Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

This was written 10 days ago. Consider how prescient it seems now.

The Coronavirus Is Much Worse Than You Think

By this account, COVID-19 is turning out to be a remarkably intelligent evolutionary adversary. By exploiting vulnerabilities in human psychology selectively bred by its pathogen ancestors, it has already shut down many of our schools, crashed our stock market, increased social conflict and xenophobia, reshuffled our migration patterns, and is working to contain us in homogenous spaces where it can keep spreading. We should pause to remark that COVID-19 is extraordinarily successful epidemiologically, precisely because it is not extremely lethal. With its mortality rate of 90%, for example, Ebola is a rather stupid virus: It kills its host — and itself — too quickly to spread far enough to reshape other species’ life-ways to cater to its needs.

 

I'll never be confused for someone who knows Thing 1 about money, but this seems pretty suboptimal. I wonder how many economic stimulus tools are still there to use given there was an emergency Fed rate cut just last week and any further tax cuts or helicopter money would presumably have to go through Congress.

 

WH advisors to present options today to bail out wealthy donors and fuckhead FATUS golf buddies.

 

That's why the Chairman of the Fed is supposed to be left alone to make decisions, instead of having Trump up his butt pushing for rate cuts that would otherwise not happen. At least Trump wasn't able to get a completely pliant yes-man installed before this happened. Left to his own devices Trump would already have had negative interest rates in place.

I can't wait till Trump's over-leveraged businesses go bust. Maybe he'll jump off a building.

 

im sure the Democrats will be eager to help in the spirit of bipartisan cooperation.

 

He’ll just bounce like a basketball.

 

Imagine those too young just now realizing that "going viral" doesn't mean a popular video on the internet. Regardless of how lethal coronavirus is - it is a reminder about how our economies do depend on global well-being. Whether the environment, politics or whatever - we do need to understand that there are some things walls, and tarrifs can't keep out. There are going to be hits to the movie business, restaurants, travel, gas industries and every business that supports them.

 

Trump is in the hospitality business. Hotels, clubs, resorts, golf courses. His income (other than from lobbyists and this and other countries actively lining his pocket) is going to take a big hit.

 

And just wait when climate refugees start moving to countries with higher ground in the coming years, not to mention the wars that will undoubtedly arise because of that, leading to further sudden mass migrations.

 

Read this. First, it's informative, and second, it's what we should be doing here. Obviously, we won't, for multiple reasons. Trump does not have the stones or the pull to do this, and he would see it as hurting his election chances, so he'd never even consider it. Second, the American people, bless their black flabby hearts, would do their damnedest to end run the quarantines. China's Wuhan quarantine includes deep ditches dug through the roads out, barricades down to footpaths, and (no shit) nets in the rivers. It keep them in, but doing that here? Singapore government closed most businesses and all clubs/bars/restaurants for a month. Period.

There are damn good reasons for quarantine, and it is an extremely basic public health tool, but we have more than our share of idiots who won't play along. Anyhow, interesting read.

"None of the above is to take away from the fact that people here were also very conscious of what was happening and how serious it was. There was a very strong messaging push on the “fundamentals of public health”, and an equally strong adoption of that messaging, but it was still not just that. There is a reason emissions dropped 25%, there is a reason new cases plummeted, and I have no doubt if offices had been open, even with such public awareness and commitment, it would not have been as successful. Masks, hand sanitizer, hand washing are all in the front of people’s minds, and there was zero sense here from anyone that it was “not serious”, but life was also not normal for an extended period."

Amazing Report from Shanghai