Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

Also worth noting that a group of restaurant owners (which have 120 restaurants in the Atlanta metro region I think) said that they are not opening up too.......

Sure, I think I said that. Plenty don't want to reopen. If you read the local papers there are a lot of good reasons for that that don't have much to do with some form of fear about the virus. Like there's no way to accommodate table distancing; it's not financially viable; getting dragged into court over a a dozen frivolous civil claims that Judges in GA just aren't going to hear but you still have to show up with costly lawyers.

..........Interesting on the metrics. According to this the place Georgia is in real trouble is with beds. IF there is a surge (and hard to imagine that there isn't going to be one with everything opening) the hospitals don't seem ready for it.

I've not seen this model before. Doesn't mean it isn't valid. I did briefly look at how they model and it is based on using R(0) and some sort of averaging of that between various locals that report it to derive a regional R(0) and then extrapolate it to states. I find that a bit troublesome if not fraught with potential for predictive errors. Who knows. I'm not a statistician. But there's a ton of good data out there not requiring reliance on potentially bad data. I know most modeling has been grossly incorrect. There's one I've been watching for about two months now.

That model seems to have garnered universal acceptance by state public health authorities both early on as a means to anticipate resource shortages (bed space, ICU space and ventilators) and currently as a means of predicting if states can handle a surge in hospitalizations during re-openings. That is the IHME modeling from the Institute of Health Metrics at the University Of Washington. Here's a snapshot of Georgia's situation that predicts out to May 6th. You be the judge:

GA Bed Use.JPG

I've also included the IMHE link to the entire page from which this snap shot came. Here you can get more information and interact with the charts and graphs.

Sure, GA could be in trouble but the sources I'm looking at and fucking common sense says they'll be fine. Perfectly fine? I doubt it. There will be bumps in the road ahead that skeptics, like you, along with others that fear reopening are going to pounce upon to deride what the state of GA is doing. What they are rightfully doing, IMO, is to try to prevent high levels of unemployment, attendant loss of income and long term economic damage that precipitates undesirable social consequences. Doing that, including working to avoid undesirable social consequences, IMO, is a moral and ethical imperative that is equal to, and in the final analysis, may be greater than preventing increasing deaths associated with re-openings. YMMV.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/unite...merica/georgia

[THE_WIZARD_]

Wiz, Krazy Kemp, as GA's governor is called by his political opponents including the Mayor of Atlanta, Kiesha Lance Bottoms, opened up restaurants last Friday. Some restaurateurs welcomed it others are holding back - I'd say half have not opened in the metro Atlanta region and continue curbside pick-up as that never stopped in GA. I've read Kemp's EO. It's pretty good where restaurants are concerned. Restrictive enough, IMO, but not too burdensome either. Oh, and the famous Waffle Houses - a GA trademark- reopened on Friday too. They were mobbed. People turned away or told to wait outside in neat lines to maintain distancing.

We went to one of our local favs and had brunch today. Gasp, INSIDE! We know the owner well. We took carry-out from him on Thursday and promised to come in on Saturday or Sunday to do indoor dining. He told us on Thursday he was keeping his head above water with carry-out service. He had a good lunch crowd Friday in his now open dining room (his place is centrally located in a Gwinnette Co industrial park that has "essential businesses" that never closed. Patrons were really glad they could get out of their places of work and have a nice lunch out.

The place is well laid out to support table distancing. Not sure how many tops he has but it's probably around 20 - not a huge place. At 11:30am we arrived to a smallish dining crowd - around 5 tables occupied - inside (he has outside dining too but this is the season for giant carpenter bees so, no). We walked in with masks, were seated far away from anyone else, removed our masks when we sat down, used regular menus (surprised me but I don't think it's required to use throw aways in GA) and enjoyed a nice meal. The waitress had a mask on and was very precise in telling us what she could and could not touch. IOW, there was the appearance of a detailed plan to mitigate virus spread in this restaurant. I felt comfortable. Was glad to support local restaurants as has been my cause in FL and now here in GA. and staff as they work their way back to some level of normal.

I have no doubt that next week's headlines will slam Krazy Kemp for "opening too soon" when the typical nonsense numbers come out and will be touted as showing increases. Doesn't matter that they don't mean the virus is spreading because of reopening. What the media will say will be, "I told you so, cases will rise if you reopen too early and sure as shit, they have." Lance Bottoms will be right there calling for Kemp to be investigated.

This will be the refrain everywhere states are moving past the virus and trying to get businesses back up and running before they bankrupt, sell their equipment and close for good. Never mind that thousands of restaurant workers in GA will be unemployed and unable to find work.

How's your situation?

JB...half of Nebraska is able to open with restrictions May 4. Unfortunately my county is not until May 11. I think we will have lines out the door but we'll be restricted to 50% capacity...or about 60 seats at my place.

[Whitley]

JB...half of Nebraska is able to open with restrictions May 4. Unfortunately my county is not until May 11. I think we will have lines out the door but we'll be restricted to 50% capacity...or about 60 seats at my place.

Glad your business will be open Wiz. Here is hoping there will not be a spike in Nebraska because if they have to close down again. It is going to be a lot of people that are going to follow all this stuff a whole lot less.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Good luck ..... if I didn't live in East Bumfuck, I'd head right over for some of those famous wings.

