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.
“The US Treasury will auction 10Y and 30Y Treasuries on April 8 and April 9. There may not be any buyers anywhere near current interest rates.
“Foreigners are scrambling for dollars, not Treasuries. They have no spare dollars to recycle to the US because trade has stopped.
“The Fed has no currency swap lines with the PBOC, so the PBOC will have to sell Treasuries to get dollars as Chinese companies race to cover dollar debts.
“This is happening as federal deficits approach $2 trillion and helicopter money is imminent, the economy is frozen and inflation is about to jump.
“As rates rise, the interest on the debt will be unpayable, and a run on Treasuries could turn into an avalanche.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4333042-bond-market-crash-begins-on-april-8-and-9
like the fed wont buy every single treasury. And if they dont Belgium will. 🙂 PBOC is another matter. Will they be brought into the club? Interesting times.
Hah – Belgium! I’d forgotten about that not very cunning subterfuge. 😀
What difference will it make, in an imploding economy? What we will see, are already seeing, is very rapid deflation as money starts to exit the mega-bubbles of the past ten years and heads into cash. Specifically, U.S. dollars. Not everyone can be bailed out, as the FED is fast finding out, and the economy is going into lockdown. No amount of money printing is going to substitute for a lack of economic activity.
Nope, Japan industrial still at work, while ~70% owned by their gov/CBs now, so what.
Yes, we can argue the US position being different but is it really? The trust in USD / treasuries is formed by the “upper middle class” individuals and corporate scattered around the globe needing the exposure to that USD flows daily or occasionally.
Such decades/centuries lasting relationships doesn’t just flip in single GFC event, it’s a long winded process with many twists and detours..
If other countries are still functioning gr, then Japan and EU can operate in negative rates or anythinf weird. However when all countries are impacted like right now, then it will not work. The problem that people face is that they can o ly see things on a micro level and not macro. Same goes to those who said to me that they will take the public transport, walk to cycle to work as the petrol is too expensive to drive a car. They just cannot see that petroleum is the driving force for everything.
Nothing operates in vacuum. That is why we have this “interconnectedness” that will ensure that when it goes down, everything goes down. All at once.
CTG – there are those who will disagree with you. They are clueless
Ok, if you say so. Japan had deflated in a world that had not collapsed. China had not industrialised and there was still enough surplus energy to fuel another long cycle of expansion.
Those conditions no longer apply. They actually ceased to apply with the GFC. 10 years of money printing is all that kept things afloat. That world is over. The air is now escaping Bubblezilla at a huge rate of knots.
Yep, these kids at Seekingalpha evidently don’t follow Gammon edu-tutorials, so naive about the bailouts already in place, lolz..
Makes life interesting, or perhaps the word is “worrying.”
The weakening human population suffered the first strong hit on the way of its decline. This virus is not an accident. And not the worst and the last of the plagues that will finish the you man dominance.
I guess that due to the energy decline, the social life and work will further diminish (no going to school, no needless offices and shopping centers) and the dispersed human population will become normal, as we have the technology that can bridge the distances efficiently.
There is no way back.
I expect technology will be lost quickly. Not enough raw materials from China, for example. Prices of raw materials cannot stay high enough to make the operation worthwhile.
The technology is a part of the human environment/habitat. The question is what technologies are required in the depleted world with the dispersed human environments.
We can not separate the humans and the technology. Once the technology is lost, the humans are finished.
We do not know, maybe the humans will be 99 % eliminated, but 1 % survives using the stocks of the produced devices and the stored energy supplies for decades.
Mankind doesn’t need technology to survive, even in a depleted world. What is needed is knowledge, labor, common sense, solidarity and a humble attitude towards nature.
You have written a piece of usual naive rubbish. There is no such thing as a nature that loves humans. The humans can not survive in the nature, they live in the habitats which they create from available resources. E.g. when the arable land is abandoned, it is replaced by forest. The forest is a habitat of the forest species. The arable land is the habitat of the humans. And the creation and the maintenance of the arable land requires energy, i.e. the supply of the fertilizer.
The hunter-gatherers never created a civilization, as hunting and gathering consumes a lot of energy of the human body, not only hunting and gathering, but living in competition with predators and pests that attack the food you eat.
Of course creation and maintenance of arable land requires energy. But that can be done by humans and animal labour. Agriculture was there before we started to use synthetic fertilizers.
“Beavers cannot survive in nature; they live in the habitats they create…” Same applies to bower birds. And meercats. And bees. And termites. Habitat creation is a part of nature. You seem to have bought into the myth of human exceptionalism. We are no more exceptional than the corona virus.
Dear Robert Firth,
the extent to which humans change the nature with the use of the external energy to change it into their habitat is important. No other species does and can do that.
The humans are really exceptional in mastering external energy.
Our first mastery of it was using controlled fire to cook food, over 1 million years ago.
Dear VFatalis,
but what agriculture? With low and unstable yields…
you are quite right about not needing all that stuff
but you are quite wrong about ‘numbers’
1 bn humans can live as you suggest
7.5 bn can’t
Prepare for COMET-19 “spectacle” compounding the effects of COVID-19.
https://www.space.com/comet-atlas-may-be-brightenting.html
“ The possible celestial showpiece is known as Comet ATLAS, or C/2019 Y4. When it was discovered on Dec. 28, 2019, it was quite faint, but since then, it has been brightening so rapidly that astronomers have high hopes for the spectacle it could put on.”
Oo-rah 💣
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/as-image-offplat-earth-explosion.jpg
But comets probably bring more viruses.
Ghost of Fred Hoyle! I have some notion of where you may have gotten this impression, but let me assure you that this line of thought is, at best, highly speculative.
It does not quite look like the comet impact where viruses would survive a gigaton blast.
If life is of interstellar origin, then fungi spores “hitchhiking” along the enormous electromagnetic currents between stars and galaxies are much more likely.
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/m_features/fungi-are-responsible-for-life-on-land-as-we-know-it
“Fungi were some of the first complex life forms on land, mining rocks for mineral nourishment, slowly turning them into what would become soil. In the Late Ordovician era, they formed a symbiotic relationship with liverworts, the earliest plants.”
As old as the rock on earth, if not older.
Fred and Gail see eye to eye on the subject of divine intervention.
https://bloggingtheologydotnet.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/13654362_1191834250860615_7458850469515949818_n.jpg
As yes, Fred Hoyle. He calculated the probability of a DNA strand evolving spontaneously, and found it ridiculously low. The hidden (false) assumption, of course, is that it had to evolve all at once. It didn’t. the error was pointed out by Arthur Koestler, documenting a story by Herbert Simon, and starring two imaginary watchmakers, Bios and Mekhos. The latter tries to assemble a complex machine all at once, and fails. The latter assemble a bunch of smaller components, each simple, and then aggregates them systematically, and succeeds. His thesis is that Nature uses the former technique, which indeed seems supported by the evidence from evolutionary biology. The “watchmakers”, of course, are a tribute to William Paley.
“The latter assemble a bunch of smaller components” Sorry, sorry, brain error. Read it as “The FORMER assembles, …”
I wish the reply box were long enough to allow one to read at least a paragraph at a time.
Interesting.
But in the end the watch is still a complex system that resulted from a design process. Even if the process has been sliced in multiple simple processes of smaller les complex component designs. The overall process is still comPlex. It’s just a common engineering method. It doesn’t give higher probability for the watch to be randomly assembled. The natural path seems to be entropy. To lessen entropy, it seems you need energy,… and design?
Thank you, and I agree with all your points. First, life is a dissipative system; it requires an energy gradient to function. It other words, it is parasitic upon the “negative entropy” of some existing system: initially the thermal vents on the ocean floor, later (after the invention of photosynthesis) the Sun.
Secondly, living things are indeed designed: they are designed by their environment. That was Darwin’s key insight in the Galapagos Islands, that the beaks of the birds were adapted to the characteristics of the plants they fed on.
Finally, this design is indeed incremental, small step by small step. This is covered in what I think is Richard Dawkins’ best book, “Climbing Mount Improbable”. But then, watches were designed small step by small step, so again we agree.
But there remains one open issue. It is agreed that selection is non random: slower gazelles are unlikely to survive. But are mutations random? In other words, is a mutant gazelle as likely to be slower as faster? We don’t know, but my instinct is that they are not: over the ages, living things have evolved “the ability to evolve”, expressed as a tendency for more mutations than average to be beneficial. If so, this trait should be strongest in the organisms that evolve most rapidly. Can you say “corona viruses”?
Gail, I am in massive need of your no nonsense analysis of all of this.
New York State shuts all “non essential” businesses. How does this work? Until when? Until 95% of people test exposed? When will we have mass testing? Forced testing? Only those who have not been exposed and can get sick must stay home? Exposed have developed immunity?
Number at local hospital ZERO. Number of respirators ZERO.
More and more it looks like a manufactured event. To what purpose I wonder.
Wet blanket over the economy. Let people feel like something is being done.
recall Boston marathon bombing.
I STILL think the disease was real because of China’s strong-arm attempt at containing it. .China is not very cooperative when it comes to international things–whether it be IP or manufactured events so it must have been real. However, there’s a lot of uncertainty about where exactly it came from–the meat market story that was widely circulated has been redacted. The symptoms are unclear. One source claims people can spread it by breathing whereas the CDC doesn’t acknowledge this. The CDC doesn’t acknowledge that asymptomatic people can spread it even though everyone else believes it!* The demographics of the people who are dying are being hidden for the most part. I have read as much as I can about it and I feel like I know no more than I did last month.”Experts are still unsure” is what’s driving the fear and hording. It’s like this thing eludes scientific understanding.
*https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-confirmed-patients-can-transmit-the-coronavirus-without-showing-symptoms
Had to cancel trip from NYC to LA today after governor of California suggested closing all hotels in California. It was bad enough the show was cancelled but sleeping in the rental car that was the straw that broke the tourists back.
Today all seems calm . Market up. But if virus arrive Milano…market must closed?
The Dow Jones Index fell anothern900 points, https://on.mktw.net/3a4ctvo. All the gains of the Trump era are now gone.
Next up….all Obama era gains, followed by Bush era gains, followed by Clinton era gains….All the way to….zero!
Definitely the gains made since 2009 are wide open for destruction. Nothing but to support it from below, because it was built on a tissue of lies.
We know a person who baby sat a child with a stomach flu. She caught it. She called her doctor. Doctor would not let her come to the office. Doctor declared it to be CV19. Not satisfied this woman work her way through the government levels none of whom would test her. But happily she works in a hospital. She got tested, no CV19. A large part of what is going on is theater.
p.s. her hospital a hospital that serves two counties has ZERO case, ZERO deaths. located 1300 miles north of NYC.
make that 130 miles
1300 miles north would be good right about now. Ed whats the problem? You have expressed a desire for this event or one like it for as long as I remember.
If it is 90% yes or better 99%. A boring 2% kill of old people (myself included) to make social security and medicare more likely to be funded not so exciting/interesting. But yes, embrace the cull stop wasting effort pretending humans can control everything.
I’m in your camp Ed. This thing has been WAY overblown. The only thing this is going to do is KILL the fraudulent global eCONomy. Then we’ll watch the puppet masters we’ve their magic by not letting a good crisis go to waste. As we watch cash being banned so they can institute their long awaited “cashless society” and Bill Gates ID2020.
Worrisome.
When the economy is gone, nobody survives. If it is done intentionally by elites, then I am afraid homo sapiens are truly dumb and beyond redemption.
