At what point did you / will you take the coronavirus epidemic seriously?

[Jarid in Cedar]

Ok Jay, this is what I hear you saying.

If you are over 65 or have multiple health problems, society considers you expendable for the sake of our economy.

[Moliere]

My observations at this point.

2. The stated reason for quarantining in the first place was to flatten the curve and avoid overwhelming hospitals. At this point, it appears no matter how irresponsible people act starting today, there will be no way that would happen. The stated reason for quarantining now is for saving lives. And the arguments are usually done in manipulative way by comparing lives lost to Vietnam or WWII.

I definitely agree with this one. The goalposts are being moved, mostly by the people on the left side of the spectrum. The comparisons are ridiculous. We know people will get infected and we know people will die. Saving one life to spare an economy is not worth it. We place values on peoples lives all the time in pretty much every activity/industry and this instance shouldn't be any different.

[jay santos]

Ok Jay, this is what I hear you saying.

If you are over 65 or have multiple health problems, society considers you expendable for the sake of our economy.

Would you vote to save 0.5% of the elderly population if it was going to add 20% to the national debt?

[Moliere]

Ok Jay, this is what I hear you saying.

If you are over 65 or have multiple health problems, society considers you expendable for the sake of our economy.

Read it again because you didn't understand what he said.

[Commando]

My observations at this point.

1. I think if we would have never done any quarantining at all, and just emphasized normal health standards, like if you're sick stay at home, don't cough on people, etc, the US death count never would have exceeded 500K with the vast majority being elderly and those already very sick. That's an acceptable loss, imho, to avoid the economic disaster that occurred and is still occurring.

nah.

[Goatnapper'96]

Ok Jay, this is what I hear you saying.

If you are over 65 or have multiple health problems, society considers you expendable for the sake of our economy.

Economic development has been the greatest thing to happen to mankind save the Atonement. All the development of the last 400 years that has provided mankind with the lifestyle it enjoys has its genesis in economic development. I agree with you that is what Jay is saying and I still agree with him. There are many adult decisions we make that include that same trade-off.

So like vote for my bill or people will die!

[Jeff Lebowski]

Economic development has been the greatest thing to happen to mankind save the Atonement. All the development of the last 400 years that has provided mankind with the lifestyle it enjoys has its genesis in economic development. I agree with you that is what Jay is saying and I still agree with him. There are many adult decisions we make that include that same trade-off.

So like vote for my bill or people will die!

You say that as if the pandemic will forever wipe out economic development. Right now the stock market shows that most people would disagree with that.

[Goatnapper'96]

You say that as if the pandemic will forever wipe out economic development. Right now the stock market shows that most people would disagree with that.

Sometimes we just need to decrease the surplus population!

[Flystripper]

You say that as if the pandemic will forever wipe out economic development. Right now the stock market shows that most people would disagree with that.

With respect to the market, valuation is currently irrational and based on a recovery that will likely NOT meet expectations. Technical traders which have been buying the dips, have been using models that are broken and have no real modern precedent. They are going to get burned. There is going to be a reckoning during Q2 earning season when the visibility to the damage this has done will be on full display. The current earning season only has about a month of impact.

[beefytee]

Sometimes we just need to decrease the surplus population!

Sometimes we need a very serious economic correction!

Much like people claiming "all those people were going to die anyways," who's to stay the economy wasn't on its way to a big correction anyways.

[Goatnapper'96]

Sometimes we need a very serious economic correction!

Much like people claiming "all those people were going to die anyways," who's to stay the economy wasn't on its way to a big correction anyways.

Without the wealth created by economic development mankind would never be able to deal with this pandemic other than just die.

[Goatnapper'96]

Sometimes we need a very serious economic correction!

Much like people claiming "all those people were going to die anyways," who's to stay the economy wasn't on its way to a big correction anyways.

But I just love to drop "decrease the surplus population" in my best George C. Scott voice. Scrooge and Patton- my two favorite mythological heroes!

[Jeff Lebowski]

With respect to the market, valuation is currently irrational and based on a recovery that will likely NOT meet expectations. Technical traders which have been buying the dips, have been using models that are broken and have no real modern precedent. They are going to get burned. There is going to be a reckoning during Q2 earning season when the visibility to the damage this has done will be on full display. The current earning season only has about a month of impact.

That is what I am thinking too. But I sure see a lot of bullish folks and analysts.

[Walter Sobchak]

You should put a trigger warning on this post for MBN and hide the content in a spoiler tag.

My observations at this point.

1. I think if we would have never done any quarantining at all, and just emphasized normal health standards, like if you're sick stay at home, don't cough on people, etc, the US death count never would have exceeded 500K with the vast majority being elderly and those already very sick. That's an acceptable loss, imho, to avoid the economic disaster that occurred and is still occurring.
2. The stated reason for quarantining in the first place was to flatten the curve and avoid overwhelming hospitals. At this point, it appears no matter how irresponsible people act starting today, there will be no way that would happen. The stated reason for quarantining now is for saving lives. And the arguments are usually done in manipulative way by comparing lives lost to Vietnam or WWII.
3. If we all go back to work, being responsible, wearing masks, sick people stay at home, being very careful about exposure to elderly or otherwise at risk, maybe continue to limit large gatherings that have little financial impact, there is very low risk that the total death count will rise from today's 72K to more than let's say 250K. Again, with the vast majority of those being very elderly and sick people, imo that's an acceptable loss for moving on with life. That delta of 180K is less than half percent of our country's population of age >65.
4. Every day we spend quarantining right now with healthy people under age 60 not going back to work and restaurants and other businesses being closed is a complete waste.
5. There does not appear to be a significant "second wave" in any country.
6. We didn't have all this data at the beginning, so you can't blame leaders for overreacting, but it was an overreaction.

(Edit: trigger warning also needed for JiC apparently.)

[Omaha 680]

Sometimes we need a very serious economic correction!

Much like people claiming "all those people were going to die anyways," who's to stay the economy wasn't on its way to a big correction anyways.

To say what we are experiencing is comparable to a correction is way worse than comparing covid19 to the flu. The contraction we are experiencing is worse than the depression by quite a bit. The longer we sustain it, the less likely it will be that we can grow out of it in any reasonable time frame. This has its own public health implications from the ability of 10s of millions to support themselves and their families to the ability of government to fill the widening gaps because of collapsing tax revenues.

We need to operate in reality. Saying people who want to open up want to sacrifice the old is dumb. Saying people who want to lock down until we can contract trace everyone don't care about the economy is dumb. What is the reality? We can't lock down like China because we are free. We can't contact trace like Korea because we are late (along with everyone else in the west) and probably too big as well. We can't lock down much longer because we risk total economic collapse. The only alternative is to be Sweden. They were mocked a month ago but appear better positioned than any other western country at this point to move forward without fear of needing to shut down every time there is a spike.

My major complaint about the federal response is the lack of a plan that recognizes the realities I note above and crafts a real world strategy to address them. I can forgive the late reasonse if we learn our lesson this time because almost everyone else did the same thing just without a dumb president saying dumb things. But the lack of planning for what happens on the back end of the shutdown is unforgivable. I guess they really did think it would disappear?