We have learned historically that if we can isolate sick people, we can often keep a communicable disease from spreading. Unfortunately, the situation with the new coronavirus causing COVID-19 is different: We can’t reliability determine which people are spreading the disease. Furthermore, the disease seems to transmit in many different ways simultaneously.
Politicians and health organizations like to show that they are “doing something.” Because of the strange nature of COVID-19, however, doing something is mostly a time-shifting exercise: With quarantines and other containment efforts, there will be fewer cases now, but this will be mostly or entirely offset by more cases later. Whether time-shifting reduces deaths and eases hospital care depends upon whether medical advances are sufficiently great during the time gained to improve outcomes.
We tend to lose sight of the fact that an economy cannot simply be shut down for a period and then start up again at close to its former level of production. China seems to have seriously overdone its use of quarantines. It seems likely that its economy can never fully recover. The permanent loss of a significant part of China’s productive output seems likely to send the world economy into a tailspin, regardless of what other economies do.
Before undertaking containment efforts of any kind, decision-makers need to look carefully at several issues:
- Laying off workers, even for a short time, severely adversely affects the economy.
- The expected length of delay in cases made possible by quarantines is likely to be very short, sometimes lasting not much longer than the quarantines themselves.
- We seem to need a very rapid improvement in our ability to treat COVID-19 cases for containment efforts to make sense, if we cannot stamp out the disease completely.
Because of these issues, it is very easy to overdo quarantines and other containment efforts.
In the sections below, I explain some parts of this problem.
[1] The aim of coronavirus quarantines is mostly to slow down the spread of the virus, not to stop its spread.
As a practical matter, it is virtually impossible to stop the spread of the new coronavirus.
In order to completely stop its spread, we would need to separate each person from every other person, as well as from possible animal carriers, for something like a month. In this way, people who are carriers for the disease or actually have the disease would hopefully have time to get over their illnesses. Perhaps airborne viruses would dissipate and viruses on solid surfaces would have time to deteriorate.
This clearly could not work. People would need to be separated from their children and pets. All businesses, including food sales, would have to stop. Electricity would likely stop, especially in areas where storms bring down power lines. No fuel would be available for vehicles of any kind. If a home catches fire, the fire would need to burn until a lack of material to burn stops it. If a baby needs to be delivered, there would be no midwife or hospital services available. If a person happened to have an appendicitis, it would simply need to resolve itself at home, however that worked out.
Bigger groups could in theory be quarantined together, but then the length of time for the quarantine would need to be greatly lengthened, to account for the possibility that one person might catch the disease from someone else in the group. The bigger the group, the longer the chain might continue. A group might be a single family sharing a home; it could also be a group of people in an apartment building that shares a common ventilation system.
[2] An economy is in many ways like a human being or other animal. Its operation cannot be stopped for a month or more, without bringing the economy to an end.
I sometimes write about the economy being a self-organizing networked system that is powered by energy. In physics terms, the name for such a system is a dissipative structure. Human beings are dissipative structures, as are hurricanes and stars, such as the sun.
Human beings cannot stop eating and breathing for a month. They cannot have sleep apnea for an hour at a time, and function afterward.
Economies cannot stop functioning for a month and afterward resume operations at their previous level. Too many people will have lost their jobs; too many businesses will have failed in the meantime. If the closures continue for two or three months, the problem becomes very serious. We are probably kidding ourselves if we think that China can come back to the same level that it was at before the new coronavirus hit.
In a way, keeping an economy operating is as important as preventing deaths from COVID-19. Without food, water and wage-producing jobs (which allow people to buy necessary goods and services), the deaths from the loss of the economy would be far greater than the direct deaths from the coronavirus.
[3] A reasonable guess is that nearly all of us will face multiple exposures to the new coronavirus.
Many people are hoping that this wave of the coronavirus will be stopped by warmer weather, perhaps in May or June. We don’t know whether this will happen or not. If the coronavirus does stop, there is a good chance the same virus, or a close variation of it, will be back again this fall. It is likely to come back in waves later, for at least one more year. In fact, if no vaccine is found, it is possible that it could come back, in various variations, indefinitely. There are many things we simply don’t know with certainty at this time.
Epidemiologists talk about the spread of a virus being stopped at the community immunity level. Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch originally estimated that 40% to 70% of the world’s population would come down with COVID-19 within the first year. He has revised this and now states that it is plausible that 20% to 60% of the world’s population will catch the disease in that timeframe. He also indicates that if the virus cannot be contained, the only way to get it under control is for 50% of the world’s population to become immune to it.
The big issue with containing the coronavirus is that we cannot really tell who has it and who does not. The tests available for COVID-19 are expensive, so giving the test to everyone, frequently, makes no sense. The tests tend to give a many false negatives, so even when they are given, they don’t necessarily detect people with the disease. There are also many people who seem to spread the disease without symptoms. Without testing everyone, these people will never be found.
We hear limited statements such as “The United States surgeon general said Sunday that he thinks the coronavirus outbreak is being contained in certain areas of the country as cases of the virus rise across the United States.” Unfortunately, containment of the virus in a few parts of the world does not solve the general problem. There are lots and lots of uncontained cases around the world. These uncontained cases will continue to spread, regardless of the steps taken elsewhere.
Furthermore, even when we think the virus is contained, there are likely to be missed cases, especially among people who seem to be well, but who really are carriers. Getting rid of the virus is likely to be a major challenge.
[4] There is an advantage to delaying citizens from catching COVID-19. The delay allows doctors to learn which existing medications can be used to help treat the symptoms of the disease.
There seem to be multiple drugs and multiple therapies that work to some limited extent.
For example, plasma containing antibodies from a person who has already had the illness can be injected into a person with the disease, helping to fight the disease. It is not clear, however, whether such a treatment will protect against future attacks of the virus since the patient is being cured without his own immune system producing adequate antibodies.
Some HIV drugs are being examined to see whether they work well enough for it to make sense to ramp up production of them. The antiviral drug remdesivir by Gilead Sciences also seems to have promise. For these drugs to be useful in fighting COVID-19, production would need to be ramped up greatly.
In theory, there is also a possibility that a vaccine can be brought to market that will get rid of the virus. Our past experience with vaccine-making has not been very good, however. Out of 200+ virus-caused diseases that affect humans, only about 20 have vaccines. These vaccines generally need to be updated frequently, because viruses tend to mutate over time.
With some viruses, such as Dengue Fever, people don’t ever build up adequate immunity to the many disease variations that exist. Instead a person who catches Dengue Fever a second time is likely to be sicker than the first time. Finding a vaccine for such diseases seems to be almost impossible.
Even if we can actually succeed in making a vaccine that works, the expectation seems to be that this will take at least 12 to 18 months. By this time, the world may have experienced multiple waves of COVID-19.
[5] There are multiple questions regarding how well European countries, Japan and the United States will really be able to treat coronavirus.
There are several issues involved:
(a) Even if medicines are identified, can they be ramped up adequately in the short time available?
(b) China’s exports have dropped significantly. Required medical goods that we normally import from China may not be available. The missing items could be as simple as rubbing alcohol, masks and other protective wear. The missing items could also be antibiotics, antidepressants, and blood pressure medications that are needed for both COVID-19 patients and other patients.
(c) Based on my calculations, the number of hospital beds and ICU beds needed will likely exceed those available (without kicking out other patients) by at least a factor of 10, if the size of the epidemic grows. There will also be a need for more medical staff. Medical staff may be fewer, rather than more, because many of them will be out sick with the virus. Because of these issues, the amount of hospital-based care that can actually be provided to COVID-19 patients is likely to be fairly limited.
(d) One reason for time-shifting of illnesses has been to try to better match illnesses with medical care available. The main benefit I can see is the fact that many health care workers will have contracted the illness in the first wave of the disease, so will be more available to give care in later waves of the disease. Apart from this difference, the system will be badly overwhelmed, regardless of when COVID-19 cases occur.
[6] A major issue, both with COVID-19 illnesses and with quarantines arising out of fear of illness, is wage loss.
If schools and day care centers are closed because of COVID-19 fears, many of the parents will have to take off time from work to care for the children. These parent will likely lose wages.
Wage loss will also be a problem if quarantines are required for people returning from an area that might be affected. For example, immigrant workers in China wanting to return to work in major cities after the New Year’s holiday have been quarantined for 14 days after they return.
Clearly, expenses (such as rent, food and auto payments) will continue, both for the mother of the child who is at home because a child’s school is closed and for the migrant worker who wants to return to a job in the city. Their lack of wages will mean that these people will make fewer discretionary purchases, such as visiting restaurants and making trips to visit relatives. In fact, migrant workers, when faced with a 14 day quarantine, may decide to stay in the countryside. If they don’t earn very much in the best of times, and they are required to go 14 days without pay after they return, there may not be much incentive to return to work.
If I am correct that the illness COVID-19 will strike in several waves, these same people participating in quarantines will have another “opportunity” for wage loss when they actually contract the disease, during one of these later rounds. Unless there is a real reduction in the number of people who ultimately get COVID-19 because of quarantines, a person would expect that the total wage loss would be greater with quarantines than without, because the wage loss occurs twice instead of once.
Furthermore, businesses will suffer financially when their workers are out. With fewer working employees, businesses will likely be able to produce fewer finished goods and services than in the past. At the same time, their fixed expenses (such as mortgage payments, insurance payments, and the cost of heating buildings) will continue. This mismatch is likely to lead to lower profits at two different times: (a) when workers are out because of quarantines and (b) when they are out because they are ill.
[7] We likely can expect a great deal more COVID-19 around the world, including in China and in Italy, in the next two years.