Looking forward:
1. Currently in Italy if I understand correctly, those over 80 are being triaged which is a not so subtle way of saying the Dr. is busy and will not see you now.
2. Sales taxes must be down for local communities and state governments.
3. Social Security and Medicare seem like a good bet for reform, gen Z is basically partying on and saying the heck with it. There is very little in it for them. See paragraph 1 for a not so subtle solution.
4. Higher education will see big changes, there really isn’t much reason to attend a personal class other than it is very nice social interaction, many classes are really useless in a practical sense although pleasant intellectually. Colleges are bloated with administration, it seems a difficult area to cut. Simple solution: examinations not unlike boards for medicine, dentistry, examinations similar to those for master plumbers, real estate brokers, etc.
5. Student housing might have been a very poor investment in retrospect, it is over built and very expensive.
6. Solid marriages may be become the norm, cheaper for two to live together than separately – this could have a major impact on housing. Common children given a common bond, there is a reason children of two different marriages are called “step.”
7. One might wonder about the viability of retirement villages. Capital gains income seems in doubt and investment income is hard to come by. This AM watched a video about the villages in FL, everything except golf seems to be shut down, all the reasons a person moves there.
8. As for automobile sales, perhaps wind back incomes in time to where they are effectively at today and compare houses at that time and the number of two car garages Again with stable marriages, fewer people need work, fewer cars.
9. Feminism, is it dead? Certainly it did not work out well in the presidential area although one has to wonder who will be Biden’s running mate and should he win by default the next president of the US. We are at a weird time where two very old men are running for the highest office in the land.
Dennis L.
I would agree with you on most of those things.
I would add:
(1) Adding extra toll lanes on highways, and in fact, roads paid for by tolls in general, seems like it will be a losing proposition. Related bonds will likely default.
(2) The medical care system will change dramatically. We will likely lose access to drugs requiring inputs from China. With coronavirus going on endlessly, doctors will remain afraid of treating people face to face. People with multiple health problems will decide not to get elective surgery, since hospitals will be a place where it is easy to get infected by COVID-19.
Ah, hope springs eternal.
I work in higher education, and agree with you on 4. The main things preventing it so far are inertia, lingering prejudice against external degrees or virtual education, (at elite schools) branding and networking opportunities, (outside the USA) government regulations, and (inside the USA) the fact that the “college experience” is a major reason to attend.
On 6, there is some indication that quarantines have led to divorces, since spending so much time together has led to disharmony. Once this wave subsides, the next generation will have to consider whether marriage is worth it, or whether they can afford it. (In earlier centuries it was more or less economically necessary.)
If civilization collapses, then feminism will be dead (men will be farmers or gangsters, women will stay in the house, and no one will get much of an education). I don’t think we’re there yet. My female relatives and connections, I surmise, still expect things like respect and equal treatment, though who knows where desperation may drive us in the future.
Biden’s promise to nominate a woman strikes me as not much different than the earlier tradition of “balancing the ticket” between a Northerner and a Southerner (a postbellum custom that only ended with the Clinton / Gore “double Bubba” ticket). It really depends on which woman he picks. (Remember the Sarah Palin fiasco?) As you may know, Taiwan’s president is female–this was the first thing the Western media noticed about her, it took them some time to appreciate her more specific qualities!
Trump will get four more years. There are no real other candidates, just former losers of campaigns and other nobodies.
So if Trump loses to one of them, what will that say about him?
Also many thanks to all you commenting.
OFW is a place of great thoughts being shared.
Here here!
Is it just me or are others finding it harder day by day to work out what is going on?
Is that how collapse works?
Even John Michael Greer is saying it is a storm in a tea cup.
My gut feeling is that it is the biggest event in my lifetime of nearly 50 years?
thoughts OFW’s?
I’m about the same age. For the biggest events my life, I guess I’d name the moon landings, or the fall of the USSR. A lot of important things have been more gradual processes, like globalization (and the reactions against it), or advances in computers and communications technology, or the changes in courtship and marriage.
A wonderful question upon which to meditate. Top of my list would be the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The visible proof that our Cosmos had a beginning in time. And the proof that there is a universal standard of absolute motion and absolute duration.
Second, I think, are Aspect’s experiments that refuted the Einstein Podolsky Rosen conjecture, and Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment: proof of both quantum action at a distance and advanced causality.
Last for now, Voyager. As Rudyard Kipling said, if you what to know what is out there, “run and find out”. Voyager did that, and taught us more about our cosy Solar System than we had learned from four hundred years of ground based observation.
But then, I am a scientist.
For me, the top items would be the discoveries that eggs, butter, coffee and Guinness, taken in moderation, really are good for you.
What do you think about the idea that the cosmic microwave background radiation might have another source than the Big Bang?
We historically trace various non-conventional explanations for the origin of the cosmic microwave background and discuss their merit, while analyzing the dynamics of their rejection, as well as the relevant physical and methodological reasons for it. It turns out that there have been many such unorthodox interpretations; not only those developed in the context of theories rejecting the relativistic (“Big Bang”) paradigm entirely (e.g., by Alfven, Hoyle and Narlikar) but also those coming from the camp of original thinkers firmly entrenched in the relativistic milieu (e.g., by Rees, Ellis, Rowan-Robinson, Layzer and Hively). In fact, the orthodox interpretation has only incrementally won out against the alternatives over the course of the three decades of its multi-stage development. While on the whole, none of the alternatives to the hot Big Bang scenario is persuasive today, we discuss the epistemic ramifications of establishing orthodoxy and eliminating alternatives in science, an issue recently discussed by philosophers and historians of science for other areas of physics. Finally, we single out some plausible and possibly fruitful ideas offered by the alternatives.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.07721
Thank you, Tim, though I respectfully disagree about the Guinness. The paper has been downloaded for reading at leisure. I note the authors describe the discovery as a “watershed”, so perhaps they have been reading Koestler. My own objection to the theory is that we start with a “singularity”. Singularities cannot exist: the Heisenberg Principle forbids them. Of course, if you want to change physics … but that rather torpedoes ones own theory.
I once posted a rather tongue in cheek theory that the structure of the universe was the result of intelligent design, but by some very clever scientists in the far future. Unlikely, but not physically impossible.
Hello again Tim
Thank you for pointing me at a good read. And first, yes, it is very
good. The authors have probably read Koestler’s “The Sleepwalkers”,
but, more important, they have a deep understanding of Popper’s
“Logik der Forschung” and his work on the refutability of scientific
theories. They use this as a coherent thread in reviewing the many
“no big bang” theories, in my view to great effect. And, of course,
they find almost all such theories duly refuted, and the couple that
remain highly implausible.
One oddity, though. They correctly recognise the “dipole anomaly”,
(the fact that the microwave background radiation is a little bluer in
one direction and a little redder in the opposite direction) as being
cause by the motion of the observer, in this case our Island Earth,
but I think do not recognise that the radiation therefore provides a
universal standard of rest, and hence allows any observer to compute
their absolute motion, which the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe
(WMAP) did for Earth, giving a value of 368 km/sec roughly towards the
constellation Leo. Which at least casts doubt on the famous (or infamous)
Theory of Relativity. (Infamous because the authors of the Michelson and
Morley experiment did indeed find an aether drift, and lied about it.) What
would follow it is another matter, but since it is built on classical (Minkowski)
spacetime, continuous and continuously differentiable, it must be false because
that foundation itself is false. The fallacy of the Principle of Equivalence is in
my view a big red flag that people should worry about.
Enough musing; thank you once again for a fun day.
Niko, I am in the same boat. Hard to make sense of what we are told. There is amazingly little fact or data. Some of what is provided as fact is bald faced lie. I really have no story line that makes sense of the situation. Not even sure “time will tell”.
The attempted cutoff of meetings, travel, and get togethers in general is an attempt to throw a wet blanket over the economy. It is doubtful the economy can ever fully come back.
These actions don’t really kill the virus, however, partly because of the way it circulates within the locked-down countries, and partly because there are many other countries that started getting the disease at different times. There will always be a reservoir of virus to come back, as long as herd immunity has not been built up.
What happens by our attempt at controlling the coronavirus is that we are turning what would be a relatively short term problem that the economy could handle to a long term problem that the economy cannot possibly handle.
We are also giving the virus a chance to become endemic. If it had just been given a chance to run its course, initially, it might have built up herd immunity sufficient to keep it away. As long as there is a big reservoir of people who are not immune, it is likely to come back again and again. If the virus keeps mutating as it circulates, we may find ourselves with several versions of COVID-19 to deal with (assuming economic problems do not bring an end first). In fact, multiple versions may be around, each year. We might need multiple vaccines.
Yes, this is a big and serious threat everyone should consider, actually the amplitude for the virus or mutant version rebound could be even leveraged by specific time frame, e.g. say propensity to return and infect again every ~4-7yrs could be more destructive than say ~10-20yrs cycle in terms of trying to patch up some new plateau on civilization no matter how primitive..
The epidemiologists advise the government, which then declares a relaxation of strict containment measures: Open for business!
The staff may be willing to return, but could all the suppliers be switched ‘On’ again, as the comic magician Tommy Cooper used to say ‘Just like that!’
It would have to be complete, simultaneous, and as we know, running 24/7 from the word go. You can’t really have a half-open pub or restaurant, or indeed anything.
Only my very primitive kind of craft business – ie pre- Oil Age and manual – can adapt to variable supplies of materials and other inputs. And although I have just bought stock for one year or maybe even two, I can’t be sure that any of my suppliers will still be around when that runs out.
After one missed quarter maybe it’s possible, in some sectors; but it seems most doubtful after the year to 18 months that the science is predicting as necessary, or for (doubtful) vaccine (s) development.
They didn’t think through the initial response,and are now adopting measures which are not thought through.
‘Herd immunity’ is spin and wishful thinking at this point.
The next time COMET-19 orbits mankind it might change trajectory and plunge straight into the belly of the rapacious beast. Total and utter annihilation.
https://youtu.be/TSsF20I3Z7k
Gail – 1st let me say I admire your work and am thankful for this platform for open discussion.
Let us be clear headed on vaccines for a coronavirus and the most recent scare SAR’s. There is NO vaccine 17 years later. There is evidence from that outbreak that people did produce an immune memory response it is not forever. However I’m sure people will take any protection they can get.
There is evidence to suggests that reinvention can be possible with a cytokine response – the cytokine storm some of the readers here may have heard mentioned.
I agree with you on the economics not so much on the biology. The reality is we will have to come out of hiding eventually but there will not necessarily be safety no matter how this is played.
My understanding is that these actions are to slow the spread unfortunately this may break the system so a catch-22.
Admittedly this is over my head and paygrade but there is no vaccine as of yet for something similar 17 yrs post and school is out on immunity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3636424/
Speaking along with the others below their pay grade… I’m sure few will take it seriously, but thanks to all to indulge me:
“The attempted cutoff of meetings, travel, and get togethers in general is an attempt to throw a wet blanket over the economy. ”
– Throwing a wet blanket over the economy might be the point. It couldn’t work for very long anyway. I’m open to the thought that there are very smart forces helping the virus along.
– The economy never coming back is the point.
– The virus staying around forever is likewise the point.
– Closing down cities and towns is starting to sound good. There are too many crumbs hanging around, and too many clueless people to make use of it…barring closing down the main supply.
– If all places are closed down save for essentials like fossil fuel supplied energy, people might come to appreciate those sources of energy. They badly need to get “renewables” out of their mind.
– Commonsense ways to keep alive need to predominate. Starting with social order and planning. The fact that so few people understand what that means is too bad. They better learn fast.
