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lazland 
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Online Points: 13740 |
 Posted: April 26 2020 at 02:48 |
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Okay, one last final try to attempt to persuade you that these numbers are a meaningless discussion point. I have quoted below from the site you sent the link to, not I. Is the point finally made, at long last? Lots of people have died. f**k me, I know that. I am not stupid. What none of us know is the accurate number of both deaths and infections. Can we at least agree on this and move on? No country knows the total number of people infected with COVID-19. All we know is the infection status of those who have been tested. All those who have a lab-confirmed infection are counted as confirmed cases. This means that the counts of confirmed cases depend on how much a country actually tests. Without testing there is no data. |
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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lazland
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Online Points: 13740 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 02:56 |
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No, they don’t surprise me in the slightest. I might add, by the way, that I struggle to see where I have made the argument of “letting go on a wing and a prayer”, so if you could find that, I would be very grateful. Ta. My recollection is that I have argued for a different approach and a more measured approach, which is somewhat different. The rest of your post, not quoted here, is of interest, and I find the Swedish approach very interesting, and is perhaps the closest to the approach I have argued for. Time will tell who was right, but I do not believe that any sensible person could possibly argue with me that economic collapse is nothing other than a bad thing, and impacts upon the poorest in our society the most. That should be a given, and, therefore, my argument that more subtle and intelligent political reactions and actions might have been expected.
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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Tom Ozric
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2005 Location: Olympus Mons Status: Offline Points: 15926 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 03:06 |
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.....”gonna wipe out 20% of the world’s population before year’s end” according to some paranoid dweeb who shops where I work (he may as well wear a Hazmat suit when he steps out in the open......)....
Edited by Tom Ozric - April 26 2020 at 03:07 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator 
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 05:41 |
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Ermm Trump will probably continue to deny Kim Jong-Un's state of health as fake news up until the moment his replacement is announced... then whatever Trump thinks or does is become ever less relevant as the year progresses. I was emailed a three weeks ago by someone (no names, I'm no snitch) suggesting I should look in this thread and perhaps comment. On reading through the (then) 600 posts on this topic, I saw that Pat had returned (Hi Pat) and was posting more or less what I would have posted so elected not to. However, since it amused me that people were still arguing with him (and Friede) on matters mathematical and scientific I popped back now and then for a bit of a giggle and then wandered off to some other distraction, like deciding how much of my dwindling stock of flour I can spare to make enough soda bread for a small sandwich. But, really guys? Do you actually need people to spell out the differences between the mortality-rates of C-19 and those from seasonal flu or road-traffic deaths to even begin to understand why a third of the global population is in lockdown? People who do understand these things are hiding behind the couch, those that don't are rattling their sabres demanding that the barbers and coffee shops are allowed to reopen because it's difficult to make artisan cold pressed coffee at home when your hair is flopping over your eyes. Seriously if you think your understanding of the statistics gives a different view then your understanding is wrong. Of course you are free to disagree with me on that score, but it won't make you right or any less wrong. What we have here is an example of using the fat man in a balloon to divert the trolley problem where who you chose to sacrifice to save the majority is demarcated along politicised ideological lines. The old and weak or the unskilled and poor ... tough choice, except it isn't because they are not equivalents and inevitable death of a sector of the population because the majority chose to put wealth above welfare is not a noble, moral or ethical choice to make. No there are no easy solutions, there never are and never will be but lets get one disaster under control before we trigger the next. Anyway, here's a giggle. For those who don't know Eric DuBious is flat-earther and conspiracy theorist who makes money out of preying on the gullible that buy his poorly researched but nevertheless hilarious book "200 Proofs the Earth is not a Spinning Ball". What he has done for the following video is read in "old encyclopedias" (he'd never dream of using verifiable sources) that C-19 is listed as " the common cold, is admittedly one of the weakest viruses known to man" and has concluded that this is a plandemic (see what he did there) instigated by the New World Order. So no matter how harebrained I think some people are, there is always someone even wackier out there. Take care folks, ttfn. |
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 06:49 |
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You have argued for herd immunity which is pretty much letting go on a wing and a prayer. There is no proof yet that it is even possible to develop herd immunity for this virus. If anything, there have been a few cases already where a person thought to have recovered has again contracted the disease. You have also joined in equating covid to the flu; let me tell you that the flu does not cause much if any harm in countries like India but covid has already killed 800 people (which is a conservative and under-reported toll with the actual number likely to be substantially higher) in spite of a draconian lockdown. It is not only America or the West European nations that have imposed lockdowns. Many third world countries, Gulf states, East Asian nations have accepted it along with the hefty economic toll. Why? The answer lies in what I wrote above. We just don't know enough about this virus as of now. We don't know why it is able to survive and proliferate in both the Canadian winter and the Indian summer. We don't know for sure that a person who contracts covid won't get it again soon and in fact have counter exhibits already. Hydroxychloroquine has not been established to be a cure yet. No vaccine. Too many uncertainties. It is very evidently prudent to accept the confinement of a lockdown until such time as we either have the post-corona infrastructure set up to cope with the new reality (the Korean/German approach) or have a cure. Again, if hearts bleed for the poor, it would be well advised to set up this infrastructure urgently and ready for a new normal rather than demanding a return to the old normal which is not coming back for some time. Things like UBI or Denmark's payouts intended to 'freeze' the economy (as opposed to allowing it to contract alarmingly) can also be embraced if the capitalist class would let go of its embrace of an economic orthodoxy that favours its cause and lines its pockets.
