Don't Believe The Hype!

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LesPhelpes
You hit the nail on the head by identifying the number one issue we all face: how to balance “opening” an economy vs deathrate (mostly) of old people. You argued against making value judgements and stated: “how is placing a higher value on children vs elderly people any different than placing a higher value in a person because of their race or sex?”
Sorry to say, but reality is a harsh mistress. Here are some facts:

  1. when the ship goes down, it is “women and children first into the lifeboats.” When a society lacked enough food for everyone it was grandpa or grandma who went without instead of sacrificing the young adult or older child. That was a fact. Look it up.
  2. last I checked (it was quite a few years ago) the value of a human life in America according to the economic tradeoff was about $3.5 million dollars, when it comes to making decisions on adding safety features to consumer products. (if a consumer product induced death such as death by propellers from boats or car brake costs more than $3.5 million to prevent, then the manufacturer does not have to do it) Society deals with the cost/death tradeoff all the time. We can live in our silver clouds and scream racism/sexism/patriarchy and pretend otherwise, but everything is a cost tradeoff. Everything.
  3. doctors, nurses and other professionals judge young people’s lives higher than the aged. This is a fact. Get used to it. If an overwhelmed hospital faces young patients with many years ahead of them and a 75 year old with equal chances, but only one can be admitted, triage dictates the young person is saved and the old one is not. I am not a medical expert but this is what I have read. The unfair exception is if a politician or very rich owner of a politician enters, the rich (or wealth dispensing) person gets preference. Maybe we need to discuss that.
    Children have a higher value than elderly people. This is NOT the same as racial preference. Our adversarial legal system has been dealing with this kind of problem in many ways for many years. Unfortunately politicians are making these huge decisions based on nothing but quick feelings and emotive appeals. That is the problem. Not racism or sexism or (fill in the black) ism.
     
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Those of us who have or come from privilege (I was raised middle class even though I have been poor over half of my life and have been working my way back towards middle class) may have a hard time seeing the whole picture- though no fault of our own. As brilliant and far reaching as our minds may be, as talented, or persistent, or hard-working as we may be, as well-respected and well-liked as we may be, we all have been raised in an oppressive system with certain biases that are baked right in. And simply by virtue of going through our lives within this context, we all absorb all kinds of biases we may not even be aware of. We may think ourselves fair, open-hearted, and earnestly value everyone getting a fair shake, yet sometimes, especially in times of stress, things leak right on out that we didn’t even know we were carrying! LOL Happens to me all the time! That’s part of the learning. But I have found that the learning goes a lot better if we start from a place of acceptance with ourselves (no blame).
So that’s where I start with you, Chris. You are the most brilliant, geeky, number-crunching, data-loving, information scout I know. I love watching you be you. I love the humor you bring, the sound effects, the masterful ability to explain mind-bending theory in ways that the average person can understand. And even though I am sure you are stressed and exhausted yourself, you bring joy to this work and it shows. It’s easy to follow you because you are a real person. You call it like you see it. And there is great power in that. You don’t act like you’re better than everyone else and that goes a long way towards connecting with all kinds of people from many walks of life. It is clear that you genuinely want each of us to have our best shot at having a meaningful life, having “enough,” and for us all to have a world worth inheriting. I don’t think I would have enjoyed reading and watching your posts and videos all these years nearly as much as if you didn’t enjoy what you do, yourself. It’s so good that you are you.
So blameless. You are cherished here. We know how good you are. That is not in question. And, as I have said before, something is missing for me on this site. Not just as a low-income person who has to translate a little bit in my head some of the stuff you say so I can see how it applies to my life. (I am still wondering about taking on debt to secure a property now. You answered the person in a previous thread who asked about buying cash. Unequivocal yes. You didn’t answer the person who asked about what if you have to use debt- at least as of my last reading of whatever thread that was. I realize that you don’t give advice. But sometimes the silence speaks more than you might realize, even without realizing that’s happening or meaning it to. Again no blame, simply an observation from a long time member.)
But back to your question about what to do. This is for you, and to anyone else reading this. Start from where you are. Because just as you said to Granny, we are the master of this ship now. It is up to us to steer this thing. We are the ones. And it’s going to take ALL of us. Rich, poor, young, old, middle class, you name it. We have to figure out how to do this together. And as long as we are distracted by who’s fault it is, we lose sight of the big picture, THE SYSTEM MUST CHANGE. We know something about sound money. We know something about resiliency. We have a lot to offer, from wherever we are starting from. We can all be expanding our awareness out beyond assuring that our own personal needs are accounted for, and looking towards how to assure that more people’s needs are also accounted for. Only as safe as our neighbor.
What to do? Go big. You know the ins and outs of the bailouts and that the money isn’t reaching the people who really need it. You have a wide international following. Team up with others who also have clout who are working in the same direction (I’ve mentioned Rev Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign previously.) Run a webinar on how to contact your representatives and what to say, so we can push-back on those bailouts. So we can push for regular people getting a bail out too. AND ALSO at the same time put your big beautiful brain together with all those other big beautiful brains you have access to come up with another way of doing this all together.
Gold backed local currencies? Anyone? Those of us who have a HAA account, for example, would there be a way to use what we have collectively sitting in the vaults to back a real currency at the local level, that regular people, rich or poor, could depend on to buy bread? You were already aiming out of the box with some of your recent interviews- keep going! There has to be another way. And in finding one, there has to be a way for regular people to actually get their fair share (to borrow a phrase from permaculture.) So keep doing what you are doing and also push on the edges of where you are currently able to think. The new thing doesn’t exist yet, so is hard to imagine, but keep putting your mind there, along with us putting ours there, who knows what we can do if we work it out together? There is a saying, I don’t remember the source, that to go fast, go alone. But to go far, go together.
 