– The above may or may not shake out a lot of unnecessary elements of the mainstream system…that are most certainly dysfunctional already. Schools of all sorts. Driving to work if you could work from home…
I see two planning-intensive visions for the future. One is humanistic and the other is techno dystopian. But planning might really be needed. Just letting the energy blow itself out (without a plan) till it’s exhausted, in the belief that this is the path of all human endeavor, is yet another view.
Greer has to say it’s a storm in a tea cup, due to his stair-step catabolic collapse’ theory: he’s just being consistent.
Istituto Superiore di Sanità (part of the Italian National Health Service): Report on the characteristics of COVID-19 positive deceased patients in Italy.
https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-COVID-2019_17_marzo-v2.pdf
If you can’t see the URL, here it is without “http…”:
http://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-COVID-2019_17_marzo-v2.pdf
Even if you didn’t put in the http, WordPress (or something else) did.
I think that all this is saying is that the vast majority of the deaths are in Lombardia. Most of the rest of the deaths are in Emilia-Romagna.
Presumably, the virus got to other areas more recently, so that there aren’t as many deaths.
It’s also saying that 99 % of those who died had other illnesses (table 1).
I think that the last column is just the percentage of the country total in that district or province.
I’m referring to “Tabella 1” on page 3, “Patologiepiù comuniosservateneipazientidecedutia seguitodiinfezioneda COVID-2019” (Most common diseases observed in patients who died as a result of COVID-2019 infection):
https://tinyurl.com/tqzyj6r
This is the article you are looking for. It has a display by the number of previously existing conditions.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says
“According to riskmethods, a large portion of manufacturers are experiencing problems with their supply due to the coronavirus outbreak, with a 44% increase in companies declaring “force majeure” from December to February. A force majeure event occurs when unforeseeable circumstances, such as natural catastrophes, prevent one party from fulfilling its contractual duties, absolving them from penalties.
“After the first wave of disruptions from China, the second wave of supply chain disruptions came from neighboring South Korea and Japan, where there are also high numbers of infections, noted Bruce Pang, head of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance Securities.
“Surging COVID-19 cases in Europe and the U.S. may bring another shockwave, putting global manufacturing and supply chains under a stress test, Pang told CNBC…
” “I don’t think things will return to normal as we’ve known them over the last couple of decades,” said Alex Capri, a visiting senior fellow at the National University of Singapore’s business school. “We are in a completely different new era now and globalization as we’ve known it in the past is over.””
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/20/coronavirus-shocks-will-lead-to-massive-global-supply-chain-shuffle.html
“The global spread of coronavirus has sent airlines reeling but the expansive supply chains that make their operations possible are facing an even more acute and uncertain future.”
“I don’t think anyone has processed the shock that’s about to go through,” said the Chief Executive of one such large supplier to the worlds airlines.
https://theaircurrent.com/supply-chain/the-financial-crisis-brewing-in-the-supply-chain-underneath-the-worlds-airlines/
“[UK] Farmers say the fall-out of the coronavirus chaos means they desperately need an army of Land Girls – and boys.
“Travel bans brought in to prevent the spread means they have lost the thousands of foreign workers they need to pick fruit and veg crops.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8134285/Farmers-call-army-Land-Girls-boys-help-pick-fruit-veg.html
excellent point: deglobalization (incl. imported labor) vs (domestic) industrial food chain
Imported labour serves a purpose. But the imported welfare parasites who infest our inner cities should be quarantined on cruise ships and sailed back where they came from. That will also free us of most terrorists and knife criminals, and all the gang rapists of underage girls. Time to cleanse the hive.
i assume you are referrring to a certain Columbia U coed who was brutally stabbed to death over some change she was carrying recently in NYC, a few blocks from her college? that one brought the underlying reality to the surface, for awhile.
In my opinion if a population cannot get their r..ends out there and work and feed themselves they do not deserve to continue existing as a population. So migrants and imported workers are not available? Well then…either adapt or starve.
the government will get the local unemployed to do the picking if they dont do it they dont get paid
Losing foreign workers to pick crops does open up job opportunities for local citizens, but will they be willing to take them? A big problem is the seasonality of the jobs. The jobs are hard work and don’t pay well either. Theoretically, these could be jobs for some of the unemployed.
some of the unemployed => new neofeudal bottom caste forming up there..
how unfortunate but predictable
This runs deep. An American couple checked into our rental unit. The were unable to return via Australia (you cannot even transit…) so had to pay NZD5000 for a one way ticket back home…
They own an orchard in California and the fruit is ready to come off the trees — but it is impossible due to the lockdown to bring workers in to harvest…
So tonnes of fruit will rot. Workers will not get paid — and our guests will not sell the fruit
We did give them a knock down rate and a free night.
I just checked. California has over 110,000 homeless people, about 20% of the US total. I’m sure most of them know how to pick fruit off trees. Give them tents and basic sanitation, good cheap food, and a reasonable wage. Won’t happen, of course; they are addicted to the most damaging of all hard drugs: welfare.
There are a lot of people with mental health problems, I expect. Probably some other issues.
Lack of pickers is not the issue – the issue seems to be that nobody is allowed outside….
I love doing farm labor when I’m working on my own patch.
But I ain’t gonna work on Maggies’ farm no more.
https://youtu.be/Rl0C4Zkpv1M
Right:
“We are in a completely different new era now and globalization as we’ve known it in the past is over.”
Keeping COVID-19 around endlessly pretty much assures that globalization is over. Globalization was close to over before, so this was a fairly easy change to make.
Cathay Pacific Terminating 96% of All Flights — will fly 3x per week to 12 destinations from April
Elsewhere, Lufthansa Group said on Thursday it would shrink its flight schedules to levels not seen since 1955. The German company will also ground 700 of 763 aircraft.
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/transport/article/3076079/coronavirus-hong-kongs-airline-suspends-all-flight
All carriers will be losing fortunes every day on virtually every international route — how can they not as country after country bars non-citizens from entering.
I suspect that within the next couple of weeks — there will be very few international routes being serviced.
Many people I am in contact with still do not get it — their response to the above is ‘doesn’t matter I wasn’t planning on going anywhere’
And the topper is – somewhere GRETA and her GREEN GROOOPIES …. are squealing with delight!!!!
But then Greta is a re t ard ed more on …. so she would be delighted
I am actually considering making up a story and enticing her to come to visit in NZ … I know – she can endorse my solar sheep project! — I’ll organize a Kontiki raft for her perhaps….
Then I will put the evil gnome into a cage and she will be the superstar in the traveling FREEKSHOW that I intend to operate post collapse.
She will snarl and growl like a possessed demon and I will charge children GOOD money to buy pointy sticks to jab and antagonize her … for a slight extra charge they will be permitted to spit in her face.
I need to get some posters made of the NASTY TROLL in advance of the imposion … help me choose a photo
https://cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/styles/photo_page/public/2019/09/23/111080-2019-09-23t164611z1lynxmpef8m1kbrtroptp4climate-change-un.JPG
https://www.elitereaders.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/greta-thunberg-featured.jpg
https://www.newstarget.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2019/09/angry-Greta.jpg
Fast Eddy is TRULLY BACK and in rare form !!!!!
My vote is for Greta #3 and Legarde #1
Greta is a seventeen year old girl who is trying to do her best, and doing so with a shining sincerity. Your mockery of her is unworthy. In the name of our common humanity, I protest.
Unfortunately you will rarely see a mature or useful post from FE.
Mostly just sarcasm and vile pictures intended to shock.
Noise to signal ratio has increased considerably since his return.
Yes I agree! Pete an egoist and his sycophants; it is why I left this site for a while especially when there was gleeful discussion of eating children. Hope it does not degrade again as so many others have.
“Unfortunately you will rarely see a mature or useful post from FE.
Mostly just sarcasm and vile pictures intended to shock.
Noise to signal ratio has increased considerably since his return.”
I agree. The fact he’s some kind of celebrity on this site says a lot about the maturity level for those posters.
Innocuous beginnings, the odd fairly sane and informative post here and there, led observers to underestimate the potential of the returning FE virus for disruption.
The voices of those who had experienced the first devastating wave were ignored and drowned out.
Failure to apply appropriate and timely containment measures after the genome was identified left the OFW population open to an exponential increase in the rapidly mutating FE virus…..
It does take a rather high IQ to ‘get’ FE…. If you are not entertained then you need to blame your mother for not reading to you as a child?
Crazy… no?
https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Lagarde_thumbsup-800×450.jpg
Quiz – what do trump and lagarde have in common?
http://www.sunbedhireandsales.co.uk/s/img/emotionheader.jpg
Oooh Greta must be taking offence — sunbeds burn coal!!! Greta IQ : 47
And FE will usually protest back with more pics and commentary.
Now THIS — is Funny – no?
https://i.redd.it/zcthplsd4io31.png
“Is Swedish”
Yup, pretty much sums it up. Programmed by institutional sociopathy. Full of psychosocial bugs and logical contradictions.
Let’s examine one of the most severe regressions in the software package:
“Climate activist and open borders advocate.”
Hmm, it does not quite compute for people habituated to a concept called thinking. There seem to be a flaw in there somewhere.
“Got it.”
Cognitive dissonance detector subroutine crashes and causes objective reality observer process to halt.
Where do I file this bug? Does the Swedish government have a big tracking tool? Yes, now that I recall, we got this thing called “elections” where people approve of the programming and want more of the same not expecting different outcomes. Carry on.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/de/03/cf/de03cfa3eef6201a23162dcacd8c749b.jpg
Haters gonna hate, doomers gonna doom. You are, after all, on OFW…
I agree. Why so mean? How does it feel to be seventeen, smart, informed, sensitive, and helpless in such an obscene an totally f**d up world?
Does Greta have a mobile phone? A computer? A TV? Does she use cars buses trains planes? Does she live in a house? Does she use AC or Heat? Does she buy food in a grocery store?
Of course she does.
So guess what — when she tells us all that we have to change our way well guess what — she can ki ss my a sss.
She is a typical green groopie — everyone else is the problem — but NEVER them.
And the cop out is always — the government MUST do something —- meanwhile they continue to consume and live large.
I am SICK of Greta and her self righteous BU.LL SH IT. She is the Queen of Hypocrites.
I can’t wait for the cold weather — every time I chuck a box of coal in the Rayburn I will think of Greta and smile (then cringe)
Sorry if I have offended. (well not really)
Oh did I mention that I bought another tonne of coal today? In addition to the 3 tonnes I already have stacked under a tarp. I may starve but at least i will be warm.
Hugs from Sweden FE, you might like this one:
https://i.imgflip.com/3tgklp.jpg
🦠
Do I need to repost the above in UPPER CASE?????
No, we want some more macabre pitch black cynicism.
A black hole of fatalist bitter reality sucking the hopes and dreams into a zero division nothingness of darkness and despair.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0535/6917/products/despairdemotivator.jpeg
I agree. It’s just nasty,
Yes I agree fully. She is a 17 year old girl that has not lived and experienced life. She comes with the raw emotion of a teenager and states her case as one that age sees things she doesn’t know about.
Do I agree with all she states, no way, but to be rude about a teenager is beyond common sense.
I admire her for getting off her behind and getting into a cause in a big way, something I would never have attempted at that age.
I also hate to see this comments section revert to vulgar retorts as is was for a period of time. FE does make some great observations inbetween the rants, hopefully the signal to noise ratio goes back to more signal and civil discourse.
