Does anyone know what % of infected require a ventilator by age group?

I fail to see any broad powers granted to Fauci here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings...us-task-force/

And the head of the task force was Alex Azar, not Anthony Fauci. Regardless, it's important to understand that anyone working under the administration only has powers to the extent that the President approves of what they do. Ultimately, you can't distinguish their inaction from Trump's preferences. I don't understand how you can say anyone had "broad powers" - no one in this situation has statutory powers. All they can have is an implicit backing from the President, which allows them to effectively force various agencies to follow the mandate. Not because the czar has any power, but because they are afraid of consequences of not following what comes directly from the President. If Trump isn't backing this mandate, they have no powers. And if Trump is out there saying he wants numbers to be low, how could anyone have the power to get all the agencies to do what it takes to expedite testing?

And it's unclear what the task force did and what their real mandate was, who really had the power and how they were evaluated. It just seems like a random collection of people they put together because the President was afraid of putting someone in charge but needed to look like they are doing something. Maybe they were in charge of coming up with official sounding things that sort of back Trump's tweets.

This is pure nonsense - the US has the capacity to get this right multiple times over. Scaling up testing doesn't have to go through CDC - it's a bureaucratic layer. Clearing out red tapes is exactly what a competent response would have looked like. There's no excuse - local failures aren't why the nation with the world's largest economy doesn't have testing at scale.

This weird black and white thinkng of "experts = BAD" is also quite illuminating as to your understanding of the world. Have you perhaps considered the possiblity that some experts are better than others and that also in some evolving situations, you need experts of one kind over another? And that a competent administration could have pushed for explanations and listened to the right people? This happens all the time in corporations - you force experts in one subject area to explain the whys and hows and you realize they are making assumptions in areas that are outside their competency, which invalidates their conclusion. As President, you have access to experts in any number of disciplines as well as smart generalists who can synthesize all of that to come up with a more accurate world view. "Experts = BAD" is a hilariously awful take when what clearly failed as the ability for the administration to meaningfully digest all of these different viewpoints to something actionable.

These are all substantially superior messages that what Trump was putting out there. If you tell someone that the risk is low (and the risks weren't particularly high to individuals at the time), they believe you and you later tell them the risk is higher, that's fine, things can change and people can understand that. If you tell them that this entire thing is hysteria created by your political enemies and they are trying to blow it out of proportions, well, you're going to have a harder time changing their viewpoint. Which has contributed to the response at all levels of society.

And once again, you cannot divorce what the administration officials are saying from what Trump is saying. It's entirely possible multiple possible scenarios were considered and Trump pushed for the most optimistic version and this was what was put out there.

Again, the entire point here is that in organizations, incentives matter and the viewpoint of the leadership matter. We can't divorce their reactions and public statements from the preferences of Trump.

This has nothing to do with left and right but it seems to me that you're projecting your partisa world view. Donald Trump was the same person when he was a Democrat and competence isn'ts something that's unique to either side. There's nothing partisan about Trump's incompetent response to the crisis - it's something you could just as well imagine from a leftist incompetent President. This being a left vs right thing is just a figment of your own imagination - and possibly a sad commentary on your ability to analyze situations objectively.

Seriously. This is an important topic and there's so much bad information out there right now that it makes it hard to understand what's going on. This thread has one of the best signal/noise ratios I've found. Quit shitting it up with your low IQ posts.

It's a novel virus.No chance of normalcy in 2-3 years the real estate market didn't bottom until about 5 years after the last downturn. Credit card debt is ridiculous on top of the loan debt. Every auto loan is underwater from day 1. The most trusted source we have, fauci, says several weeks lockdown to slow it at bezt, could be years away from a vaccine. Waves of this for years to come, social distancing.subway to work, no thanks.rona free car service bullish Uber mind map done.

It doesn't matter what Trump precisely said or didn't because he's not trying to communicate clear statements - he's trying to manipulate feelings. His statements aren't like logical propositions that you should interpret by trying to parse every word - it's just loose, emotion-fused rhetoric that's designed to create certain feelings and impressions. And from that perspective, the messaging from him was clear. We shouldn't worry (because lack of confidence may lead to a stock market crash), it's not a big deal (same thing), the Democrats are trying to blow it out of proportion (don't listen to people who say it's serious, they are enemies), it's kind of like the flu (reinforcing dangerous preconception).

