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Topic: Coronavirus outbreak

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JaxonH

I’m getting out of the stock market. Can’t do anything about the 401(k) but, The money I do have in my individual Fidelity account and Robinhood, I’m pulling it first thing Monday morning. I’ve been doing a little bit of daytrading riding the swing highs and lows, making sure I sell the stocks before the close, just in case stocks shoot dramatically lower in the open. It could mean missing opportunity but it also protects against loss. But I’m taking it all out, paying off debt, and hunkering down to brace for unemployment.

I’m not sure how things are going to pan out, but it’s not looking good. Just like back in January when everyone was blissfully ignorant of what was coming, even now I think people, myself included, are blissfully ignorant about how bad things are really going to get. The average small business only has enough cash to last for about 3-4 weeks. What’s going to happen two months from now when, even if we’re not under ordered lockdown, people aren’t going to restaurants or spending in half the economic sectors? What about 6 months from now?

We could be looking at 1/3 of all US businesses going under, permanently. With similar effects all around the world. I think right now is a good time to own gold and, despite the massive future devaluation from unbridled printing, spending beyond means and now, “QE to infinity” policies, the US dollar. Yes, ultimately this unfettered printing and expanding of the monetary base will doom the dollar and ultimately, gold will be the only safe haven but, between point A (now) and point C (dollar hyperinflates, only hard assets and gold preserve wealth) I think we’ve got a wild ride ahead to point B, where the demand for US dollars skyrockets in the short term.

My priorities, in order
1 Paying off all debts ASAP
2 Getting US dollars, hard cash, in hand
3 Getting US dollars in the bank for digital transaction
3 Buying gold.

I’m going 1/3 in each. Third in cash, third in the bank, third in gold. I don’t know which way this thing is going to go, but I think that’s the safest way to hedge.

Update 3/29
Untitled

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

SkullDragr

@JaxonH what debts? If any is credit card debt, screw that. Pay the minimum balance due. If in 6 months, things are worse, you can always walk away from that debt. They will have so many millions of default credit accounts, they won't have time to go after any except for the largest ones. BK is always an option to wipe the slate clear, too. But immediately paying those off serves no purpose right now. Obviously, student loans are forever and a mortgage is important to keep up, but even medical bills can be put off.

SkullDragr

My Nintendo: SkullDragr

JaxonH

@SkullDragr
😁 I appreciate the advice, really, but... there’s no way I’m filing bankruptcy (besides I only owe like $9k, not counting the $6k left on my car payment). I always pay my debts. I borrowed the money and as such, I owe it. And they will get their money back in return. Plus, bankruptcy is one of those things where you can’t file again for X amount of years, that’s something you really want to keep in your back pocket for when you actually need it. And I don’t need to file right now.

I used to have a credit score below 500 back when I was a hard-core addict and partying every night in my early twenties. I’ve spent the last 10 years building my credit record and I’m above 800 now. I’ve worked very hard for my credit score. Even if there’s a possibility I could get out of paying my CC, That’s not really an avenue I wish to pursue. Delaying with minimum payment also means paying interest.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

SkullDragr

@JaxonH Yeah, you know your own situation better than anyone. Just saying, if times are bad, really really bad, having money to buy food, pay rent/mortgage, car payment is far more important than paying down debts that can be written off. If it gets really really bad, if you have a credit card with a 10k credit limit, they may drop it to 2k simply because they don't want people running up debt knowing they will not pay it back. So the last thing you want to do is start using your cash savings to pay the less necessary things.

Sounds like you have it managed, though. I was pretty bad with it all when I was young as well. Credit too was around 500. I started small, took out some secured cards, used them instead of my debit card and immediately paid it off. Slowly but surely, I was into the 600s, 700s and last year was over 800 as well. Getting pre approved for a home loan and taking that subsequent loan dropped me down, but it's still solid, in the 760s.

SkullDragr

My Nintendo: SkullDragr

NEStalgia

@Heavyarms55 the global numbers are going to become irrelevant as it enters the third world for real. It's going to spread at such an extreme rate, and death percentage will be much higher, but that's due largely to the conditions and population density and doesn't apply much to the situation in the industrial world. 1.3b in India all confined to cramped shared quarters. The only reason the number there won't read 1.3b is a fraction will never actually be tested.

