Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[froot loops]

You don't have to shut down everything but you have to limit big gatherings and have massive amounts of testing to minimize how many people get infected. You're trying to buy as much time as possible for them to get a vaccine or for it to burn out. You take the best practices of South Korea and China. That is essential, if you don't do those minimizing procedures there is no possible way you can provide enough beds in the US. China was erecting big hospitals in days to combat it. The US can't do that but they can copycat what the Koreans did. But to do that they need the CDC to allow massive testing and not drag their feet.

A lot of these minimizing procedures will screw up the economy worldwide but this should be a short term. There are a lot of call backs to 2008 but that was a financial panic and those things are thought to be a lot more long term.

[froot loops]

I hope that's true for all times going forward.



Yeah, well, this is what horrifies me. PDJT doesn't do anything. I would not be so lucky with Sanders. And if he won, he'd have the Senate, too. It'd be a disaster.

Eh, I think you worry too much about that. A President Biden has a much better chance of having a Dem Senate. But even in your worst nightmares about a Senate under Sanders wouldn't be able to do much legislating. Obama had 60 senators and they almost couldn't pass the ACA. The Bernie Bros and Trumpers have some similar tactics but it is hard to imagine the Democratic party morphing into the obedient followers the GOP has turned into.

[lineygoblue]

Oil has been overpriced for years. If Russia and Saudi get a bit of a come-uppance in all this, well boo-hoo for them. They're the ones that have gouged the world with inflated oil prices for decades. OPEC fat-cats have swam in their own money like the cartoon character Scrooge McDuck, while the average car owner has paid upwards of $10.00 per gallon in some countries.

In winter, people have paid top dollar for home heating oil, natural gas and propane, while those nimrods built empty skyscrapers in the middle of the desert. Oh, and some of them fund terrorism with their oil profits too.

So, I guess the best thing for an old fart like me is to stay home, don't fly, stay off cruise ships, and wash my hands a lot.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The market plummeting because of oil prices isn't rational. Cheap energy is great for everybody outside of the energy business.

And short of shutting down every business and school in the world there's not much that can be done to contain the virus. IMHO governments need to be entirely focused on making sure that they have adequate facilities and supplies to treat those who fall ill.

Correct on both counts ........ and US government spokes-people are saying the US is past containment and into mitigation. How this ends with respect to global markets will depend on perceptions of how governments are dealing with COVID-19 in their own countries. The US, behind PDJT's incompetence, isn't leading the charge. I think we are waaaay past controlling the messaging. Concrete actions by the governments of Italy, Iran, Korea and to a lesser extent the US, if only for the visuals of it, that produce declines in new cases of COVID-19 may calm markets. We are probably weeks away from seeing results from the measures being taken now or will be taken imminently. Absent the reported disarray in the WH, there remains competent health officials at the national and state level who are working the issues - you'll see local news sources reporting this but at the national level it's more about the disarray - and that reporting is not unwarranted.

As the leading banking and financial sectors globally, the US Fed is not in a position to do much more - maybe another 50 basis points in their monetary policy arsenal. EU countries are in worse shape than the US with regard to that option. That leaves the fiscal steps I mentioned yesterday as those that need to be taken by governments to reassure businesses that they'll be given some breathing room to recover from cash and cash-flow shortages precipitated by supply chain break-downs.

Trump could take the lead here. Does anyone think he will? I don't. I read a headline this morning where businesses were being urged to authorize unpaid leave for ill employees who stay home. Right. Lets put the burden on businesses to pay for idle employees ...... not the way to go. Now, if the government will subsidize that approach, fine. We're in unfamiliar territory here and of course the uncertainty is causing panic.

Supposedly, or at least according to headlines, I'm on a death ship here docked in Bonaire. The reality is that nothing has changed onboard. No one is being transported to hospitals via ambulances that pull up to the ship ..... and that will always get people's attention. Moreover, nothing has changed in regards to the Princess line cruise ship reported late last week to have 17 passengers and two crew members with COVID-19 aboard. That ship pulled into the cruise port in Oakland this morning.

