Life! (corona virus, non informative, non hysterical post)

Scoop47501

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My wife and I earlier today dropped off a birthday card to my sister. We decided to just check out Newport Beach while we were down that way. Holy damn crap!! Good thing we had our windows rolled up and recirculating air on. Weekday and the beaches were packed!! Thousands of people, huge groups, zero social distancing and no masks. Even one of the bars was open passing drinks outside. We only counted a very small handful wearing masks.

Here is the mind blower: Not one cop anywhere to be found on the whole peninsula. ZERO law enforcement except a few life guards. I have never seen this in my whole life!! The LEO presence is always around during the summer months. It was mayhem!! No parking enforcement and people arguing in the lots over parking spaces. I could not get out of there quick enough.

Consequently Newport Beach has some of the hugest number of covid cases in my county. This is damn horrible.
Cops are the bad guys now thanks to the media. No wonder they are not around.
 

Checkswrecks

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Unfortunately lots of folks choose to learn the hard way.
Made me remember this article from several months ago:

Bottom line is “Actions are driven by emotions, not rational thought” regarding the way many people reject authority or go into fight mode when stressed. I'm sure that all the police on the forum can tell long tales about this.
 

pooh and xtine

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The big question is whether or not the shutdown of life and the economy saved any lives at all, or did it just spread the same number of infections and deaths across 9 months instead of 5, for example? And the next big question is how will we respond to Covid-20 next year or the year after? Shut down the world again? Can we afford it? I always thought that the common cold would wipe out mankind: now I realise that it's mankind's lemming like response to the common cold that will be the end of us.
 
B

ballisticexchris

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Bottom line is “Actions are driven by emotions, not rational thought” regarding the way many people reject authority or go into fight mode when stressed. I'm sure that all the police on the forum can tell long tales about this.
I have always respected authority when it's warranted. In the case of enforcing the COVID rules it is.

Unfortunately there are a lot of "I do know it all" types who claim to know more than anyone and will belittle and attack anyone who does not see it their way. Those are the ones that are not to be respected or listened to at all.

I feel really bad for law enforcement right now. They are being treated horribly by the public. Had an older gentlemen employee at Cosco politely asked a young man to put on a mask or he would have to leave the store. The punk got into his face and screamed "I'm not listening to you old man". All the while spitting out his words and refusing to leave.
 

Checkswrecks

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Pooh and xtine -

Interesting that you just put life and the economy in a single sentence, as I'm listening to Bloomberg radio and a similar discussion has been on it yesterday and today after Dr. Fauci saying that some places may need to shut down again. (What is below in parenthesis is opinion from me and the rest is trying to relate what has been said.)

Your comment about 9 months rather than 5 is SO close to the economy discussion brought up by the CEO of one of the major banks and his comments then led to a LOT of discussion. Bloomberg is really good at trying to bring in true experts and leaders regardless of which side they come from and the experts they have been interviewing have been consistent and almost unanimous. They say that the shutdown absolutely did save lives and keep things from getting much worse because the hospitals were saturated to the point that they were able to care for most patients. Being more overwhelmed when already saturated would have resulted in more deaths so this goes to your first question. The shutdown also slowed the transmission which not only saved lives in the short term but for the multiplication factor by which one infected person can create multiple others. And that while acting sooner would have massively reduced the hit we are going to take, taking the initial financial hit was really necessary.

The consensus has been that the financial supports in March were necessary and that without them the economy would have gone off a cliff. Their analogy is that we are WAY beyond 2008 and may still be close to a repeat of 1929 because the Government money has gone to stocks, which shareholders can move to gold or elsewhere, letting the market crash regardless.

The banks have set aside massive amounts for defaulting loans to come and I think he said that just his bank set aside $9.5 BILLION, which is more than the entire economy of many countries, and due to the loans being routed through all the banks his industry is doing great so far. Plus, all the new debt and loans coming out of the Government are being used to buy company stock, which is great (SO FAR) for retirement accounts and company shareholders. However, there's been a major shift that has been political, since the initial response the flow of money has shifted to "trickle down" in trying to keep voters employed by those companies, which I guess makes sense for any Administration trying to stay there.

(Easy to find the next two charts.)


However . . .

