Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[iceman]

Meanwhile, in Vermont.

Attachment 325656

Pretty funny. My daughter's boyfriend, who has been living here in the house with us since March 12, not that I'm keeping track, is from Vermont. He didn't think it was funny.

[mcski]

LA train network is pretty good.

Attachment 325662

After seeing it upclose last summer, I’d give LAs mass transit the nod over SFs muni and Bart system now for sure. Amazing turnaround since the Missing Person days.

[seano732]

More of Desantis.... Any Florida Mags please evacuate......


https://twitter.com/jonahdispatch/st...335021568?s=21

[KQ]

Meanwhile, in Vermont.

Attachment 325656

FLA:

[The AD]

The idea locally is if you can't walk or bike to recreate, don't.

I think that's the idea in a lot of places, but to me it's a little heavy handed. I don't understand how driving somewhere and recreating is inherently worse than walking or biking there. Yeah, we don't want people driving hundreds of miles, but a few miles should be fine.

[KQ]

I think that's the idea in a lot of places, but to me it's a little heavy handed. I don't understand how driving somewhere and recreating is inherently worse than walking or biking there. Yeah, we don't want people driving hundreds of miles, but a few miles should be fine.

give them an inch they take 100 miles.............

[Benny Profane]

More of Desantis.... Any Florida Mags please evacuate......


https://twitter.com/jonahdispatch/st...335021568?s=21

I just figured it out. The real estate people bribed him to keep as much open as he can, so, in six months to a year there will be a ton of homes and condos on the market after he culls the herd of old people. Brilliant.

[old goat]

I think that's the idea in a lot of places, but to me it's a little heavy handed. I don't understand how driving somewhere and recreating is inherently worse than walking or biking there. Yeah, we don't want people driving hundreds of miles, but a few miles should be fine.

It's not the act of driving. It's a way of keeping the numbers down so that physical distancing is manageable. People can't seem to do it voluntarily; you drive to ski or beach somewhere you're not going to turn around when you see a lot of people there. The alternative is to shut everything down completely. Closing the parking lots and ticketing people parked along the road seems like a reasonable compromise.

[iceman]

Who cares how far they drive if they're the only ones there when they get where they're going? I get keeping the parking lots closed though, particularlt at the beach. You'd rather not have a van with 10 people and coolers and grills pull up.

[old goat]

Just heard on the news--Trump planning to start holding rallies. No doubt in Dem states. no doubt hoping to set up a confrontation with Dem govs by defying bans on gatherings. I say let him have the rallies--just as long as they put a quarantine order on anyone who attends--with criminal penalties. If Trump and his faithful want to get sick and die why stop them? KQ--if he has one in WW you might have to stop seeing your MAGA friends for a couple of weeks.

[simple]

He is probably going to use a bubble car like the pope does. Move a king would make

[Rideski]

[Benny Profane]

Just heard on the news--Trump planning to start holding rallies. No doubt in Dem states. no doubt hoping to set up a confrontation with Dem govs by defying bans on gatherings. I say let him have the rallies--just as long as they put a quarantine order on anyone who attends--with criminal penalties. If Trump and his faithful want to get sick and die why stop them? KQ--if he has one in WW you might have to stop seeing your MAGA friends for a couple of weeks.

Good. Hey, KQ, keep your distance from your neighbors. Shits about to get real.

[KQ]

ugh... Pence on PBS Newshour. He won't shut up and let Judy ask any questions.

Good. Hey, KQ, keep your distance from your neighbors. Shits about to get real.

Trump in Washington state? That's rich.


Inslee statement on Trump encouraging illegal and dangerous acts
April 17, 2020

Gov. Jay Inslee released a statement today on President Trump's comments around "liberating" parts of the country.

“The president’s statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts. He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19. His unhinged rantings and calls for people to “liberate” states could also lead to violence. We’ve seen it before.

"The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted.