Yes Greta is a typical 17 year old — at best clueless and worst is a hypocrite. And ultimately a MEGA CONSUMER
The average 17 year old is an entitled twat who consumes more ‘stuff’ powered by fossil fuels than 50 baby boomers.
They all clamour for the latest phones and gadgets. And when they have them they spend half their time on social media waiting for the next ping like a heroin addict pining for a fix
And then they have the nerve to shout HOW DARE YOU? And blame everyone else for the state of the planet.
Now that is priceless.
For the Greta fans, pass this message along …. if you want to blame someone for this mess blame YOUR parents….
And yes I know you and the rest of your generation (and every previous generation) have been unable to control the primordial urge for MORE…. so do us all a favour… fall on your sword and end yourself.
Now that would be making a statement!!! Oh but that is NOT going to happen is it. Because you are busy firing stones from your glass house
17 is not a child. Although Greta does come across a bit like a not very bright 8 year old. So she has a condition.
I do not care. Greta and her team of minders are a joke. She is complicit. She is the face of this utter nonsense and she is no different than Leo – the other face — who prances around in private jets. Both hypocrites, scale is the only difference.
When Greta does a Walden – dump the phone GRETA… then you have a leg to stand on.
Until then yes, she is just like every 17 year old on the planet. She is CONSUMING the planet – as we all are.
She’s probably just pi ssed that she arrived at the wrong time — we’ve already burned it up …. sorry Greta….. we didn’t leave much for your generation to destroy… but you are making a solid go at quickly blowing through whatever is left of it 🙂
And you know what — you can take shots at Fast Eddy all you like.
Fast Eddy is 10000% RIGHT on this issue.
Stop your whining, the lot of you.
And Greta fans… perhaps you can pass this along to her 🙂 🙂 🙂 (even though she won’t get it — as will most of you)
https://youtu.be/rcx-nf3kH_M
that is one of my favorite scenes ever. strikes at the heart of our collective problem. well said. bravo.
Oh? Then why is it whenever I see her or read about her I feel like beating her to death?
Better still, I’d like to slowly strangle her… while her Green Groopie parents watch.
I really do
I am lacking?
Sir, you are a cad. Take your filthy mouth elsewhere.
To that, Greta would say — HOW DARE YOU 🙂
Then she’d grab her iphone and check how many new fans she picked up in the last 5 minutes (squealing with delight) https://www.facebook.com/gretathunbergsweden/
I wonder if she realizes that each time her FB page is called it burns coal?
And all those photos and videos… VERY energy intensive!!!
How Dare you GRETA! FB – really? Do something meaningful – shut down your social media….to save the planet.
I wonder if she is aware that Facebook burns epic amounts of coal to keep their server farms operational…. that their execs LIVE LARGE and fly around the world to important business meetings…
Or that Facebook is powered exclusively by advertising dollars —- and that they embed ads in the content …
Facebook LOVES members with high traffic — that means they can sell more ads on those pages — which means more people buy more stuff —- so they LOVE Greta!
Essentially, by maintaining that FB page Greta is directly supporting the consumption of MORE.
Oh but how dare everyone else – right Greta????
And here we have grown men and women leaping to your defence.
‘She’s just a child’ nah… she’s 17… and she is in NO position to ridicule everyone. So she should just Shut her Big Trap.
How DARE YOU…. is that some kinda twisted joke???? This truly is hilarious!!!!
‘cad’ … very 18th century… are you planning to challenge me to a duel? I prefer swords actually…
It is many years since I won my sharpshooter badge by putting all six bullets through a target the size of a human heart at 300 yards. But if you are willing: yes, I shall meet you on the field of honour whenever you wish.
i vote that a jousting contest would be more visually entertaining, with the lack of cinema, theatre and footie
the youtube income would be considerable
Things really do never change.
Tellers of truths continue to be ridiculed, insulted — and even threatened with death.
Instead of aiming your rifle at me — how about you address my attacks on Greta using a more subtle weapon — your mind.
Explain to me how Greta is NOT a total hypocrite.
And her dreams are coming true (as are those of all the Greenies)….
Consumption has collapsed.
The burning of fossil fuels has collapsed.
The skies are much less polluted.
Airline travel has almost ended.
The auto industry is on its death bed.
Surely Greta — and anyone of her ilk — should be rejoicing.
Ya’ll got what ya wanted.
Funny how the reality isn’t quite what you expected eh Greta. It all seemed so wonderful — as long as you did not think things through — or think at all. As long as you remained oblivious of the fact that your sailboat was a high tech factory made machine…. that your train ride involved another machine built with enormous amounts of fossil fuels…
Nope — you pranced around in your delusional world…. urging EVERYONE ELSE to stop destroying the planet…. actually not URGING – screaming insults at US.
Sorry Greta — NO PASS for YOU.
Eddy, if you’re trying to be funny, you’re not
if you mean it, then I can only agree with Robert below
we take your comments with a pinch of salt usually, after that one i can only suggest you find a way back through your time portal
It is controversial and funny.
It rattles plenty of cans and makes it stick and burn like an exploding container of sodium aluminate, polystyrene and gasoline, delivered in the belly of a B-52 piloted by Fast Eddy.
Norman — do not confuse me with the court jester. That’s Donald’s job.
I am 100% serious with respect to my take down of Greta Thunberg.
If anyone wants to come to her defence, then feel free to do so — using logical arguments.
‘She’s just a 17 year old child’ is not a logical argument.
I don’t even accept the ‘but she’s menta llly reeetarrrddded’ excuse — she is on the podium so she is fair game — if she has an 65 IQ and spends her days in an autistic trance watching her thumbs make circles, too bad. She belongs in a school for ‘special people’ NOT on the podium
Let’s reiterate her key message — HOW DARE all of us (I assume she is referring to everyone over a certain age — let’s use 50) continue to do what we have done our entire lives — consume.
Let’s compare Greta and her generation to mine:
– I took a school bus to school — now loads of kids get dropped off by their parents (in SUVs)
– I think I took one flight before I was 17 — and that was because I won a trip to Disney when I was in primary school — how many flights does a middle class kid take before 17? I know some teens who get pi ss ed off if their parents to don’t buy then tickets at the front of the plane!
– I rode my bicycle or walked — parents drop their kids everywhere — and pick them up — in SUVs
– I did not own a phone or much in the way of electronics — a kid cannot exist without a phone today and they want the latest and greatest of everything
The list goes on and on — and I am not blaming the current generation — if phones would have existed when I would have had one.
1. Nobody is to blame for this predicament — it is NOT like we ever had a choice
Remember my offer of the 100 million dollars houses etc… I guarantee you that even Greta would take that — oh yes she’d use some of it to fund some BS green causes but I imagine she’d also buy a top of the line Tesla … and she’d do what other rich people in the spotlight do — fly private BUT offset with carbon credits (more BS)….
2. As we witness BAU winding down reality is slamming into the carbon-free illusions of the green crew. It does not matter what one’s take is on g w…. T. I. N. A.
Since Greta is incapable of doing anything but spew mindless spin and insulting everyone else, and her minders will NEVER allow her to engage in a debate because her gig will be exposed as being illogical, I will leave it to her acolytes to step in and address the above.
I am all for poking Legarde with a pointy stick.
Does OFW deserve comments like this?
This is the End of the World Party! Fast Eddy is our Host for this once in a lifetime event!
All are invited without exception and front row seating is given to each and every one of us!
We are witnessing the unraveling of BAU and the framework it evolved to form modern industrial society. Everything is in a flux now and how the cards (sticks) fall is to be seen.
Everyday seems to bring new drama to the show.
The PTB are determined to keep control at all costs and measures.
It will be a miracle if they due even with violence and depression.
Many innocent people will be trodden under it’s home.
Enjoy your time until then😜
It’s levity guys. Don’t take him so seriously.
Now for a song about the economy.
I don’t take him seriously, grown men attacking girls with Aspberger is just sad.
Grown girls who are men t all y r e t arded … should not be lecturing the world.
Greta belongs in place where she can get treatment…. where she can at least learn to tie her shoes…
I’ll even make a donation to cover the in patient costs… I am sympathetic towards Greta… HOW DARE the parents of a men t a lly ill child force her to be a poster child… there surely is something wrong with them too … perhaps a few too many tabs of acid on the night they conceived her?
When is someone going to engage Fast Eddy on this topic… I’ve laid out the issues to be discussed a number of times… feel free to explain how I am wrong.
Alternatively you can admit that I am right but that my methods are… rough around the edges?
Is it possible to rewind the tape to the kitsch of the 80’s when globalism was in infancy? No, I guess not. 🙁
1982, 10 years after TLtG. The fiat currencies was kicking in hard after the oil shock with Ronnie Raygun in the drivers seat, with Dennis Meadows et al. bitchslapped left, right and center..
https://youtu.be/8tdZ3d5PukI
VS.
https://youtu.be/hBmjIIWPj3w
That post is worthy of the OFW Hall of Fame – what are you on about?
Here’s the deal — I will promise not to beat the Delusistani’s who pollute OFW to death… but Greta and Elon and the other imbeciles who pollute the world — are fair game.
Alternatively I can return OWF to it’s morgue like status with Tim and a few others interrupting the utterly worthless commentary.
Oh but it’s ok to slam Trump the jester — quiz time – who started more wars – Trump or Obama?
My loathing for Greta knows no bounds. Get ready for more.
🤘
https://i.imgflip.com/1dsob1.jpg
Jarle – yes I sometimes wonder that myself…
Do you deserve Fast Eddy’s contributions?
Those who dwell in RealitySTAN certainly do. The others… well they don’t really matter. They are excess baggage…along for the ride.
White noise….
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EK4aLaJnckk/maxresdefault.jpg
Oh how I’ve missed the old FE rants. Personally, I’m glad you’re back brother.
So am I and just for the record, FE is right, Lagarde is pure evil.
No but she does look like she was conceived in a test tube… she is an odd looking bird – no?
And I seriously wonder if she has a dongle down there…
Your attacks aimed at a child show who you truly are. Not that you haven’t shown it in many other ways over the years.
This blog was so much better while you were gone. Thank you for staying away that all too short time.
Actually it’s much much worse than that — it’s a men tall y ill ‘child’
A totally defenceless MOR.e O.n.
Hmmm … why is a 17 year old re t ar ded ‘child’ on the cover of TIME Magazine and giving speeches at the UN… and meeting heads of state?
Bit odd that no? Almost as if someone has an agenda…. (and it ain’t Greta).
Oh and BTW — please stop calling Greta a child.
You can say ‘child-like’ because due to her ‘condition’ she does act child-like…. like she is living in a land of fairy tales… very much the world of a 6 year old..
Sorry but I will NOT be lectured by a troll with the intellect of a 6 year old. Obviously you disagree and you hang on her every edict and feel obliged to defend her…
child
/tʃʌɪld/
noun
a young human being below the age of puberty
“Anything up to 99.2% of all of Italy’s recent Covid19-associated deaths could have been caused by pre-existing chronic conditions, according to a report released by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Italian Institute of Health, ISS)”
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/19/iss-report-99-of-covid19-deaths-already-ill/
Yesterday died One girl 27 years old
I’m sorry. How was her health before this virus season?
YES YES YES This is largely theater, not truth. Fake news.
