psuhoffman

Rebooting the world economy will take coordination and a collaborative effort. Too much of the workforce depends on transnational corporations or demand from international markets for one region to prosper in a vacuum. We are no exception. I was just saying one advantage we have now over most past economic crises is the market imbalance at work here can be temporary. I say can be because without adequate fiscal and monetary interventions the temporary imbalance could become permanent. Lets compare this to the Great Depression. In that case 4 major problems combined. An incredibly unhealthy distribution of wealth that limited purchasing power and product demand, extreme inflation of market value due to an unregulated financial sector acting recklessly and a lack of feduciary regulations combined with a sudden banking crises unchecked by a lack of funds insurance, and exasperated by a laissez-faire attitude by some governments unwilling to take measures to infuse the necessary artificial stimulus to kick start growth. Of those 4 factors acting to create the extreme imbalance only 1 exists today in a tangible way beyond the temporary effects of the virus. We again today have an unhealthy distribution that will threaten a worse recession someday if it is not rectified. But the other 3 factors do not exist to the same degree. In the 1920s we actually were still pretty close to a true capitalist economy. Not quite as much as the 1800s prior to the progressive movement when damn near anything was legal in the name of making a buck but still close. In that way we were ill equipped to manage a sudden market imbalance. Once demand was wrecked by such an imbalance it could take years for people to cobble together enough cap to increase demand and thus labor again. Plus people were burned and even when they had money were acting frugal which was not helpful to creating labor demand which requires people buying stuff. Today we can, to a degree, control and offset such imbalances. Whether we are willing is another story. But for instance, most don’t realize how government spending really happens. When we spend money we don’t take it from revenues. We actually just print the money. We make it up. Then the following year we correct the imbalance by either taxing it out of the economy fiscally or use monetary measures (open market operations or tinkering with interest rates) to prevent rapid extreme inflation. The deficit is just the estimate of the imbalance between how much more money we are infusing into the economy than taking out the following year. And normally that’s important because in a well functioning economy without an imbalance if you flood cap into the market without increasing production you end up with rapid inflation that destabilizes the economy. But what if we have an equal downward economic pressure like right now? Will the 2T infusion of cap really cause the same harm now? Not likely. In some limited sectors maybe. But the downward pressures right now will offset most of the effects. So we could spend recklessky right now without as much harm as in other situations. We also could freeze debt to limit the instability. Now will we do those things? I’m skeptical. But my point was our unwillingness to enact a proper economic plan doesn’t make the healthcare plan wrong. We could manage this in a way to minimize both the virus impacts and economic impacts imo.

Yes because there is no $ on life AND money is all abstract anyways. We literally make it up. It’s the value of our goods, services and means of production that matters. Temporarily there will be an imbalance to that but necessary services will survive and if the government wanted too they can easily freeze then reboot all non essential economic sectors with an infusion of capital to kick start it. Typically such an infusion would create inflation but not when it’s balanced by downward price pressures such as now. Economic policy is really about how we allot and prioritize resources. Money can be manipulated. This won’t create a permanent imbalance in the means of production. We will still have an adequate labor force and raw materials. With an infusion of cap to crate necessary demand the economy would recover quickly. We could also freeze all debt both to and from financial institutions so most come out the same way they entered the crisis. Now I know our government sucks at economic policy and that likely won’t do all that. The biggest issue is we are selfish AF and that strategy would require the greater good mentality. A lot of people will still be making a profit. Financial institutions don’t want to give up several months of interest payments. And many wouldn’t want everyone to realize just have abstract the value of money is and open their eyes to the truth of how we deploy our resources. So we will probably drive ourselves into a depression in a futile attempt to save the status quo economic system but that doesn’t make the first part of the plan wrong. It just makes us idiots when it comes to economic policy.

In a few years when it’s a constant neussance we will have some natural immunity and likely a vaccine. It won’t be a threat to run rampant all at once and crash the medical system.

It’s unavoidable. An old boss of mine is a Qanon tin foil hat nutcase and it’s amazing what he shares on his FB wall. I mean some of it’s like grocery store tabloid level stupid. The theme seems to be “take ANYTHING that doesn’t fit his preferred narrative and twist it into a conspiracy that does”. But some of those absolutely lunatic level crap posts have 100,000 likes.

You are describing the micro effects of the macro pattern I discussed.

Split flow progressive pattern with lack of phasing (until OTS). Southern stream moisture stays south. Northern stream races by to the north. It happens. But it’s unlikely to persist forever. Especially as we move into Summer patterns when different factors become more critical to our precipitation prospects.

@showmethesnow everything you bring up are good points and it’s very possible. I guess I’m more optimistic that if it was a truly catostrophic (extremely high mortality) virus nations and individuals would be more likely to take the known necessary measures. It’s one thing to have 20 year old selfish ding dongs ignoring the measures when the risk to them truly is relatively minor. It’s another if the virus had a 50% mortality rate! And the few remaining idiots would likely face swift immediate severe government action. We were “lenient” and many people ignored the advice. I hope that wouldn’t be true if a civilization threatening level event. Additionally modern medicine likely would reduce the mortality rate “some”. Of course that’s assuming we mitigate the spread enough not to crash the system. A huge assumption. So I agree your pessimism is warranted but there are more optimistic possibilities. Hopefully we never have to find out!