"Just yesterday, the president stood alongside White House officials and public health experts and said science would guide his plan for easing restrictions. The White House released a sensible plan laying out many of the guidelines that I agree are essential to follow, as we work to resume economic activity. Trump slowly read his script and said the plan was based on ‘hard, verifiable data’ and was done ‘in consultation with scientists, experts and medical professionals across government.’

"Less than 24 hours later, the president is off the rails. He’s not quoting scientists and doctors but spewing dangerous, anti-democratic rhetoric.

“We appreciate our continued communication with the vice president, Dr. Birx, Admiral Polowczyk, Admiral Giroir and others in the federal government, but their work is undermined by the president's irresponsible statements.

"I hope someday we can look at today’s meltdown as something to be pitied, rather than condemned. But we don’t have that luxury today. There is too much at stake.

"The president’s call to action today threatens to undermine his own goal of recovery by further delaying the ability of states to amend current interventions in a safe, evidence-based way. His words are likely to cause COVID-19 infections to spike in places where social distancing is working — and if infections are increasing in those places, that will further postpone the 14 days of decline that his own guidance says is necessary before modifying any interventions.

"I hope political leaders of all sorts will speak out firmly against the president’s calls for rebellion. Americans need to work together to protect each other. It’s the only way to slow the spread of this deadly virus and get us on the road to recovery."

[Mr. Mike]

Seriously. Not even 2 dozen in the picture. Most of them appear to be overweight, or living in their parent's basement.

and what's up with the candyasses wearing the N95's? Cmon, grow a set Frances.

[The AD]

It's not the act of driving. It's a way of keeping the numbers down so that physical distancing is manageable. People can't seem to do it voluntarily; you drive to ski or beach somewhere you're not going to turn around when you see a lot of people there.

Good point.

[riser4]

Pretty funny. My daughter's boyfriend, who has been living here in the house with us since March 12, not that I'm keeping track, is from Vermont. He didn't think it was funny.

I'm from VT. I think it's funny. And I'm a total VT Homer.

[uglymoney]

Saw this today on Facebook, friends of a friend but spot the fuck on. I deal with a deadbeat dad. Fuck him.

"Donald Trump governs like a Deadbeat Dad.

Like, he gets up and tells people a whole bunch of bullshit that they want to hear. The he lies about working. The he tells you he's gonna bring you some stuff. And you get all excited because he's saying everything you want to hear and he's not like Mom who makes you brush your teeth and eat vegetables, but when it's time to come through on all them promises, he changes the subject or pretends like it never happened.

And, of course we get mad at Mom because she's the responsible parent. She's the one who makes us do no-fun stuff like go to bed on time and homework. Meanwhile, Deadbeat Dad comes over, tells us he's gonna get us a motorcycle and a pet monkey and then vanishes like a fart in the wind for a few weeks, months, or years.

And that's what the COVID-19 response looks like. Our Deadbeat Dad President getting up every day and inciting his base by promising them an end to this pandemic that he knows he doesn't have the means or the wherewithal to deliver. But he knows they want to believe the lie, even if it's reckless and irresponsible.

That leaves the Governor and Mayor Moms out there to get stuck holding the bad news bag. They're the ones who have to put the Stay At Home orders in place. They're the ones who have to make the mandates as to who needs to shelter in place, what stores are open, who's an essential employee, and how much stuff you can buy. And they look like the assholes because they're the ones actually keeping us safe. They're the ones being responsible parents. They're the ones who are telling us the truth and they know we don't like it.

So that's where we are now. An America governed by a man who's telling you he's gonna take you to the water park next weekend, but he doesn't have money or a car. Meanwhile, when Mom steps up and says that we need to be rational and not get our hopes up, we get mad at her instead of getting mad at the lie.

This is America in 2020. We're not getting that pet monkey."

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[S_jenks]

Trump in Washington state? That's rich.

I mean, Eastern Washington might be more receptive to a Trump visit. He did hold a rally in Missoula, which was was an odd move considering it's the most liberal city in MT.