Similarly the numbers in general don't mean a ton right now in that, like I've said, they've already stated everyone will get it. At least regionally. So the "number" by the end should rightfully match the total population, but won't because most aren't getting a test.

Also with 2 week incubation remember the skyrocketing numbers in the us still mostly reflect infections that occurred BEFORE the lockdowns. That both means that this thing was WAAAY in the wild before anyone noticed anything. But it also means we're not seeing the effect of the lockdown in these numbers yet: numbers show what happened weeks prior.

Italy is showing a drop. That's big news.

NEStalgia

Heavyarms55

@NEStalgia First you say how people have said the numbers don't really matter but then you point out a drop in Italy. What exactly do you mean is going on?

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NEStalgia

@Heavyarms55 the numbers don't matter in the sense that the global number is now unhinged from what is relevant in the countries most of us are located in -what it will show now is something different than what developed countries are dealing with. It's going to be much worse there. Even if a vaccine appeared tomorrow it would still look bad there, but that's not necessarily relevant for us. Their density, raw population count, sanitation, medical infrastructure etc make wider, faster spread inevitable. And a lot of their ability to handle such things at all comes from medical volunteers from wealthier countries helping out and bringing supplies, which isn't going to happen this time as they're beyond limits on their own countries already. It isn't too meaningful in our situation to track global numbers after this point beyond knowing that a lot of dense countries need to be fully quarantined for quite some time, probably until this thing can actually be halted.

The us numbers matter but don't. It looks extreme but it's also showing the infection rate from 2 weeks ago (nobody is testing without symptoms for the most part), before lockdowns. If the lockdowns have indeed already started "flattening the curve" at all, we aren't going to see that in the current numbers. I.e. the important numbers for us aren't how many new cases test positive with sy.ptoms today. It's how many new infections are occurring today. A data point we won't have for 2 more weeks or more based on how many symptomatic positive tests are found then. Today's numbers could be a bad sign, or just reflect a past that already changed due to the prevention measures. We can't know. So in that sense the numbers don't matter. They either mean doom or they mean nothing at all. 50/50. What they do mean though is that 2 weeks ago when everyone panicked that it was coming, it was already here in a big way. We were very late to respond. BUT we were faster than Italy.

Italy, one of the worst case countries showing (potentially) it is past peak and slowing is significant (if that blip holds as trend in coming days.) If that number keeps dropping, that means new infections started slowing weeks ago, which means the lockdowns are helping even in big epicenters.

The numbers for this always show the past, not the present.

NEStalgia

Heavyarms55

@NEStalgia Another question then, how have the so-called under developed countries avoided mass infection so far? Or have they? Is it possible they are already experiencing mass infection, but due to lack of testing and a traditionally insanely biased media, no one is talking about them?

Nintendo Switch FC: 4867-2891-2493
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Discord: Heavyarms55#1475
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gcunit

@Heavyarms55 Potentially less carriers travelling into the LDCs so a slower early stage, and a less developed domestic economy and infrastructure could mean there's less internal travel between cities, towns etc so would be more isolated in the first place, but yes, the lack of development will impact the communication, understanding and measurement of the virus, and if governments are less accountable too then effective action to counter the spread is likely to be slower too, if they bother at all.

Edited on by gcunit

You guys had me at blood and semen.

What better way to celebrate than firing something out of the pipe?

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.

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JaxonH

@SkullDragr
Ya, keeping some cash on hand right now is definitely a prudent thing to do. If paying debts wipe out all cash savings I'd say it's a no go, but as long as theres still a bit of buffer left it's great to be (relatively) debt free in a deflationary period.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

NEStalgia

@Heavyarms55 Everything gcunit said is a big factor, but there may be more to it as well. There's certainly not as much international travel through those countries as there is through LAX, but there's still "enough" travel for various reasons, especially the larger/more major of said countries. I do think they really haven't avoided it as much as it looks as you both said - NY "avoided" it for a month or so that it probably actually didn't, but just wasn't looking or testing. Someone dies from not particularly notable conditions in Nowhereville in Sumwereistan (ha) and what are the odds the doctors would call up the WHO and ask for testing kits for that thing they read about in China? No, they just not unremarkable causes and move on.

