US Politics: Testing, Testing, T... Te.. Testing

[Fez]

21 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Defense production act?

https://www.fema.gov/defense-production-act-overview

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Production_Act

The wiki summary:

Quote

 

The Act contains three major sections. The first authorizes the President to require businesses to sign contracts or fulfill orders deemed necessary for national defense. The second authorizes the President to establish mechanisms (such as regulations, orders or agencies) to allocate materials, services and facilities to promote national defense. The third section authorizes the President to control the civilian economy so that scarce and/or critical materials necessary to the national defense effort are available for defense needs.[3]

The Act also authorizes the President to requisition property, force industry to expand production and the supply of basic resources, impose wage and price controls, settle labor disputes, control consumer and real estate credit, establish contractual priorities, and allocate raw materials towards national defense.[3]

 

Basically, it gives the government vast powers to ramp up production of necessary items. It was signed in 1950 and codifies a lot of the stuff FDR was doing in WWII. Under the act, for instance, shuttered factories (because of lack of consumer demand) could be ordered to switch over to manufacturing ventilators.

[Kalbear]

I for one am super happy to hear that Sanders is going to drop out. I was very much expecting a protracted battle given how much money he has. 

That said, I bet donations are also not doing well for him either. The same young people donating $27 are seeing massive layoffs and furloughs right now. Still, it's really good to see him do the right thing. 

[Fragile Bird]

As has pretty well always happened except for last Friday, the stock market dropped while Trump was speaking, tripping the curbs again as they hit 7% down. Things are down around 10% now.

[Fragile Bird]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I for one am super happy to hear that Sanders is going to drop out. I was very much expecting a protracted battle given how much money he has. 

That said, I bet donations are also not doing well for him either. The same young people donating $27 are seeing massive layoffs and furloughs right now. Still, it's really good to see him do the right thing. 

Good thing Bloomberg is still around. We hope. I wonder by how many billions his net worth has dropped.

[Fez]

From a pure cost benefit analysis, at some point we're going to have to decide if we're causing more harm than good with the economic shutdown. And if letting the virus run free is least bad option. I don't know how you do that calculation, but it needs to be done.

I think we can stomach a 6-8 week shutdown (with subsequent recession), if we are using that time wisely to boost health care capacity as much as possible. But a complete economic collapse for 12-18 months until there's a vaccine simply isn't sustainable. And I mean that literally. There would a come a point where food shortages start happening and starvation begins.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Fez said:

From a pure cost benefit analysis, at some point we're going to have to decide if we're causing more harm than good with the economic shutdown. And if letting the virus run free is least bad option. I don't know how you do that calculation, but it needs to be done.

I think we can stomach a 6-8 week shutdown (with subsequent recession), if we are using that time wisely to boost health care capacity as much as possible. But a complete economic collapse for 12-18 months until there's a vaccine simply isn't sustainable. And I mean that literally. There would a come a point where food shortages start happening and starvation begins.

We don't need a 12-18 month shutdown. We need to do the following:

 

• Deal with the current explosion of cases and shut things mostly down until that's under control (probably a month or so)
• Enable MASSIVE testing across the country
• Enforce strict contact tracing and be very vigilant about local outbreaks
• Use social media and actual media to enforce norms about distancing, safety, cleanliness and reporting
• Cancel all major big-tail events that can cause major widespread outbreaks, such as conferences, conventions, large concerts and the like

South Korea is the model after we go through the first bit of hell. They did not have to shut their entire country, they did not have to kill their economy, and they did not have to change major parts of their life - because they had the testing, contact tracing ability and governmental factors in play. The US CAN do this. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

33 minutes ago, Fez said:

https://www.fema.gov/defense-production-act-overview

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Production_Act

The wiki summary:

Basically, it gives the government vast powers to ramp up production of necessary items. It was signed in 1950 and codifies a lot of the stuff FDR was doing in WWII. Under the act, for instance, shuttered factories (because of lack of consumer demand) could be ordered to switch over to manufacturing ventilators.

Possible backdoor wall funding?

[Fez]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

We don't need a 12-18 month shutdown. We need to do the following:

 

• Deal with the current explosion of cases and shut things mostly down until that's under control (probably a month or so)
• Enable MASSIVE testing across the country
• Enforce strict contact tracing and be very vigilant about local outbreaks
• Use social media and actual media to enforce norms about distancing, safety, cleanliness and reporting
• Cancel all major big-tail events that can cause major widespread outbreaks, such as conferences, conventions, large concerts and the like

South Korea is the model after we go through the first bit of hell. They did not have to shut their entire country, they did not have to kill their economy, and they did not have to change major parts of their life - because they had the testing, contact tracing ability and governmental factors in play. The US CAN do this. 

Yes, hopefully. That's certainly needs to be the goal. But we are so far very far away from being at that point yet. And I don't trust our government, with these leaders, to get us there. I also don't trust the average US citizen to have the kind of social consideration required; there were still huge crowds on the South Florida beaches yesterday.

Also, we don't know how sustainable the South Korean model is. It is working so far, and that's great, but can it last? I sure hope so.

