currently adrift and contaminated near San Francisco, spent Wednesday, Feb. 26 on Kauai, berthed a quarter-mile from where I had breakfast with the Ham radio club three days later…disgorging several thousand “contributors” to the economy, and then visited the rest of our Neighbor Islands. I didn’t go to the breakfast this morning, and will be nervously watching the score as the days tick by. Costco pretty quiet and well stocked with all the indicator products this a.m…thanks to all for you contributions during these interesting times…Aloha, Steve
I’ve been sharing my concerns with my family and friends about the impact of this virus, and very, very few will actually listen and even consider the possibility of what I’ve been saying. The responses I get are equivalent to:
- “Don’t be such a downer”;
- “you’re scaring me, let’s change the subject”;
- “I don’t go for conspiracy theories or fake news”;
- “this is being politicized by (insert your least-favorite political party here)”.
From my perspective, what I’ve been trying to say to people is this: we’re sitting on the beach on a very pleasant day, and we all just noticed that the tide has gone out - like a mile, in just a few minutes. I’m standing up and screaming, “It’s a tsunami, I can see the crest of the first wave coming, we have to get off the beach!”, and the people around me are saying: - don’t scare the children;
- the hamburgers are almost done, we have to eat;
- let’s not disturb our friends there playing volleyball;
- we’re all on holiday and want to relax, can you please get off this subject?
I have consciously started eating with my left hand. My left hand typically does not touch other things. Leave the right to get contaminated doing complex chores and the left for face chores. additionally the left hand is the fork hand and it is actually natural....
Yes Satoshi, it is too late to tell people to get out of debt, to pay down their mortgages or downsize, to reconsider that big 72 month new car loan or maybe think twice before taking a home equity line of credit to build a 50 thousand dollar deck and pool. It is way too late for that and nobody will listen even now as the tsunami hits because almost to a man they are unable to conceive of a future that is different than the one they already live in. They know about recession and employment cycles but still can’t see how its a risk for them specifically even as it has been widely telegraphed that employment itself is a bubble.
The signs were there. But they were ignored.
Hi fellow PP blogonauts,
Here is my take on all of this. First, I love the information on this site, blogs and comments. This is a welcome microcosm of decency, respect, openness, vulnerability and humor. Unmeasurable and difficult to monetize human qualities. Out of all the sad events happening, this is a good thing to see and witness. Thank you all.
I believe that it is unavoidable. We will have WW infection, my models predict that end of May a majority of the WW population will have been infected, and up till now, all predictions are met. It is not the question if, but the question when, and how.
I prepared and still prepare mainly for the how. If shtf, I hope that me and my family can still function as decent people who do not fight over some toilet paper rolls. What I realized through this site (thanks Chris) is that I can prepare also for others, so I’m stocking up on medicine, vitamins, minerals and natural remedies to share with neighbors and friends when the need arises. All within my means. It saddens me that my loved ones still believe that all is OK, will be OK and a divine intervention will make everything OK again, but alas, they have their lives to live. So, although I’m an engineer, all this made me realize that there is a personal, spiritual side to this all: “what kind of person do I want to be in the face of crisis.” And as mentioned in the introduction, the many posts here helped me realize this.
I’m mainly worried about the aftermath. Once millions of people have died, I hope this will not be the case, what kind of world will we live in? Will there be any accounting? Will the people in power who could do good, but chose not to be hailed as victors? Will we, the people, finally realize that the structures, performance indicators and narratives so many people believe in, are not for our benefit anymore, but cause and effect of their own amoral dynamics? I hope that what all this will lead to is an internal revolution, an awakening of awareness that “if not love and respect and faith, what else?”.
Keep up the good work and good luck to all!
The CDC admission that their failure to arrange an adequate supply of masks ‘Was a little bit of an oversight’- now there’s an understatement-’ makes one wonder what exactly were they doing during the last ten years of pandemic preparations they boasted about. Reminds me of a conference I attended outside Pittsburgh where the power went off and the conference hall was plunged into darkness and there was no cell service. We were stuck in the suffocating hot darkness. My agency’s table was across from the FEMA exhibit. People crowded around the FEMA table and asked for flashlights, bottled water, anything. ‘All we have are pamphlets and posters’ They told us. Ha ha. In the end it was the smokers who saved us, finding an exit with the light from their lighters.
Wonder if the CDC has spent the last ten years developing pamphlets and posters
I just want to complain to people who are sympathetic.
