Syrmax

Throw a few Trillion at the market and algo's buy. I think it may be that simple. The Fed has created $ out of thin air to cover a lot of losses...(not individuals though...we get capitalism...big players get socialism when they implode). I do think that the markets will have a reality check though as Quarterly earning start rolling in - and esp next Quarter. You can bake in some of it in terms of reduced expectations but some of what we are going to see is going to be staggering. At some point we will probably challenge the recent lows, IMO.

Productivity growth is an esoteric measure if one is talking about "standard of living". The fact that I am more productive at work doesn't mean jack squat once i leave work. Nothing has really changed since the 1980s, if you are talking about standard of living. The only thing that's really changed is the advent of communication technologies and certain medical advances. There are no shortage of studies showing that the "average" US citizen's wagegrowth has been stagnant for the past 20-30 years, in real terms. From a day to day standpoint...speaking for myself...what has really changed since the 80s? There's the internet and online streaming services, which are mostly just a different way to waste time than staring at the TV. (To be fair, internet capability has increased "productivity" because we are now available to "work" 24/7...at the same relative pay...and we can search/shop for things online). Certainly, cars are nicer and those of us that want them, have smartphones. Houses aren't really nicer. Electronics are more capable, I can program my home's thermostat or coffee maker - whoopie - but I don't really count that as standard of living. Some of our "advances" are actually a net drag given the costs, more of an elective convenience that we survived without quite nicely in the 1990s and prior.

Damn i missed that. That sounds bizarre. I'll have to youtube it. But, he's right about January. Noone would shutdown the country with no cases. Nobody that's sane anyway. And he was MF'd for mostly closing off China travel in late Jan by the Dems and press (he's right about that - which the press can't stand). However, after that... Rumplestilskin slept, more or less while CDC failed wide open. These reporters though... are like DNC mouthpieces. Both are embarrassments... And oh yeah, Obama's fault. LOL. What's next? Benghazi??

i got a text from 2 ppl saying Trump is melting down. I had to turn it on. What an deranged clown. At least Sleepy Joe would lie with a smile on his face.

i usually do just for morbid curiousity but i just made some pork chops with applesauce. I'd prefer to enjoy that instead of getting indigestion...

Interesting...been hearing same from non-bank employees. As far as unemployment comp, they could have done what Canada apparently did, just send out $2000 checks to everyone. Simple, fast, effective. Here, we tasked the IRS and other gov't entities that are swamped and don't have enough people, with administering these checks. Its too complex.

Anyone notice how complicated and slow of a process it is to dish out SBA loans to small/midsize businesses and get checks to people....while it takes a few clicks of the mouse for the Fed to make Wall St bagholders whole? Same ol' sh!t as 2008. This is part what happens when 400 of 535 elected reps in DC are lawyers. And BTW...the Federal Reserve has been authorized to dish out $2.3T (yes, Trillion) in various financial rescue operations....wait for it...with NO OVERSIGHT! This should be fun to follow.

Took CDC months to "announce" that wearing a mask just might be effective even if your not sick. Which 4th graders knew intrinsically. Now CDC wants us all acting like we are entering/exiting a Level 4 Virology lab. This is after the CDC home-brewed test failure fiasco. If Rumplestilskin wanted to fire anyone, seems like some fertile ground there...its not like they can be that much more f*cked up...

Embarassing. For us.

That has nothing to do with our election system that is wagging the dog.

Agree, the current system is based on the old days, where travel and technology, communication, was more limited, even horse and buggy. A campaign closer to what parliamentary systems have, like the UK, would be better. Of course, the current system mainly benefits 2 groups, the two major political parties...and the media...who reap a lot of sales through ad spending. Endless campaigns keep the media spotlight on true political nonsense instead of anything of substance. Edit: of course I forgot to mention the other main beneficiary of the current campaign system...Special Interest Groups and the like. Although they would never be substantially relegated unless you went to full public campaign financing.

Ending Bailouts for billionaires and Hedge funds, along with companies that are in over their heads with debt due to ill advised borrowing to do stock buybacks might be a reasonable place to start...

That's the graph that I was thinking of. Depicts the differences perfectly.

