COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Mark Rippetoe]

Amazing.

[David Kirkham]

Complete inversion. Go somewhere else if you're going to lie.

We'll see who shows up to help if the monopolies and regulations are broken and people with knowledge and skills aren't prevented from assisting. I fully expect more to start running away, not just those who left assisted living folks to die in Spain or those who've abandoned their posts in New York hospitals and forced extra shifts on remaining staff. How many of those hiding are going to suddenly step up and put themselves at risk?

Sometimes people will surprise you, but those who're living fragmented lives, isolated among millions and without real community, and with not even the foresight to have basic preparations in place, aren't likely candidates. It's going to be those who are already out there, who've made it a habit their entire lives, who have the courage and will to continue on. Same as always.

Stef, that was an awesome post. My only quibble is I would have used much harsher words for the opening sentence. You must have the patience of Job. I ban people after they’ve been warned against using logical fallacies.

Rip, I have a question. If the government forcibly shuts my business down and those of my customers...

Can they still charge me property tax?

Next question...

Where are they going to get taxes to fund government next year after they shut everyone down this year? (I’m not even going to ask about funding their pensions).

CCP Virus virulence aside—this is an unparalleled plague that even God didn’t visit on Moses et al.

[Mark Rippetoe]

An interesting question. My sources tell me that they can tax the value, not the use of the value, even though you have been deprived of the use of the value which generates the revenue you use to pay the tax -- apparently their argument will be that you retain the value, and that's what they're taxing. It will be an interesting day in court. If we're still allowed to have courts.

[Soule]

Complete inversion. Go somewhere else if you're going to lie.

We'll see who shows up to help if the monopolies and regulations are broken and people with knowledge and skills aren't prevented from assisting. I fully expect more to start running away, not just those who left assisted living folks to die in Spain or those who've abandoned their posts in New York hospitals and forced extra shifts on remaining staff. How many of those hiding are going to suddenly step up and put themselves at risk?

Sometimes people will surprise you, but those who're living fragmented lives, isolated among millions and without real community, and with not even the foresight to have basic preparations in place, aren't likely candidates. It's going to be those who are already out there, who've made it a habit their entire lives, who have the courage and will to continue on. Same as always.

My aunt is one of these people. She just came out of retirement to go nurse at an old folk’s home. Fucking hero

[Jovan Dragisic]

Sensible post. I wonder how many states will go bankrupt and how quickly; It is not a matter of if it will happen this time. I still think that many of the seeds were planted in the early 1900s by the first progressives though.

A sensible assumption, a lot of merit to it. But I'm gonna go with Pat Buchanan's theory here: politics is pure demographics, only I'm gonna draw different conclusions. Progressives have been raving about the income gap between the 1 and the 99 percent, which is a true statistical fact, but both they and their liberal friends as well as their conservative and libertarian counterparts (excuse the possible wrong divisions in political orientation, it's hard to talk to Americans with all of your bespoke metrics) have forgotten a much more significant problem - income gap by age. You can look this up, it's really well documented and has been steadily rising for a century now all lover the West, having had reached catastrophic proportions just before Shiva put on a microscopic crown and made his way to a Wuhan wet market. The practical consequence of this simple economic fact is that any kind of real policy, regardless of the professed political orientation is bound to be skewed towards maintaining a status quo established at a time when medical advances enabled people to live longer. Nobody is to blame for this really, it is a simple fact of the laws of the market - no leader is going to take steps to alienate their prime voter demographic. This has led all Western countries to impose a wide variety of Ponzi scheme tricks in order to keep funding the promises they made to their prime voter demographic, putting all of their trust in another market law, the fact that the demand and supply cycle is going to go on forever. This was also a very sensible assumption, we had never ever seen this cycle stop, but we didn't count on Shiva, did we? How the fuck do you fund anything now?

What do you do in a situation like this? Historically, you would initiate large scale warfare. The problem with this approach is twofold: holding a territory means jack shit these days, as the Middle East has shown us in the past fifty years and, more importantly, you got far too many psychos with nuclear missiles. So what is left in order to quell the population's anger at losing their livelihoods, all the while being burdened with so much debt they may as well be slaves? Dunno, it's really interesting to see. Universal income is the first move, already being instituted in the richest countries. I'm guessing the next thing is gonna be some kind of agreement to write off any form of debt there is. But this is all just wild conjecture, everybody who says they can predict anything having to do with markets and politics for a period of more than 24 hours is either lying or delusional in the best of times, and just flat out evil or insane now.