The number of reported COVID-19 cases to date is tiny, compared to the number that is expected based on estimates by epidemiologists. China reports about 81,000 COVID-19 cases to date, while its population is roughly 1.4 billion. If epidemiologists tell us to expect 20% to 60% of a country’s population to be affected by the end of the first year of the epidemic, this would correspond to a range of 280 million to 840 million cases. The difference between reported cases and expected cases is huge. Reported cases to date are less than 0.01% of the population.
We know that China’s reported number of cases is an optimistically low number, but we don’t know how low. Many, many more cases are expected in the year ahead if workers go back to work. In fact, there have been recent reports of a COVID-19 outbreak in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, near Hong Kong. Such an outbreak would adversely affect China’s manufactured exports.
Italy has a similar situation. It is currently reported to have somewhat more than 10,000 cases. Its total population is about 60 million. Thus, its number of cases amounts to about 0.02% of the population. If Epidemiologist Lipsitch is correct regarding the percentage of the population that is ultimately likely to be affected, the number of cases in Italy, too, can be expected to be much higher within the next year. Twenty percent of a population of 60 million would amount to 12 million cases; 60% of the population would amount to 36 million cases.
[8] When decisions about quarantines are made, the expected wage loss when workers lose their jobs needs to be considered as well.
Let’s calculate the amount of wage loss from actually having COVID-19. If workers generally work for 50 weeks a year and are out sick for an average of 2 weeks because of COVID-19, the average worker would lose 4% (=2/50) of his annual wages. If workers are out sick for an average of three weeks, this would increase the loss to 6% (3/50) of the worker’s annual wages.
Of course, not all workers will be affected by the new coronavirus. If we are expecting 20% to 60% of the workers to be out sick during the first year that the epidemic cycles through the economy, the expected overall wage loss for the population as a whole would amount to 0.8% (=20% times 4%) to 3.6% (=60% times 6%) of total wages.
Let’s now calculate the wage loss from a quarantine. A week of wage loss during a quarantine of the entire population, while nearly everyone is well, would lead to a wage loss equal to 2% of the population’s total wages. Two weeks of wage loss during quarantine would lead to wage loss equal to 4% of the population’s total wages.
Is it possible to reduce overall wage loss and deaths by using quarantines? This approach works for diseases which can actually be stopped through isolating sick members, but I don’t think it works well at all for COVID-19. Mostly, it provides a time-shifting feature. There are fewer illnesses earlier, but to a very significant extent, this is offset by more illnesses later. This time-shifting feature might be helpful if there really is a substantial improvement in prevention or treatment that is quickly available. For example, if a vaccine that really works can be found quickly, such a vaccine might help prevent some of the illnesses and deaths in 2021 and following years.
If there really isn’t an improvement in preventing the disease, then we get back to the situation where the virus needs to be stopped based on community immunity. According to Lipsitch, to stop the virus based on community immunity, at least 50% of the population would need to become immune. This implies that somewhat more than 50% of the population would need to catch the new coronavirus, because some people would catch the new virus and die, either of COVID-19 or of another disease.
Let’s suppose that 55% would need to catch COVID-19 to allow the population immunity to rise to 50%. The virus would likely need to keep cycling around until at least this percentage of the population has caught the disease. This is not much of a decrease from the upper limit of 60% during the first year. This suggests that moving illnesses to a later year may not help much at all with respect to the expected number of illnesses and deaths. Hospitals will be practically equally overwhelmed regardless, unless we can somehow change the typical seasonality of viruses and move some of the winter illnesses to summertime.
If there is no improvement in COVID-19 prevention/treatment during the time-shift of cases created by the quarantine, any quarantine wage loss can be thought of as being simply in addition to wage loss from having the virus itself. Thus, a country that opts for a two week quarantine of all workers (costing 4% of workers’ wages) may be more than doubling the direct wage loss from COVID-19 (equivalent to 0.8% to 3.6% of workers’ wages).
[9] China’s shutdown in response to COVID-19 doesn’t seem to make much rational sense.
It is hard to understand exactly how much China has shut down, but the shutdown has gone on for about six weeks. At this point, it is not clear that China can ever come back to the level it was at previously. Clearly, the combination of wage loss for individuals and profit loss for companies is very high. The long shutdown is likely to lead to widespread debt defaults. With less wages, there is likely to be less demand for goods such as cars and cell phones during 2020.
China was having difficulty before the new coronavirus was discovered to be a problem. Its energy production has slowed greatly, starting about 2012-2013, making it necessary for China to start shifting from a goods-producing nation to a country that is more of a services-producer (Figure 1).
Figure 1. China energy production by fuel, based on 2019 BP Statistical Review of World Energy data. “Other Ren” stands for “Renewables other than hydroelectric.” This category includes wind, solar, and other miscellaneous types, such as sawdust burned for electricity.
For example, China’s workers now put together iPhones using parts made in other countries, rather than making iPhones from start to finish. This part of the production chain requires relatively little fuel, so it is in some sense more like a service than the manufacturing of parts for the phone.
The rest of the world has been depending upon China to be a major supplier within its supply lines. Perhaps many of these supply lines will be broken indefinitely. Instead of China helping pull the world economy along faster, we may be faced with a situation in which China’s reduced output leads to worldwide economic contraction rather than economic growth.
Without medicines from China, our ability to fight COVID-19 may get worse over time, rather than better. In such a case, it would be better to get the illness now, rather than later.
[10] We need to be examining proposed solutions closely, in the light of the particulars of the new coronavirus, rather than simply assuming that fighting COVID-19 to the death is appropriate.
The instructions we hear today seem to suggest using disinfectants everywhere, to try to prevent COVID-19. This is yet another way to try to push off infections caused by the coronavirus into the future. We know, however, that there are good microbes as well as bad ones. The ecosystem requires a balance of microbes. Dumping disinfectants everywhere has its downside, as well as the possibility of an upside of killing the current round of coronaviruses. In fact, to the extent that the virus is airborne, the disinfectants may not really be very helpful in wiping out COVID-19.
It is very easy to believe that if some diseases can be subdued by quarantines, the same approach will work everywhere. This really isn’t true. We need to be examining the current situation closely, based on whatever information is available, before decisions are made regarding how to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. Perhaps any quarantines used need to be small and targeted.
We also need to be looking for new approaches for fighting COVID-19. One approach that is not being used significantly to date is trying to strengthen people’s own immune systems. Such an approach might help people’s own immune system to fight off the disease, thereby lowering death rates. Nutrition experts recommend supplementing diets with Vitamins A, C, E, antioxidants and selenium. Other experts say zinc, Vitamin D and elderberry may be helpful. Staying away from cold temperatures also seems to be important. Drinking plenty of water after coming down with the disease may be beneficial as well. If we can help people’s own bodies fight the disease, the burden on the medical system will be lower.
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/03/27/report-families-flood-wuhan-funeral-homes-for-remains/
“Data from the city’s civil affairs agency found that 56,007 cremations took place in Wuhan in the last quarter of 2019…”
if only we had the real numbers for Q1 of 2020…
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/28/coronaviurs-spain-logs-832-fatalities-in-24-hours-imf-confirms-world-recession/
Meanwhile, on Friday, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said massive spending will be needed to help developing nations, warning: “It is clear that we have entered a recession.”
translation: it is clear that we have entered a depression…
If you don’t believe this virus is brutal killer then why don’t you go volunteer at the hospital and don’t wear any protective gear! Gail is screening too many alternative view points on here!
How serious the illness is seems to depend upon the extent to which a person’s natural immunity is overwhelmed by the virus. Anyone who works in a hospital filled with people of this type will have a problem, regardless of their age, because of the day after day bombardment of large quantities of the virus. Our system of caring for people in hospitals doesn’t seem to work well for this illness. It is very difficult to keep the virus from infecting both other patients in the hospital and hospital employees. To the extent that patients with COVID-19 can be kept at home, preferably outside on a porch to get fresh air and sunshine, it would be much better.
The use of the mechanical ventilators is known to cause brain damage. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/266626
Researchers find why ICU ventilation can cause brain damage
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/03/28/abbott-announces-ship-5-minute-coronavirus-test/
“… delivering positive results in as little as five minutes and negative results in 13 minutes.”
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/03/28/ecuador-to-build-a-mass-grave-for-coronavirus-deaths/
“Government officials in Ecuador began the process of finding a location to build a mass gravesite to bury the rising number of casualties from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).”
https://www.breitbart.com/news/epidemic-infects-europe-with-germ-of-division/
will the virus kill off the EU?
“The climate that seems to hang over the heads of state and government and the lack of European solidarity pose a mortal danger to the European Union,”
boo hoo…
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-28/how-bad-will-the-next-few-weeks-for-california-as-coronavirus-cases-explode
“Two months after its first confirmed case of the deadly respiratory illness in California, the state is preparing to confront what public health authorities agree will be the cruelest month — an April that portends a peak in sickness and death.”
“April is the cruellest month…” – T.S. Eliot
special report… updated official numbers:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Norway blows past 4,000 cases…
23 deaths and 7 recovered… somehow I suspect that there are 23 families who now think this is real and serious…
Sweden 105 deaths… what happened?
Italy 10,000 dead… has the flu ever killed that many in one flu season in Italy?
USA 2,000 dead, and some sources say this will double every week for many weeks…
there is another way to think about this:
don’t believe anything…
karmic activity in OPEC+…
Russia and Saudi Arabia both have reported coronavirus cases in the 1,200 range…
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/29/coronavirus-latest-updates.html
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to “refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.””
please… thank you very much…
“China’s National Health Commission reported 45 new cases of the coronavirus disease in the mainland, with all but one involving travelers from overseas.”
so there was one that didn’t involve incoming travelers…
so the virus is still spreading internally within China…
no surprise there… time for round two…
And the title of her post before last: “It is easy to overreact to the Chinese coronavirus”!
Let us remember the title of Gail’s article “It is easy to overdo covid-19 quarantines”. Applaud to Gail.