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Regarding Granny’s initial comment, Chris’s response and the ensuing comments, my first thought was here we go again…. We have been here before on this site with similar situations. I personally have been involved in kerfuffle’s, one of which saw both sides with feathers ruffled enough to cause me to leave the site for awhile.
I think the discussion and perceptions, whether erroneous or accurate or simply hurt feelings, are a symptom of a deeper core issue, that being that there are many people who want PP to show a more caring, humanized side beyond the data and technical analysis. That is not to say that Chris, Adam, and staff do not care about the poor or marginalized – I am certain they care a great deal. But my observation is that finding / presenting hard data is their forte. Providing additional insights into the impacts of that data on people, especially those that are marginalized, is not their forte. They tend not to go there, and to not provide what some might feel is requisite empathy to the downstream impacts of their data.
If we look at this video as an example, the gist of it was Stanford is cheating/lying and Chris called em’ out on it. Great! And Granny, in a nutshell, says: ‘so what?’ I had the same thought myself. After reading the comments I wondered to myself if this would have been avoided if perhaps at the end of the video, in his conclusion, Chris might have added something to the effect of “exposing this lying and cheating may not seem so important to the millions who have lost their jobs or are struggling to cope with this horrific virus, but I think that it is important to report on this since policy makers rely on data from places like Stanford to make decisions that affect those same millions. It is critical to make sure that decision makers are getting correct and accurate information!” Or something to that effect. By adding such a statement, the all-important empathy factor is added to an otherwise dry and technical analysis that may indeed have left a lot of folks also thinking ‘so what?’.
I think there are probably a lot of members who at times want or have wanted PP to be something that it is not. To use the analogy of friendships, we have different friends for certain things. While most have best friends, those are not necessarily one stop shopping who can fulfill all needs – physical, intellectual, mental, emotional, fun and leisure. I come to PP to exercise my intellect in areas of interest that are not necessarily easy to talk about in my circles. In that regard the site & forums are like an invaluable best friend. I have had to learn though that I cannot necessarily use PP to get my fix for talking about social justice issues and more egalitarian subject matter. Not for lack of trying or pissing some people off (lol). Just like accepting a dear friend who is a total dolt at sports will never be a great workout partner, I (we) need to accept that PP is not a go to site for things beyond their core focus as data driven information scouts. Pity that.
It is going to hit the fan soon, to the point (I think) will make the Depression look like the good times. It feels like it is ever more important to try to impart a tone of empathy and understanding in all that we say and do. Most of us, some much more so than others, are well ahead of the game in terms of knowledge, awareness, and preparations. Would it be too much to ask for all of us to try to couch cold hard facts & discussions with a bit more humility and humanity? It certainly can’t hurt and may make things a bit easier to handle going forward.
Stay well everyone,
Jan