“The global economy is already in a recession as the hit to economic activity from the coronavirus pandemic has become more widespread, according to economists polled by Reuters amid a raft of central bank stimulus actions this week.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-global-economy-pol/global-economy-already-in-recession-on-coronavirus-devastation-reuters-poll-idUKKBN21701J
“In terms of economic health — which is inextricably intertwined with personal health and life — we face the extraordinarily difficult challenge of balancing a terrifying health crisis with a virtually inevitable financial one. In the long-term, that financial crisis may be the greater of the two.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/488383-from-viral-infection-to-financial-armageddon-could-a-recession-kill-more-than
“What’s worse: a steep recession or falling prices? Answer: A steep recession AND falling prices. That’s is the underlying reality that is shaking markets to the core right now.
“When conditions become intolerable, as they are today, something’s gotta break. And it will, soon.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4332991-recession-deflation-real-panic
Falling prices in things you don’t need, that’s better..
Otherwise expect unobtanium order/stock status or steep inflation on the important stuff.
If all the people around the world involved in the production, distribution, marketing, etc of things we don’t need lose their jobs, then a hefty portion of the people involved in the supply of the things we do need will lose their jobs, too. It is a matter of the loss of income leading to a loss of demand. Discretionary spending is essential for the economy.
I’m aware of that, only commenting on the trend to expect down the road.
Fortunately, more people are starting to see the economic connection.
“I don’t think anybody’s really ready for shock that’s coursing through the United States economy right now, thanks to the coronavirus. Last week, 281,000 Americans filed for unemployment, an increase of 33 percent.
“On Thursday morning, the New York Times reported that more than 629,000 had done so this week in just 15 states. Now, Goldman Sachs is estimating that more than 2.25 million people will apply for jobless benefits this week.”
https://slate.com/business/2020/03/economy-coronavirus-unemployment-bad-bad-bad.html
“US consumers’ confidence in the economy is tanking as the coronavirus strangles spending activity and closes business throughout the country…
“A drop in consumer comfort threatens to suppress the economy’s biggest driver. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of economic activity, and the virus’ hit to demand will likely create revenue shocks across a wide range of sectors.”
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/economic-outlook-consumer-confidence-plunges-financial-crisis-coronavirus-recession-fears-2020-3-1029013996
“…millions of households don’t have even $400 in savings to draw on in an emergency like this. Those households will now have to struggle even more to pay rent or keep the lights on which, in turn, means even fewer customers for a wider array of businesses.
“The vicious cycle of recession has begun.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/19/perspectives/cash-payments-economic-disaster/index.html
Lower wages will tend to pull down demand for finished goods. It will thus, tend to pull down commodity prices. It is very hard for this to end well. The longer it lasts, the worse the recession, and the less likely we can ever escape its clutches.
“A worldwide credit crunch triggered by the coronavirus will set in motion a wave of corporate bankruptcies that will make the global financial crisis look like “child’s play”, investors have warned.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/coronavirus-crisis-could-lead-to-new-credit-crunch-as-companies-struggle-with-debt
“As corporations draw down on revolving credit lines to combat the expected adverse effects on earnings of the coronavirus pandemic, the ability of US and global banks to provide liquidity has come into question.
“The decision to borrow typically undrawn financings has echoes of the 2008 financial crisis when companies drew down on unfunded credit lines, taking the banks by surprise, and putting a significant strain on their deposits.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/ford-motor-loan/banks-face-liquidity-strain-as-corporations-tap-revolving-credits-idUSL1N2BC2NT
“David Stockman warns the pandemic is exposing risky speculation and shaky market fundamentals.
““Wall Street is toast,” he told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Thursday. “It’s going to end as a financial crisis because the illusion that central banks always have your back and the economy would keep expanding and growing forever and ever … was complete nonsense.””
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/stockman-coronavirus-sparking-financial-crisis-wall-street-is-toast.html
I’ll take my Wall Street toast with unsalted butter and Oxford vintage marmalade. Bon Appetit!
And then we can bring back, in this order, the gold standard, the Knights Templar, and letters of credit backed by bullion and honour.
“I’ll take my Wall Street toast with unsalted butter and Oxford vintage marmalade. Bon Appetit!”
A stylish option, Robert. My wife makes rather a good marmalade laced with a local whisky – a surprisingly good combination.
David Stockman has been ranting that for many years….the Magicians at the Central Banks and Federal Reserve have been successful, thus far, to maintain BAU.
Obviously, there is an agreed upon plan ahead to insulated the financial interests.
However, it remains to be seen if crisis spins out of control.
Reading Marshall law may be enforced if it does.
Wait until the laid off workers run out of money…..we are in uncharted territory and my thoughts are capital controls will be enacted and rationing along with other restrictions.
Would hate to be a recently college graduate looking for a job or a worker nearing retirement, losing their job.
We may very well go into an economic depression, a reset of certain debts and shift in our relationships among fellow citizens.
Nothing is being addressed concerning the ballooning debt and ability to service it.
NOTHING…at least in the public forum.
Good luck with that..
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/debt-among-older-americans-increases-dramatically-in-past-two-decades.html
Total debt for Americans over age 70 increased 543% from 1999 through 2019 — the largest percentage increase for any age group, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Seniors have been “disproportionately harmed” by a deterioration in the country’s “modest social safety net,” according to a study.
Carrying debt in retirement isn’t necessarily bad if people have the cash flow to pay their bills and still live comfortably, according to financial advisors
The total debt burden for Americans over age 70 increased 543% from 1999 through 2019, to $1.1 trillion, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Similarly, those in their 60s saw debt, such as mortgages and auto loans, balloon by 471% to $2.14 trillion.
Boy, are we in trouble
I knew a couple a few years ago, who always seemed to have financial problems. When they got near retirement age, they both got jobs that paid adequately, for a change. They immediately looked for as large a mortgage loan as they could qualify for, knowing that they probably would not be working for long, and bought a house with that loan. Both were in fairly iffy health as well.
I am not sure how that story worked out. It always seemed to me to be a story that couldn’t work out well.
gail, I share your skepitcism. When it was time for me
to retire I also bought a house, but cash on the nail.
There are times when debt is good, but retirement
is surely not one of them.
(By the way, when you tell a realtor that
yours will be a cash purchase, they tend
to become very, very friendly.
The worldwide credit crunch could be seen by practically anyone, it would seem like. Our system is based on growing inexpensive energy supplies and growing debt. Now that these are gone, it has been harder and harder to disguise the problems we are having. Coronavirus is the last straw.
The EU socialist Govt’s. will borrow like mad for the inevitable UBI while shedding people in the public sector like there is no tomorrow, which in all likelihood is true.
It’s a reset and a return to The Limits to Growth scenario 2. The end of exponential growth:
“Growth trends existing in 1972 could be altered so that sustainable ecological and economic stability could be achieved.”
Scenario 1 is gone, repeat after me.
GONE!
🦠
World Model with natural resources doubled?
It feels so surreal. I’m 50 and have worked since I was 16. Straight – I’ve washed dishes, loaded trucks, Marines, worked in a box factory, bar tended, farmed, fished, and along the way went to college. Mid-level management now but I have a good enough knowledge of how the wheels run.
Saved some not much – Had some bad luck here and there but the debts were paid.
Now here it is I’ve sat home all day doing the math and taking inventory – I figure my family has about 2 years before we’d be homeless.
Then I got to think about getting sick.
Very sobering day.
Some good new… and bad news. You won’t end up homeless… but you also won’t likely be alive in 2 years.
Has the most depressing beers ever in the local morgue — just M Fast and I after the neighbours cancelled due to Wuhan fear… as M Fast put it — it’s actually not so bad because everyone else will be dead soon as well — if it was just us it would suck
Good of M Fast to be looking on the bright side. I completely agree
Thanks FE
Believe it or not that conclusion was the most likely scenario in my calculations.
posts in moderation. seems to be that the keywords that are deemed bad are getting longer and longer. Self-censorship is the worst kind that any tech platform can do. Not Gail’s fault but this is seriously hurting free flow of ideas and it is really now a nanny state.
Every censored word implies just one phrase:
‘The Emperor is NAKED!’
There is not even an emperor anymore. Gaia can be such a b1tch to obstinate rapacious species.
🦠
Oh what the h……ell – the world is ending — let’s break out the ice cream and beer and pizza…
And pull the censorship off 🙂
I quote the late great Colonel Walter E. Kurtz :
“We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write ‘fu——–ck’ on their aeroplanes because it’s ob—-scene!”
There is still a lot of posts and comments out there on conspiracy theories of new world order, cashless society, technocracy, slavery of serfs etc.
To me, it does not really at all if they are true or not. There could be some power-crazy people having that thoughts.
Do they have the resources or energy to even carry them out? I just smiled at those posts. Possibly true but at this point of time “What Difference Does It Make?”
Our owners and guardians love to run drills and tests to keep us on our toes. So I’m kinda wondering if we are in the middle of one now…..
The Next Pandemic Is Out There. Is the Private Sector Ready?
With Event 201 simulation, Johns Hopkins turns an eye towards the private sector’s global pandemic preparedness.
By B. DAVID ZARLEY November 8, 2019
Late in the summer of 2019, a virus makes the leap from pigs in South America to the farmers who come into close and regular contact with them. It begins as a slow burn in Brazil; by October, it is gaining momentum and becomes known to the world.
The virus is called CAPS, a coronavirus, like SARS and MERS, that has never been seen before. It causes pneumonia and acute respiratory distress — in the most severe cases, liquid fills the lungs until breathing becomes labored or impossible.
A further mutation allows the virus to jump from person to person. From densely packed urban areas, the virus spreads, hanging in the very air we breathe. From its epicenter in Brazil, it spreads across the world.
A Pandemic Response Board is formed, made up of business leaders, public health experts, and representatives from the Centers for Disease Control. The Board is intended to coordinate the public and private plans for stopping — and surviving — the pandemic.
In their 18-month struggle against CAPS, 65 million people will die.
https://www.freethink.com/articles/global-pandemic-preparedness-plan
Wow! Too many academics with too much time on their hands.
Putting out a scenario like this, before the current situation. All of these people looking for “their day in the sun.” Their chance to show that they can really do something to save a large number of people who are elderly and/or in poor health.
And then there is the November 2015 Nature article by a large group of people, including Xing-Yi Ge and Zhengli-Li Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence
It talks about making a more infectious version of the SARS-CoV virus in the lab.
Later it says,
Wuhan researchers were clearly messing around with viruses that potentially very dangerous. We also found the articles talking about the fact that a mistake had been made. Whether or not a mistake had been made, China was in interested in “doing the right thing,” going forward, so followed the recommended path according to epidemiologists.
They went down this path, and it didn’t work very well. But with the flawed data they provided to the public, everyone thought they that should do this as well. So we have a huge number of others, listening to these academics who have no idea what harm they do to the economy through this approach.
Bill Paxton finding out about the pandemic 😉 (RIP Bill, although he will be spared the sh it show that we’re going to go through)
https://youtu.be/KS6f1MKpLGM
Correct video:
https://youtu.be/dsx2vdn7gpY
Italy, Veneto with a population of 4.9 million probably has 150,000 infected with the virus.
They did random tests on 3000 people without symptoms and 3% of them showed a positive result.
yep, people are spreading the bug days before and after being symptomatic..
Besides, there will be new quicker/cheaper testing kits soon, interestingly the science leader of one such lab said openly the virus RNA shows (especially the “copy machine” part) pretty crudely made gene manipulation..
So, all scenarios are on the table incl. lone nutter theory (or him working for someone to deflect blame), as the equipment for this got cheaper over the past several yrs..
What seems to be missing is a sense of perspective regarding just who is as most risk from this novel kind of flu-like virus. Is it really worth crashing economies by keeping the productive ‘healthy’ at home when it’s just the vulnerable that really need to be protected?