Normally WordPress freezes up at about 2800.
OFW is gonna get 4K…
wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan…
baby…
No, we just don’t get any further than that.
New York State has 4000 ventilators in a warehouse in NJ. bought for $25,000 each available for sale to any state for $45,000 each. I guess Cuomo does not think NY needs them. Politicians are so funny and so dangerous.
prove it… please…
link?
reference?
perhaps seen them with your own eyes?
your wife’s sister’s husband’s cousin told you?
Niggers die, Warsaw rising: https://i.imgur.com/3DdpmgN.jpg
« «The fact is that the energy transition is here to stay. If anything, pressures to commit to net zero carbon will intensify.» https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/could-clean-energy-be-the-winner-in-the-oil-price-war/
Michael Liebreich: No bailout should benefit industries or business models that are not viable in the coming low-carbon world» https://about.bnef.com/blog/covid-19-the-low-carbon-crisis/
“… in that scenario the global economy would certainly remain in deep recessionary territory.
Perhaps I am being too pessimistic.”
Mr. L thinks a deep recession is too pessimistic…
he must not have heard that many persons (at least me anyway) are predicting a massive 50 to 75 % plunge into the Greatest Depression ever faced by the world…
perhaps I am being too pessimistic… 😉
Even Wall st. (defying some bureaucrats) is now predicting ~35-50% drop for Q2, so that’s the minimal range bound anyway..
These folks won’t let up, will they?
is 3000 plus an all time record for comments?
July 2017 had a high of 3,812 comments…
perhaps some other time was higher, but I remember that because that’s about when I joined in on these comments, after having been a loyal reader of Gail’s blog for many years…
someone, perhaps Baby Doomer, had posted that he was amazed at how high the comments got back then, so naturally I presumed it was because of my presence… 😉
which in a way it was probably somewhat related… since I was giving some very needed pushback to the InstaDoomers when I first started posting, and that may very well have provoked a knee jerk response to defend the InstaDoom against this new guy with his strange ideas about slow doom…
to me, some of the July 2017 comments were almost downright hilarious, with their unjustified slant towards InstaDoom… very enjoyable place, and it still is!
imagine that… “they” were thinking that The Collapse was right at their door in 2017…
while it took so many more years… ha ha… 3! to get where we are now…
to be fair, any one of many triggers could have set the plunge going in 2017…
ah, 2017… there were even sports and leagues playing back then… the good old days!
and 2017 was when this annoying catchphrase was unleashed:
BAU tonight, baby!
tomorrow there will be a prize for comment number 4,000
yeah, coined by YOU!
way back when!
now… uh…
wobbling semi quasi bAU (not as much business) baby!
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/teen-coronavirus-denied-medical-care-lacked-insurance.html
‘Teen Who May Have Died of Coronavirus Denied Medical Care Because He Lacked Insurance’
“A teenager in Lancaster, California whose death earlier this month may have been linked to the coronavirus was rejected from an urgent care center because he didn’t have health insurance. He complained of respiratory distress but authorities at the center told him on March 18 to go to a hospital. “He did not have insurance, so they did not treat him,” Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said in a YouTube video. On his way to the hospital, the teenager went into cardiac arrest. When he got to the hospital, health care workers were able to revive him and keep him alive for six hours. But time was of the essence and by the time doctors got to him it was too late. “We’ve learned that once you go into respiratory issues, you have trouble breathing, you’re short of breath and you have a fever, that is the time to get medical treatment without delay,” Parris said.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/urn-deliveries-wuhan-china-coronavirus-death-toll
“China has reported 3,299 coronavirus-related deaths, with most taking place in Wuhan, the epicenter of the global pandemic. But one funeral home received two shipments of 5,000 urns over the course of two days, according to the Chinese media outlet Caixin.”
Something doesn’t add up in China’s figures.
Wuhan 11 million people, and let’s use 0.5% as the annual death rate, though it’s probably higher (the world death rate is something like 0.7% annually)…
so at least 55,000 people die in Wuhan every year…
Wuhan needs lots of urns…
the CCP is faking the virus death numbers, but this urn story isn’t the smoking gun…
Urns aren’t strictly necessary for cremated remains. The ash could be used as fertilizer, for instance.
The Mighty Boosh at global no. 1?
From 2010, I see.
I had a pick up from A&E this evening. A guy wearing an N95 respirator got in the back and handed me an envelope. I opened it and inside was a cheap surgical mask. “What’s this for? Have you got coronavirus?”, I asked. “Yes”, he replied, “the hospital is sending me home to self isolate. They gave me the mask to give to you”. I thanked him for his honesty, handed the mask back to him and told him to get out, which he did.
FFS. I know I said I think I’ve had covid-19 already, but I’m not taking infected individuals around with worthless protection. Maybe it’s long past time to go into temporary retirement.
LOLLL!!!! I really laughed out loud to your story…my apologies if you did not mean it in a funny way!!!
Glad it amused you. My wife failed to see the funny side. 😉
didn’t the guy (and the hospital staff) realize that the virus could be on the envelope?
I don’t know, but I did. I drove home and washed my hands immediately, although I expect I touched my face 20 times on the way without thinking.
Having thought about it, although the guy said he had coronavirus, I doubt that he had been tested, because tests in the UK are few and far between.
Touching is bad but it’s not the worst vector.
In fact people *(coughing, sneezing, loudly talking-yelling into your face) is the largest danger; plus obviously precondition of weakened immunity (disease of malnutrition).
—
* that’s why it is best to avoid such places be it mass transport, small space offices, or anything mad crowds in general etc..
Agreed. If it had been an N95 respirator in the envelope instead of a surgical mask, I might have taken him wherever he wanted to go. But probably not, because my initial reaction was to get far away from him. Difficult to do that if we are sharing a car.
Antibody tests will soon be available and will be very helpful.
Yorchichan, reading the story you told, I think you were wise not to have accepted that passenger. If the guy was shedding, there was a risk of infection to you and to anyone else you might come into contact with, and also a risk of infecting the vehicle, which means that subsequent passengers might have been infected.
Rotten for the guy wearing the respirator, though. I wonder how he got home in the end.
Knowing our operators, after I’d told them to take the job off me and why, they probably sent another car.
a thought for us Americans…
if/when we find out the exact day when we all are getting our $1,200…
perhaps we should do all of our shopping (ie stock up) the day before…
Bingo.
But in the greater scheme of things, possibly you can front run most of the other humanoids and various events, but in the end something eventually gets you. That’s how nature works.
For the doomer crowd, time to let the credit cards rip:
After careful research in the subject. Buy a air purifier with HEPA filter and air ionizer functionality for your homes and office spaces.
You might feel the urge to argue with me, but then you’d be wrong.
https://www.amazon.com/Winix-5300-2-Purifier-PlasmaWave-Reducing/dp/B01D8DAYBA
The ‘no egg boxes’ story must be the tip of an iceberg: surely all packaging processes must break down at some point? It feels as though it might be quite soon.
Thanks, didn’t think of that one.
It is with great regret I am starting to accept Gail’s guess that things will more or less stop in a few months.
Many talk of a garden, it takes great skill and much more land than one might think, maybe an acre and that assumes no crop failures – they do fail you know.
This is not going to be any fun at all.
Dennis L.
About growing your own food without any modern world inputs….fast forward to the 25 minute mark to see the immediate challenges with growing your own food with the whole system having collapsed….
I accepted collaps in 2013 After study 3 years. Now i am ready. I had big depressione but now i am ready
No, you are not.
In the face of starvation, disease and relentless hard labor there is not one single person living in IC that is prepared.
Yea, I got some last words……
No baby chicks, as well!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/style/chicken-eggs-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Style
I am a long-time reader but have never posted before. Started at the Oil Drum in 2005, bought farm land in 2007 in an out of the way place, started a business with husband and daughter, have gardened every year. Have always appreciated the knowledge and exchange of ideas here. I probably won’t post much, but – much thanks to all!! Grace
I stopped by Home Depot myself to get some tomato and other food plants to set out. When we are worried, we think about food. The Home Depot parking lot was very full of vehicles, but with a big store, the number of customers was not obvious.
Congrats to great timing.
We’ve only just begun
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mw9HDYAJld0
Ah, the Good Old Days of BAU…we didn’t know how good we had it!
We Have Lost It All’: The Shock Felt by Millions of Unemployed Americans
Sabrina Tavernise, Audra D.S. Burch, Sarah Mervosh and Campbell Robertson
The New York TimesMarch 28, 2020, 10:15 AM EDT
For the millions of Americans who found themselves without a job in recent weeks, the sharp and painful change brought a profound sense of disorientation. They were going about their lives, bartending, cleaning, managing events, waiting tables, loading luggage and teaching yoga. And then suddenly they were in free fall, grabbing at any financial help they could find, which in many states this week remained locked away behind crashing websites and overloaded phone lines.
“Everything has changed in a matter of minutes — seconds,” said Tamara Holtey, 29, an accountant for an industrial services company in the Houston area, who was on a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico, as the coronavirus outbreak intensified in the United States and was laid off on her second day back at
Now she spends her days applying for jobs online from her home in Alvin, Texas, while she and her wife weigh whether to delay paying their mortgage for a month or two — only to have to pay more
On Tuesday last week, he was going to work, helping passengers in the customs area of the Miami airport. The next day, he was laid off without severance or benefits. Five days later, he moved back in with his 59-year-old mother, loading his bed and his clothes into the back of his friend’s pickup truck.
Now he is staring at his bank account — totaling about $3,100 — and waiting on hold for hours at a time with the unemployment office, while cursing at its crashing website.
“I’m feeling scared,” said Palma, who is 41 and nervous about the $15,000 in medical debt he has from two recent hospital stays. “I don’t know what’s the ending. But I know I’m not in good shape.”