There's also the continued possibility it has a harder time spreading in hotter/humid environments, and the lack of as rapid spread there is one factor in considering that. With that density it'll still spread, but it may be hampered a bit if that affects it. Maybe.

IF there was already unnoted mass spread in those places it could also explain it's worldwide spread going less noticed as well. But there's still something that bothers me about the pattern of spread. Air travel does explain it (I can not understand for the life of me why every single passenger plane has not been grounded for the past month...that's just basic sense!) to a degree. But generally there was nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing....then suddenly within a week the entire Western world lit up all at once.....but only the Western world. Except Canada (does Canada have that much less international travel than most of the rest of the West? Of course they do, so why not there with the others?). In sort of a weekly cascade between major points. Yeah, modern air travel makes every disease a mere 12 hours from you. But there wasn't a real pattern of spreading out from point to point the way it began. It was suddenly just everywhere more or less at once. That's very different from how it spread in Asia in the beginning. I would not be surprised at all if a bad actor(s) were intentionally spreading it around to unliked countries first. Wouldn't take much. Fly into China or Korea or Iran, then fly around the world for a week. Child's play for anyone wanting to do it intentionally. Maybe the interconnectedness of air travel just made it everywhere at once, but it just seems that there was no pattern of spread from a few infected places to a few more infected places in sequence....it was just - boom -everywhere.

OR it's been in the wild a lot longer than even western countries were noticing. I know octane was saying that doesn't seem likely since there weren't deaths from it - but we still don't even know how it gets to that level and how it doesn't....or for sure how long the incubation is. Some studies from china were showing the longest cases had 3-4 week incubation, but that wasn't the average.

Edited on by NEStalgia

NEStalgia

Anti-Matter

@NEStalgia
I suspect it was from a syndicate who sneakily spread the virus in public from mass transportation.
The virus was reported from peoples after went overseas.

Anti-Matter

NEStalgia

@darkfenrir That was a fun overview. I especially love the TP roll floating in space, just to confirm it's legit and current.

NEStalgia

JaxonH

More layoffs. Rumors of 20% pay cuts for few remaining. All 3 plants shut down. I'm one of like, 12 people left out of 500+

I think after this week it's a wrap. Planning a budget for being unemployed now.

@NEStalgia
Without laws in place, people will always do stuff like this. Should make it to where people get fined, heavily so that even if they dont fear the virus, they fear the ticket.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Heavyarms55

There's lots of info floating around about estimates about numbers and how many are or will get sick and how many may die. But I've not seen much about how long this is going to be. Have any of you seen anything to suggest it? When they say "200k may die in America" I'd like to know over how long? By June? By the end of the year? Some other estimation?

@JaxonH I'm so sorry man. Stay strong.

Nintendo Switch FC: 4867-2891-2493
Switch username: Em
Discord: Heavyarms55#1475
Pokemon Go FC: 3838 2595 7596
PSN: Heavyarms55zx

Zeldafan79
Saw this on youtube and thought it might lighten the mood. A funny poem by Sam Jackson about our current situation.

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" Optimus Prime

NEStalgia

@JaxonH I just can't comprehend the mentality that one would need the threat of an unaffordable fine to not head out into a plague with a ton of carriers. It can't even be blamed on basic greed and selfishness. They're boldly and defiantly acting against their own self interest. I also can't comprehend how they're even able to if they want to. Why is a single non-cargo plane even flying aside from charters for necessary travel? And in what reality did airlines decide flying 767s around for 4 obnoxious joyriders was economically feasible while their entire industry is vaporizing?

By the way, what industries do you guys supply? A lot of manufacturing hasn't been hit nearly that hard yet.