All of this led to a phenomenon where people who are trying to get other people to take it seriously were accused of being anti-Trump and some Trump supporters were going out of their way to stick it to the liberals by demonstrably not taking it seriously. This isn't something Trump did alone, but he led the way and if there's one thing Trump knows how to do, it's encouraging this type of circus.

Of course it matters what he says. Why is his approval improved so much recently? He changed his tone at the appropriate time and grabbed rona by the ****ing pussy.

Also, Trump has gut feelings that are much bigger than yours.

Candybar,

Please dude let's not do trump and left vs right here.

First of all, I'm not doing left vs right at all - I explicitly mentioned that this is not a left vs right issue. I have not advanced any political opinions - all I'm doing is evaluating Trump's actions from a purely business and organizational perspective. It should be obvious to anyone familiar with how businesses and organizations work how he personally failed as a leader. This isn't a partisan issue.

Second, if you don't want political discussions (and again, while I'm not doing this, there are certainly people that are), aren't there some obvious actions you can take here to prevent that?

To this point, how likely is the Malaria drug with Azithromycin the miracle cure? Obviously its not a CURE, but does it do enough to keep people off ventilators and drop death rates to flu levels or less? Does America just reopen like nothing happened if we hear next week that this is now being prescribed to every CV patient?

The potential outcomes are so wide/numerous that I'm having a hard time deciding what to do in the market.


I agree that if we don't get turned around soon and are in virtual lock-down for 4-6 weeks then things will get really bad and neigh unstoppable no matter what the stimulus is.

I've been hearing a lot of speculation about climate. I don't think this has been posted here yet.

full paper

full paper

I come to this thread to get away from the tilt inducing shitshow that is Facebook and the thread is absolutely being tarded up.

candybar is asking for a mod to take action against his posts, might as well indulge him

Candybar isnt the only one. Tooth said last night to me that he would stop speaking about leftwing insanity and then almost immediately resumed it. I love Tooth's analysis generally, so dont want to lose him. I am just pointing out, we have all fallen into the trap. I admit, I am a leftwing pussy. But I am happy to be surrounded in this thread by much smarter people than myself on both sides (left and right). I hope we can all agree that analysis is much better than blame in this kind of situation. Please lets not stop discussing the issues in a rational way.

Also, it's probably true that as much of the data has come clear, there is less to discuss and thus the thread (like many threads before it) starts to become cluttered with more and more shitposts. I am guilty of being a part of that here, my apologies again.

Florida has volunteered as tribute so we can see how the virus acts in warm humid weather.

Spring has come early this year most everywhere so we could at least get a temporary reprieve.

At the least, there will be less runny noses and coughing from asymptomatic carriers reducing the spread.

I've sent a message to the other mods about a catch-all thread for stuff. That might be the way forward.

If you want to discuss failure of leadership and issues, that's not really the main focus here. It's the ongoing impact to the economy.

Im not trying to single anyone out. I'm just trying to put my hand on the steering wheel a bit and keep things on track. People on both sides tend to lose their minds (and attack trolls and flamewars) when politics becomes the argument, so we dont want that.

I don't see how we return to normal around June-July without some fundamental breakthrough, either vaccines or high-efficacy treatments. The probability of developing something has certainly gone up now that it's a global pandemic affecting all regions, but in the absence of some breakthrough, this could have a prolonged direct impact on the economy.

I don't necessarily buy that we will go back to business as usual. Even if we get back to the normal, the memories of this event will linger on and change how things are done. This is a cultural event of epic proportions. Some possible longer term issues:

1) Global supply chain disruption, both in actual terms and risk premium.
2) Medium to long-term changes in consumer behavior and confidence
3) Medium to long-term changes in busines behavior and risk tolerance
4) Medium-term changes in risk premium across a wide variety of assets
5) Rise in isolationism, nationalism and other geo-political/policy head-winds.

The unstated assumption behind "we will get back to business-as-usual" is that we were in something close to an equilibrium state and once this external shock goes away, we will get back to that equilibrium. But the global financial crisis was devastating because we were not in an equilibrium and all kinds of risks were drastically mispriced, which means the path back to a different equilibrium was uncertain, long and arduous. At least a strong possibility exists that the same is true now - in light of the society's drastic lack of preparedness around the pandemic and the consequences, lots of governments, businesses and individuals will have to reassess both how they operate going forward and also guess how other economic actors will change their behavior in a world that has seen how the pandemic went. For one example, Hotels, Restaurants, and Leisure was a pretty big component of the consumer demand growth in the recovery from GFC, especially given the downstream impact it has on other industries, and we could easily see a world where that the entire industry struggles for quite some time.