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micky
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: October 02 2005 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 46838 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 07:48 |
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great post Madan.. and great to see you alive and kicking Dean.
well... what has it been. 6 weeks of the new normal. Go to work and shut ourselves in an office and return home to shut ourselves in our homes. I do think the big wigs.. the captains of business.. high finance and investors, to say nothing of the current resident of the adult day care on Penn. Ave who are banking their money and political livelihoods on the big V. ie a rapid return to normal are jerking themselves off. Asked myelf a lot recently and talking with a lot of others.. even when resistrictions are lifted.. little is really going to change. I love going to the bar after work and knocking back a few as much as anyone and rubbing shoulders with the upper crust of DC in a packed bar.. but it will be a long goddamned time before I think I will be willing to return to the old normal.. if such a thing really happens. it does seem a common thought among many I've talked to... regardless of what our elected officials want.. or Wall Street.. our habits have changed.. and don't think it is going to change any time soon.
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The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 08:53 |
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I read an analysis regarding V shaped as the optimistic scenario, U shaped as the realistic one and L shaped as the pessimistic/disaster scenario. I think I agree with that in general. This is the CEO of HUL, the Indian subsidiary of Unilever. FMCGs is by far the most recession proof sector. At 5:32 or so, he briefly discusses the three scenarios I mentioned above and even at the time (this talk was on April 8, only two weeks into our lockdown) he characterised V shaped as the optimistic scenario while urging people to be hopeful that it could happen. I am sure his views have moved since then. I work for a furniture major and at a building/hardware products webinar yesterday, I found the top CEOs of India in this sector all forecasting a new normal of sorts. I think businesses in any part of the world would be remiss not to prepare for a new normal.
Exactly. I am not a communist but one aspect of Marx's critique of capitalism is not wrong in that he describes it as selling wants rather than needs. And these wants have been promoted by way of forming habits. It is a habit to visit pubs, to watch movies in a cinema hall and so on. In extraordinary times, self preservation takes precedence over these habits. A prolonged break from the habit could kill it altogether and introduce new habits, i.e., the new normal.
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lazland
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Online Points: 13740 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 09:14 |
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Nice to see you, to see you.......& etc. I could not give a flying f**k about barbers and coffee shops. Neither do I drink artisan cold pressed coffee. I leave that sort of thing to the bleeding heart remoaner metropolitan liberals  The debates I have had with the esteemed professor and Friede are pretty simple. I have said that endlessly quoting official stats as to mortality rates is utterly pointless, given that a crucial component of that equation is the actual infection rate, which nobody knows, but in reports today is estimated in New York as being as high as 21%. Pretty simple, really, and utterly accurate statement of fact on my behalf, whether you are hiding behind a sofa or not. When Hong Kong Flooey struck in 1969/70, 20,000 personages died in one week, and pretty much the same in the following week. Now there was a pandemic to write home about. The entire country did not close down. I have stated that this virus is not a civilisation ending lurgy, and I was right. I have also written that the response to it has been rushed, driven by panic, and based upon a highly selective bunch of figures from epidemiologists in Imperial College for the UK. Have a look at Ferguson’s track record in Foot and Mouth. Not entirely inspirational. I have asked that the political response be driven by a wee bit of common sense, for example by allowing persons whose risk of dying from the bloody thing is minuscule, to be allowed to carry on in order to keep the economy going. I am not alone. Does it make me right? Nope, it is an opinion. Neither is it wrong. This is a debate, and we are allowed to be contrary, and have contrary opinions. Like Brexit, I suppose. What I have said is that I believe the mortality rate of Covid to be little or no greater than flu. Am I right? No idea whatsoever, but all the indications are that 99 people out of a 100 will not die from the virus. I have also asked whether we would close down an entire economy on the back of a mortality rate less than 1%. Obvious answer? No, and I appreciate that much of this is either unproven opinion, hindsight, poor my own version of common sense, which people are allowed to agree, or disagree with. No, there are not any easy solutions. I have never said that there are, unlike the politicians imposing lockdown, and now desperate for a way out, but this is why, in a free society, we debate and try to reach a consensus. Take a look at today’s Sunday papers, where it is raging on both sides. As regards the Flat Earth thing, I won’t even dignify that with a response, if I take its meaning as I think it was aimed at.