For the millions of Americans who found themselves without a job in recent weeks, the sharp and painful change brought a profound sense of disorientation. They were going about their lives, bartending, cleaning, managing events, waiting tables, loading luggage and teaching yoga. And then suddenly they were in free fall, grabbing at any financial help they could find, which in many states this week remained locked away behind crashing websites and overloaded phone lines.
“Everything has changed in a matter of minutes — seconds,” said Tamara Holtey, 29, an accountant for an industrial services company in the Houston area, who was on a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico, as the coronavirus outbreak intensified in the United States and was laid off on her second day back at work.
Now she spends her days applying for jobs online from her home in Alvin, Texas, while she and her wife weigh whether to delay paying their mortgage for a month or two — only to have to pay more in interest.
“It’s just a constant thought in my head: Am I going to lose my house? Am I going to lose everything?” she said. They had been talking about starting to have children, but “that’s on pause now.”
In 17 interviews with people in eight states across the country, Americans who lost their jobs said they were in shock and struggling to grasp the magnitude of the economy’s shutdown, an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. Unlike the last economic earthquake, the financial crisis of 2008, this time there was no getting back out there to look for work, not when people were being told to stay inside. What is more, the layoffs affected not just them, but their spouses, their parents, their siblings and their roommates — even their bosses.
“I don’t think anyone expected it to be like this,” said Mark Kasanic, 48, a server at a brasserie in Cleveland who was one of roughly 300 workers that a locally owned restaurant company laid off last week. Now he is home-schooling his children, ages 5 and 7, one with special needs.
Julian Bruell was one of those who had to deliver the bad news to hourly employees like Kasanic. Bruell, 30, who helps run the company with his father, said that only about 30 employees are left running takeout and delivery at two of its five restaurants. He has not been earning a salary, his goal being to keep the business afloat through the crisis.
“If it’s going to July this may not be sustainable,” he said. “I just want us to have a future.”
On Thursday, he was planning to file for unemployment himself.
In many states, that has been its own wild odyssey. Kasanic said he had spent hours dialing and redialing four Ohio numbers: three wound through a maze of messages that ended with a dead line and a fourth was always busy. His strategy now is to call at four in the morning.
“Getting through is nearly impossible,” he said. “I probably tried calling over 100 times to try to get a hold of somebody.”
Going online has not been any easier.
“I’ve gone on their website and the site would crash or pages would disappear,” he said.
He still has not gotten through. But he is trying.
Many described a feeling of sudden economic helplessness that did not match how they saw themselves. In the space of two weeks, Olivia Fernandes, 26, and her husband, Fabio, both fitness instructors in Miami, went from earning $77,000 a year to frantically trying to file for unemployment online.
But we have an EMERGENCY on our hands…drove to my nearby park today alone with my little tiny dog, Cricket, which I do EVERYDAY for YEARS and was halted to turn away because of the virus.
Our we overreacting!? Was I violating social distancing?!
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/03/27/gop-rep-rogers-the-economy-is-going-to-roar-back-by-fall/
“I think there’s going to be so much pent-up desire to get out and do something, produce and spend that the economy is going to roar back by fall,” Rogers said.
“For example, the travel industry — folks, after being cooped up in their house with this home restriction I think are going to be dying to go to the beach, and get on a plane and travel around the world,”
is this The Onion?
no, it’s not…
We should be grateful to this gentleman for trying so hard to keep us entertained.
But perhaps The Onion people should take out a contract on him, and lla the others hwo make satire so difficult these days…..
No jobs? Let them take vacations.
Too many missing links to keep the world economy going.
Wouldn’t you say, keep the world economy going for long enough? Obviously, keeping the the world economy going, just going, means infinite growth on a finite planet. We’re somewhat clear that this cannot be done. Meanwhile, there are essential industries needed to support a degree of civilization. And I would think that 1) identifying those essential industries, and 2) tracking the supply chain and socioeconomic arrangements to allow for those industries would be the next step.
The roaring 2020’s…
Cat = Humans
Finger = Coronavirus
Game is played every time you lift quarantine anywhere
That is about it.
+++++++
Here 100 miles north of NYC, wife and son work at local hospital. So far, ONE case.
Don’t go South
LOL!
I live in East Texas and already know one acquaintance that has tested + and died – They were from Lumberton, Texas about an hour South of me.
In my county there are officially 11 positive cases. Officially, one is in our hospital. Unofficially they are treating 5 positive cases with another 15 which theyare are positives…waiting on test results. I have good friends and spouse who are nurses and I believe them over the official stats the government deigns to give us. I expect you have a similar dynamic in your hospital. What positions do you wife and son hold? My spouse and friends are IMCU and critical care nurses…one is a certified first level caregiver for covid 19.
However it is best to stay positive, so let’s go with the one official case both our hospitals are reporting…
*Which they are all but certain are positive*
For those fast-collapsers here on OFW, it’s crazy how perusing local, national and international headlines, you are seeing what we have commented about here for years happening right before our eyes, like a slow-motion car crash.
However many of you would have preferred a “let-her-rip” approach instead of going the quarantine route. I disagree. Let me preface this, before I explain my take, that we are in a Catch-22 situation…both strategies (let the virus burn or quarantine) lead to a total collapse and we are probably looking at an ELE (Extinction Level Event).
Why do I prefer the quarantine approach…because I believe it gives us a few more weeks of quasi-BAU, then a “let-her-rip” approach.
The Virus is HIGHLY contagious…without doing anything, everybody gets it within a few weeks/months (tip of the hat to Al Bartlett, and how humans cannot wrap their heads around how the exponential function works). Now we know that in 80% of the cases, they will get through it without needing any kind of medical attention. The problem is that 20% will, and moreover 1 in 6 that get Covid-19 will need access to a ventilator (and not for a few days as is usually the case, but anywhere between 10 to 21 days give or take…3 to 6 times the amount of use needed in normal times). But with the speed of transmission, it means that all these people needing medical attention, will all need it pretty much in the same time frame. So let’s see, 20% of 8 billion is 1.6 billion needing medical attention and of those, 1.3 billion needing access to a ventilator, all in the span of a few weeks/months. By the way, feel free to halve all those numbers, the outcome is the same, that’s how huge those numbers are….hospitals across the world will collapse from the sheer number of people flocking there. As for the 0.5% to 1% death rate, such as recorded on the Diamond Princess COMPLETELY underestimates the actual death rate IMO. Why? Because, the patients on Diamond Princess had access to hospital care. In the case where hundreds of millions need a ventilator, only a fraction will get one. So millions that WOULD have lived had they had access to a ventilator die before ever seeing one. For that reason, I believe the 0.5% to 1% death rate is in a perfect limitless world, where everyone needing a ventilator gets one, till the person heals. The actual death rate is probably many multiples more, as only a minuscule fraction of the 1 out of 6 (feel free to put that number at 1 in 15, it’s still huge) needing a ventilator will actually get one. The result is you have all hospitals across the world collapsing (from Ghana to Germany and everywhere in between, Third-World, First-World, it does not matter) and millions dying all over the place…at home, in the streets, etc..without anyone picking up the dead bodies (just think of the logistics). If you don’t believe me, I ask you: what would Italy look like right now WITHOUT the quarantine in place across the country…
At least now, we are still fully stocked at grocery stores and the masses are not freaking out…yet…if you had let the virus burn, in no time people would be freaking out because they would start seeing the death statistics balloon rapidly across the world. Do you seriously still want to work, go to stores, go to restaurants, travel, etc.. when you hear in the news that millions are dying?
Anyway, it does not matter if you agree or not, because both options lead to the same result: total utter collapse of Industrial Civ, and pretty much in the same time frame. Quarantine just seems a gentler way to go about it (not working, spending time with family) and buying us a few weeks, tops. Carpe Diem to all! And stay safe as long as possible!
Yes ITEOTWAWKI that’s how I see it as well. There is no real way out of this mess except perhaps a vaccine associated with a long quarantine. It is really the only choice.
I don’t think the ‘let it rip’ crowd, and it is a crowd, have thought it through properly. If people see the hospitals flooded with sick people, or worse closed because the doctors are sick as well, then why would they turn up for work where there are sick people?
People would change their behavior overnight in a world full of sick and dying people (even if only 50% get very sick). Everything would collapse, there would be no order to society whatsoever. People are not going to behave normally, nor rationally in a world of sudden chaos. Every supply line, including the grid would go down AND it would be across the world at the same time!
No-one is coming to the rescue, everyone is in the same boat (China claim not to be, but they are not back to ‘normal’ either).
The only real hope we have is a vaccine, if one can be produced in a relatively short time, but even then so much is broken, that the ‘system’ will never be the same again.
Buying time is better than nothing, at least we get to see a more orderly collapse.
Civilization has an order to it, ‘let it rip’ tears out the order, if the government doesn’t care, then why should the citizens with the ‘rules’. Do we want a fast collapse or a slow one?
I choose a slow one.
It’s too late for a vaccine. They couldn’t invent it, test it, make it, & distribute it in time. That ship has sailed because the system won’t hold together long enough for it to happen. I think the global system will entirely collapse by June. A vaccine couldn’t get through this process until October or maybe December and that would be faster than anything we’ve ever done. The ONLY hope we have at this point is some sort of combo of drugs or antivirals that kills it in a few days. If that doesn’t happen in the next few weeks, that’s it. We’re finished.
Exactly….I have been telling friends (who think I am a freak, I think the joke will be on them), that we won’t get to “la Saint-Jean-Baptiste” which is June 24 and the patron saint of my province, Quebec (with huge holiday celebrations, which won’t happen this year whether I am right or wrong with my timeline)…great posts these last few days Tango BTW 🙂
Thanks. I hate to admit it but I’m enjoying this on some level. I’ve really enjoyed looking at the different approaches politicians, governments, and banks have been taking. The Federal Reserve, in particular, is partaking in actions that scream emergency. I tried explaining it to a few folks on Facebook the other day. One of them goes “The Federal Reserve, what’s that? Like the gold in Fort Knox or something?” Unfortunately that’s the comprehension level of most folks of the enormity of the crisis just on the financial side of it. They simply have no idea how bad it is.