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I never said I wouldn’t gladly let women and children on the lifeboat first. Among other things, that’s part of the chivalry code I grew up with.
Never the less, I’m getting thoroughly tired of the crowd that wants to open the economy up pointing out that it mostly affects older people, implying it is therefore not a big deal.
BTW, as I’ve posted more than once, I’m on board with allowing people to go back to work. I thinks it the best of the horrible options open to us.
As an elderly person, I’m willing to risk the outcome of that decision, because it’s the best thing for the majority, full stop. No need to mention their age, race, sex or social class. It’s the best for all.
Just try not to act like writing off the elderly is no big deal.
By way of a post script, I’ll throw a non sequitur in here. I wonder what the rational of allowing women and ch

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CO2 Shortage Threatens Food/Water - National Guard Deploys to Meat Plants - Summer Outlook (4/20/20)
https://youtu.be/s4CwcUJ1CEU

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With so many confirmed cases and deaths in New York City, I wonder if it’s possible to use that real place as a check on CFR estimates. The naive CFR (deaths as a percentage of all cases) is about 10% currently. If the infection CFR is really 1%, say, then that would imply 10 times the reported cases. Does that seem likely? How about an iCFR of 0.5%? that would imply there are really 2.1 million cases in NYC. The lower the iCFR estimate, the greater the likely number of real cases in NYC, with an iCFR of something like 0.15% implying everyone is a case. I don’t know the positivity rate of testing in NYC but wouldn’t a really high number of cases also imply a very high rate of positives (not 100%, since some people would no longer be shedders). If the positivity rate is very low, which seems to be the case in many countries, then that also implies that widespread infection hasn’t happened.

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OIL CRISIS DEEPENS: What I’m Doing - Mike Maloney (4/21/20)
https://youtu.be/ZiUmM9n7OaI

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Apparently, the whole world wants to offer up 3-4 % upto 15% of population already infected with the virus. Ultimately, showing that this has a CFR around 1 - 2 times that of the flu. I am not sure what funny fuzzy logic people are trying to apply to their studies but - I can assure you with simple logic that this is far from the truth.

  1. If we used the flu ( that is what they are trying to make the CFR look the same as ), the estimated infection rate of that annually is approximately 8-15% of the population. ( 35k deaths average per year out of 330M ) If we took 3-4% and applied the same CFR we would have only 11,500 Deaths Total in a whole year. This math doesn't fit . Their narrative is false.
  2. The assumption is many many people have already had this and never even knew it. So, many many people have already had this. This again doesn't make sense. Law of exponentials shows that once you get to a critical mass, of 3-4% of the population it would need just a couple weeks to saturate the entire populace , If it was mostly silent the way they suggest, it would have easily moved from a few % to more than the whole world in less than a few weeks. Even if it just had a small death rate, this would have been huge numbers. Very close to what we are seeing, but we would not being seeing clusters, we would be in boom. ( everywhere ) We have yet to see a similar out-come anywhere. This is impossible if we passed the boom stage. We are not there.
  3. Hot zones, We would not have hot zones if the numbers they project are accurate. However, they may be accurate for the hot zone. Meaning, they may take in infection rate in NYC but they are applying it to the total population of NY to give you a CFR or better yet the whole country. Again, this is clearly false narrative.
  4. logic should dictate. The flu does not cause young healthy doctors to parish. The flu does not require refrigerated trucks to pile up bodies. The flu does not cause the need to dig mass trough/trench graves. The flu does not cause a shortage of medical supplies. The flu does not cause the massive organ failure and damage scene post-mortem. The flu does not run through nursing care facilities leaving a wasteland of bodies. This would be impossible to compare the two. Any logic doing so, is clearly faulty.
I am not sure exactly what the fatality rate of this is , or the current infection rate. But I believe we are seeded and ready for the real explosion, and we are currently curbing it with our efforts. Any nonsense otherwise, is just wishful thinking. I ask anyone who thinks this is benign as the flu, go sit in the hospital rooms with the infected. UNPROTECTED. and take care of them. Prove us wrong. Actually, I think they are stupid enough to try it. That is what they are pushing for. Opening all back up. Then, it will be way too late to shut it down.. What will they say when they learn they are wrong? opps. Again, if you assume its benign and its already in the population, and its not you risk lots of damage. But according to them , if you lock down everyone , the economy crawls, and people die. So, we are better off to take our chances and gamble that its benign.. its human nature to reduce the pain now for greater pain later. thinking they can avoid that pain forever. Why do anything, why fight crime? the costs outway the loss from the crime. why have military, the costs to the economy outway the losses if we do not have one? Why have security at airports, the costs way outway the loss of life if we do not burden our economy? Why go out of our way at all, for anything that makes us safe? Why the cost of an FDA? the losses from bad drugs and unsafe food supply, dont warrant the impact on the economy? Why fire protection, the cost for that exceeds the losses of homes and buildings? Why have costly trauma centers, the few lives lost needing that level of trauma care do not offset the economic impact there. Hell , I have an idea, lets just get rid of government all together and call it all acceptable losses. Why is it so easy to do that with this? but not other things? Oh, it kills old useless sick people.. everyone hates the disabled and old and elderly.
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Even Mild Coronavirus Cases Can Result In Lifelong Lung Damage (4/21/20)
https://youtu.be/COQY0et2J-E