(Again, not my opinion) A couple of the Economics PhDs pointed out that trickle down has been tried and disproven a number of times. Basically a bigger proportion of people pocket the money in investments rather than proportionally increase the economy and they are seeing it repeat now. While there has been a recovery in stocks and somewhat elsewhere, we are nowhere near the output, sales, employment, or any other measures of where we were before all of this started and the following chart agrees with what they said:



So now the National debt just can't sustain more of these increases, the PPP and other loan money has been spent, and because things are so much slower (second chart), big layoff announcements have begun. There just are not enough people buying cars, keeping offices full, going on vacations, etc, so the die is already cast and things are going to get uglier no matter what.

And back to your question, the experts keep coming back to the benefit if the whole issue had been addressed head-on sooner rather than what has been done in the US because they ALL now expect that the fall-out is going to take years. And that with this second wave, we are repeating things but with less financial ability because of the delay in addressing it the first time, so the worse we let things get in this second wave, it further creates a longer and harder recovery.

It sounds to me like the old ounce of prevention versus pound of cure.
 

squarebore

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The big question is whether or not the shutdown of life and the economy saved any lives at all, or did it just spread the same number of infections and deaths across 9 months instead of 5, for example? And the next big question is how will we respond to Covid-20 next year or the year after? Shut down the world again? Can we afford it? I always thought that the common cold would wipe out mankind: now I realise that it's mankind's lemming like response to the common cold that will be the end of us.
As CW said. The idea was to flatten the curve so our hospital capability could grow to meet the demand and not be overwhelmed. New York was overwhelmed but hopefully some of your other cities are now ready.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk
 

fac191

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What is most apparent in the UK is the collosal amount of corporate debt being carried by almost everyone. Cheap money which has been around for too long has blinded the corporate world. Borowing to pay dividends and buying your own shares to boost dividends. That business model is now comming down around their ears. Its been said along time the next crash will be led by corporate debt and bad banking. Governments are throwing there money away which doesnt really help either. Our utility companies are carrying huge debt, some of our councils have invested in airports and shopping centres to help bolster their incomes. Over here we also have the Brexit mess to sort out. We are going to be hurt bad. But we wont be alone.
 

Checkswrecks

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fac191

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Checkswrecks

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Brain and lung damage regardless of age and fitness.
Exactly what I'm thinking when I hear BS like:

"It's just another kind of the flu"
"Only one or so percent die and that's just the group already old and frail."
etc

As Sierra1 wrote, shit got real when we learned more about this thing.
 

fac191

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Here in London we have a large population of people who don't speak English aswell so how are they going to get the message. Also they are treated badly alot of the time have very poor working conditions and are badly paid. They will go about their business as normal. I dont blame them it is what it is. Hopefully there will be alot of redress over this as people are taking huge liberties and making alot of money from it.
 

fac191

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Its also common for them to share beds and be crammed into rooms making landlords lots of money. London will change though as people who can are leaving and heading to the less crowded suberbs leaving overpriced rentals. I read New York is facing a similar situation.
 

Checkswrecks

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I'm in an outer 'burb about an hour north of DC. The last couple of houses in the neighborhood to sell went under contract in 2-3 days at or above asking prices.

At the same time, the banks are setting aside billions because initial steps in the default process have jumped and they expect it to get much worse. Before long it'll be tough to sell a house when there are a number of cheap bank owned properties being offered on the same street.
 
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Cycledude

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Lots of things are not as bad as they were a month ago, Farm milk prices are way up, real estate is selling very well, business is having a very hard time finding workers, most meat plants are back to full scale work, there is definitely no shortage of jobs in central Wisconsin.
 

magic

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Lots of things are not as bad as they were a month ago, Farm milk prices are way up, real estate is selling very well, business is having a very hard time finding workers, most meat plants are back to full scale work, there is definitely no shortage of jobs in central Wisconsin.
Yeah, but we are averaging over 800 new coronavirus cases everyday. For some reason houses are selling like crazy around here. You can't even find one to buy. They are being sold before they are even listed for way over fair market value. I see lots of foreclosures coming.
 

Checkswrecks

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Lots of things are not as bad as they were a month ago, Farm milk prices are way up, real estate is selling very well, business is having a very hard time finding workers, most meat plants are back to full scale work, there is definitely no shortage of jobs in central Wisconsin.
Totally agree that we are not as bad as a month ago however we are in the calm ahead of the financial storm. Things ought to get ugly after the election.
Unemployment:


Delinquincies in mortgages below. It's going to kill the real estate market when you try to sell a house and have to compete with banks selling more than one on your street.
 
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