Covid 19 thread

[Mackeyser]

Seeing as our economy is fully demand side (as is the case with any service based economy and why every boost is supposed to stimulate demand), this crisis is going to have a much more profound effect.

Without money, we cannot generate demand. And once people go back to work, their first stop in general isn't restaurants, movie theaters and other non-essential offerings, but grocery stores, medical care and catching up on delinquent bills.

This is why we're seeing EVERYONE get behind direct cash payments.

But yeah... the head of the Federal Reserve Bank in St Louis is estimating THIRTY PERCENT 30% unemployment in Q2.

for historical perspective, the Great Depression was 24.8% and they way they kept those numbers then was far more indicative of the actual workforce (current methods eliminate many from the workforce who should be counted).

I think we're gonna have to buckle up for the effects of this lasting substantially longer than the virus' effects alone...

U.S. Jobless Rate May Soar to 30%, Fed’s Bullard Says

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard predicted the U.S. unemployment rate may hit 30% in the second quarter because of shutdowns to combat the coronavirus, with an unprecedented 50% drop in gross domestic product.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[Mackeyser]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtN-goy9VOY&feature=share

That was a really well done vid. That channel has some excellent content.

 

[TK42-RAM]

Automaker Retools With Health Supply Companies To Make Masks, Ventilators
ALLISON AUBREY

Ford has teamed up with 3M and GE Healthcare to speed up the production of personal protective gear for health care workers and of ventilators for people in acute respiratory distress amid the coronavirus epidemic.

"We see the need and we want to jump in and help," Jim Baumbick, vice president for enterprise product line management at Ford Motor Co., told reporters during a teleconference Tuesday morning announcing the new efforts.

Ford executives say the company will work with GE Healthcare to expand production of a simplified version of GE's existing ventilator design.

Mechanical ventilators provide life-support treatment. For very ill people, access to a ventilator can be the difference between survival and death.

Ventilators are used to get oxygen into the lungs of people who cannot breathe well enough on their own. There's concern that the U.S. could run short of ventilators if cases of coronavirus surge.

"We have empowered our teams of engineers and designers to be scrappy and creative to quickly help scale up production of this vital equipment," said Jim Hackett, Ford's president and CEO, in a news release about the new initiatives.

"We've been in regular dialogue with federal, state and local officials to understand the areas of greatest needs," Hackett said. "We are focusing our efforts to help increase the supply of respirators, face shields and ventilators that can help assist health care workers, first responders, critical workers as well as those who have been infected by the virus."

Ford says it will work with the United Auto Workers to manufacture plastic face shields at its Troy Design and Manufacturing Co. plant in Michigan. They say they plan to manufacture 75,000 this week — with 100,000 weekly by April.
In addition, Ford is working with 3M to scale production of powered-air purifying respirators using a combination of 3M and Ford parts. And the company says it will leverage its in-house 3D-printing capability to produce disposable respirator masks for health care workers.

"We're exploring all available opportunities to further expand 3M's capacity and get healthcare supplies as quickly as possible to where they're needed most," Mike Roman, chairman of the board and chief executive officer at 3M, said in a news release. "It's crucial that we mobilize all resources to protect lives and defeat this disease."

 

[Mackeyser]

That's gonna be a big help.

Hopefully, when this is all over, we won't have to revisit the argument that having domestic manufacturing capacity is a jingoistic notion and that there are no drawbacks to a global supply chain with China being the World's Factory...

What people are gonna come up against really quickly is that with China making so many of our meds, some critical meds are gonna start running out in a few months and if we don't do something about it now, there will just be none of it until this crisis is resolved.

 

[bluecoconuts]

There's a three year old in Illinois who is infected with COVID-19, so clearly children can catch it and therefore they can spread at well.

 

[OldSchool]

Good guys NCAA


View: https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1242547104897273858?s=20

 

[GBRam15]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtN-goy9VOY&feature=share

Great video. Gotta love the ape holding the toilet paper in the beginning as well!

 

[Mackeyser]

Good guys NCAA


View: https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1242547104897273858?s=20

Leave it to the NCAA to do anything and everything to prevent players from having agency to do a single damn thing...except play ball.

 

[WestCoastRam]

Yeah, let the old people die.

Teenager’s Death in California Is Linked to Coronavirus (Published 2020)

The victim would be one of the youngest in the United States. “Covid-19 does not discriminate by age, race or income level,” the Los Angeles County health department said.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Kevin]

That was a really well done vid. That channel has some excellent content.

My daughter found it and shared it with me. I take no credit!

 

[EastRam]

It’s time for all of us to step up like the greatest generation did in WWII.

Without them none of us would be free.

 

[Angry Ram]

It’s time for all of us to step up like the greatest generation did in WWII.

Without them none of us would be free.

Goddamn right. I'm gonna sit my ass on the couch and watch a shit ton of movies and play a shit ton of games.

Reporting for duty! Move over greatest generation, the millennial avengers will be forever known as the Heroic Generation.

 

[RamFan503]

View: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

Just so many fallacies. For one... Poor countries only lack testing abilities? They also lack the general health, and international tourism. Their numbers are lower for several reasons - not just lack of testing. There are too many of these supposition pieces that are loosely based on "facts".

This is a serious issue and I don't find these kinds of poorly thought out and researched pieces helpful myself.

I understand their concern with the economy.

With that being said, life is more important than money. It’s a simple decision, make the early sacrifice take care of the people.