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I am not sure why, we are all wondering if those weird colds we had back in January were Covid. We are taking full precautions now, for two weeks, so maybe a few of us will pop a positive here. I’ve done the test 4 times, I have to say it’s pretty uncomfortable and I’ve used the same person 3 times. I really don’t know what’s going on. A few people from other departments have some positive, but it’s definitely not widespread.

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I think that we can both agree that rational discussion and deliberation is needed but does not happen.
Rationality is gone. This is more than a fourth turning.
In the absence of a rational functioning society we need to build our own. The answer seems to always be the same: development of small resilient community, as it was during the ensuing dark ages following the collapse of Rome.
I look forward to seeing what CM does in Massachusetts.

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the “ remedievalization of modernity”.
Collapse now and avoid the rush?
is the mare settled?
 

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I am not American and I can see that many of the comments in this thread are specific to the situation in the U.S. However, for me there is a simple solution which does not presume acceptance of a sharp rise in infections or of deaths, or of hiding at home waiting for a vaccine. It goes back to what Chris has been saying for some time – the enforcement of a rule that everyone who leaves their home must wear an appropriate mask and follow other hygiene measures. Manufacturing and providing the equivalent of N99 / FFP3 masks and surgical masks for all citizens should be the first order of business for governments who now wish to re-open their societies! Forcing everyone to keep their germs to themselves, in addition to encouraging the sick not to be out in society, could go a long way toward a situation where the virus can ‘peter out’ and people are not so at risk. (And bandanas don’t cut it). I read that South Korea advised citizens to also wear them at home at the beginning of their epidemic. Keeping borders and global travel shut down for the short term would also help.
Inherent in the reasons for the virus testing and antibody testing is the decision surrounding a full re-opening of society and start-up of the economy, if it can be established that a majority of people have been exposed or the number of cases is decreasing. However, while the pandemic is still ongoing, in the absence of suitable masks for every citizen - which prevent a single virus particle from escaping (as well as other hygiene precautions) - that are worn from the time the individual leaves their home until they return, there is a serious risk to citizens. Many governments are currently implementing gradual re-opening of their societies, and most do not have appropriate masks and other hygiene measures in place.
An important distinction:
One observation is that most government initiatives involve ‘social distancing’ which specifies that people must keep a distance of [1 / 1.5 / 2 metres] from others. However, this does not consider the need to avoid the ‘airspace’ of potentially infected people in addition to the individuals themselves. This is a very important distinction which has not been recognized. For example, suppose there is a lineup of 10 people at the [bank / grocery store / ice cream café / pharmacy etc]. Each person maintains the required distance from the person in front of them. Person 2 and Person 5 are infected with the Coronavirus and are contagious. As each individual finishes their transaction and leaves, the others in line move forward – directly into the ‘airspace’ of those who have stood there seconds or moments before. Given the aerosol transmission of the virus and the length of time it can remain in the air, chances are high that some people in the lineup, or who arrive after these people have left, will be exposed and infected with the virus. This type of ‘social distancing’ in the absence of appropriate masks is ineffective.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-study/coronavirus-can-persist-in-air-for-hours-and-on-surfaces-for-days-study-idUSKBN2143QP
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3074351/coronavirus-can-travel-twice-far-official-safe-distance-and-stay