It's a temporary blip (hopefully) but...what the "virus deniers" erroneously try to compare are total covid-19 deaths to seasonal flu. These are all happening in a matter of weeks, with protective measures largely in place whereas seasonal flu death numbers are spread out over a year, with virtually no distancing measures in place.

That's a tough one without knowing what else really happened. I suspect that he wasn't getting any sense of urgency from CINCPACFLT and the chain of command above that, as the situation was rapidly worsening. I dont know who was on email distribution but apparently it wasn't the Chain of Command as you wouldn't write an email like that to them... Based on what I know, I think he should have been reprimanded in private but not sacked, which seems to be by the sole decision by the NAVSEC. Some of what Modly said on the 1MC was fine and aggressive. I have no problem with that. What I really really objected to was Modly going out to CVN-71 and dressing down the crew, trying to scold and guilt them, and insulting the Captain. It should have been a very different speech, instead it sounded like an azzhole being an azzhole. That was unacceptable and he rightly resigned. I've been dressed down as part of a submarine crew by our CO but it was pretty much deserved. But we weren't insulted. That's sh!t leadership.

I thought Chamath's position was a refreshing one. A billionaire refusing to allow CNBC mouthpiece parrot the usual line about bailing out billionaires...Wapner acted like his buddies he interviews would he homeless on the Bowery. What a tool.

Interesting Exchange between CNBC flunkie Scott Wapner and Venture Capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya that is well worth watching. Love this guy, he is spot on and stuck it up Wapner's azz. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya stunned CNBC anchor Scott Wapner and generated widespread applause on social media by declaring in a television interview Thursday that the U.S. government should let hedge funds and billionaire CEOs “get wiped out” by the coronavirus-induced economic collapse and instead focus its attention on rescuing Main Street.

This is what happens when public "benefit" assignments get involved. It gets to the old moral hazard vs Meritocracy debate. One can see both sides. As far as the workers still carrying on while others get unemployment...as we used to say the Navy, "it's a f@ck job" but no good alternatives exist. Someone has to get it done. Maybe gov't can also provide some extra comp in acknowledgement? As long as we're throwing helicopter money around, why not. (The repercussions of all that is a separate discussion).

He's probably right. We need antibody testing and a lot of it, soonish. Of course it would be helpful if we actually had enough covid-19 test kits instead of having to be stingy with them. And then there's the vaccine... One can dream though...

Supposedly, covid-19 appears to be fairly well behaved in terms of mutations thusfar. It could always change but right now it looks like a vaccine could be targeted for it without much risk of the virus changing enough to matter.

I saw a rough analysis of temp vs cases for New Orleans that an ex coworker of mine posted on LinkedIn - he lives in Louisiana. There does seem to be a correlation developing between lower cases and temps in 70s and higher. We'll see...

Good question.

Yes, undoubtedly it was travelers from China into Europe as indicated by natural changes in the virus over time enableing it to be tracked etc. I kind of suspected this was going on in Jan/Feb as we were seeing covid-19 cases springing up everywhere after the initial northern Italy outbreak (possibly linked to a manufacturing facility there that apparently uses Chinese workers). Regardless, what this indicates is that we (the globe) realistically had no way of containing this, maybe only delaying it a bit. It would have taken some real global preplanning to enable tests of an previously unknown virus to be created and then manufactured and disbursed in large quantities within a matter of days/weeks. The Chinese government delaying and fumbling around looks like it removed any hope of containment although I wonder whether it would have made much of a difference in the end as reaction time was going to be somewhat slow, in the pre-covid-19 world...

Interesting Plot Twist regarding source of NY-based Coronavirus infections...Europe! If confirmed, we really had no realistic chance to limit this once it got out of China, which was inevitable... Snip: New research indicates that the coronavirus began to circulate in the New York area by mid-February, weeks before the first confirmed case, and that travelers brought in the virus mainly from Europe, not Asia. “The majority is clearly European,” said Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who co-wrote a study awaiting peer review.

Germany getting ready to open back up (edit: partially, carefully). Biggest difference appears to be their ability to test up to 500,000 ppl per week. So they know where they really stand. Much like S Korea. UK and US a small fraction of that, just blundering around...arguing about ventilators and panicking the public.