I wonder if there won’t be a rebellion in the summer against the lock-downs: after all, we generally endure about 7 months of winter and do nothing except dream of those few precious weeks of warmth and open-air relaxation.
Riots with fires in the streets in Newberg NY, 30 miles south. Locals and cop got into a gun fight. Local dies, locals riot.
don’t go south!
Wrong, a vaccine is not the only solution. There are treatments that are very effective that are not being deployed since much of the world relies on a sick-care model. Conventional health care is a basket case and doesn’t address the roots of disease. Natural immunity is the solution and we’re probably getting close now since this thing was around for some time before the draconian measures came in.
Also the deadliness of this disease has been overstated (due to never having an accurate total number of infected anywhere) and testing kits themselves are questionable in terms of giving false positives with other coronaviruses.
The response to this thing is due to have a disproportionate effect on emerging markets (the third world) https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/28/coronavirus-biggest-emerging-markets-crisis-ever/ and will trigger starvation. Many are at risk, far more from the economic impacts due to unnecessary shutdown cascading to collapse.
also just saw this
As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19
The fear is worse than the disease and it will all pass. https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-19-panic-worse-pathogen/5707650
Oh it will all pass, will it? It’s good to see people still engaging in recreational drug use in these times.
Good one! No inclination for that stuff at the moment but I should clarify, the virus will pass…the larger picture of decline is in place, until we evolve, downsize, and create radically different ways of living….and it will be very, very challenging.
We have no idea if the virus will pass or not. You HOPE the virus passes but we have no idea what’s going to happen. All we can do is look to history and observe the actions of the systems that are breaking down for context clues as to how this will play out. Even if the virus just magically disappeared in a few weeks, a virtual impossibility, the economic collapse that is happening right now could very well still drag the entire system down with it. The enormity of the financial packages that are being tossed around like salad dressing is a crisis in and of itself. We’ll probably also be dealing with war from the remaining super powers, maybe even nuclear. Buckle up.
The principle problem is that we have forgotten how to live with high mortality rates, which didn’t deter people from getting on with life or destroy society in the past: not so very long ago, 20% of pregnancies killed the mother,and it was customary for women to make their wills before childbirth. In the 18th century they celebrated getting that rate down from 33%! We need to toughen up a bit.
We’ve also forgotten how to live with corpses: a fascinating aspect of most ancient cultures is the proximity of death and the dead.
Burying mum and dad under the floor of one’s house; mummifying them in some way and bringing them out on special occasions; the heads of your enemies hanging by the door and on the roof.
Or even in the 20th century, sleeping in a room with a dead relation in it: not uncommon until after WW2 for poor workers living in tiny cottages.
But if 90% of those dying are old, it changes how young people will react. When i was a kid, getting measles was good as you didnt want to get it when you were old. However polio was a different matter.
It would certainly be unfortunate if one was ventilated, survived, and had to live with a lung capacity of half. Thats the breaks. Good luck everyone.
Between the devil and the deep blue sea…..
The choice was never only between “let her rip” or lockdown. If what we have been told about the dangers of covid-19 is true, the obvious way to proceed from the outset was to isolate the vulnerable and let everybody else carry on as normal. That way neither the hospitals would have been overwhelmed nor the economy destroyed.
The logistics of that are absolutely mind-boggling though…and there would be push-back from the over 60 crowd (or 70, 75, 80 depending on the cutoff), and everyone with pre-existing conditions of any age…and this would not be for a couple of weeks, but 12 to 18 months till we get a vaccine rolled out. Moreover, these people number in the billions in the world..they are not necessarily in their prime years, but they still contribute to the global economy…and what about the caretakers, ambulance workers etc..that will need to go see these people…you only need one to get it…and away we go again…there is no solution…all 8 billion of us are at the same movie theater, the fire has broken out and all emergency exits are shut tight..
Sure there would be difficulties. It would be impossible for somebody in a care home to self isolate, for example. However, given how contagious coronavirus appears to be, it would not take as long as 12 to 18 months for herd immunity to develop.
As for vaccines, I’d rather every human on the planet died a slow and agonizing death rather than one animal be harmed in the devlopement of a vaccine.
Must go. Got a fare…
a person leaving a hospital? 😉
That was the next job. Most jobs left at the moment are shoppers, nurses or care workers, and jobs are so few and far between that I sit at home whilst waiting for a job. Unfortunately, I live near the hospital so I am often first in line for hospital jobs.
Those doing the dying is very rarely producing anything.
It would not last very long, only until most unisolated have been infected.
Now we’re doing kind of the opposite.
Maybe, but they do contribute to the global economy (taking trips, buying stuff, etc..). And you have to isolate the old people and people with pre-existing conditions that are in their productive years (who knows how many people in the US and all over the world under the age of 50 have pre-existing conditions)…
There are about 135 million Americans (pop 325 million) with preexisting conditions.
Looked it up last night not going to do it again to link but y’all can.
Any species that sacrifices the young and the healthy for the sake of the old and the sick deserves to go extinct. Is it because those who rule us are in the latter categories, I wonder.
Or, those who rule us are satanist and love death, destruction, and suffering.
“If what we have been told about the dangers of covid-19 is true, the obvious way to proceed from the outset was to isolate the vulnerable and let everybody else carry on as normal.”
Exactly – a hybrid solution.
The hospitals have so little capacity that they would be overwhelmed whatever the policy: a bit like all the restaurants in a street being full -a poor indicator of general levels prosperity, as only a small % of the total population have to be wealthy enough in order to pack them out.
Yorchichan, this is why I come to OFW I can unclench my teeth and breathe again. Than you for sane analysis.
There’s a rush for ventilators today.
“In another report from Wuhan, mortality was 62% among critically ill patients with COVID-19 and 81% among those requiring mechanical ventilation.”
The hospitals need protective gear for the medical staff…and quick deaths among the critically ill.
hummm and patients with no heart beat who have cv19 have a mortality rate of 99.9% some can be shocked back for a few hours.
How to prepear to deflaction and live some months Better?
Store up supplies of necessary goods now. Fresh water is likely to be a problem. Don’t count on electricity lasting, either.
Thanks a lot for the advice, living without electricity would still be a problem.
If you have cash buy six months of food.Things that keep like rice, flour, oil, quinoa, tuna in cans, pasta, tomatoes sauce in glass or can, multi-vitamins, I add hot sauces to keep make the food less boring.
Can’t do that in Britain now, as all those long-life items are strictly rationed.
One just has to go from week to week, more or less.
Even wine rationing at some stores, God forbid!!! That one shook me.
I can buy as much chorizo and Spanish drinking chocolate as I like though, so not quite the end of the world.
?????
“Break off a portion, heat up a mug of milk until it is simmering, add the little block and stir thoroughly until the chocolate has melted. Alternatively for a truly authentic Spanish Hot Chocolate, melt the 25g portion and enjoy with Churros or simply drink! … Then sit back and enjoy this gorgeous drink.”
which way do you prefer?
“U.S. energy firms cut the most oil rigs since April 2015, removing rigs for a second week in a row as a coronavirus-related slump in economic activity and fuel demand has forced massive retrenchment in investment by oil and gas companies.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-rigs-baker-hughes/us-oil-drillers-cut-the-most-rigs-in-a-week-in-nearly-5-years-baker-hughes-idUKL1N2BK1AM
Russia and Saudi headed for panicky u-turn?
“The head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, has suggested that the Eurasian nation could reconcile its differences with Saudi Arabia and help stabilise the price of oil if a wider array of countries joins a new OPEC+ deal.”
https://capital.com/russia-calls-for-wider-opec-co-operation-to-counter-collapse-in-oil-demand
it’s too late baby now it’s too late…
if OPEC+ cuts its production to zero, that might be enough to balance the supply/demand…
but probably the cuts will have to be greater than that…
That’s one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite albums.
This next one encapsulates Putin’s message to the Princes of OPEC.
https://youtu.be/aBccr-aLu4I
odd how the finest minds in the oil business still don’t ‘get it’
i could afford to use oil if it was $100 barrel, same as if it was 10$ barrel
but neither price would induce me to use ‘more’ of it, because I have cut back on my travel use drastically since the virus outbreak, as have millions of others
Artificially ramping oil back up to an imagined $60 will just stick another spoke in the wheel of our economic system
Prior to 1850s, oil was just a nuisance that polluted fields and streams in certain places. It had no ‘value’ at all. That’s the point, the value of oil is contained in the use of it
The Russkis and Saudis, if they get the price back up will think they have xxx bns worth of oil, the shock will come when they get no more total revenue, (probaly less)
“Prior to 1850s, oil was just a nuisance that polluted fields and streams in certain places.”
it’s off topic, but why was Nature polluting itself back then?