Then again, according to what I’ve been reading here and elsewhere the world economy was teetering anyway, especially due to the policies in place causing and extending the 2007 GFC up until now. Perhaps it helps to blame something external to the system itself.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/
Well I’m productive or like to believe I am. Been working 34 years straight, never been without a job – ever – not even a day.
However I’m at risk so I guess my usefulness has been fulfilled.
We are all expendable.
https://youtu.be/ABsslEoL0-c
Great movie and many lessions given in the true story.
Believe it or not , the actual Bus is still there in Alaska and recently a couple had to be rescued from there in the Wild
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2020/03/20/tired-of-into-the-wild-rescues-healy-locals-want-bus-removed/
They’re tired of the deaths and multiple rescues near a decrepit old bus whose legendary status continues to lure adventurers to one of Alaska’s most unforgiving hinterlands, and now officials in the nearest town want it removed, something the state has no intention of doing.
The long-abandoned vehicle was made famous in the 1996 “Into the Wild” book and later in the movie of the same name. Scores of travelers have been rescued and two have died trying to cross the unpredictable Teklanika River while seeking to retrace the steps of Christopher McCandless along the Stampede Trail.
The swollen banks of the Teklanika are what prevented the 24-year-old Virginian from seeking help before his 1992 starvation death inside the bus. The vehicle was left there about 1960, decades before McCandless encountered it and wrote in his journal about living there for 114 days, right up to his death.
“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure,” states an unsigned granite memorial near the bus.
“Happiness is only real when shared ” is engraved on the stone dedicated to Chris “SuperTramp”….wrote he had a great….but short….life
Never mention the klm-iate!
I mentioned once, but I think I got away wiih it.
I don’t think there was anything in it about the climb hate.
Here’s the link to the article. Startling, https://bit.ly/391qxVj.
Well, that sucks…
CALIFORNIA, WORLD’S FIFTH-LARGEST ECONOMY, IS IN LOCKDOWN AS GOVERNOR ORDERS RESIDENTS TO STAY HOME
“Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of California announced a mandatory lockdown for all Californians Thursday evening due to the coronavirus.
Newsom said that over the next eight weeks, 56 percent of Californians could come down with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. However, it was clarified that Newsom’s estimation didn’t take into account the efforts to slow the spread of the disease.
The order, which Newsom calls a “safer-at-home” order, is mandatory and will make the vast majority of the state’s almost 40 million residents stay self-isolated in their homes. Residents will be able to leave their homes for exercise and for essential needs.
All non-essential businesses will also close; grocery stores, pharmacies and banks, among others, will stay open. Some restaurants will also stay open, however, they will be delivery or take-out only. Before Newsom’s order, a number of counties—including Los Angeles County—issued similar directives.
Newsom also said that the National Guard would help with the distribution of food, acting in a “purely humanitarian” manner. California will also partner with the social media platform NextDoor so citizens can check in with neighbors during the lockdown.”
Just went to the supermarket.
I am in Auckland, New Zealand. The toilet paper shelves are bare. Pasta / rice almost all gone. No bread left. I took a couple of photos but they are a bit big to be posting here.
My expectation is that all of the empty shelves will be full or close to full again pretty quickly. At the moment, it looks like a demand spike issue with the items concerned rather than a supply issue. I have no doubt that a point will be reached where that will change, however.
I see similar shelves here…
people surely are stuffing their freezers full, so that phase will have to wind down soon…
but!!!!!
I expect that as soon as restocking is done, shoppers will be swooping in to buy everything…
keep the freezer full, and eat the new purchases…
I can’t see how this won’t be the new normal…
always lining up before the store opens…
Can’t buy a freezer here in Australian at present.
Here in Malta. No visible panic. Nobody is wearing masks, perhaps because the government website says not to bother, for the rather obvious reason that they don’t actually work. Went to
the local minimart: shelves full, except the cheapest toilet paper wasn’t there, just the usual stock of the next three cheapest. But plenty of fresh food, frozen food, vino, and vodka.
The only oddity was that the owner offered to deliver groceries at any time, at zero cost. A nice gesture, and intended as a welcome one to an old man with no car. But I declined. Opposite the mart is a small chapel, which was closed, which I had never seen before. But my faith in Gaia remains unshaken. When the Dark Angel comes, as he surely must, my answer will be the same as Mary’s: Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.
Supply chains currently direct quite a bit of US food to restaurants. With fewer eating in restaurants, more of that food is needed in grocery stores. So that means that grocery stores are to some extent short of supply because there is a real need for more food purchased from grocery stores. People using bathrooms at work are now using bathrooms at home, also.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/nasa-warns-two-asteroids-could-cause-atmospheric-explosion-over-earth-week
Mooooaaarrr dooooooom!
-GBV
How accurate is the testing for Covid anyways? It’s a standard PCR test that may not have accurate specificity and could be giving false positives depending on how it’s set up….
(at least according to https://www.sgtreport.com/2020/03/coronavirus-fear-germ-theory-exosomes-and-resiliency-thomas-cowan-md-and-sayer-ji/)
This virus is seemingly more about control and less of a real credible threat. Im more worried about the craziness of people entering a greater depression caused by these irrational lockdown/shutdown policies……
Here is another take on it from another commenter ” We have nothing to fear except our own idiotic overreaction……
Like China, our society, economy, and political system can survive the deaths of about 2% of the population (although the most likely figure is 0.6%). But if we keep up with these fruitless efforts to avoid the inevitable, we can and will utterly destroy the economy, leading to far MORE deaths than the virus alone would ever account for. Now, I think it’s long past time for us to move entirely to home/computerized schooling, and give up paying to maintain high-dollar, high-maintenance, infection-brewing day-care centers at public expense. And it might be a good idea to ban/avoid gatherings of more than 5,000 people in close proximity. But the extremely vulnerable should be the ones self-quarantining at home for their own protection, instead of shutting down almost all places of business, production, and entertainment in order to protect the 5% of the population that is the least economically productive.
>It’s irrational to try to quarantine the vast majority of the population and all of their necessary activities, in order to protect a small minority. Instead, we should invest carefully targetted efforts in protecting those few that need to be protected by deliberate isolation, and allow the rest of the population to go about its business. But . . . nobody ever made money trying to talk sense into the American public.”
and we can allow the vulnerable to take the risk if they choose. It is called freedom.
the sky is falling…
literally…
2020 EF passed by 2 days ago at a distance of 4 million miles. 2020 DP4 will pass by on the 22nd at a distance of 840,000 miles.
This article was written yesterday. It says, “One of the asteroids may even collide with Earth’s atmosphere resulting in an atmospheric explosion tonight!”
It didn’t, so I suppose we are past the risk.
https://www.sgtreport.com/2019/10/big-pharma-and-microsoft-are-teaming-up-in-something-called-the-id2020-alliance-that-will-combine-vaccinations-with-implantable-microchips-to-create-your-digital-id/?fbclid=IwAR0R9x1qVqAR3kY3opB2tsmUDbbVn7CHb5O8OR1XD7vEdiC_ht865AnKSbQ
More vaccine ponr!
Not only that, but intertwined with techno hubris!
https://pulpcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/28159179763_c13f2f8f48_o-600×902.jpg
What a combo!
James Joyce, Hemingway, Jim Thompson…
you know…
After years of alternative medicine that I think served me fairly well, I listen to the advice to avoid vaccinations. I’ve had enough recent experience with the mainstream health establishment to also not trust their ernest intreates to get all the “appropriate” vaccinations. But I thought we were at a stage where we could refuse the vaccines and go on with our business. With this covid-c and the insane power and scale of the warners and advisors, coupled with the insane wrong headedness and vacuousness of the public, I wonder if there’s really a way to get from under the threat from Matrix nightmares as described here.
This is what Al Bartlett was talking about:
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/488547-california-projects-56-percent-of-the-population-will-be-infected-over-8-week
California projections are predicting a jump from 950 confirmed cases Thursday evening to 25.5M Californians in 8 weeks time!!!!!
so perhaps half a million up to one million dead…
that’s not the end of the world…
Wow ! So much is happening in such a short time ! It is hard to keep up. What’s a doomer to do ?
I am not social distancing. The opposite really. I am out there supporting the local coffee shops and cafes (mostly open air being in Hawaii ) who greatly appreciate my business and extra tipping. I am trying to be a positive presence in the anxiety around me. I give people empathy and listen to their concerns and stories. I smile more which isn’t easy for an introvert like me. I even tell jokes, but try to stay away from my natural habit of a kind of gallows humor. I give to pan handlers and look around my neighborhood to see who is suffering. I had stocked up previously, being a doomer and all and have a couple thousand pounds of dry and canned foods which I plan to give to families with children when the time comes. It energizes me really. I have been working harder on my home repair projects. I told my wife, I don’t know how much time I have left, and I have already bought the materials. So I have work to do.
The social sphere is a bit of a challenge for me. I am used to being the wet blanket at social gathering when someone dares brings up a techno-utopianism project or idea. I felt it kind of a duty. Now I try to be encouraging when someone says there are new developments about vaccines etc.
Fortunately, my wife is onboard with this whole world economic collapse thing after hearing me talk about it for years. She sold what stock she had a few years ago at my suggestion.
We have a little house on the Big Island and try to enjoy every day. Cheers all.
I used to dream of living in Hawaii. What a life. Hope you have many more years ahead. It was around 2003 that I first discovered peak oil and that we were fu…. Too bad I had 2 toddlers and one on the way. Stopped at 3. Growing up small and skinny tought me that if I have something others want someone biigger and badder will come along with his buddies and take it. I never considered doomer lifestyle for that reason but it’s been tough watching the show while pretending to care and plan for the future. Hopefully I can be a source of comfort when the time comes. If this isn’t it, its getting close.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
US fatality rate for closed cases: 64.3%!
US new cases today: 5040
Italy new cases today: 5322
Looks like the US will surpass Italy tomorrow to be #1 in the world for most new daily cases.
the USA just has to try to be #1 at everything…
soon #1 in total cases and deaths…
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
the world total graphs at the top… the increase looks almost vertical…
predicting unemployment rate explosion in 7 days:
https://news.trust.org/item/20200319190408-erroj
“New jobless claims already hit a two-and-a-half year high of 281,000 last week, jumping by 70,000 from the week before…”
and… drum roll please:
“U.S. jobless claims could top record 1.5 million next week…”
“Data for the week ending March 21 will be published next Thursday.”
tip of the unemployment iceberg…
“Many states reported that their employment websites crashed due to a surge in traffic, suggesting demand for unemployment benefits is even higher than the reported figures.”
Laying off a huge number of people just doesn’t work!
PPT
Fed balance sheet
Yeah, George Gammon is good.
I especially liked this comment by Hastur of Cortura:
“Let me help everyone grappling with conceiving this in a way that accurately represents what’s happening. Imagine a Star Ship trapped in the massive gravitational pull of an event horizon (black hole). Escape is impossible. The captain say’s “Initiate printing press overdrive!” Trillions of dollars go shooting out the jets into the black hole. The ship gets slowly pulled backward anyway. Incompetence on a level that boggles human comprehension. The extreme desire to save corporate losers, who only months ago were buying their own shares by the billions, will simply doom us all. The rules to Economic Ecology are simple: Sometimes the cheetah trips and the gazelle gets away. Sometimes the gazelle becomes a meal. A lack of corporate prudence has produced the latter result. If winners never win because losers never lose, then you don’t have a market. What you have is a fantasy.”
as nauseating as it will be to bailout these corporate kreeps, I am all for anything it takes to keep key industries/companies afloat…
zirp loan/bailout/nationalization… whatever it takes, for the companies that matter…
food, transport, FF, utilities…
and most nauseating of all… banks…
almost all of us are dependent on banking…
off the top of my head, I hope Tesla doesn’t get a dime…
passenger airlines seem like goners, for starters…
“I am all for anything it takes to keep key industries/companies afloat…”
Nah. We’ve delayed this long enough. It’s time to take our medicine… time for collapse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6YXm4b3H5c
-GBV
and yet, the sheeple have little power…
TPTB will be working overtime ASAP to keep BAU going in IC…
you see, GBV, it’s as simple as ABC…
Internal government reports are expecting people to have to self-sequester for 18 months, or more!