The steps to keep disembarking passengers and crew from coming in contact with the general population are unprecedented and represent the kind of containment steps that state and local officials can rationally take. Cruise passengers requiring hospitalization will be transported and hospitalized in special vehicles and hospital areas. Crew members and passengers with air transport retirements will be similarly handled at nearby Oakland International Airport. All crew well members, foreign as far as I know, are being sent home to their countries of citizenship. I saw another misleading headline this morning stating the State Department has advised travelers to not board cruise ships. Down the page in the article, that;s now what they said. Instead, State advises people over 70 with a list of medical conditions reconsider cruising in any travel plans they might have. The actual copy of the announcement goes on to explain in detail why. But, no, the headline implies that no one should get on a cruise ship. No context. Crazy.

Keep in mind, of the 120K cases being reported world wide, more than half have fully recovered.

[lineygoblue]

Keep in mind, of the 120K cases being reported world wide, more than half have fully recovered.

I'm not a scientist or a doctor, .. but wouldn't it be prudent to get with those who have survived, and get some blood from them to see what kind of antibodies they have produced?

Isn't that how vaccines are made?

[Dr. Strangelove]

I'm not a scientist or a doctor, .. but wouldn't it be prudent to get with those who have survived, and get some blood from them to see what kind of antibodies they have produced?

Isn't that how vaccines are made?

Possibly. I believe there is concern though that like the common cold or regular flu, whatever immunity a survivor develops doesn't last very long if at all. Or it'll continue to mutate.

[Hannibal]

On a slightly sadder note -- whatever time freeze bubble that Max von Sydow has been using to preserve himself in the exact same physical state since the shooting of The Exorcist finally popped. RIP Emperor Ming. He was 90.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Brewmeister Smith! No!

[Dr. Strangelove]

Heard this on CNBC this morning and had to look it up to verify because I thought maybe I'd heard wrong. But it's a good example of the trouble brewing for the US shale industry.

Last year Occidental Petroleum bought Anadarko and bought out the shareholders for $38 Billion. It was valued as a $55 Billion deal at the time.

Today Occidental's entire market cap is only $15 B. The stock is down 35% in 24 hours

[Ghengis Jon]

I guess Max finally lost his game of chess with Death.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Feb 26: Trump said that the US only had 15 cases of coronavirus, everyone was getting better, and the number would soon be zero

March 5: Trump boasts that we've got the crisis totally handled and that there's only 129 cases.

March 9: Trump attempts to present it as good news that cases are only at 546, far fewer than a normal year of flu

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/coronavirus-is-exposing-trumps-unsuitability-to-handle-a-crisis

[Dr. Strangelove]

Rick Cotton, the Director of the NY Port Authority, has tested positive.

Ted Cruz and at least one other Congressman are in 14-day self-quarantine for having had some degree of contact with a known infected person at CPAC.

Will put additional strains on the system if a significant portion of our political class, many of whom are OLD, gets sick

[Dr. Strangelove]

This is another annoying example of a family ignoring a quarantine recommendation only to have the daughter test positive within days. Her sister and her dad were at a fancy Father-Daughter dance at the Ritz-Carlton when the test results came in, apparently. Her mom went shopping and had her nails done. The infected daughter (who recently came back from Italy) is the only one who listened to the authorities.

Now St. Louis County says they will get a court order to force these people not to leave their home if it happens again.

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/st-louis-county-government-warning-coronavirus-quarantine/63-b8ba8b14-6de1-434b-824f-2353124f78e9

[froot loops]

[Ghengis Jon]

The price of oil has cratered 35% in the last week. I've seen no change in price at the pump. Why is it that when oil prices are going up, the price increases at the pump can be measured with a stopwatch and when oil prices are going down, the corresponding price change at the pump is measured with a calendar?