Had some messages to greet his plane as it flew in:

[MultiVerse]

Of course banks failed before the Fed, that is what is supposed to happen to businesses that get themselves into trouble. The problem is the Fed incentivizes this type of profit driven risky behavior.

Implying that the Great Depression wouldn't have been so bad if the Fed bailed out the banks is useless - it can't be proven or disproven. The Fed deserves plenty of blame for creating the Depression in the first place with their inflation of the money supply in the 1920's.

The Fed was able to reinflate the housing bubble after '08. It is still a bubble. What do you think would have happened to the housing market if the Fed hadn't lowered rates sharply? What do you think would happen to the housing market if the Fed let rates normalize now?

"My theory" is a useful forecasting hypothesis. Plenty of people predicted the dot-com crash and the housing crash - particularly those that follow the Austrian school. They have predicted the next one too, and it looks like the virus will be the pin that pops that bubble. Time will tell.

Once again, your arguments are ahistorical. Fed policy was not expansionary during the 1920s. From Friedman’s Monetary History:

The economic collapse from 1929 to 1933 has produced much misunderstanding of the twenties. The widespread belief that what goes up must come down and hence also that what comes down must do so because it earlier went up, plus the dramatic stock market boom, have led many to suppose that the United States experienced severe inflation before 1929 and the Reserve System served as an engine of it. Nothing could be further from the truth. By 1923, wholesale prices had recovered only a sixth of their 1920-21 decline. From then until 1929, they fell on the average of 1 percent per year.

So, during the 1920s there's deflation, no housing bubble, no inflation in the price of gold, interest rates were not low either, and the monetary base—specifically money created by the Fed—barely changed.

The fact is your list of Fed "bubbles" 1929, 2000 dot-com, 2006-07 housing, occurred during periods when money was tight. Since then both the Nasdaq and US housing, following random unpredictable ups and downs prior to the COVID pandemic, recovered relative to the long term trend.


The original premise that the Fed is entirely to blame, not the pandemic, not all the other reasons listed by everyone else, is absurd.

[MultiVerse]

The reason why the above matters, why letting people, businesses, and banks fail en masse is a bad idea, is because once the rate of failure is non-linear: firm exit and job destruction amplifies the exogenous shock, the non-payment of mortgages makes the banking system insolvent and beyond saving, supply chains for things like medicine fail, workers lose skills, resulting in economic collapse the results of which can persist for decades.

Pandemics depress the economy, public interventions do not.

[jono]

Who cares how far they drive if they're the only ones there when they get where they're going? I get keeping the parking lots closed though, particularlt at the beach. You'd rather not have a van with 10 people and coolers and grills pull up.

Distance matters for two reasons. The virus is a hitchhiker and if it has to catch more rides to cover the distance it gets there slower. And the further you're going the less certain you are of what you'll find when you get there.

[old goat]

Distance matters for two reasons. The virus is a hitchhiker and if it has to catch more rides to cover the distance it gets there slower. And the further you're going the less certain you are of what you'll find when you get there.

I'm not sure I buy number one--I think we have to assume that the virus is everywhere. Over half of the infected sailors on the Roosevelt were asymptomatic. In places with younger, healthier populations--like naval vessels and mountain towns--I suspect the percentage of asymptomatic carriers is higher than in cities. If that out of town CV+ visitor brings it to your ski town or recreates locally they're still infecting other people if they aren't observing distancing.

I think things are going to get uglier in the mountains when the snow melts. It's a lot easier to maintain distance on a snow covered slope than on a busy mountain hiking trail. It's going to be a tough summer.

Meanwhile--Stephen Moore, a member of the white house council on reopening the economy, said this about the people protesting stay at home orders: “I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.”
Seriously? And we're talking about a disease that seems to have a predilection for killing black people.

[The AD]

Meanwhile--Stephen Moore, a member of the white house council on reopening the economy, said this about the people protesting stay at home orders: “I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.”
Seriously? And we're talking about a disease that seems to have a predilection for killing black people.

For fuck's sake

I call him the modern day Vidkun Quisling.

[Rideski]