@Heavyarms55 The timelines are ugly. Very ugly. The few possibilities I've seen are this:
A: It turns out to be seasonal (the spread in Florida would seem to indicate that's not the case) if so we can SLIGHTLY have SOME semblance of life in Summer, then hunker down again in Fall. No events, no gatherings, but some retail could maybe reopen even with only limited numbers of shoppers. Carnivals, concerts etc are a no no matter what. 2020 doesn't exist. Business might function, but it would have to be with the exception that business that can work remotely should. That will get tricky in the US with most companies "strongly encouraging returning to the normal office routine, but technically permitting people not to as second class employees due to legal requirements. (a.k.a. if you don't care about your job you can still stay home.)" Restaurants could reopen but with massively reduced seating and table proximity. Most restaurants would close - they can't survive that without raising prices far beyond practicality. They could survive if they went ultra high end only. And actually found enough of that crowd that thinks it's "just the flu."

B: It turns out not to be seasonal and this situation continues going unchanged (it's seeming likely at this point.) No restaraunts, no offices, nothing.

C: No matter what, rolling periods of lockdowns full or partial seem likely until at least 2022. Large public gatherings and events don't really seem like a very likely possibility until 2022 at this point. Packed retail stores are more questionable. Schools reopening in Fall is questionable.

D: The virus mutates into a less dangerous pathogen, somewhat miraculously but is still realistic. Not likely but possible. Were that the case we all head into the world, get sick, get annoyed, and move on. That's the happy timeline that we all go back to normal within months.

E: The other somewhat miraculous option is they discover much more of the population is resistant or immune to it than they previously thought, and/or many more people build a resistance or immunity to it via minor infections than previously thought. Right now they don't have much to work with but we really don't know how many people were spreading it during the month(s) we didn't think the disease was here, other places, or even Wuhan for all we know, at all while we were NOT panicking about it. Some of us maybe already had it and didn't even know it. Given the huge number of asymptomatic cases, many more people have probably been exposed to it than we realize for far longer than we realize. What percentage of people may have been exposed to it, didn't get full fledged infections or did and were asymptomatic carriers, and already have antibodies for it? They don't know yet. If it turns out many people did/do over months, they may discover that opening the flood gates will not overload the health systems any more than they are and go ahead and do that. In that timeline it's probably several more months, the open the flood gates, a lot of people get sick, a large number gets very sick (as would have anyway) and a large number does not get sick. That timeline really is more or less "it's just the flu, but a bit worse."

Ultimately the world can't reopen until a critical mass of population is immune. that happens one of two ways:

F: A vaccine is created. 12-18 months minimum. That's not a likely target that's a minimum target. And that's not a target for reaching critical mass of distributing it to 8 billion people. It'll take years to do that. Just in the US it would probably take a year to get it to an 70% critical mass. And a good chunk of us would probably never get it/need it. They don't know how they'd distribute it. Probably healthcare & military first, then school requirements, travelers, maybe large companies. They couldn't just have compulsory vaccines for everyone, thus everyone wouldn't have it. There's also the other problem. A rushed vaccine to stop a pandemic and economic disaster is going to be rushed. Shortcuts will be taken. Acceptable risks will be designated. it could be a very real choice of risking getting a disease that has a 4% chance of killing you now versus a vaccine that could have a 30% chance of killing you later. There's other problems. They don't know how fast it mutates. A yearly vaccine for this like flu has logistical disasters, and most people definitely don't get that, it's for vulnerable populations/healthcare, etc. There's also the other problem that they don't talk about much: They don't know if a vaccine for a coronavirus is actually possible at all. They've never made one before, and they were never prioritized before. Typically they mutate so fast it's not practical, most coronavirii are minor nuissances only (the common cold), and the few that are severe tend to be rare and not that contagious (Ebola, SARS1). This one does not appear to mutate that fast, and so far they believe immunities might last several years, but that's still uncertain.