[Fragile Bird]

Watching today's update, I heard for the first time that the capacity for testing at the CDC was about 14 tests a day. That was the first time I heard that number. Now that testing has been allowed at private laboratories, the capacity has gone to more than 2000 a day at one company alone.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Fez said:

Yes, hopefully. That's certainly needs to be the goal. But we are so far very far away from being at that point yet. And I don't trust our government, with these leaders, to get us there. I also don't trust the average US citizen to have the kind of social consideration required; there were still huge crowds on the South Florida beaches yesterday.

Also, we don't know how sustainable the South Korean model is. It is working so far, and that's great, but can it last? I sure hope so.

It has worked for other outbreaks in the past. That's sort of the point - it worked for them when they got MERS. It worked for Taiwan and Singapore as well. 

As to the trust of the government - I'm right there with you. That said, the good news is that state governments are largely handling a lot of this, and many of them are fairly competently handling things. The biggest deal is the need for ramping up of testing and people actually taking this shit seriously. 

[Fragile Bird]

On 3/16/2020 at 11:07 AM, The Marquis de Leech said:

For completeness, 2016 low was 15,660 (which was also lower than anything in 2015).

2014 was 15,373.

2013 was 13,329.

2012 was 12,101.

2011 was 10,655

2010 was 9,743

2009 was 6,547. That was the low of the GFC, and the lowest since the 1990s.

I need to keep this handy...

The Dow dropped below the 2017 low, 19,732, and is down to December 2016. The fall is accelerating, we're bouncing between 18,940 and 19,000 and a bit. Getting down to where it was on election day is, hell, not that far away.

Ford shares less than $5, should I buy, should I buy....nah.

Tesla down to $350. Still not tempted.

[Kalbear]

Definitely the temperament of a POTUS

 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Definitely the temperament of a POTUS

 

 

You know who'S the incumbent, when you say things like that? :)

[Fragile Bird]

As someone who was being accused of being tone deaf by talking about the warning signs in the markets, I'd like to mention a company that defines tone deaf in the current pandemic.

Starbucks just announced it's doing a stock buy-back, because their stock is cheap.

You would think they would be closing stores for two weeks and paying employees. Does anyone know if they are doing that, btw?

But announcing a stock buy-back right now has left me gob-smacked, as the Brits like to say.

The markets made a late day recovery, by the way, cutting losses almost in half. I guess folks were buying bargains. Investor sentiment has not yet bottomed. No capitulation yet.

[argonak]

nevermind.

[argonak]

3 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

As someone who was being accused of being tone deaf by talking about the warning signs in the markets, I'd like to mention a company that defines tone deaf in the current pandemic.

Starbucks just announced it's doing a stock buy-back, because their stock is cheap.

You would think they would be closing stores for two weeks and paying employees. Does anyone know if they are doing that, btw?

But announcing a stock buy-back right now has left me gob-smacked, as the Brits like to say.

The markets made a late day recovery, by the way, cutting losses almost in half. I guess folks were buying bargains. Investor sentiment has not yet bottomed. No capitulation yet.

While stock buybacks are an iffy thing, if they don't do it they risk being gobbled up in a hostile takeover and having their assets appropriated by some corporate pirates.  I haven't checked them, but in stock free falls the "value" of the company can sometimes be less than the "value" of their assets, which leads to such take overs and then the pirates loot and pillage the company for a quick buck.

In my uneducated opinion the Fed needs to shut the stock market down for a few weeks.

[Larry of the Lawn]

There's a part of me that would love to see the stock market tank just so people who only exist off the labor of others would actually have to reconsider how we live, but then I realized that normal people would lose their retirement savings and shit.  

Still, every time I've heard a big drop lately it kind of makes me happy, as a little "fuck you" to the Tyranny of the Shareholder.

 

[Fragile Bird]

5 minutes ago, argonak said:

While stock buybacks are an iffy thing, if they don't do it they risk being gobbled up in a hostile takeover and having their assets appropriated by some corporate pirates.  I haven't checked them, but in stock free falls the "value" of the company can sometimes be less than the "value" of their assets, which leads to such take overs and then the pirates loot and pillage the company for a quick buck.

In my uneducated opinion the Fed needs to shut the stock market down for a few weeks.

God, there are so many things wrong about what you said.

All stocks are in free all. No one is going to gobble up coffee shops at this time,

Nobody is going to shut down the stock markets. People need access to their money.

I can't even go on. Maybe someone else can explain business economics to you.

[argonak]

2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

God, there are so many things wrong about what you said.

All stocks are in free all. No one is going to gobble up coffee shops at this time,

Nobody is going to shut down the stock markets. People need access to their money.

I can't even go on. Maybe someone else can explain business economics to you.

Well I'm fine if you explain it to me, its not my area of specialty.    But as I said in my uneducated understanding, just because the market is falling like a stone doesn't mean certain companies are sitting on piles of cash, and other companies are getting huge bailouts, and if you see a company with assets in the 500 million range being valued at 100 million, you'd be a fool not to buy it if you can finance it.  Lots of folks out there smarter than me do that as their day job.

And they've closed the stock market down for short period of times in the past.  Just like they've shuttered banks to stop panics.

[Fragile Bird]

I'm sorry, I just can't.