I’m dealing with that now. I recently cleared another 1/2 acre in the back and the ground was too uneven to mow. I’ve been using my pick axe, shovel and rake to just chop up then level everything. It would be much easier with a cultivator but I like doing things by hand to get a workout. I’m not really a fan of using the weights so if I can get a workout while doing something productive that’s better. I’m sure it would be a lot easier to buy sand and topsoil but it’s way too large an area for that. $$$

I wonder why the initial dismissal of masks as a part of the containment strategy. Even if it’s minimally effective at preventing people from contracting it seemed to me that it would help with the transmission from the asymptotic carriers. And even minimally effective could lower transmission some. Maybe they knew we simply didn’t have the supply and didn’t want to cause a panic or rush on supplies? ETA: just read that some experts feared masks would create a false sense of security and cause people not to practice social distancing thus mitigating the benefits. I could see how that “could” be a problem but then better messaging was needed. That seems to be a “people are too stupid to handle the truth” attitude. And while that may be true you have to at least attempt imo.

@showmethesnow given how much more we know about virus transmission now and medical advances hopefully we never see another pandemic that wipes out majorities of the population in places. It’s possible but it’s also likely we could at least mitigate the impact some compared to pandemics that predated modern medicine. This doesn’t have the mortality rate to be that kind of outbreak anyways but people taking the minimalist extreme position also aren’t accounting for what the mortality would look like if we didn’t take these measures. Somewhere in between is the likely answer but a level we would regret considering the crash to the healthcare system it would cause and how that would impact millions of other people.

Lol it’s trolling us

Yea not sure how you said it to get deleted but whenever I’ve had something removed it was because I was wrong. The mods here aren’t tyranical but you’ve started beef with virtually everyone since you got here. No one, least of all me, needs protection from you. And while the virus isn’t political the governments policy towards it is. Literally. So your post makes no sense. I do think we need to be careful to keep it as non hostile and neutral as possible and my pillowguy post was on the edge but I admitted my bias and that maybe I was wrong and I explained my reaction. We do need to be able to comment on stuff in general given how big a deal this is.

At least this time the map agrees with your point. But a 30 day anomaly over such a relatively small geographic area isn’t that significant. If that kind of pattern were to continue another 60 days or so it would become a problem. My guess is it won’t. These things tend to naturally balance out. These short term anomalies aren’t even really anomalies. The mean is just a bunch of anomalies averaged together. You are missing the forest from the trees.

That’s pretty much how we are handling it too. My wife, myself, and our son all have asthma so we’re not playing around or taking any chances. It’s just not worth it. Stay safe!

Judging from the quality of his posts that don’t get deleted I can’t imagine what the ones that do look like...

A LOT of businesses are doing that right now. And I commend all of them! But not all of them were crackheads who were arrested for domestic assault, fraudulent checks, violating a protection order, lost a million dollar fraud suit, filed bankruptcy, has an F rating from the BBB....but also donated to Trump and said he was chosen by God and is possibly running for office. It seemed like a publicity stunt to me and I don’t think that was the right place for that. But I am famously not a big fan of Trump and so I am admitidly biased so if others saw it as a genuine thing and not a publicity stunt to help a friend of Trump I will concede maybe I was seeing it through jaded lenses.

You might want to learn how to read that map before using it to make a point...

MyPillow guy?!?

A small area receiving 50-75% of normal precip for 1-2 months isn’t that significant. That happens quite frequently. For some reason no one makes a big deal everytime we get 150% of qpf in a 60 day period. The drought thing is overblown almost everytime it comes up. We haven’t had a true emergency level drought in a long time. The droughts being trumpeted lately are just typical variance that happens several times a decade. And before some brings up water restrictions...just because some localities didn’t properly plan their water usage when zoning doesn’t mean it’s a true anomalous drought everytime they run out of water due to poor planning and over population for the local water availability.

Before anyone’s says that last statement was political...I’m not saying a healthy skepticism of information isn’t ok. And some people of every political persuasion are too quick to dismiss facts that don’t conform to their preferred narrative. But in this case the “this is no big deal” argument and conspiracy suggestions are just completely beyond the pale of logic and reason. Frankly I find them to be insulting to humanity in general. It requires such an extreme assumption of stupidity in so many millions of people to make those theories plausible...

Look China made some bleep up and every medical institution and government in the world is either in cahoots to this conspiracy or run by mouth breathing knuckle dragging morons who can’t see the obvious truth that he does! I’m done with him. He doesn’t get it because he doesn’t want to get it and no facts are going to matter because anything that doesn’t conform to his narrative is simply “fake”. But he “knows”!

I gave up on anything more than some crazy fluke so long ago it feels like I should be preparing for next winter by now!

When people are caught doing something stupid they can be more easily prosecuted if the police decide they need to make an example of someone. That’s one difference I can think of off the top of my head.

It hasn’t rained here in about 20 minutes. Good thing we are already sheltering in place.