As if that’s going to work.
They also expect there to be massive shortages, due to supply chain disruptions.
The pandemic will run rampant throughtout the world several times over. There is no immunity.
Vaccines are probably years away. (Will we still have the capability of ramping up. Besides, the damage to the industrial economy will already have been done.)
Good news stories out of places like China, Singapore and South Korea are highly suspect.
They are talking about a “lost year” More like a lost generation, at least.
So, if these internal reports are anything to go by, there is no escaping the black hole.
Hat Tip to the Doomstead Diner, https://bit.ly/2UhaDRe
younger workers must be allowed to get back to work…
reopen schools, restaurants and bars, sport events, concerts etc…
the unemployment numbers in the next few weeks might start TPTB to reconsider total shutdown…
the older population can do extreme social distancing…
we don’t do much of the work anyway…
and we don’t go out and spend as much as younger generations…
we = 60+ years old…
They’ve just shut down California! https://bit.ly/391qxVj
dow 20k held
line in the sand?
It’s still overbought, and weak as half-strength soy latte.
..but from now the game changed as $13T bailout has been phased in..
essentially shorts which “overwhelmed” the system to this point won’t work the same (as easily predictable).. just a warning for the novice/gullible..
When you have a printing press you can put equities where you want. The fed rescue line in the sand seems to be active at 20k. The big boys will play it both ways now. They need volatility to make $ and now they have it. Very few people win against the house. In the coroneconomy people will need to extract their savings out of the markets. It will be replaced with fed funny money. Its all been fed funny money for a long time. They have done a remarkable job isolating the funny money from the real economy money. That job is going to get a lot lot harder.
This could be the event that takes us off the $ as a reserve currency. As countries get more isolated they find new ways. When and if the “crisis” is over they simply may not return to the old ways.
All of the games are similar. Dumping one instrument for another as things progress. Holding on to one instrument and trying to gauge when to leap. No one knows except those that hold the strings of the puppet. The puppeteer is releasing tension on one string and pulling on another. Best not to play the game and live your life. Hard when all that sustains us comes from $.
“… next Thursday’s unemployment claims report could show an initial claims reading north of 1.5 million.
This estimate, which other economists agreed with, would far outpace the previous record of 695,000 set in 1982.”
how do you think the line in the sand will hold up by next Thursday?
Took the dogs for a walk. Wonderfully quiet with clean blue skies (zero planes). No cars, no construction noise, beautiful. Just like 911
Lots of folks out walking around here. Nice spring weather; not too much else to do. Gyms are closed. Kids are home from school. We all walk in the street, since there are no sidewalks. Lots of room for social distancing, if preferred. But difficult, if someone walks right up to you and starts talking.
Little social distancing in the UK at the present hundreds in the supermarkets everyday stripping the shelves bare.
Ah yes, the calm before the storm.
We’ve had to adopt new social distancing measures this week by moving our mail box away from the front door. In so doing, we’ve pushed the postman and couriers away from our front door, lessening the chance of them potentially transmitting the virus to us: https://myhomefarm.co.uk/enforcing-social-distancing
It’s a small measure, but with a potentially big impact.
Loooooooove this song and loved the movie!!!! Thanks!!! Jon Anderson’s voice doe.
J.A. and that voice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbDb8yITvhI
he sings the soundtrack of my life…
Ahhhh 1985….what I wouldn’t do to go back to those “Morning in America” carefree days….the year after, that actress was in one of my all-time favourite movies that epitomizes 80s teenage flicks, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
https://youtu.be/KS6f1MKpLGM
Predicting birth rate explosion in 9 months.
Condom shortages are already being reported.
Everything’s going wrong. Yesterday my Japanese sex robot went on strike then beat me up and raped me. I phoned the supplier to complain. Turns out I’d bought the S&M version by mistake.
LMAOOOOO!!!!
What a shame. Maybe you can retrofit it as a body-guard?
Correct as these two are the same model out of the factory, only different in packaging and outfit, the software mode switch “S&M / Robocop” can be easily found behind the left ear..
Oh, what a bleeding ass I am / have!
Evidently, you bought the wrong robot. I’m OK with mine:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.boekwinkeltjes.nl%2Fb%2F160703919%2FYuki-Terai-Tokyo-Labyrinth%2F&psig=AOvVaw0M9Q5tsXwqb38cPJw63jcU&ust=1584814608740000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCLCoyOXUqegCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAF
Oops. Google got it wrong. Sorry, sorry.
I demand a refund, or I’ll set my robot on you. 🙁
“Predicting birth rate explosion in 9 months.”
and probably an explosion of senior citizen deaths throughout those 9 months…
the average age will be dropping fast…
A mate of mine in HK is a barrister in Hong Kong … he is normally extremely busy….
His message to me yesterday:
‘Yeah it’s fxxxked here. Months of protests then this shitstorm. My business is in the toilet.’
Seems people can’t even be bothered to sue each other at the moment – or that there is so little economy activity happening that there are no disputes …. total seizing up of BAU.
Insurance companies covering liability suits should be happy!
Unfortunately he is focused on shipping disputes….
Good to hear from you again, Eddy! Thought you’d never return!
Been trolling around other blog sites, I’d presume? 😛
Eddy came back through the time portal naked (as one might expect)
then went into a bar, asked a guy:
I vant your clothes your boots and your motorcycle
What can a hockey player do now? In Slovakia, one of them earns living as a mason:
https://sport.sme.sk/c/22363045/jan-sykora-z-tipsport-ligy-robi-po-sezone-murara.html?ref=trz
https://www.facebook.com/web.hetrik/videos/211507883423379/?t=11
I have noticed a fair amount of work on buildings and roads going on around here, now. My sister in Milwaukee told me that the utility was changing the electricity transmission lines near her. All of this physical work still needs to be done, if someone will pay for it.
With the ageing populations and energy decline, there is no problem with the unemployment, but the problem is the too low wages which do not much the energy expenditures of the individuals.
Update from The Netherlands. Dutch health minister literally collapsed during a debate yesterday on COVID-19 and resigned today. I feel action by the government has been wobbly. First the idea was getting to herd immunity as quickly as possible, a day later it wasn’t because flatten the curve was more important. Hospital suffer from shortages (mostly face masks) but government doesn’t seize supplies. Opposition inquires about that, then all of a sudden government gives in and starts claiming.
In the meantime, slowly everything around us is closing. Bars / restaurants are close by law now, just as sports venues but also larger chains are now closed. Some semi-essential services (such as the tip / dump) is closing up in some places (such as my town) and the government is slowly hinting at lockdown.
Testing is hardly done anymore; I’m sort of waiting for the death numbers to rise, current CFR is at 3% but there are definitely more infected. Probably next week huge increase.
Someone in my neighborhood told me that there are three young college students in one of the rented homes down the street from my home. They all seem to have COVID-19, but they can’t get tested. The father of one of the boys has tested positive to COVID-19, so they know that there has been a likely exposure. When they asked about testing, they were told, “No, there aren’t enough tests available for everyone.” At age 19, they aren’t much at risk, so they should just treat the symptoms at home.
I imagine they are passing the virus around to some extent. They need to get food somehow, by delivery, takeout or grocery store. I suppose they could end up going to a restaurant, and expose others, especially if they don’t know when they are no longer capable of infecting others. People often seem to feel well several days before the virus leaves.
Exactly, and that is why it’s so important to keep your distance everybody says. Thing is, the parks are more crowded than ever here. Rutte (our PM) is stressing all the time to stick to the social distancing but people just don’t. Next step: lockdown. And from where we are right now it’s the only sensible thing to do I guess.
Somebody mentioned here before: it’s a choice between two unattractive alternatives; total carnage in the healthcare system or lockdown and hoping it’ll help. Let’s pay close attention to the numbers from China. I’m on the fence about those…
Enough blabbering, now for some data.
Italy has updated its data on the deceased. Latest data from the 17th of March. Things to note include
* the youngest deceased is now 31 yo
* all 5 patients under 40 that died were male and all suffered from serious comorbidities, chronic kidney failure, cardiovascular, obesity, psychiatric, diabetic)
* no significant changes in age distribution
* 76% suffers from high blood pressure
* number of patients without comorbidities down to 0.8%
* most commonly used therapy is antibiotics (83%) mostly because of added bacterial infections. Antivirals are used in 52% of the cases and in 27% of the cases steroids are used
* Average time from onset of symptons to death is 8 days
* Top-3 region are still Lombardy (Milan, Bergamo), Emilia-Romagna (Bologna, Parma) and Veneto (Venice, Verona)
I’m still trying to get more data sources from The Netherlands. So far:
* 76 patients have died.
* Age 63 – 95
Thanks, useful summary of what the Italians are finding.
The people who are being fools and not social distancing will be the first to whinge when they all get locked up.
Still, at least in Northern Europe being inside is usually a necessity rather than a punishment.
Humans aren’t designed to passively wait for death, they will go out and fight their enemy, and if one isn’t obvious they will invent one. Thus WW2, cold war, war on terrorism. China is making themselves an easy target to become the new enemy. I think a war with China is becoming more and more likely, but not inevitable. Their government needs to stand down..
Exactly, my grandpa during WWII went to concentration camp only in his invented dreams.. /sarc off
On the China question, yes, here I’d agree, but this is all legacy path question (trajectory) of history at its core. Simply, the path for W countries was the fast prototyping of the most aggressive, treacherous and pirate culture ever developed at the point of thrust (obviously not everybody is like that). In other words Chinese were not upto their adversaries in geopolitics and war, up to now, economic hockey stick at huge cost or not. Perhaps it might change, granted enough add. time, and US pop diversity mixing up even more into less “killer instinct” efficiency.. perhaps it’s too late anyway..
To further explain, the Germans were in the economic toilet after WW1, then blamed the Jews for their condition, which led to Adolf gaining power, thus a chain reaction to WW2. If the conditions are tense, you don’t need to agitate the environment, like a seed that sets off precipitation. After 911, we were ready to attack anybody, thus easily led to Afghanistan invasion, then Iraq, then Syria. Cold war, both sides had nukes, but both countries demonized each other, thus inventing false images of the enemy, that kept us in perpetual fear and tension. The CCP seem to be building a false narrative to deflect their peoples anger away from them and toward us. People here will get more and more pissed off as time goes by, easily provoked to supporting a perceived revenge for the disruption of their lives. Will they blame their own consumerism, or the commies? We have a huge military, and things can escalate quickly. Majority of people have not moved beyond tribalism.
The Germans were also at Peak Hard Coal in this time period. Lack of adequate energy of the expected kind leads to a lot of problems.
They have nukes, though.
If your enemy has your family at knife point and is slowly cutting off their fingers, is the enemy’s suicide bomb vest going to stop you from taking him out? Peace through MAD is just an assumption. I’m just worried tensions are getting tight, and our Generals have spent their whole careers planning how to defeat China, even with their nukes.