It really bothers me when people say “Don’t worry, only the sick will die from it.” I am just like, DAMN, somebody is ready to get rid of grandma right? UGH
My husband has stage 4 cancer, and is doing very well. But if, ok when, the hospitals are flooded… His quality of care will go down.
Me? I am 44, but kind of chubby and have lupus.
Though I have noticed a turn in explaining how “democrats are just fear mongering.” Now I hear stuff like, “If it is my time to go, then it is my time.” Kind of smokers logic.
Thanks for letting me rant.
Honestly, that $30 a month is worth it to just meet like minded people here.
Brendon_Watt wrote,
I have consciously started eating with my left hand. (etc)Not here, it's too late! In Australian, British, French, German and similar cultures, when eating the norm is for people to hold utensils in both hands. I clearly recall my parents telling me at table, "You've got two hands, use them." If you're right-handed, then it's fork in the left hand and knife / spoon in the right, and vice versa. Americans abroad can be quite conspicuous by their manner of eating. At times I think that one could tie the left arm of every American behind his or her back, and their civilisation would sail serenely on, so right-handed is it! The left hand in my and other cultures is used a great deal. This makes problems for us when we travel to countries where the left hand is used for, — er —, other purposes. Right now I can't think of any advantages to modifying which utensils at the dinner table I hold in which hand, and hence help diminish any contamination that might occur. Drat.
I posted the link to an article under another topic in reference to indoor humidity, but seeing your mention of the summer vs. winter waves that are anticipated made me wonder: Is it possible that it’s not actually higher temperature the virus is responding to, but rather the normally higher humidity that accompanies summer weather? For what it’s worth, here’s the article link again: https://returntonow.net/2019/02/19/flu-virus-thrives-in-dry-air-dies-in-humidity/
And, this is the link to the actual study the article references: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0057485
Maybe we should pray for rain. Lots of rain.
Thanks David
@Sparky yes i’m feeling better physically, though mentally i’ve taken a clear hit. I’ve wanted to make youtube videos and set up my own blog but that was right before this hit so i’m limiting my activity to writing here and on my discord 
Otherwise i’ll be fine. I’ve put myself back together from worse then this.
Gonna call the doc sometime on monday as well see if i can’t get a CT scan to see if i’ve suffered any permanent damage. I’ll write it off as a check up of my collapsed lung from a decade ago if they give me any shit; since they never as much did a scan on that one.
As for the oil jobs, that’s real easy: Massive bankrupcies. I’m sure the fed will open the taps liquidity wise to provide bridge loans, but the problem is alot of those companies are already zombie companies because rig count has been going down while production has been going up since long before the virus.
The demand shock comes on top of this. Putin is clearly paying the US back for the interference with the Nord Stream 2. Considering the Shale industry has the highest cost per barrel and Russia the lowest, it’s a brilliant move. But i’m a big fan of Putin as a statesman anyway, this just shows how far he’s come.
Meanwhile the Saudis have no choice. They can produce at a slightly higher cost then the Russians, buuuut they have a budget requiring $85 a barrel. They budgeted a deficit of 6,4% for 2020 with a price well north of $50 a barrel which we will not see for the rest of 2020. Even if China comes back online, the US and EU will go offline.
The very first rule of trading: “To buy, you need a sell. To sell, you need a buy.” If nobody is buying Chinese shit there’s no point making it.
Demand won’t be there. US shale is producing more Oil then ever because of the amazon model trying to grasp market share. But they’ve never made a profit. So they’re more Tesla, less Amazon. Investors pockets are actually not that deep anymore, that is why the rig count is declining and growth slowing.
So that’s why the Saudis made an about face. It’s a desperate, but valid tactic. They will drive the price down actively because they know the US is bankrupt. They’ve known for decades. That was the whole point of the Petro-dollar: The world gets dollars, laundered through the Saudis for oil to keep the US consumer going.
What they just did, by announcing an increase in production, is kill the petro dollar. It’ll take a while to play out, but this is the start down that path.
You cannot consider Saudi Arabia your Ally anymore from this point forward. They are actively working against your interests now because your interests and their interests no longer align.
Most likely, Trump will move to protect the Shale industry with bailouts to protect the national security. This is a very valid move; i’d do the same. The US can supply itself with oil, but it needs to be heavily subsidized to do this. But if Trump doesn’t, everybody will just buy Oil on the open market at bottom prices - bankrupting the industry. The US is powerful but not that powerful. Even your militairy runs on Money.