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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lazland
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Online Points: 13740 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 09:20 |
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Sorry Madan, aiming for herd immunity is not a wing and a prayer. It is a perfectly reasonable objective which is also being practiced by some governments in effect, although they are in the minority. I have suggested targeted lockdown to the most vulnerable to protect them, and to allow the remainder of the population to have a far less severe restriction imposed upon them, because I am extremely worried about the economic, mental health, deprivation, and other causals of mortality which stem from economic depression. I am in a minority. That is fine. I care not. You will note, though, that the voices of the minority calling for an end to panic driven measures are growing.
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 09:30 |
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Two different things entirely. I want to see a resumption of a new normal with substantial infrastructure built around a social distancing world. I prefer that to continued economic devastation. However, to even install such infrastructure itself would go against the premise of herd immunity which would seek to infect as large as possible a proportion of the population as soon as possible. I maintain that it is easy to see why that prospect is unpalatable when it comes to such a contagious disease as this. If lives are lost due to economic crisis, they can also be lost by a healthcare overload which denies treatment to those who need it because too many covid cases have landed up in the ICU.
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CosmicVibration
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: February 26 2014 Location: Milky Way Status: Offline Points: 1396 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 09:37 |
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Flattening the curve: the same number of people ultimately get infected but over a longer period of time. This is what I hear from the so called experts and what the graphs show. Will the infection rate really be the same? This doesn’t make sense to me. However, if indeed it’s true, I understand that a slower infection rate means a less stressed health care system, fewer hospital visits on any given day and fewer sick people being turned away. Unless a person is critical and needs a respirator is there
anything else they can do? Or do they
just pretty much have to let it run its course? My understanding is that it has to run it's course. If only a percentage of critical patients don’t get respirators, is this a good enough reason to take such drastic measures? I truly do not know the answers and am skeptical about the same number of people will ultimately
get infected but over a longer period of time.
Again, if that’s really the case is it wise to shut down?
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lazland
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Online Points: 13740 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 10:21 |
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I have seen numerous comments about a “new normal” built around social distancing. I am still not altogether clear as to what it means, precisely, but, yes, I agree that what I understand about it is preferable to economic devastation. I think the problem here is that humans are, by definition, a social animal. People like to socialise and gather, and any strict restriction of that makes us less than human, and already, many people are getting utterly tired, ill, and, in fact, dying from the lockdown. I absolutely agree with you that the prospect you talk about is unpalatable, believe me. There are quite clear infrastructure issues I have referred to before, and you raise here, which do not bear repeating. It is, of course, precisely this type of debate which will hopefully lead to us reaching some form of “middle way” of compromise, and that is all I ask.
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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Lewian
Prog Reviewer
Joined: August 09 2015 Location: Italy Status: Online Points: 14927 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 10:24 |
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Not that I necessarily disagree with this, but is this just a claim you made up, or is there any reliable information anywhere about this?
Edited by Lewian - April 26 2020 at 10:25 |
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lazland
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Online Points: 13740 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 10:33 |
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I agree with this post entirely. This is an extremely wise observation. The only reason why we locked down here in the UK was because of a fear, based upon epidemiological models, themselves disputed, that the healthcare system would become overwhelmed by instances of infection. Imperial College estimated that, unchecked, the numbers of deaths in this country would reach 500,000, and this prompted the panic and severe measures. Sweden have introduced far looser measures. Not entirely a free for all, but allowing some measure of normality, and their hope is that the infection rate will lead to a form of at least temporary herd immunity until a vaccine is developed. Viruses spread. We still, incredibly, allow people into the UK from abroad without any measure of testing or isolation. In my other home country, Malta, they take advantage of their island status by isolating new arrivals for 14 days. Extremely sensible, and a restriction I applaud. If the politicians are correct, and we “defeat” the virus in this lockdown, if it comes back in a second wave, which is extremely likely, then they will have little choice but to lockdown again, simply because, according to their (unbelievable) stats, not many people will have been infected, and, thus, little or no herd immunity will have been reached. This, flattening the curve, as you say, simply means the same number of people getting infected, but over a longer period of time. That is why I support the Swedish model. They are banking on enough people getting infected in the first wave to protect society further down the line. Last point. If this virus is so contagious as to spread like wildfire, which I believe it does, then the infection rates being quoted on a daily basis are so far away from the true figure as to be nonsensical. They are bollocks. Either that, or it is, in fact, not particularly infectious. Both cannot be the case.