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In my earlier “We have 2 Choices” post, I was referring to the two choices for our public policy. Public Policy Choice #1: everyone hides until the vaccine appears. Public Policy Choice #2: get back to work, and deal with the infections, only locking down when a hospital swamp threatens.
If we as a nation were to select Public Policy Choice #2 (admit that, a large percentage of the population will eventually be infected, and that - economically - we cannot remain shut down as a nation for the next 18 months, waiting for a vaccine that might or might not ever actually work), in that event, individuals could still select Choice #1 and attempt to avoid infection themselves.
They could remain at home most of the time, avoid social interactions as much as possible, wear protective gear when they go out, and generally distance themselves from society until such time as a vaccine (that actually works) becomes available.
Can your lungs get damaged from a mild case? Maybe so. Is this worse than the flu? Pretty clearly, yes. Turns out, life has risk. Shit happens all the time. Cancer. Heart disease. Road accidents. Crime. And now, a pandemic. Ok. Mostly, life goes on. Maybe with lung damage in some cases. Maybe, if you get treated rapidly with HCQ, it doesn’t. Its hard to know. Predictions are difficult, especially about the future. Either way, life continues. Do your best to set the odds in your favor, and carry on.
One thing we do know. If we shut down the economy until the vaccine appears, the economy will be utterly destroyed. It will be “great depression” territory after just 3 months.
Now maybe, if your objective is to cause a great depression, this pandemic is a fantastic opportunity to do so. “We are just trying to save lives here” (gosh aren’t we good people?) while crushing the economy for reasons known only to you and your group.
Who benefits from a depression?
Well, if you know it is coming, you and your group can prepare. Prices for a lot of assets will be super cheap. Those with cash will be able to pick up these assets for very low prices. Anything bought using debt will get defaulted on en masse, and will be foreclosed on by the banksters and then sold for fire sale prices. Huge amounts of wealth will be transferred, from the workers who borrowed money to buy them, to the group that caused the depression who have accumulated cash, who are now able to pick up assets for pennies on the dollar.
Maybe that’s what is really going on here behind the scenes. I don’t know.
But if we select Choice #1 as our Public Policy, we are selecting Great Depression as our economic outcome, with the vast wealth transfer it implies. Most likely, it also will result in huge changes in public policy as well - socialism looks a whole lot more attractive if nobody has jobs. And if small business is destroyed, the big corps win for sure. Maybe that’s deliberate too. I don’t know that either.
Regardless of which Public Policy Choice is selected, individuals can make their own choice. If they are relatively well off (or if they have prepared well), they personally can select Choice #1. They can hide out, attempt to avoid infection, and wait for that vaccine, if and when it arrives, even if the Public Policy option #2 is selected.

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Just as the world economy didn’t skid to a halt just to save poor old Aunt Bea and Floyd the Barber in Mayberry, as some would have you believe,
People are going to have to wrap their heads around the idea that legion ancillary deaths around the globe due to famine, are just as related to to the Wuhan Virus as if they had been Patient Zero themselves.
 

