SARS II: Respiratory Boogaloo

So you're willing to accept what they say if you like it, but not if you don't? How Trumpian of you.

The important term in your statement is "during a lockdown." Our State isn't locked down. The City of Birmingham is and the City of Mobile is considering it. The rest of the State? Business as usual.

What part of what I'm describing is not reality or well on its way to being reality?

I mean, maybe we should all just stay home all the time if it doesn't matter. Maybe we only fooled ourselves into believing we need to get paid, or that banks really and truly intend for us to pay our mortgages. Maybe businesses don't need revenue. Maybe small business suppliers don't need to fulfill orders to survive. Maybe restaurants can survive with a fraction of their former clientele. Maybe all we need is a tax cut to fix this!

Again, how is this different from 2009? People lost their jobs and stayed at home, meaning they couldn't afford to buy new cars causing the car makers to close plants, causing the .gov to print money to stimulate the economy.

It seems the primary source of your problem is your governor and her complete lack of conviction.

Is his net worth not strictly greater than 1 billion? Yes it is. The exact amount is irrelevant. Why does it bother you that he is a financial success? It really has no bearing on whether or not he is a good leader.

You're seeing how the situations are the same (their economic effects on people) but not how they're different (the underlying situations that are creating them).

If large financial institutions collapse, a lot of people lose their jobs and the economy goes into recession.

If a pandemic forces factories to close, a lot of people lose their jobs and the economy goes into recession.

The symptoms are the same, but the underlying diseases are different. The government can prop up demand by cutting taxes in the former; that will have little impact in the latter.

We will be lucky to get out of this as easily as 2009.

But how bad is production going to be hit? Yeah, automakers have temporarily shut down production, but they're flush with inventory and buying is going to decrease. Around here, production is ramping up. We've got a lot of textile mills that took a huge hit due to NAFTA that are spinning up () to supplement the face mask supply. If people have more money to buy cars, I'm pretty sure the auto industry will figure out a way to produce them.

The service industry is going to be hit hard, but that doesn't have much to do with manufacturing consumables.

It's not that I don't like them. They're not US companies. Lets pretend, for a moment, that you own a trucking company that's incorporated in Delaware for tax purposes but every single one of your trucks and rolling stock are registered in California, have California plates, and are leveraged through California banks. Are you a Delaware company or a California company? Almost all of these cruise companies ship's are flagged in Panama or other South American countries. Let them ask those countries for a bail out. They want to game the system and go to the countries that are more lax in their safety and crew training requirements and then come crying to Uncle Sam for a bail-out. Uh, no.

I have my doubts about his net worth being over a billion $ and will until we can see his tax returns. But it is interesting that you are willing to use his supposedly vast wealth as "proof" of his greatness and then in the same breath say that his net worth doesn't matter when it comes to judging his value as a leader.

Trump wants to say this is a war. Fine. I agree. Unlike every other war since the War of 1812 this is an invasion by a hostile force that is threatening to devastate our homeland economically. If this were a military conflict our choice would be to surrender or fight until the enemy is defeated (or we are) . If we won a military conflict but our country was laid waste what wouuld we do? I hope we would come out from whatever holes we had been hiding in, brush ourselves off, bury our dead and start rebuilding our country. Trump wants to use the word war, but he's not willing to face the reality that we might suffer incredible harm. He wants to have it both ways. Oh and he wants to have half a trillion dollars to dole out as he sees fit without oversight. I hope the Trumpistas will forgive me if that image doesn't fill me with confidence.

Services are 80% of GDP, 79% of employment. We are in for some serious shit even if we can automate industrial production enough that no one has to be within 6 feet of one another.

People used to spending so much on services can only buy so many cars.

His "greatness?" When have I ever claimed Trump possesses "greatness?"

And why do you have trouble with the notion that wealth does not bestow upon one "great" leadership skills?

Fortunately for Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, our governors do not have shit for brains, and are keeping the shelter in place policies to full effect.

Spain's the opening act of a horror movie right now.

US has "turned the corner" on testing.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/surgeon-general-coronavirus-testing-turned-corner

When I was refilling my propane tank at my local hardware store on Saturday (so I can keep cooking food), there was like 50 fucking boomers there buying soil and flowers.

Boomers can't die off soon enough. I hope they all die a miserable death, the selfish pricks.

At this point, full communism is the only way out of this mess. Boomers just need to die off over the next 2 months to make it possible. Boomers, do you part: lick some toilet seats and doorknobs.

He's in debt by a billion dollars, that doesn't make him a billionaire.

I really hope all the churches are open for Easter Sunday.

Incalculable deaths of Christians, in a proportion not seen since Romans fed them to lions. There really couldn't be a better thing to happen to our country in several decades.

I've got a better idea.

Texas Seniors Burn Lt. Gov. Patrick Alive To Appease Coronavirus Gods



Tributes are being paid to Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick today after he was burned alive last night inside a giant wooden structure in an act of pagan sacrifice.

“It’s what he would have wanted.”

The fatal ritual occurred after a large crowd of seniors appeared at Patrick’s residence and abducted him. Despite reports he resisted, the seniors responsible insist he was in favor of it.

“He said he was willing to sacrifice his life to save the extravagant lifestyle of some billionaire hedge fund managers. Us not so much.”

Asked whether they really believed human sacrifice could avert major disasters by appealing to some higher pagan power, the elderly Texans involved were skeptical.

“Nah, we just felt like burning him.”

Let's keep things in perspective: There are 7,000,000,000 people on this planet. The coronavirus has infected 423,000. A trivial amount all things considered.

The rate of new infections can be crudely approximated as y=log(x). That's OK and expected, so let's not get carried away just yet. There has been a spike in a certain, recent time interval which can be easily accounted for (increased testing).

I believe what you're saying in this post, and I don't want you or your family to die. Please stay safe--I know we've had our differences.

I think @Elwood summed it up best when he pointed out that we either shut the country down for an indefinite period of time, lose a few ten/hundred thousand people, and crash the economy; or we reopen everything, countless millions die, and we crash the economy just as much, if not more.

If the economy is going to crash either way, I'd rather we limit the number of deaths by several magnitudes.

Is that how you actually feel or are you just trying to be funny? I know some people of your generation have dubbed this virus as the "Boomer remover." I wonder how @garamet would feel about this?

reported

Maybe you should ask her.

To whom? The Boomers that run this site? They are not long for this world.

So how do you feel about it?

I trust @garamet to be smart enough to be social distancing.

Much like most Star Trek novel writers.

(just kidding, please stay safe @garamet)