US Politics: Mad Max Beyond Corona Dome

[DMC]

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Looks like 538 came out with their own...something,regarding Trump reelection prospects.

If you're referring to this, that's just Silver being a little boy playing with numbers.  Literally his "models" - summarized with the table headlined "Even a mild recession could make Trump an underdog" - smacks of an undergrad overusing excel.  His understanding of econometrics is plainly at a level where he still needs to take the basic regression seminar of first year grad students.  If I started talking to him about actual advanced models, like MLE or multilevel - in which those 18 data points are multiplied by 51 - he'd have to run to Azari or Masket to ask what the hell I was talking about.  I do agree with his concluding point/section though.  Nobody can create a reliable model to predict how a global pandemic impacts a presidential election.  We're all working without a net.

2 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Query about this stimulus package: an individual making 75k or less gets $1200 + $500 for each kid up to three...so does that mean married couples with two children are assessed separately?

Married couples that file jointly would receive $2400, and then $500 for each child under 17.

[Fez]

Fucking hell. Unemployment claims last week were at 3.28 million. Even the more pessimistic projections I saw were that'd be closer to 2 million.

Apparently the previous all-time record was in 1982 (who knew?) at 695,000.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Fez said:

Apparently the previous all-time record was in 1982 (who knew?) at 695,000.

Heh, yeah I was reading an article yesterday that mentioned that and was like WTF?  I mean, Reagan's GOP didn't even take that much of a hit - down 26 in the House but virtually even in the Senate.  Important to note those Labor stats only go back to 1967.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

35 minutes ago, Fez said:

Fucking hell. Unemployment claims last week were at 3.28 million. Even the more pessimistic projections I saw were that'd be closer to 2 million.

Apparently the previous all-time record was in 1982 (who knew?) at 695,000.

Previous one week loss was something like 1.3%. I think the 2,000,000 number was meant to represent 2%, which would have been a record. So it's even bigger than that, and this is just the beginning because all that government money is going to take a while to start flowing. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

30 minutes ago, DMC said:

Heh, yeah I was reading an article yesterday that mentioned that and was like WTF?  I mean, Reagan's GOP didn't even take that much of a hit - down 26 in the House but virtually even in the Senate.  Important to note those Labor stats only go back to 1967.

I'm sure you know this, but people often overlook that a lot of Reagan's presidency was peaks and valleys, be it economics or social policy. He could really be all over the place, which makes his Republican super hero imagine come across as even more bizarre. But who cares, the party of Reagan is gone.

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

people often overlook that a lot of Reagan's presidency was peaks and valleys, be it economics or social policy.

Yeah I'm just surprised the record wasn't sometime in the 70s recession/stagflation or the GFC or even the 91-92 recession.  Particularly the latter two considering it's just a hard number and the rise in population.

[DanteGabriel]

52 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm sure you know this, but people often overlook that a lot of Reagan's presidency was peaks and valleys, be it economics or social policy. He could really be all over the place, which makes his Republican super hero imagine come across as even more bizarre. But who cares, the party of Reagan is gone.

Nah, this is the Party of Reagan written out to its logical conclusion. Business uber alles, with fake religiosity, made-for-TV tough guy shtick, and racism holding the coalition together.

[Week]

@mcbigski, I'm wondering when you'll let us know when and where the COVID crisis is improving in the US. Please, enlighten us.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Nah, this is the Party of Reagan written out to its logical conclusion. Business uber alles, with fake religiosity, made-for-TV tough guy shtick, and racism holding the coalition together.

Fair enough.

And you could parallel his handling of the HIV/AIDS crisis with Trump’s handling of COVID-19.

[mcbigski]

Well, the relief bill in Congress is good news, assuming the Speaker doesn't through another wrench before it gets passed.

Now that the bureaucrats have stopped getting in the way of private testing, the testing capability in the US has exploded.  Apparently the UK has developed a finger prick test for antibodies and the ability to test 3 million people or so.  Once we can start testing large random samples of the population at large we'll have a lot more clarity about how infectious, how many remain totally asymptomatic, and what the true CFR is. 

I suspect that this has been spreading more broadly and more mildly (ie flatter curved naturally) than the worst case scenario projections from short term extrapolation of a small segment of a growth curve that is being plotted using incomplete data.  More testing will mean better responses in both the better and worse cases so that's all good.