But no/less guts by Chinese to use them.
While, for example Vlad specifically warned that all the adversary bunker’s coordinates are dialed in and locked already.. (hinting incl. private ones)..
I honestly think the state of affairs we all face around the world ensures we’ll all be busier straightening out our domestic concerns than gearing up for another stupid war — and all wars are stupid, if you ask me.
I just want to give a short update on Austria that is in 4th day of lockdown today.
All shops besides necessities are closed, I could not pickup a delivery from amazon because the parce shop is closed. two concerts I wanted to visit this week were cancelled. Most physicians offices are closed. The plumber cancelled a date and a consultation for a physician was cancelled as well. A flight to my holliday destination was cancelled (2 months in advance(!)) and I can even no longer use Bus Train or Car to leave the country. Austria has about 2000 infections in a country of 7 Mio. If you calculate a slow increase, this state has to be kept for at least 6 to 10 weeks and it is unclear if it has to be released and infections will rise again. The measrure being taken is far too early because to costly in my view.
Also the numbers from italy indicate that mostly people at >80 yrs die and it is unclear if they causally die from corona if they have corona as this needs autopsies for which there is no time.
Some people claim this is a testing-desease. If you test a person what do you know? That he already overcame the illness without symptoms? Will he get sick?
People say there is a huge dark figure but that would include a huge number of infected who went over the infection without even noticing it?
Well, that said, people mix up economy with the monetary system and think that printing money will print every good at their command. We shall see…
In Europe the biggest worry in quarantine context of smaller countries is the DANGER to getting eventually reinfected or second/third infection spikes (opening borders eventually) from the cretenious regime now ruling in Germany-Merkelstan (or NL, FR, SWE and few other utmost crazies).
Stockholm is totally dead. Everybody with half a brain is hunkering down home not visiting elderly and sickly, which sucks for them, waiting for the protective gear to arrive so that the oldies does not have to die en masse.
Swedes called the govt/media spin bluff and took to the platform Flashback. Plenty of Govt. sociopaths and legit worried professors, doctors and scientists and regular people trying to understand WTF is going on..
https://www.flashback.org/t3111908
Translated to English:
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.flashback.org/t3111908&usg=ALkJrhjhCDO-zeEwWQXDCBNQh5cph4NkiQ
Sweden is going down HARD. Just in from the news, a spokesperson from the private sector almost in tears, like that dude during GFC, shouting for action. Forgot his name.
No darling, there is no protective gear to source anywhere in the world so people will stay the fsck home until it is. Typical consequence of incompetent self entitled institutional sociopathy causing an economic meltdown not seen since, god knows. That easily could have been avoided using simple and cheap means.
Oh yes, they rode it hard, the relentless housing bubble until this sh1t hit the fan and now priorities are rearranged to a saner level. At least Swedes does not seem too keen on throwing their old pops and moms under the bus, however the Govt. sociopaths were eager to do it.
The Regime news broadcast even showed people hugging and shaking hands at the Arlanda airport a couple of days ago. The cynicism is real. The cruelty implicit and deep.
Institutional sociopathy at its finest.
“Like that dude during GFC”
Are you talking about this pu tz?
https://youtu.be/SWksEJQEYVU
That’s right.
The spokesperson was going mental. No wonder, she was probably heavily vested in some business that is tanking.
It looks like one Swede who is really happy about this turn of events is Greta. Emissions will plummet!
Yes, she is from the “people” that gave the world the Stockholm syndrome, the institute of race biology, reckless profiteering from the n@zi collaboration during WW2. Then it evolved into the next extreme, the Humanitarian Superpower, with limitless mass immigration of unemployable people to put an artificial pressure on the housing market until the bubble was the size of Betelgeuse.
Yes, the delusion was real. The hopes, dreams and Potemkin facades is soon a distant happy memory.
Way too many countries trying to lock down their populations. Just share their viruses among each other. Hopefully, there will be enough of all needed supplies.
No, there won’t be, not in the foreseeable future. Half the population in Sweden is giving direct orders to their moms and pops to stay the fsck away from people, at home, as they are doing themselves.
It is a self-imposed lockdown. The essential industries and production machinery still operates. Low skilled jobs in the service industry is a thing of the past. UBI weeks, if not days away.
The frivolous jank lifestyle is gone, repeat after me.
GONE!
🦠
Who would have thought? 🤔
Why are all comments from OFW suddenly going into my junk folder?
I’m offended… 😉
Because the gubbermint doesn’t want you to see them, obviously. A prepper in the woods told me that. But I think he might be an unreliable informant as he’s been there since 2008, or so he said…..
https://www.parentspartner.com/temper-tantrums/
My guess: Perhaps the large number of commenters has led to the mailing list of comments going over some threshold that leads the system to categorize them as “junk”. This could be a problem for others, too. Maybe someone else has a better idea.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/politics/trump-fda-anti-viral-treatments-coronavirus/index.html
‘Trump says FDA will fast track anti-viral treatments but FDA chief says it could take 1 year’
“President Donald Trump says he’s pushed the Food and Drug Administration to eliminate barriers to getting therapeutics for coronavirus to patients. He said a drug currently used as an antimalarial — hydroxychloroquine — would be made available almost immediately to treat coronavirus.
“It’s been around for a long time so we know if things don’t go as planned it’s not going to kill anybody,” Trump told reporters at the White House.”
“We have to remove every barrier or a lot of barriers that were unnecessary and they’ve done that to get the rapid deployment of safe, effective treatments and we think we have some good answers,” Trump said.
Just as I suggested in a previous thread, there could be a willingness to fast-track drugs to help corona virus, and the response was no, that can’t happen. Well, at least Trump is pushing to reduce the time. Now whether that pans out or not for an effective drug against Corona is another thing. But I was right. Thanks, folks.
I saw that (quinine tested in-vitro) about a week ago, and did some research. Quinine like Ibuprophen reduces the bodies ability to fight any viral infection. The CDC has issued a warning about Ibuprophen. There was a report about a young child that died. People looked into the case and found that the child’s parents loaded the kid with aspirin to lower her fever and killed her.
The Orange menace has pushed the FDA to approve quinine. I doubt any doctor actually did any research, and a Trump toadie just approved it to make him happy.
If you want to live, do not take quinine, aspirin, Ibuprophen or any drugs in that class.
Quinine is another name for hydroxychloriquine. The orange menace has just killed millions more adding to the death tole he racked up by getting rid of the formerly existing response team. “You’re doin’ a heck of a job Trumpie”
Yes, thanks there are appearing studies that suppressing the natural bodily fever response by these specific drugs is counterproductive to very dangerous..
But the issue remains when taken to ICU the doctors won’t consult you on any of this..
If they happen to be locked in one of the dogmatic positions how to treat it.
“A French team on Tuesday said initial results from a 24-patient trial of hydroxychloroquine showed that 25% of patients given the drug still carried the coronavirus after six days, compared with 90% of patients given a placebo.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-treatments/two-generic-drugs-being-tested-in-u-s-in-race-to-find-coronavirus-treatments-idUSKBN2161QQ
Please cite references that hydroxychloroquinine is counter productive for cv 19 treatment.
Great find and post, 09876! That’s great news!!
“A French team on Tuesday said initial results from a 24-patient trial of hydroxychloroquine showed that 25% of patients given the drug still carried the coronavirus after six days, compared with 90% of patients given a placebo.”
Not sure if my other post will appear later, but that is a great find 09876 and great news on about fighting the virus with something that is having some effect. Hopefully this one will post. And I’m sure since that is having results it will get fast tracked in the US.
Yes, I stand corrected.
But I think you are quite correct to point out that quinine and these analgesics have a downside.
By the way, there are also favorable reports about a drug called favipiravir or Avigan being effective for coronavirus patients who are not too seriously ill. Of course, that could turn out to be hype.
Just in mi’ curry reports from Tokyo:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-says-china
It would be great to find some drugs that work fairly well.
Who knows about quinine, but there is also this drug mentioned in the article:
“Part of that, Hahn said, is exploring drugs that are “already approved for other indications,” noting the President’s remarks on chloroquine.”
Also mentioned in that same article is a procedure that could help patients:
He also explained the process of convalescent plasma, which has to do with isolating blood from those who have survived the coronavirus and have the right immunoglobulins. A concentration of that could treat people infected with the virus.
Additional in that article for those that read it is the following about a vaccine trial:
“He also said there is a vaccine trial currently being performed that is expected to take “12 months.” That’s less than the 1.5 years floated before and likely the difference is the fast tracking.
But the point was there is a willingness to fast track trials, which is what I had mentioned in a thread a few days ago, and that was correct. Thanks.
Quinine and hydroxychloroquine are distinct but related compounds. Hydroxychloroquine has chlorine at 7, and an amine at position 4. Quinine has a hydroxyl at 6, and no amine group or chlorine.
Yup, I stand corrected. Still staying away from aspirin and Ibuprophen though.
Yes, that’s what I’ve read. Acetaminophen aka paracetamol, aka Tylenol or Panadol brands, is OK.
A couple of corrections. First, Trump did not “get rid of” the response team. He got rid of none of them, merely reorganised the teams so that they were more integrated, which of course meant some of the specialist titles were no longer relevant. Secondly, we Europeans living in the tropics (Africa and India) took quinine daily, though we called it “gin and tonic”; it helped guard against malaria, and had no known bad side effects. It is a naturally occurring folk medicine that South Americans used for centuries. So can we please dispense with the propagation of fake news from the US fake media.
Dow 20,000 so it’s down about one third in just a month’s time…
this must mean it will be zero by late May…
WTI 48 in early March and now 24…
so by the end of April it will be zero…
because trends always continue… (sarc)…
“Italy’s lockdown will have to be extended beyond the current end-date of April 3, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Thursday as its daily death toll spiked.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/italys-death-rate-reaches-record-high-hospitals-in-lombardy-struggle.html
“Italy has overtaken China as the country with most coronavirus-related deaths, registering 3,405 dead, a rise of 427 on the day before.”
[If we take China’s figures at face value, which would be unwise]
Surprise!
How much debt can the U.s add before it reaches a tipping point?
The problem is not digital representations, symbols of wealth. It is the real tangible “stuff” that runs out before money does.
perhaps 10 or 20 trillion more $…
could go much higher with near 0% interest rates…
Gammond released new video dissecting the bailout..
The very first rescue operation by FED seems allocating $13.5T for few next months.
Now add other CBs and then gov support programs globally and we are into $100T easily..
It all rhymes with our previous estimate that GFC_ver2 as of now will have to roughly match global synthetic GDP (low hundreds of $T) and only the next one GFC_ver3 (~2025-35) would have to go again go way above that which could be the critical last failed attempt..
Obviously no guarantees, it could fold anytime, but I doubt it for this cycle..
The thing is I can’t see what throwing money to a physical problem will solve….in 2008, you could add zeros to everything, the crisis was on paper…this is not on paper, it’s physical…anyway we will very soon find out.
..buying time..
mainting quasi BAU for as long as the ECoE threshold doesn’t trip IC collapse
That’s what they have been doing (buying time) for 11 years now…the bullets have been spent..there is no “papering over” this one…
Well, there are various scenarios on the table, I’m partial to this GFC_ver2 not being the exactly last one.. as per above they now pledged ~$13T to bailout the banking system, others will chip in as well incl. govs, and after stagflation plateau say next ~5-7yrs the very last one GFC comes along, and the rupture of IC..