Oil flows out naturally and seeps from the ground. It is not polluting because it is only a small area. Furthermore it is not burned. It is is likely to be co signed by oil-loving bacteria. Oil is natural. As natural as the organic vegetables. It is the burning process that is not natural.
that is a good answer…
I like the life I (still) have…
due to the energy produced by the burning process…
In the Alberta tar sounds, it’s a big big area, so nature is polluting there, and man (and the occasional woman and trans person) is cleaning up the mess. So well done us!!
nature wasn’t polluting itself, i meant the term pollution to apply to people who wanted to use the land and streams
“…until the health crisis has passed and people start flying again, airports that only a month ago were in the midst of expansion projects will continue to downsize as the industry weathers its biggest ever downturn.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-airlines-airports/travel-slump-sick-staff-force-cash-worried-u-s-airports-to-downsize-idUKKBN21E1K0
“United Airlines on Friday warned that it expects a lengthy slump in travel demand because of the coronavirus, which will likely require the carrier to have a smaller workforce, while Delta asked for more volunteers to take unpaid leave after close to a quarter of the carrier’s employees raised their hands.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/corovanirus-fallout-united-airlines-warns-aid-isnt-enough-to-avoid-workforce-cuts.html
“Virgin Atlantic is applying for hundreds of millions of pounds in state aid to keep afloat during the coronavirus crisis, after the chancellor told the stricken aviation sector this week he would consider assisting firms on a case-by-case basis.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/27/virgin-atlantic-to-seek-millions-in-state-aid-amid-covid-19-slump
“Like their American cousins, business leaders from U.K. cargo companies are warning their government that the aviation industry is on the brink of collapse and urging it to take significant action in support of the industry. They are seeking an extension of the Brexit transition, in addition to further financial and regulatory support.”
https://aircargoworld.com/news/freight/intermodal/uk-air-freight-on-the-brink-of-collapse/
We don’t understand how important air cargo is to our way of life.
How do these many former airline workers make a living? If you try to ramp back up again, where do you find them again?
“If you try to ramp back up again, where do you find them again?”
Are you serious Gail? Most workers will be unemployed for a very long time, working at whatever gig they can get in order to survive. They will jump at the chance to return to their old higher paying job, no?
Or are you implying they will all be dead and therefore unable to work?
Please explain if you would. Thanks.
Anyone?
Gail’s point was that any prolonged shutdown will cause many critical businesses to close, employees will end up unemployed, broke and possibly dispossessed. The government cannot bail out everybody, nor indefinitely. The bubble of collapsing debt built up since 2009 is just too large. Then there’s the issue of inflation rearing its ugly head from all the fresh money printing going on now, if too much money is chasing too few goods. Especially if the scarcity of goods is affected by broken supply chains.
There many incidences in many parts if the world in history that when the ramp comes up after a prolonged slump, it is hard to get experienced workers who used to work before the slump. You will get a ton of newbies but you need to train them up again. Check out the oil and gas industry for similar examples. Some easy jobs in the airline industry can be filled with newbies but technical jobs, no way. Furthermore, the wages given during g the recovery may not be attractive
In this situation that we are in now, it is across the entire industry, not just one airline. The entire travel and tourism virtually disappeared overnight (in one month to be precise but that is still overnight in one nit-picking sense) and it is just nearly impossible to revive the entire broken industry in a short period of time. Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific is cancelling 96% of their flights and parking 96% of their planes. Google to read the news. If I am the CEO, I have really no clue what to do and how this thing will end. We not talking about 10%. We are talking close to 100%.
Similarly for VW, their cost is EUR2.2B/week. The CEO said that other than a little bit of sales in China, it is zero everywhere. They may need to cut cost and shut down. €2.2B/week is really really a lot of money. Again all the workers there in Wolfsburg (just saw it on Diacovery Channel) are trained and rather skilled. If the shutdown is long, VW will not have it easy to start up. The workers may have gone back to their hometowns, sick, dead or even retired.
“…until the health crisis has passed and people start flying again…”
“United Airlines on Friday warned that it expects a lengthy slump in travel demand…”
no kidding… the slump will be quite lengthy… like forever…
even if the health crisis goes away…
and, perhaps too obvious, it could keep going around the world season after season and year after year… like forever…
“Ever since ECB president Christine Lagarde’s unfortunate “we are not here to close spreads” remark on March 12, investors in bank equity have also worried about European banks’ exposure to Italian sovereign bonds.
“This is likely to be at around or above 100% of tangible net asset value for most large Italian banks, but also a hefty exposure for some Spanish banks. For now, this worry seems to have been contained by ECB buying.
“Let’s hope it stays that way. Because sovereign debt is at the centre of the support packages every country is relying on to get through this, and every banking system too, however strong each was when it started.”
https://www.euromoney.com/article/b1kxrvx42r38r6/can-banks-withstand-the-impact-of-covid-19
“The U.S. mortgage finance system could collapse if the Federal Reserve doesn’t step in with emergency loans to offset a coming wave of missed payments from borrowers crippled by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Congress did not include relief for the mortgage industry in its $2 trillion rescue package — even as lawmakers required mortgage companies to allow homeowners up to a year’s delay in making payments on federally backed loans.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/27/mortgage-system-collapse-coronavirus-pandemic-152338
No kidding! Mortgage finance is clearly one of the big areas to falter, very soon after a shut down.
In California the 4 largest banks have volunteered to allow a period of non-payment. Our mortgage lender however is still requiring payment during the pandemic/business downturn and they have set up their phone system so you can’t get a hold of anyone and won’t return calls. They do have a message on their answering machine that says any late or non-payment will result in damage to a mortgage holders credit. Nice people eh?
What can one say, bankers!
“Coronavirus means the chemicals industry could face a severe demand shock larger than in the 2008-2009 financial crisis, when operating rates fell to 46%, according to two consultants.
“A massive loss of demand around the world for key end-use sectors such as automotive, construction, and electronics, leaves chemical companies facing tough choices to maintain their businesses, according to John Richardson, ICIS Senior Consultant, Asia, and Paul Hodges, chairman of International eChem.
““This is unchartered territory. It could be the biggest demand drop since the end of the Second World War, when GDP fell by 25%,” said Hodges.”
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2020/03/27/10487471/europe-economic-collapse-adds-to-global-chemicals-woes
We don’t realize that an awfully lot of things really are essential, in the way the economy operates today.
“More than 80 poor and middle-income countries have sought financial help from the International Monetary Fund in recent weeks as they struggle to cope with the economic fallout from the Covid-19 epidemic.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/dozens-poorer-nations-seek-imf-help-coronavirus-crisis
” In the large emerging markets of the world economy—the likes of Brazil, Argentina, sub-Saharan Africa, India, Thailand, and Malaysia—the virus has yet to arrive at full strength. For them, the financial shock wave is running ahead of the disease.
“Back to back, the two crises threaten to create an overwhelming maelstrom for emerging markets whose impact on the world economy will be far greater than any rogue U.S. president or trade war.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/28/coronavirus-biggest-emerging-markets-crisis-ever/
“The macroeconomic and financial environment in Latin American countries has rapidly deteriorated in recent weeks, at an unprecedented rate, after social isolation and non-essential trade shutdown policies began to be enforced by governments.”
https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/brazil/business-brazil/latin-america-poised-for-worst-post-war-contraction/
And how many will really be able to pay these loans back?
Do you think border closed Will be open soon? You know in Italia not possibile go in Sicilia or Sardinia? Even border between region are closed. Helty system in Italia are regionale and every region want close himself from others. Islanda Re closed
maybe in 2021…
Same in Spain, the regions are pulling apart. ‘We don’t want those people from that town 2 miles away to come here and infect us’.
Everyone wants to make care of its own area, only. Doesn’t work in an integrated world.
Few people in Spain believe anything of worth really exists outside their own region anyway.
It’s both attractive – good to be proud of your land, it’s customs, cuisine, etc, -and maddeningly small-minded and parochial.
Well, the only people who feel it maddeningly small-minded and parochial are bloody foreigners. And who cares what they think!
“Social unrest could erupt among the urban poor and marginalized in the West’s biggest cities as they lack sources of income amid the COVID-19 crisis, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Friday.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN21E29G
Laying off a huge number of workers has to be a problem.
Why viral load plays a part in the severity of Coronavirus symptoms: https://myhomefarm.co.uk/coronavirus-and-viral-load
This explanation was written by a doctor in the Midlands and elaborates on why some people get mild symptoms while others become critically ill.
It’s also got a lot of helpful advice for families that are self-isolating.
I do every day 1 gram Vitamin c iniection and 1 gram liposomiale. Magnesio. Potassium.
Cinnamon a little everyday wether you feel sick or not
This would seem to suggest that people with the disease should be outside more, so that the virus can blow away and get disbursed in the wind. One article earlier suggested that a person who coughs should walk a few feet before breathing in the air.
If I recall correctly, one article claimed that with the 1919 Spanish Flu, patients who were outside in the sunshine recovered more quickly (or something like that).
I think too as told that for some years Will be collaps controller whit grid and war Economy. In country as Europe or usa. In poor country more more bad Total caos
I don’t think we really know what happens in collapse. Wars do seem likely. These could be local wars. Losing the grid seems likely.
We can see Europe already breaking up into much smaller areas. This doesn’t look good.
Maybe After 2 months oil Will Jump at 200 dollar barrel or Will be not avsilable because a lot of companies defoult?
it’s a better chance that it drops to 2 dollars…
I would agree. Our problem is collapse and low price. The “Peak Oilers” spent too much time listening to economists with their models of the economy that are very wrong.
I had to listen to a diatribe against Trump earlier today… and that is the catalyst for this post.
I am neither here nor there with Trump — he is a puppet just like Obama and Clinton and Bush and all other POTUS’s since December 23 1913 (anyone know where I am going with this based on that date?)
Unlike Obama who pretended he was in charge and put on a serious face… Trump acts like the stooge that he is… what does it matter what he says or does? He is a jester… and errand boy… a grocery clerk with a very large jet.
Before I take you on this journey, let me be up front with you… most of you will disagree with me … that’s ok… there are really only a handful of people (outside of the actual inner circle) who ‘get it’.
If you don’t get it, it’s not because you lack the IQ…. or the education … actually it would be easier for someone with a far lower IQ and less education to understand what I am about to say…
The problem with higher IQs and education levels is that you are knee deep in the ‘system’… you got to the position you are in by embracing it… by believing what you were told. You absorbed the ‘training’ that you have been receiving since you first watched Sesame Street.