G: This one is the scenario if the vaccine doesn't occur, if they discover that many more people are resistant than previously believed, and also if we discover that the lockdowns don't actually work (this is a trial balloon - they might not have a reasonable impact at all.) "Herd immunity." Some spheres of politicians were ridiculed for intentionally aiming for this result which would solve the problem in about a month but with a high body count. But what's lesser talked about is that this is a very real possibility regardless of the lockdowns. If a vaccine can't happen, or the disease just spreads fast enough that this result happens before a vaccine anyway (which is pretty likely - the world can't idle forever otherwise we just trade one death for another) this solution is the only solution, or the natural solution that ignores all the misery of all this anyway. The disease gets out, 100% gets it, most survive, some don't. The world goes back to "normal" within a month, after the dead are buried. Politics aside, this possibility is very real. There's the economic factor - people ARE going to venture out to work even in risk, eventually, because they need to. We'd have to go full communism overnight to stop that. And even that was only "mostly" effective in China, and only if you believe them. There's the mental factor: Many people can NOT endure being cooped up forever and will "snap" at some point and just go out. There's the natural factor - even now people DO go out to shop food. How much is it spreading even through one centralized point of contact for everyone? Maybe just as much as before. We don't know. And there's the bright spot factor: What if much of the population is becoming immune through minor infection and thus it really is like a normal seasonal illness within a few months? And how will they know that?

And there's the unfortunate set of realities they try to downplay ("2 weeks!"!). Outside the miracle (or the rip off the bandaid, high body count) solutions, over months, restrictions could be lightened somewhat but not tremendously, but either way, rolling lockdowns will be a regular part of life moving forward and massive disruptions normal. We may have a lighter summer, but it's looking less likely given Florida (though that's a special case with direct contact with a lot of infected New Yorkers, and a very large at-risk population.) Normal life probably won't return before 2022 at the earliest, which means it won't really fully return because a full scale depression isn't going to resemble our old lives and will be a lot less happy a place. Or it will, but at the high cost that it goes into the full wild anyway for herd immunity which might be an unavoidable inevitability, which would be double the tragedy, as it would mean we destroyed the world and livlihoods for no reason at all - the same result occurred anyway as would have if we'd ignored it. And that "solution" still means that every few years it's a crisis again, at least or until it mutates into a benign form, which will inevitably happen at some point.

The timelines aren't pretty at all,but anything else is sugar coating to avoid mass panic. "Your old life is over, and nothing will bring it back." Instead they sell "just wait a little longer and see." Mostly they're just buying time to build medical supplies so that when a massive chunk of the population does get it they can keep them alive through it. Doomsday infection rate might be inevitable, all they're doing is trying to improve the death rate. But a huge number (if low percentage) of the population becoming critically ill, even if they survive with hospitalization (and tens of thousands of dollars of crushing medical bills they'll never pay so they can live as indentured servants afterward) is still a very bleak scenario. And is, arguably, the most likely one.) And there's still the myriad of spinoff crises, psychiatric crises, etc that loom that disrupt society into abnormal ways, further. In Hubei a lot of people became agorophobes. They refuse to leave home ever now. I can see me going there. But that's the tip of the iceberg. Combine that here with the pressures of the US, the coupled identity of jobs to life (and survival) and other problems and violence in general will soar, crime will return in a huge way, and varying levels of insanity, diagnosed and not diagnosed will be widespread.

So the disease pandemic is "rolling on and off, or just steady on nightmare" until 2022 at the earliest, OR it ends in a big bang with the disease spreading wild sooner (or if there's no vaccine by 2022.) But the lingering effects affecting a semblance of normal life will last quite a bit longer. Most of our lives, most likely. Every time anywhere gets a new outbreak (which will happen, the disease isn't going away, it's going to circulate forever, now, eventually mutating into benevolence), it will instill renewed fears and disruptions, though maybe more localized. And like the first depression generation it will impact everything the living generations do forever. It won't truly be gone until all of us alive now are gone.

NEStalgia

Dezzy

The worldometers site finally added a 'deaths per capita' measure. It was seriously bugging me how few of the media reports were controlling for population size up to now.

As you see, when you adjust for population size, some countries are doing a lot better than you thought. The US for example, is doing better than pretty much all of western europe:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Heavyarms55 wrote:

There's lots of info floating around about estimates about numbers and how many are or will get sick and how many may die. But I've not seen much about how long this is going to be. Have any of you seen anything to suggest it? When they say "200k may die in America" I'd like to know over how long? By June? By the end of the year? Some other estimation?

That number was the NIH guy's estimate as to what the total death count will be over the entire thing, given the current way everyone is responding.
The margin of error is quite large though, so it's probably not a hugely meaningful figure.

It's dangerous to go alone! Stay at home.

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