Plus, I saw that there are no cases as of yet in New Mexico and George said last week he's spending more time in Westeros.  Maybe this whole thing is God's way of telling him to finish the next book.

[DanteGabriel]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Fair enough.

And you could parallel his handling of the HIV/AIDS crisis with Trump’s handling of COVID-19.

My LGBTQ friends have not been quiet about the parallels. It's almost like lack of empathy is a self-selecting trait for right wing politics.

[Fez]

Its rather scary how a regional grocery store chain in Texas apparently did significantly more prep work for COVID-19 than the entire Federal government. https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/heb-prepared-coronavirus-pandemic/

Quote

Justen Noakes, director of emergency preparedness, H-E-B: Just a little bit of history: we have been working on our pandemic and influenza plan for quite a while now, since 2005, when we had the threat of H5N1 overseas in China. That’s when we first developed what our plan looked like, [as well as] some of our requirements and business implications. I

Quote

Justen Noakes: We activated our Emergency Operations Center in San Antonio on March 4 [the EOC is run out of H-E-B’s new 1.6 million-square-foot super-regional warehouse]. The driving factor behind that is when we see even a potential upswing in customer activity due to one of these events. The Emergency Operations Center at H-E-B is a collection of the most impacted areas of the company, and the leaders in those areas are brought together to make streamlined decisions and collaborate together on a daily basis. That’s almost every area of the company, so we’ve got a lot going on in our emergency operations center right now. It’s very busy.

Lotta interesting details in there. No idea if H-E-B is an outlier or if all the big grocery chains have this level of prep going on.

[Week]

Exploded - lol - what a joke. The only thing exploding is the number of cases. Our testing capability is STILL an order of magnitude off. Your consistency in excusing and ignoring the continued failures of your Dear Leader is unsurprising. Where are the drive thru WalMart, Target, and CVS tests that were promised? How's that website going? Where is the mountain of PPE that is needed around the country? Where is the leadership and accountability? 

[Tywin Manderly]

3 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

Plus, I saw that there are no cases as of yet in New Mexico and George said last week he's spending more time in Westeros.  Maybe this whole thing is God's way of telling him to finish the next book.

There is little other things to do for him anyway, because most of his distractions, such as travelling and his cinema, are off-limits now. 

[Maithanet]

7 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

Plus, I saw that there are no cases as of yet in New Mexico

There are 113 confirmed cases in New Mexico, according to JHU. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

My LGBTQ friends have not been quiet about the parallels. It's almost like lack of empathy is a self-selecting trait for right wing politics.

Republican, conservative and the religious right can display high levels of empathy, but they’re terrible at extending such to people outside of their in-group. I always use Sen. Portman as an example. Just look at his views on the LGBTQ+ community and same sex marriage before and after his son came out. Night and day.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, Fez said:

Its rather scary how a regional grocery store chain in Texas apparently did significantly more prep work for COVID-19 than the entire Federal government. https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/heb-prepared-coronavirus-pandemic/

Lotta interesting details in there. No idea if H-E-B is an outlier or if all the big grocery chains have this level of prep going on.

I worked at a grocery store from freshman year of high school through my junior year of college on and off, and went from bagger to assistant manager over the years. The large, big box store styled places have massive reserves. Ours was more upscale and I don’t think we did, but they could buy from the aforementioned in most cases.   

[Fez]

20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I worked at a grocery store from freshman year of high school through my junior year of college on and off, and went from bagger to assistant manager over the years. The large, big box store styled places have massive reserves. Ours was more upscale and I don’t think we did, but they could buy from the aforementioned in most cases.   

They might not even need to. One of the things in the article is that restaurant suppliers have been selling to grocery stores instead.

Surplus meeting demand in real time. it almost brings a tear to my eye.

[DanteGabriel]

5 minutes ago, Fez said:

They might not even need to. One of the things in the article is that restaurant suppliers have been selling to grocery stores instead.

Surplus meeting demand in real time. it almost brings a tear to my eye.

Huh. That probably explains the unfamiliar looking brands for stuff like canned tomatoes I've seen on store shelves lately.

[Freshwater Spartan]

1 hour ago, Tywin Manderly said:

There is little other things to do for him anyway, because most of his distractions, such as travelling and his cinema, are off-limits now.

I doubt this impacts his write production.