Anyway… don’t beat yourself up — it’s really not your fault that you cannot rise to the exalted level of The Great And Wondrous Fast Eddy. Few do.
Let us begin…
Recall how Mr Obama — not long after he was elected won the Nobel Peace Prize. Did you not think that odd? He as only some months into office and had done absolutely ZERO to deserve that award.
Based on his record (he kept Guantanamo in play…. he increased NSA spying.. he continued in Afghanistan and Iraq… he fokked up Syria and Libya…) he deserves the Nobel WAR Prize.
Back to my point. How in the FOCK does someone who has done ZERO to promote peace win the Nobel Peace Prize????????
Who has the power to tell the committee that Obama should get that prize?
And how does someone with next to minimal experience get the Democratic nomination and win the presidential election????
Kinda like how did a bartender become a major spokesperson for the Democrats? As has been reported AOC won the equivalent of American Idol … for politicians… she was ‘discovered’ and groomed because she ticked the right boxes…. unfortunately she didn’t make the final cut and will fade into obscurity.
Let’s swing across to another talking point.
Has anyone watched this? If not it is a MUST watch:
https://www.pbs.org/video/moyers-company-deep-state-hiding-plain-sight/
Mike Lofgren, a congressional staff member for 28 years, joins Bill Moyers to talk about what he calls Washington’s “Deep State,” in which elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests. “It is how we had deregulation, financialization of the economy, the Wall Street bust, the erosion or our civil liberties and perpetual war,” Lofgren tells Moyers.
Let’s apply LOGIC to this. LOGIC!!!
This program insists that the Deep State runs America. Ok cool. But if they run America why would they allow PBS (a publicly funded broadcaster at that) to run this? What is the upside?
None. Zero. Zilch.
Yet it ran.
But there must be a reason the Deep State allowed PBS to out them.
Could it be .. might it be… that someone wants to deflect attention from themselves by exposing this Deep State?
Now who might want to do that?
Oh I know … the people who really control America. The people who want to remain in the shadows — because that means they never become a target… no matter how badly things might go….
The same people that not a single US politician will ever criticize. The people who control (own) the MSM.
The people who have extensive representation in the highest unelected positions in the US government.
The Deep State DOES exist. But like POTUS…. the Deep State is an errand boy … a grocery clerk… that takes orders from a higher power. They do NOT call the shots.
But you say how can a higher power control POTUS, the military, the CIA and various other instruments of power in the United States?
Easy. Money.
When you have own the money making machine you have unlimited power.
You can pay generals to carry out your bidding – you just give them cushy 500k per year jobs upon retirement.
And if you are a big player like Potus…. you get some serious money — Obama gets USD400k per speech!
Barack Obama to make $1.2m from three Wall Street speeches
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/barack-obama-speeches-fee-wall-street-latest-a7954156.html
It pays to not rock the boat!!! It pays a LOT!!!
But you say that some presidents cannot be bought… they will not be told what to do.
The last Potus to do that was dead within months of vetoing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
And in the big picture if someone or some country tries to stand against this very powerful entity… well… the entity has the power to destroy them … all it takes is to push their borrowing costs through the roof … and they will be flattened overnight.
Google December 23 1913 – then think about who controls that entity.
And you will have your answer.
Feel free to disagree. But like I said, it’s not your fault that you are wrong.
You’ve been indoctrinated since you could speak to believe in democracy. To believe that your politicians run the show – that if they do not carry out the will of the people – they will be tossed out.
What sheer genius this is.
You hide in the shadows and accuse anyone who tries to out you of being a crazy, racist conspiracy theorist… put forward The Deep State as the fall guy to assuage those who get suspicious…
And let politicians take the heat when you screw things up (e.g. the Iraq War)… then identify the zeitgeist, get the PR team to slap a tagline on it (Hope and Change… MAGA…) then rinse repeat over and over and over…
Why do you think that Obama did not prosecute anyone in the Bush administration over the obvious WMD lies?
Of course that is bad etiquette…. how can you put the errand boys in prison when you yourself are an errand boy who is going to at some point be asked to carry out a war crime (eg. Libya)…
LOGIC.
They say it’s a good idea to learn something new in lockdown…
My newest hobby:
If youre going to a knife fight- bring your guns.
My advice is if someone breaks out a knife, walk, run do anything to avoid it or like you say use a gun. That’s a quick way to die. Not worth engaging in. I had someone pull a switchblade on me in a bathroom on the ferry that goes to SF from Sausalito when I was 12. He threatened me and I just said, Ok and put my hands out to my side palm out. He didn’t do anything to me. I think he was checking to see a person’s reaction. But it’s amazing – when you see that knife your whole state of being goes into serious survival mode.
Brigadier Gerald, of the French Foreign Legion, has a helpful video on staying fit in lock-down: you assault the walls, try to tear a bar stool apart, that sort of thing.
I think its getting to him a bit.
He may end up sneaking up on the cushions and killing them silently with a kitchen knife.
When I am not working on my knife fighting skills I am making use of Les Mills On Demand Grit and Bodypump https://watch.lesmillsondemand.com/browse
As for the knife fighting… the wonderful thing is I have my ice hockey gladiator gear handy … I reckon I am just about invincible!
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f9/9a/ea/f99aea99c36f9b33c470742a02601a27–hockey-gear-ice-hockey.jpg
coincidentally, our neighbors have brought out their Kendo swords, and are practicing in their front yard most evenings.
but are they practicing 6 feet apart?
The best self-defence video, ever!
https://youtu.be/KwPkF9s01yE
Only someone who drone bombs a wedding killing dozens deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Tragic comedy at its finest.
agreed. to give another example of the group think that goes on in academia, of which i am a part, i have always been amazed at the time and effort (away from teaching, mentoring and research duties) placed in the democratic process at the department or research unit level, as opposed to the administration. we even have a faculty senate that meets and makes non-binding resolutions to the administration, after much democratic discussion and voting among themselves.
there is an additional, middle layer of power at the dean and VP for this and that level. they’re the rooks that stand between the provosts, chancellors and presidents, all authoritarian, and the democratic faculty (plebes). they control state budget alloacations and supervise (control) extramural funding awards.
the administration is headed by an appointed president, and he/she reports to a select, appointed board of regents. they make the real laws and decrees, and must approve all hires and dismissals. they control the budget (that money thing, again) and effectively approve or dismiss all democratically considered motions from the faculty, who are left to beg for reconsideration, if overruled. the only potential monkey wrench to this anti-democratic process is the faculty union, which most faculty normally only tolerate, but it is the only group to stand up to any state-controlled decisions that may affect faculty-staff salaries and appointments/retenchment.
“A global shortage of condoms is looming, the world’s biggest producer has said, after a coronavirus lockdown forced it to shut down production.
“Malaysia’s Karex Bhd makes one in every five condoms globally.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/global-condom-shortage-coronavirus-shuts-down-production
how is this not an essential business?
It is impossible to make a long enough list of essential goods and services.
Do you think the coronavirus will lead to deflation (as in the Great Depression) due to lack of affordability, or hyper-inflation (as in the Weimar Republic), due to world governments printing money and dumping it out of the proverbial helicopter?
What about countries which are relatively unaffected by the virus? How will deflation / hyper-inflation elsewhere affect them?
Deflation will come in first. Financial chaos because people cannot pay their bills and rents. Banks and other service providers will suffer. Mortgages, loans will turn sour as businesses shut down. Velocity of money will crash and suddenly there is a lack of money to spend. That is the deflation part. Governments realized this and starts to give out money to the public. It happens in most countries and since all of them are doing it, there is no standout in hyperinflation yet. How much are the governments going to spend? I read that in USA, the USD1200 may come in only in May. That is just too late for many. Their unemployment benefit may kick in earlier. However, governments are prone to overdo and will print a lot more. With limited or even reducing supply, with a lot of money chasing limited supply, it is ripe for high inflation. I doubt we will reach hyperinflation. People must have jobs and wages and there has to be a functioning economy in order to have hyperinflation.
If a large enough section of the population is jobless and surviving only on handouts from government, then deflation and financial failure (bank and utilities failure) will happen. Inflation on food will high if governments over print. The rest will be deflation. Buying discretionary stuff will reduced tremendously thus causing more job losses. It is a circular effect.
Questions for Gail and commentators on this site (edited and placed on first level of comments).
Before I go on with my questions, I would like to state that: Yes, ultimately BAU must collapse and I don’t see a way for most humans to survive the collapse. And probably all livings things die per Fast Eddy and his radiation contaminated oceans.
However, this does not mean we can have a light BAU for sometime (maybe years even) depending on EROI (In Joules for energy terms and not dollar terms).
Note that BOJ has been doing what the Federal Reserve is doing now (buy everything in sight) for 20 years.
My question is about challenging your thoughts on MMT and UBI ideas which I know Gail and most commentators on this blog do not believe in and dismiss as rubbish. But hear me out:
1. The near-term issue is lack of demand to make commodity manufacturing viable financially. The long-term issue is too scarce resources because of viability of extraction in physical energy terms.
2. But we can stimulate demand by paying UBI with Fed created currency (digital dollars issued by the Federal Reserve Bank).
3. This will create demand. Of course, money creation would have to be “metered” to match what the economy can deliver in terms of goods and services.
4. Note that even this scheme will fail when extraction of real resources and their conversion to goods and services in physical energy terms does not add up.
5. One thing debt does is bring demand forward so can UBI payments too. Does inflation HAVE to be the result when main issue now is demand destruction (deflation)?
6. Think of it this way. What if the Federal Reserve gave a loan to each citizen interest free but with very small principle payment per month? Which would eventually be forgiven if payment becomes too large. This is just a mental experiment to understand implications of UBI by relating it to loaned money (debt).
What do you guys think?