It's also important to realize that a lot of policy levers don't exist in the same way they did in either 2001 or 2008 - the interest rates worldwide have stayed accommodative all along, not to mention generally stimulative fiscal policy all around. Yes, simply giving money to everyone will help and is probably the right response, but there's more than just the virus coming home to roost.

I'm just a useless lurker, but come here to read abt business stuff that is way over my head. Walls of text abt trump and left vs right politarding with no resolve is just ugh, and keeps excellent posters like shuffle out which is not helping anybody.

Except your analysis is comically, clownishly partisan, and fact free. Then you have the weird gall to claim that experts knew what they were doing when we have the hard proof that everyone screwed up this up everywhere.

Every country in the world except those with SARS experience, and a few far right Eastern European countries, messed this up completely. That's why every major country in the world is in lockdown. The WHO screwed this up too. And you have the gall to say that it was Trump's fault (when he did more than anyone, and early) and that anyone competent would have done better? Is there no one competent anywhere in the world? All of Europe is deep in the **** right now, worse than the US.

You're not a rational person. You're a garden variety idiot filled with Trump hate. The end. And what's more hilarious, you think you're above the fray:
You are 100% one the morons doing this. That you think you're not shows what a worthless person you are. I'm done sharing my money-making analysis with dense troglodytes like yourself, I'm not posting for a few weeks.

In these trying times I am asking the mods of BFI to put in a temporary restriction on bans for 60 days. No bans for 60 days. After that, bans can go up bigly. #nobans

Would also like to discuss a potential bailout for bulls who got their faces ripped off buying calls thinking we hit the bottom.



I've been banned there for many years (very unfairly I might add), I can only imagine what's going on there right now. Dare I fire up incognito mode and check it out?


Solid. Sums thing up rationally.

Hope you will reconsider.

Maybe but I share your optimism. I’m looking at this as though a large chunk of our workforce called in sick at the same time. So more like a blockage in the fuel line than a lack of gas in the tank or a structural problem with the engine, with the government pouring gas straight into the carburetor to prevent the engine from stalling until the fuel line gets fixed and people get back to work. Of course that could change but so long as our business leaders (especially in the primary and secondary sectors) believe things will improve and don’t start cancelling orders, significantly lowering production schedules, etc., we should be able to get out of this within the year because what’s going on there is the main driver of aggregate demand. Obviously the leisure and hospitality sector along with offline retail are going to take the brunt of the hit but if we had to pick one part of the economy to take the blow that would be it because it’s the easiest to get back online quickly and its workforce is the easiest to repurpose and reemploy if it comes to that.

Biggest problem the trump administration did was.

first week of February not just going out and tell people to be aware. Now he got memed at for hi under control quotes.

and to be fair, I understand, since I bet he has tons of money in the markets himselfs somehow. why he would do everything to make it not capitulate.


secondly, prolly have more proactive meetings mid February. I get you dont want the public to know but just have a plan - b in case. I am not sure what his meetings looked like in February tho wrt the virus.



the left being mad at him using "chinese virus" label(CNN called it wuhan virus at first) is something he had to double down on when china reports ( outside HK) wanted to say it was USA and their militarys fault.

Man I left the thread for a day and it went full aids.

This thread is for Covid, not aids!

Hope you stay Toothsayer. Really appreciate your insight and thoughts, even though I don't agree with it all.

Prepare for Great Depression 2.0

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/...434663a0860cdc

Possibly the worst decision yet made in this crisis. The polar opposite of what needs to be done. How are people not seeing this yet? What the hell are they thinking? The purpose of tests is not to get people help early or identify patients in need, the purpose of tests is to find out where the virus has spread and further lock it down. This proves there is no coordinated higher plan to combat this, and individual jurisdictions are making their own decisions, and those jurisdictions are still trying to maintain peoples freedom and limit the spread by encouraging social distancing. It is way too late for that already.

Some level of Martial Law, massively increased testing, tracking of all positive cases, lockdown of all non-essential services, the total quarantine of Florida and New York and banning of all public gatherings is the only way to salvage this in the medium term (6-12 months). It needs to happen immediately or this will be the biggest catastrophe in the history of the United States. I have very little hope that this will happen when it needs to. Martial law is virtually certain of happening anyway, but based on the current trajectory it will be weeks from now when there are millions of infections, and by then it's way too late to do anything and multiple millions of Americans are going to die.