At that point we’ll have to see how the US reacts to this actual Saudi attack. Sanctions, threats of militairy hardware etc etc. But the Saudis can at any point in time just decide to ditch the dollar all together and ask Euros for their oil. This would necessitate yet another invasion by the US.
This time however, China and Russia will not allow it. Saudi Arabia will switch sides out of pure necessity; Russia’s “got it by the balls” price wise. But since the Saudi’s are actually a tiny minority in the region faith wise and thus subject to overthrow when the US no longer supports the regime, they will sooner sign to be a vassel of China, since they’re already a vassal of the US and have no problem with this status (it’d be suicide not to).
US can threaten more sanctions and tariffs, but on what? The entire Chinese economy is already shut down! The US economy is about to be shut down! The hell you gonna do if the Chinese ban mask exports since they have the virus under more control then the US does?
China and Russia’s central banks have been buying gold like CRAZY since 2015. Actual physical stuff. Neither allows gold to be exported. Not just the central government but the Chinese people love gold too. A lot of the gold in the US is paper. True; plenty of physical reserves remain, but who actually owns those? And are you sure all of it is still there? I’ve read some stunning articles on zero hedge that prove the seals on fort knox have been tampered with. A full audit is being stonewalled in every possible way.
Conceivably, China could just unpeg their currency from the dollar and peg it to gold. We actually don’t know how much gold they have. They’ve been lying about that for a decade. “China discloses true gold reserves;20,000 tonnes, pegs yuan to gold” would be another Black Swan event in and of itself. The Chinese Yuan would pop like a ball under water and China converts to a service economy overnight, going from a cheap currency exporter to an expensive currency importer of goods. It’ll lift millions of chinese out of poverty overnight (because of the import advantage over weaker currencies around Asia especially after Japan finally collapses) and at some point might be the only move Xi Jinping has left before the people lynch him 
Russia has no more external national debt - they are currently the most healthly nation on the planet Financially speaking. I’m very bullish on Russia. As an outcast i’ve got no paticular relationship to any nation anyway just calling it as i see it. This century might be the Chinese century but i’m seeing the next 2 decade as being Russia’s. They’re just in such a good position. I have a Russian friend i talk with on a regular basis. He says “if it stays below $35 a barrel for a long time we will have problems”. The US needs damn near triple that to turn a profit!
While for the US; you where running $1 trillion deficits in a Record breaking year (2019), financially speaking. Now an absolute disaster has hit. Those deficits will go up. Who will pay for this? (Just as a reminder at this point; we’re looking deep into the future here. Realpolitik will make all this take weeks if not months or years):
- Foreigners won't buy treasuries because they have to stimulate their virus broken economies
- pension funds wont buy treasuries cause they're insolvent to begin with (lookin at you illinois)
- banks won't buy them because banks are going to go bust massively in the coming credit crunch, just like 2008 but worse cause it's not actually a liquidity problem this time, the liquidity crisis comes out of the supply chain collapse.
- the US tax payer themselves is levered up to the hilt so you can forget "war bonds" or stuff like that.
- Institutionalized investors will look at the same thing i'm looking at, draw the same conclusions, and say "hell no not at these rates jack".
- which leeeeeeeeeeeeaves: The Fed.
Since we all have a fresh understanding of how to read exponential charts. How's that one looking for ya? The trend line is the Lower bound for treasury costs, tracking all the troughs nicely. In other words.... That's your best case scenario. I didn't *want* to draw the worst case scenario tracking the peaks.
Remember the Saudi's are a bunch of nomads in the end. Desert folk. If life is reduced to living in a nice tent; they are just fine with that (well mostly speaking, a couple of royals will lose their heads but there's so many to replace them!) and for the working class citizen it's never been any different anyway. You think wealth inequality is bad in the US i don't even wanna look at the Saudis. Can the US match their lifestyle to run out the clock slower then them?
This is pretty good reading in my opinion. Kind of the view from 30,000 feet from a guy who says he has NEVER seen anything like what is twisting and contorting the entire globe right now and asks reasonably if anyone else wonders what is really going on out of view to the rest of us. Or maybe we have collectively lost our marbles? I found it on ZeroHedge which I am certain you will all agree is probably the best news source in America today. It’s an opinion piece by a guy called Knave Dave. Who knows, maybe that’s his real name. LOL.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2020-03-07/pandemic-pandemania-causes-global-economic-crisis
My wife read your post first, told me I’d love it – and I do! IMO, exactly right all through!
About the Saudi arrests, yep they’re part of it alright.
And the fact they happened surrounding the OPEC+ conference shows they planned and anticipated this outcome, though it not being the preferable first choice of the Saudis.
The fact Trump’s been completely left out of this and i haven’t heard as much as a peep out of him surrounding this shows the man has got no tether to reality around him, nor do any of his advisors. All he can do is look at a chart and go “nice” like he’s fucking randy from southpark. I’ll be honest i didn’t expect Russia to say no either but i’m not paid to pay attention to this And i’ve been expecting a move like this for some time now (thats why that chart is sometime old now), i just didn’t expect either Putin or Saudi Arabia to grab this crisis by the horns and make it do what they never could: Bring down the US by having the US tear itself apart.
Which honestly, is your own fault really. Whatta ya think was gonna happen after 50+ years of ill concieved financial reign? You could’ve voted for a 3rd party or made one yourself yknow. There’s like 6 parties in the US not 2. What ever happened to the Wigs? Bring back the funny hat party!
…in fact i seem to recall there’s a guy with a boot upside his head who runs for president every goddamn time just because he can and it’s his constitutional right! How bout voting for that guy? How could things POSSIBLY get worse?
This is in just fresh:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bigger-lebanon-can-bear-pm-announces-default-12bn-debt-historical-first
That counts not just as a default event but an actual real life Default. Lebanon just went officially bankrupt.
I am sympathetic to your concern to be sure. It can be a little unnerving to hear us comfort others by saying “only elderly and ill” need to worry. I don’t think it’s intentional, people are just hoping they and their children don’t get sick, but it gives those groups a negative message. And we are talking about very large numbers.
We have 3 or 4 doctors diagnosed with coronavirus so far here. Westchester County has 70 of the NY state’s 89 cases. Despite wider testing NYC still lags behind with 11 diagnosed cases. One doc was in a large group practice which shut down overnight for further contact tracing and investigation, and his NP is also afflicted. Just like that the patients in that large practice (20 plus physicians and their NP’s etc…) can’t go to their doctors who are probably all on quarantine now. I think planning appointments well ahead of time will be an absolute necessity and extra effort will be required to make sure you and your husband are seen as needed. Take care.
Absolutely. Modern air conditioner life is the problem. Helps explain low transmission and cases in Thailand too. They’re just lucky. Phucket right now:
29 degrees Celsius 74% humidity sunny !!!
Just to add to my last post: the large majority of our 70 cases have been traced to a single person, an attorney who took mass transit, went to several group events, who had children that went to schools that are all now shut down. They are not calling him a superspreader as such but the contact tracing has been excellent. We now have about 9 different school shutdowns for disinfection and the contacts have affected staff at at least 3 hospitals and 1 big medical clinic.
All from one case. And he is quite ill in an ICU in the city and likely was highly infectious towards the end of his course.
Travel chaos erupts as Italy quarantines north to halt virus
“Italy announced a sweeping quarantine Sunday for its northern regions, igniting travel chaos as it restricted the movements of 16 million people — more than one quarter of its population — in a bid to halt the relentless march of the new coronavirus across Europe.”
“Confusion reigned from Milan to Venice as residents and tourists tried to figure out exactly when and how the new rules were coming into effect. Travelers rushed to train stations and crammed aboard standing-room only trains, tucking their faces into scarves and sharing sanitizing gel.”
“Chaos erupted in the hours before Conte signed the decree, as word leaked about the planned quarantine.”
“Students at the University of Padua in northern Italy who had been out at bars on a Saturday night saw the reports on their phones and rushed back to grab their belongings and head to the train station. Hundreds of passengers, some wearing face masks and rubber gloves, crammed onto the last local train leaving Padua at 11:30 p.m, sitting on their suitcases in the aisles. No conductor came by to check tickets.
“I read two hours ago that they may be putting out an urgent decree putting Padua in the red zone … so I decided to go earlier,” said student Roberto Pagliara, heading to his hometown of Puglia in southern Italy.”
“But the governor of Puglia urged people like him to stay away and not bring virus infections down south.”
“Italy on Saturday reported its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases since its outbreak began on Feb. 21. The number of infected people rose 1,247, taking the total to 5,883, and the death toll rose to 233.”
https://apnews.com/f3be69cc2cf55f74a35118c557ad8461
A quarantine isn’t a quarantine unless it’s a surprise quarantine.
Everything else is an urgent declaration to get the heck out of Dodge.