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robie, I don't recognize the “ remedievalization of modernity” as being one of JHK's expressions, but I could be wrong. He uses "Magical thinking", "greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world", "happy motoring", "sleepwalking into the future" (one of the chapter titles in "The Long Emergency"), and others I don't remember right now... I quickly searched to try and find some of JHK's expressions, found this one "Suburbiais the insidious cartoon of the country house in a cartoon of the country." But I couldn't find the origin of the “ remedievalization of modernity". Did find https://www.azquotes.com/author/19114-James_Howard_Kunstler, which does have a bunch of his expressions. Collapse now and avoid the rush? That one is John Michael Greer's, and is also the title of one of his books, although I think Kunstler might have used it too since it's a good one. Linda
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davefairtex wrote: In my earlier “We have 2 Choices” post, I was referring to the two choices for our public policy. Public Policy Choice #1: everyone hides until the vaccine appears. Public Policy Choice #2: get back to work, and deal with the infections, only locking down when a hospital swamp threatens. If we as a nation were to select Public Policy Choice #2 (admit that, a large percentage of the population will eventually be infected, and that – economically – we cannot remain shut down as a nation for the next 18 months, waiting for a vaccine that might or might not ever actually work), in that event, individuals could still select Choice #1 and attempt to avoid infection themselves.
Dave, The CFR and R0 really only have meaning in models, actuarial tables, and public policy. I'm sure we could break down the numbers based on age, gender, comorbitities, etc., but for the individual, it really boils down to -> how does this impact me? Am I going to get it? How bad is it going to be? What will life be like if/when I recover? The current public policy is to limit the infection rate so hospital ICUs don't get overwhelmed. Unless we can somehow reduce the number who will eventually get infected over time, flattening the curve only extends the time frame for the disease to rampage. Others on this thread have done the math and it could take decades for this to all play out. Can we tolerate this "shutdown" for decades? I doubt we could tolerate it for much more than a month longer. From an economic perspective, if you have a return on investment (ROI) of ~8%, every month of lost GDP takes a year to recover. I don't know what the actual number is, but we certainly aren't averaging 8% return across the economy. On average, our numbers are much more anemic. That means it takes more than a year to recover a month's loss. And, that's during the good times. If we have a recession, it takes much longer to recoup the losses. Depressions make it worse. Great depressions make it worser. Think about the rents and mortgages that aren't getting paid because the places of business are shut down and employee hours have plummeted. It doesn't matter if you first looked at this situation from a worker's perspective or that of the wealthy industrialist. It affects both. It also affects State/local governments that need to balance the books with taxes that aren't coming into the public coffers. How much can the federal government bail out? They already owe >$23trillion on the Treasury "credit card." Unfunded liabilities add multiples to that number. At what point do private investors just say that they think the US debt is too much? What happens then? I suppose the federal reserve can just buy up all the debt like Japan's BOJ mostly does. That would sure instill confidence in the dollar, wouldn't it? Sweden's approach has been castigated by several on this thread. Sweden is allowing people to gather/work and have been warning the most at risk about the risks. As expected, their per capita infection rate is much higher than ours. They are also getting the vaunted herd immunity much sooner. They look like idiots now, but what about in a month or two? They may be past the peak then with actual herd immunity. Unless there is a reinfection wave next year, they're pretty much free and clear. Meanwhile, the US may be in the topping process on new infections. That's great news; however, it is based on the unsustainable, draconian measures that have been instituted. Relax those measures and the infection rate will resume climbing. Will there be an effective vaccine for SC2? As far as I know, nobody has developed an effective vaccine for any coronavirus. It could happen, but I'm not hanging any hat on that hope. Without a vaccine to give immunity, the body has to build immunity through exposure. When I was a kid, I attended a measles party. There were about a dozen of us there and shortly afterwards, I developed measles. I remember being miserable, but it was over in a week or so. Now, I have full immunity to measles. Those who got the MMR vaccine have to get periodic boosters. Hmmm. We need more than your options 1 & 2. What I wish would happen is that some bright researcher tries to think outside the box. What would happen if we infected folks with the live virus (like the measles party,) let it run for a few days so the body could start developing antibodies, and then applied hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin + zinc to keep the virus from replicating/reproducing or causing more damage. We'd be able to develop individual immunity ... and adding enough individuals eventually makes a herd. Then, we got this licked (until it morphs.) We already have enough information about these drugs to know what bodily conditions to avoid. Test for those conditions and limit participants accordingly. Grover
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Grover-
I like your old-fashioned vaccine concept.
Now we just need to get:
a) the authorities to get on board with HCQ + Azithromycin + Zinc
b) people to realize that our current lockdown strategy must have a time limit, or the economic damage will lead to a vast great wealth transfer that most of us will end up on the losing end of.
Note that if there really is a plot to cause a depression in order for “some” to benefit from the wealth transfer and/or to bring about a change in type of government, that would explain why the authorities aren’t so eager to get on board with the aforementioned treatment.
Of course it could also be a really bad, nationwide case of TDS.
Regardless, I like the COVID party + treatment applied N days later, where N gets determined experimentally. It is an excellent third option.
I’ve heard that the various ILIs aren’t so impactful to us now because we have partial immunity already from past exposure.

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I would be more interested to know the results of the antibody tests to determine how many in your department were infected and didn’t have any symptoms or require hospitalization.
I’m assuming your co-workers are more fit than the average person and so would be able to weather any sort of health issue.

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70% of jobs are service sector jobs - closure is devastating for these people
Think about it - deny work but still expect - rent, student loans, car payments, insurance etc = insane
https://youtu.be/pWYvPzoX7Kw