change your mind? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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