Do you deliver? I'd like it brought personally by you. It's only about a 15 hour drive without stops - on a tractor probably several weeks - you sound like a fun guy to have a beer with and to know.

Not in that sense .... Don't get any ideas. I know you and OP have a thing.

[Whitley]

Good luck ..... if I didn't live in East Bumfuck, I'd head right over for some of those famous wings.

Do you deliver? I'd like it brought personally by you. It's only about a 15 hour drive without stops - on a tractor probably several weeks - you sound like a fun guy to have a beer with and to know.

Not in that sense .... Don't get any ideas. I know you and OP have a thing.

You ever get up in my neck of the woods (and we are ever open at the course)---we make an excellent paramesan garlic wings

[froot loops]

Good golly. A few weeks back, my company temporarily reduced salary paychecks because of the covid effect on business. Being grossly overpaid anyway, the effect is minimal to me. But due to federal and state relief programs, I find myself receiving about 25% more than what I was reduced. One would think there would be a cap on the relief - once you are "whole" you don't get any extra. When I brought this up to HR, the response was "this is what you're eligible for, this is what you get. The gov'ts do not adjust beyond eligibility." Free money is never difficult to accept, but I think throwing bushels of cash off the top of a building is not the proper distribution method. Its not my wish to profit from a pandemic.

In a spot like this the biggest key is to get as much money out there as possible, there are always going to be weird quirks like the one you are benefitting from. They really shouldn't be means testing it, the helicopter money must be gigantic and indiscriminate on who gets it. If they want to give half the unemployed a job digging a hole and the other half a job filling the hole, that is good too. When shit gets back to normal, then you worry about efficiencies bit right now the money printer should be brrring non-stop.

[iam416]

[Jeff Buchanan]

Froot, there are a lot of better ways to stimulate the economy and provide for increased consumer spending, as Whitley likes to call it, "from the bottom up" than turning up the "money printer."

Let's be clear, the Treasury isn't "printing money." The US government is taking on debt in the form of bond issues that fortunately and for now, are being bought up like hot cakes, to pay for the trillions already put out there in the form of loans and benefits. The Texas governor said on Sunday (paraphrased) that he'd rather see people die than fail to save the nation (the economy) for his children and grandchildren.

Well, he's fucked up in the head too ..... with all this spending, he is creating massive debt for his off-spring. I saw a figure a week or so ago that the current government outlays associated just with COVID will cost each American $16K annually and on an ongoing basis just to pay the interest of the bonds issued to float those trillions in PPP, UIB, grants, etc.

Sorry, I got off track ...... Trump could make some real political progress by directing congress to come up with a massive public works program, decentralized to the states, to rebuild America's infrastructure. There are also ways, and Germany has shown the way, to subsidize the manufacturing sector to produce stuff. What happens with something like that is that you create instant jobs, people work, get paid and stuff gets built. With that money in wages going to the employed, they spend it. This isn't rocket science folks.

[Hannibal]

None of it is going to work. If there is no wealth being produced because half of your country's wealth production has been shut down, then you are doing nothing but spreading out more paper across the same amount of goods and services. There are countless examples throughout history of this not working. One need look only at the Weimar Republic to see the consequence of printing endless amounts of stimulus money when there is no production base to support it.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Latest casualty in the retail world is J. Crew, a devastating blow to the wardrobe of preppy-boy, gentry prog-hipster Il Talento

[iam416]

Forunately that's just a corporation getting hurt.

[froot loops]

Froot, there are a lot of better ways to stimulate the economy and provide for increased consumer spending, as Whitley likes to call it, "from the bottom up" than turning up the "money printer."

Let's be clear, the Treasury isn't "printing money." The US government is taking on debt in the form of bond issues that fortunately and for now, are being bought up like hot cakes, to pay for the trillions already put out there in the form of loans and benefits. The Texas governor said on Sunday (paraphrased) that he'd rather see people die than fail to save the nation (the economy) for his children and grandchildren.

Well, he's fucked up in the head too ..... with all this spending, he is creating massive debt for his off-spring. I saw a figure a week or so ago that the current government outlays associated just with COVID will cost each American $16K annually and on an ongoing basis just to pay the interest of the bonds issued to float those trillions in PPP, UIB, grants, etc.

Sorry, I got off track ...... Trump could make some real political progress by directing congress to come up with a massive public works program, decentralized to the states, to rebuild America's infrastructure. There are also ways, and Germany has shown the way, to subsidize the manufacturing sector to produce stuff. What happens with something like that is that you create instant jobs, people work, get paid and stuff gets built. With that money in wages going to the employed, they spend it. This isn't rocket science folks.

Yeah, I am aware of what they are doing with money printer going brrr. Whoosh, Get a grip.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Damn, one of the greats. RIP, Coach Shula. Northeast Ohio legend.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/don-shula-legendary-nfl-head-coach-dies

[iam416]

John Carroll, baby. Probably makes the top 5 for all-time great Ohio football coaches. Probably.

[Ghengis Jon]

Boob jobs save lives!

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/americas/breast-implant-bullet-wound-wellness-intl-scli/index.html