Please read this. Our world is too interconnected. Any modern convenience needs a fully functional BAU. The complex machines, parts, software, expertise required a fully functional civilisation.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/03/26/liebigs-law-writ-large/
Eggs cannot be delivered without cartons. Carrying on further, the Carson’s factory cannot produce cartons without cardboard and glue. The cardboard factory cannot produce the cardboard because the supply of wood chip cannot be delivered because its major supplier is bankrupt or the glue factory has a major machine breakdown and the part is from Wuhan
Now, think if the complex machines, drilling machine, computers, nuclear power plants, hydroelectric plants, etc. Liebig’ Law of Minimum
Agreed somewhat. Debt markets will be (are) screwed. If companies need funding and there are dollars out there (due to UBI) it is possible for firms to capitalize based on equity and even pay extinguish their debt. Yes. There will be much chaos because not all debt can be repaid. But Europe survived total chaos during WWII.
If you don’t the complete supply chain, BAU lite will not work. If it is not working, what is the use of money? debt? UBI will work?
I see. You are saying supply chain is too complex and intertwined. One link breaks and no cell phone from Apple!
The debasement of currency is an age-old workaround for civilisations bumping up against resource limits: “Roman emperor Nero began debasing Roman currency around 60 AD by reducing its silver content from 100% to 90%. Over the next 150 years, the silver content was reduced to 50%.” [wiki]
More recently, in 1971, we saw Nixon cancel the direct international convertibility of the US $ to gold, which was around the time the US passed peak conventional crude production and their imported oil was rising in cost.
But as a civilisation’s throughput of energy dwindles and even more so on a per capita basis, the ability to of financial sleight of hand, currency debasement and debt accrual to stimulate real economic activity likewise dwindles. I liken it to giving stimulant drugs like amphetamines to someone in worsening nutritional deficit. It works for a while but it is very much ‘the end game’.
Eventually we find ourselves pushing on a string. As Tango Oscar points out in his excellent comment a few pages back, Fed interventions are now equivalent to 31 times greater than they were after the GFC, so we are nearly there.
Also the side-effects of the monetary/fiscal stimulus start becoming increasingly toxic for the system. A simple example would be the impossibility of maintaining reasonable pensions in a negative interest rate environment:
https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/global-economy-struggles-negative-rates
But as CTG says, it is the ever-rising complexity of our civilisation and its manifold vulnerabilities that will prove our undoing, well before we hit a ‘light’ BAU with a lower EROEI. This growth-dependent complex system does not have a reverse gear and yet the coronavirus has just given us a powerful shove backwards.
Maybe Jesus will return and show us how to have BAU light. Both Islam and Christianity believe something like that. Also, many Muslims believe peace will come after anti-Christ (Dajjal) emerges. Even so, Muslims believe Jesus’ return will be in end-times and peace will be short lived.
Jesus, if he even ever existed, would never approve of material possessions being created by near slave labor overseas so that Americans can hoard 45 pairs of shoes in their closets. The idea of salvation completely disregards Samsara or karma even. Humans did this to ourselves, one way or another. We cannot tilt the balance of the planet so much to one side and cause the 6th mass extinction then in our infinite hubris think a magical being is coming to save us so our wasteful and disgusting lifestyles can continue. We wanted to play god and keep everyone alive, natural selection be damned. There are severe consequences for that.
We go back to the lifestyle the Native Americans had or we’re unsustainable. Period. Don’t look to the Bible or other holy texts for a prediction of the future other than the broader collapse clues like the fall of Babylon. The Bible was written by men who feared lightning and smeared blood on their doorways to keep the Boogey Man away. It’s as relevant as Grimm’s Fairy Tales for what’s coming. Accept our fate. We are the ones who stacked this deck. It was inevitable that we were going to start getting cards that we don’t like.
The Bible tells us that wage and wealth was a big problem historically, and that collapse occurred then. It also warns us of collapse. In fact, any kind of literature probably tells of similar issues.
We can see in our own lives, and through self-organizing systems, how things work together in strange ways. We don’t need ancient texts to tell us this. Some of us would consider this a higher power active today.
I would agree that exactly what happens in the future is likely not foretold in any ancient text. They warned us of collapse, but how things would turn out in the future was not something that they understood.
The great teachers and the saints are, perhaps, always present.
We are all one. The illusion of separation is precisely how we got ourselves into this situation. Death and being born are opposite sides of the same coin, yet one is feared and the other celebrated. This is ignorance. And America is the king of ignorance and separation. It’s no surprise the virus has made us the new international hot spot. Everything is connected and nothing is a coincidence. All that happens around you is for your own personal growth.
The Bible is actually filled with many excellent stories that are universal truths. Unfortunately it also contains a lot of fables like Yahweh and the myth of a jealous god that destroys and places like hell. Hell is no more true than flying pigs. Nothing is permanent and we can observe this by looking around us. Hell and heaven are more mindsets than anything else and this is alluded to in many religions and texts. Nirvana is a state of mind, not a physical place. You can attain that, right here and right now. Once you’ve tasted this blissful freedom and love, everything here pales by comparison.
Tango Oscar,
You think like a Buddhist (no god, no soul) yet there are confused beings who need enlightenment. We are utterly connected but that is not the same as we are all one.
Even in Buddhism one exists after death just enough to be in complete bliss.
enlightenment is realizing that all religions are man made and that all concepts of God are man made…
perhaps there is a God who made the universe(s)…
quite possible, maybe even probable…
but the leap of faith to the belief that the reality of this God would then actually care about the hundreds of billions of humans who have lived and will yet live…
that leap of faith is absolutely beyond reason…
others may disagree…
it looks obvious that we all are headed for the nothingness of eternal death…
oh, but hey, have a nice day!
God doesn’t speak in the ear of anyone. Instead, people give us their insights regarding how they perceive the system to operate, and what a god must look/act like for the system to operate as it does.
The fact that god doesn’t speak in anyone’s ear doesn’t mean that we need to throw everything out. It certainly doesn’t negate the possibility of a god who organized this whole self-organizing universe, and who still seems to be active today.
It may work. Maybe for a while. Only because of dollar demand from other countries. That demand is high. Even from countries that politically dont like the USA. Dollars are specified on most of the worlds contracts. Its just the way it is. Dollars are baked into the cake in the financial world.
I just dont like it. I value work ethic. I guess i still believe in “earning”. Above all I feel once the government is the sole provider of your sustenance you are a slave. Right now we have to do it, sort of. If it works why stop? Virus or no virus. Im scared of that. More than the virus actually. Just a silly boomer.
Not that i wont cash the check…
Great comment. It occurred to me to ask something like this as a thought question some months ago—before the epidemic—whether a robust redistribution regime and/or MMT and UBI would boost demand for energy products and services—everything!—among non-elites, leading to greater ultimate FF extraction rates and prolonging BAU. Or would it inevitably lead to hyperinflation? Would “metering” be possible in practice, or even in theory?
1. The near term issue is lack of demand. It is people who are too poor to afford the goods, and because of this prices fall too low for the system. This is what puts an end to the system.
You need a new local system. One with less complexity, easier to extract resources, and many fewer people.
I don’t think the rest of these things really fix the problem. Some of them may be band aids for the near term.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/warning-coronavirus-patients-120717592.html
how fake is this story?
We need a whole series of these, from people with regular flu, with tuberculosis, and with heart disease. Then we can decide which is worst.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/8-strains-coronavirus-circling-globe-182338255.html
8 strains?
fact or fiction?
That’s important point, few weeks back the talk was about ~4 major strains..
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/coronavirus-why-germanys-death-toll-is-so-low-125400840.html
“These are predominantly people who are younger than 80 and who are fit enough to ski or engage in similar activities. Their risk of dying is comparatively low,”
Also,
“The reason why we have so few deaths compared to the number of infected people is because we do a lot of laboratory diagnostics,” Drosten said at a press conference on Thursday. In Germany, over half a million coronavirus tests are currently being carried out every week.”
So there are a lot of people with very light cases of the disease represented in the German sample.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/putins-big-fail-russia-braces-101837896.html
“the real number of those who are sick is significantly higher,” Sobyanin said. He added that the number of tests conducted to date has been extremely low “and no one on earth knows the real picture.”
kind of like everywhere else…
no one knows for sure the real picture…
When we look at China, with its very dense population, they can have an awfully lot of deaths, but those deaths still represent a tiny share of the population.
The share of those infected who die could still be 0.5%, or something like that.
Has this been posted yet? I just stumbled across it myself:
https://kunstler.com/podcast/kunstlercast-327-conversation-with-gail-tverberg-of-our-finite-world/
Cheers,
-GBV
the show must go on
https://youtu.be/t99KH0TR-J4
I did the audio recording a few days ago. Jim Kunstler didn’t tell me it was up, though.
I hope it turned out sort of OK. JHK is one who has followed my writing for years. I was a big fan of his “Long Emergency” way back when, as well. I have met him in person on a number of occasions.
oh man it’s late and I’m tired… must carry on…
I went shopping earlier, and the bread shelves in the local supermarket were actually much fuller than a week ago… yes, people only have so much room in their freezers…
I also made a long trip to a Whole Foods Market, which for those who may not know is the high end highest priced chain of supermarkets in the USA (organic! this and organic! that)…
the shelves there were mostly full as I expected… the last place people will go to stock up on things…
all in all, it’s still quasi BAU here… the big difference of course is that most states seem to be in lockdown mode… it’s BAU without much B…
I don’t think most people are aware of how distorted/damaged BAU will be getting in the coming weeks…
food electricity gasoline… check check check… for now…
Yep, we had this debate before. At this very moment people are past the point of filling their small freezers and pantries and the JITs still seems to (continue) function, but this is just temporary charade a mirage of normalcy. Instead, the proper reaction now would be to ..