Don't dismiss the economy as a means for preserving life either. It's easy to say that life is more important than money but in many cases, a vibrant economy = lives not lost.

Yeah me too. I’m only taking the recommended dosage though, so I may double that for starters.

I totally blast my body with Vitamin C when I get virtually ANYTHING. I had a professor in college that was working on studies on Vitamin C to slow and potentially get rid of cancer. His study was based on the idea that Vitamin C strengthens cell walls and prevents the spread of viruses and therefore the onset of cancer. I used to go in to his office and talk about the mighty C. He made me a believer.

It’s time for all of us to step up like the greatest generation did in WWII.

Without them none of us would be free.

At the same time, we should do everything with real information. Heroes are not made from those who only act. They're made by those who act in the right direction for the good of the people. I think most of the measures being taken are the right ones. But going all in isn't necessarily the proper course of action.

 

[SWAdude]

It’s time for all of us to step up like the greatest generation did in WWII.

Without them none of us would be free.

We loss too many young men in defense of raising a Nazi flag.

We should just shut down the entire nation cause what could go wrong?





Sarcasm..............

 

[thirteen28]

COVID-19 and the Unintended Consequences of Economic Shutdown | RealClearPolitics

The bipartisan answer to the coronavirus pandemic seems to be: shutter the economy, then bail out everyone who is suffering economic pain. Of course, as RealClearMarkets editor John Tamny has...

www.realclearpolitics.com

The health of the economy is not as important as the health of the citizenry. However, the two are interconnected. You can’t crush the economy without exacting a human toll. In a 2018 academic article, Taiwanese researchers Yu-Hui Lin and Wen-Yi Chen showed a link between unemployment and suicide, one that may linger for two to three years after the job market has improved. These findings suggest that even a short, sharp recession has lasting consequences. In rough terms, they postulate that each 1% rise in unemployment leads to one additional suicide per 100,000 people, and a rise in divorces of up to 1%. If unemployment jumps by 5% in the current shutdown of the U.S. economy, that would translate into some 16,500 additional suicides and up to 3 million divorces. The human toll is very real.

Robert Zoellick and others have noted that supply chain disruptions are jeopardizing the health and lives of patients facing much more serious health risks than coronavirus. There are 23 million Americans with cancer or who have had cancer, another 30 million with heart disease, 34 million with diabetes, and 35 million with chronic lung disease. Given the overlap between these groups, around 70-80 million Americans are being treated for one or more of these ailments. If one in a hundred of them die because they can’t get their medicine, or the hospitals can’t take them, there’s another 750,000 deaths.

...

On the Diamond Princess cruise ship, with 3,000 aboard, everyone was tested. For both the Diamond Princess and South Korea, the mortality rate is about 1%. Those who are over 60 years old with other risk factors (the aforementioned heart or lung disease, cancer or diabetes) comprise roughly 80% of that total. This means that, for most age groups, a COVID-19 victim faces mortality risk that very roughly matches one’s risk of dying from all other causes in 2020. Why are we shuttering the global macroeconomy for a threat that temporarily doubles our risk of dying, and only for those of us who are infected? While a muscular national response is both expected and necessary, the old saying of "first do no harm" rates prominent consideration. In a noble effort to save lives, let's please be careful to not crush people’s careers, plans and dreams in the process.

Why are the additional deaths listed less important than deaths from the new corona virus?

Why do we price the risk of those deaths differently?

 

[GBRam15]

For one... Poor countries only lack testing abilities? They also lack the general health, and international tourism. Their numbers are lower for several reasons - not just lack of testing.

I don’t disagree with you there, but I don’t see how this ties into the main ideas presented by the writer. I can only remember him saying that poor countries not dealing with outbreaks now will eventually have to face them.

This is a serious issue and I don't find these kinds of poorly thought out and researched pieces helpful myself.

I felt the article made a solid case for taking urgent action now in order to slow the spread of this virus. I'm sure it's not perfect, but it seemed reasonable enough to give a proper read.

 

[RamFan503]

I don’t disagree with you there, but I don’t see how this ties into the main ideas presented by the writer. I can only remember him saying that poor countries not dealing with outbreaks now will eventually have to face them.



I felt the article made a solid case for taking urgent action now in order to slow the spread of this virus. I'm sure it's not perfect, but it seemed reasonable enough to give a proper read.

That's cool. I didn't find it illuminating and thought it used some flawed premises. I may be just getting jaded as it seems to me that too many people seem to need to be seen rather than offer needed insight into a crisis unlike anything we've dealt with before. And I don't mean you. I mean these "experts".

 

[Dieter the Brock]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1VAmnZQkqSQ

 

[kurtfaulk]

I totally blast my body with Vitamin C when I get virtually ANYTHING. I had a professor in college that was working on studies on Vitamin C to slow and potentially get rid of cancer. His study was based on the idea that Vitamin C strengthens cell walls and prevents the spread of viruses and therefore the onset of cancer. I used to go in to his office and talk about the mighty C. He made me a believer.

it's said that if you take more than 2000mg a day you will get digestive distress, like diarrhea and nausea. maybe lead to kidney stones.

.

 

[Mackeyser]

yeah, some people make kidney stones from I dunno what, but a smaller percentage, I think 15% make it from a combination of excess protein and Vitamin C.

Those are the kinds I make. After that last kidney stent and all the bullshit that went with that business, I'll never take more than one Vitamin C...cuz hoooooo boy, those kidney stones are no fun...