So listen, if at some point you run across a guy who tells you he's gonna take you outside of your city and that under no circumstances are you to look back, heed his advice, or risk being turned to salt.

[Buddy Rich]

Rip, you asked a great question. Can’t find it because it’s buried in this thread somewhere. Went something like...

“If they decide to allow an election in November, what keeps them from declaring a shelter in place order for a potential second wave of infection that prevents gatherings of 10 or more at the polling places? Think before you answer.”

Of course, we have NO idea what the next few months are going to bring in terms of the COVID-19 situation and the strength of the economy. If anyone says that they do, I wave the Bull$hit flag.
If things are grim, I wouldn't put it past the current administration to use any means, even if constitutionally or ethically questionable, to hamper the election if the prognosis is not good (even though I have a much deeper skepticism of polling data than I did 4 years ago).

I also wouldn't put it past the Democrats to try to push through very equally questionable liberal voting alternatives that could undermine the validity of the results, like voting on-line (Russia would LOVE that one), mail-in ballots that don't require verification of identity and eligibility, and so on.
It could make "hanging chads" look like a prance through the proverbial rose garden by comparison, and would further divide and weaken our country. Foreign actors would engage in any means to exacerbate the divisions in our society, without a doubt.

A smart bunch of dedicated lawmakers would come up with Plan B well in advance and get it made into law, but they can't seem to agree on which way is north.

Have to think about this one some more...lot's to chew on there. Thanks for the challenge.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Just a random thought: If they decide to allow an election in November, what keeps them from declaring a shelter in place order for a potential second wave of infection that prevents gatherings of 10 or more at the polling places? Think before you answer.

I believe this is highly unlikely. The biggest pimps for the most restrictive shelter in place house arrest (as opposed to the medical term quarantine) are predominantly those opposed to Trump. If there's no election, one of the prime objectives is rendered moot. Because no election, no change in POTUS. The dems and the media DO NOT want that.

I am becoming increasingly convinced that the US media's response to the Kung Flu was to seize upon it as an opportunity to not have to talk about dem candidates to any significant degree. Sanders is staying the course, weakening Biden and every time Biden speaks his weak grasp on reality and language becomes more apparent. So the attention of the electorate has to be diverted to something that can be blamed on Trump.

We are undergoing a test of whether or not our citizens would rather be subjects. Too many of said occupants of US soil seem more comfortable to be subjects or perhaps clients of a soviet style regime. Many wage earners have been sent home to become clients of the state's largess. Such as it is. The old saw in the USSR was "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us." Large swaths of occupants of US soil are failing this test.

Finally, there's a book cover that haunted me when I saw in it in college back in the early 70's. John Brunner's "Sheep Look Up", his issue was the then new liberal cause the environment. But the gas mask with sheep's horns seem rather apropos to me just now.

https://www.amazon.com/Sheep-Look-Up.../dp/0060105585

[Kitsuma]

Just a random thought: If they decide to allow an election in November, what keeps them from declaring a shelter in place order for a potential second wave of infection that prevents gatherings of 10 or more at the polling places? Think before you answer.

Eric Holder tweets:

In light of the public health crisis the country is confronting, the states-with federal support-must put in place alternative ways for citizens to register/vote.Through the use of the mails we can vote at home. VOTE AT HOME will allow more people to vote - and keep everyone safe

problem, reaction...solution

Meanwhile, Fauci coauthors paper in New England Journal of Medicine where he concludes:

This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.

Even the most martini pickled brain can see the fuckery at this point....so many glitches in the matrix right now.

[neilc1]

there needs to be a pause button

[Rashad]

No. Longtime lurker and bureaucrat here.

I lack the expertise to evaluate the predictive models but I'm pretty confident of the following:

-I would want to be as cautious as possible if I was making a decision that would result in the loss of my own job and ability to immediately feed/shelter my family.

-whatever anyone thinks about the potential effects of COVID on the healthcare system, it's still a total dick move to lecture other people the economic fallout will be ok if one's own job is not threatened.

-I agree with earlier points about supply management. Before re-evaluating the entire structure and norms of our society and gov, we might first figure out how hospital administrations themselves handled emergency preparations. If there was nothing stopping them from stockpiling enough ppe and equipment for a public health catastrophe other than received wisdom from management approaches imported from other industries that dont run hospitals, I dont know that blame can need be fixed anywhere else.