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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Lewian
Prog Reviewer
Joined: August 09 2015 Location: Italy Status: Online Points: 14927 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 10:41 |
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This of course assumes that there will be no vaccine and that the virus doesn't mutate into something less harmful (which has happened in history many times, e.g., Spanish flu). It's unknown whether and when these will happen but that doesn't mean predictions from a model that assumes they won't are to be believed. Furthermore, even if these things don't happen, we may get better at treatment over time (which we in all likelihood already do). So there are many reasons to slow things down other than not to overload the health system at any given time. |
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lazland
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Online Points: 13740 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 10:41 |
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Hi Lewian. Yes. Numerous reports in the UK press over the weekend. Car traffic is up, quite substantially in some areas. In my wee little hovel in West Wales, my wife and I had to go out today to buy some essentials. The local DIY store (B &Q) car park was rammed. We also spoke today to a family friend in London, who lives in a retirement complex. It is an apartment, with no garden. She is now on antidepressants as a result of the lockdown, but is so utterly afraid of the virus, that she dare not go out. Hospital admissions in emergency care are down by over 50%. Why? Because of fear of catching the virus, and it is an absolute given that people are not having fewer heart attacks and strokes. Cancer care in the UK has collapsed owing to the virus. All of this is verifiable from a number of reliable news sources. In addition, people in social care are extremely worried about the position on domestic abuse. Understandably. I do my very best not to make things up. I am an extremely contrary individual, not unlike many on this site, of course
 I am careful to differentiate between fact and supposition. It is a fact that there is a difficult and tragic consequence of lockdown. I might also point out that it is a proven fact that economic depression leads to large numbers of deaths. You just don’t see it on the death certificate. |
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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Lewian
Prog Reviewer
Joined: August 09 2015 Location: Italy Status: Online Points: 14927 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 10:48 |
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Do you have any link with any numbers from a reliable source? As I said, this part of your argument makes some sense to me (others do not), however it still looks like speculation and personal anecdotes. Car traffic being up and hospital admissions down (!) don't necessarily amount to "many people dying from it", at least not in my world. (Social distancing by the way probably makes ordinary flu and other contagious illnesses rarer, and the environment is doing better these days in many parts of the world. Traffic accidents are surely down in Italy as well as in many other parts of the world where there's a lockdown that doesn't for some strange reason make car traffic going up.)
Edited by Lewian - April 26 2020 at 10:52 |
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lazland
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Online Points: 13740 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 10:57 |
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Try this, from The Daily Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/09/ae-attendances-lowest-point-since-records-began-amid-coronavirus/ There are numerous others, but this should suffice. I agree with your points re social distancing impact on other contagions, and traffic use is undoubtedly still down on pre-lockdown, so, ergo, accidents are down. Also, the incidents of serious respiratory incidents are down owing to traffic pollution in cities being diminished.
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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Lewian
Prog Reviewer
Joined: August 09 2015 Location: Italy Status: Online Points: 14927 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 10:57 |
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lazland: These two articles basically read as if car traffic in Britain is going up recently amid belief that the lockdown will be loosening, after it first slumped because of the lockdown. It's pretty much the opposite of what you claim. Sorry. PS: You post a link with numbers on A&E attendances but nothing about "many people ill or dead because of lockdown".
Edited by Lewian - April 26 2020 at 10:58 |
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micky
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: October 02 2005 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 46838 |
Posted: April 26 2020 at 11:30 |
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I'll be sure to check that video out later when the sound system from hell isn't knocking pictures and Raff's artwork from the walls... far from being pesimistic or gloom and doom.. just realisitc. I really fail to see a 'U' much less a f**king 'V'.. and that 'L' shaped dealio is most likely to occur IMO. Large parts of the old normal economy were already on its death before the virus hit. Stores and chains were failing.. this shutdown... likely many businesses are not going to ever reopen the doors. Get used to that unemployment rate.. and the government having to support a lot of people long term. then there is DC... trillions.. trillions in the hole.. while the so called fiscally responible Republicans have paid little attention or care to the deficits... the response to the virus.. added on stop to the insane revenus cuts prior to the virus means that when the adults in teh room take power back.. things will have to change and it will likely be a bitter pill we all will have to swallow.
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The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip
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Covid-19 and the madness of crowds
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BaldFriede wrote: