Well, time changes everything. My Mother in Law is 87 years young, and lives in a small town with a regional hospital that now has 8 known COVID-19 patients, 41 more would are almost assuredly positive (waiting on the test results) and there are no beds open n the hospital. 30 staff (docs and nurses and support) have been exposed and are in home quarantine. I'm headed there soon to pick her up, which means that I will need to stay away from the office, as I certainly can't take the risk on exposing her. Well, at least I won't be wearing a tie for a while...
Thanks, Teddy. Yeah, she's great. She's out working in her yards right now. I just need to get her out of town before the place explodes, as they have absolutely zero medical capacity left, and it looks like appeals for "social distancing" aren't being very effective.
Where you said "as I understand it" I thought you were talking about your impression of what was being said. My thinking is that in an area with few businesses around if places start closing their doors permanently you end up with people with limited skills and no local companies who need them. If entertainment-type places are forced to more or less shut down then sooner or later they start laying off chefs and wait staff. If they don't survive the closure then the wait staff have one less place they might work once the dust settles. If large numbers of entertainment-type places close their doors permanently because they can't continue to operate without any income it just makes it ever-harder for the people once employed there to find other work. The people in the lower end of the economic spectrum are likely to be the ones with the most difficulty moving or retraining, even assuming they still have a place to live if their income is shut off and they can't find new work. This is very true. The ease of global travel and the growing tendency of people to live ever-more densely packed into cities may need to be rethought.
Hope you all stay safe and healthy. We have a couple of very dear friends in their 70s, one of whom is immune-compromised. They have pretty much barricaded themselves in their home, I don't imagine they are going anywhere until everything blows over.
To put it mildly, I see this as a wake up call to the absence of cohesive, strategic policy established for the eventuality of any such threat. It's as dismal as it is astonishing to see what a decisive role politics plays, even as a potential stumbling block to well-rehearsed, redundant protocals and plans of action. It's like society remains primitive and vulnerable while science is so advanced and capable. Such essential policy shoild be immutable.
I think part of the problem is that the normal situation is that we don't have this kind of thing going on. In a way it reminds me of the problems caused by snow in the southern parts of the UK. Most years it doesn't snow but when it does half an inch brings everything to a halt. One year one of the councils decided they wanted to be ahead of the game so had plows ready to roll except that when it snowed the plow drivers couldn't get to work because of..... the snow. Another council bought a plow but by the time they needed it, it had fallen into disrepair. It's a tough sell, politically speaking, to buy something that won't be needed, then maintain it, all the while denying funding to other potentially deserving causes, in order to protect against a future that might never happen. But, as you rightly say, if it isn't done then we end up in a situation like this. I hope that once the dust from this settles we can learn that redundancy offers a buffer and isn't just a waste of resources. With a little luck we might also see an economy where huge corporations don't get to play fast and loose with the rules knowing that if it all works the top brass get rich and if it all goes south the taxpayer gets stuck with the tab.
And, perhaps, large swaths of the population will learn that governmental- dependence is not the be all/ end all. A little personal sacrifice and preparation during the good times is worth so much peace in the hard times. reminds me of a story about a guy that had a dream about 7 skinny cows and 7 fat cows... I'm working from home, so I ran by the local grocery at 8 a.m. before I started work just to grab a couple of items of fresh produce. Doors were opening at 8 a.m., and when I arrived, there were 30 people standing in a huddle waiting for the door to open, and when it did, it looked like midnight on Thanksgiving Day at the local walmart.
On a bit of an up note. The city in China that is ground zero for this pandemic went 24 hours without a new case since this started. So it may be slowing down
Exactly, at personal, corporate and government level. I was reading how the airlines want a bailout but handed out something like $45bn in dividends and buybacks over the last five years. Needless to say now they don't have any reserves and want someone else to bail them out. I never thought I'd agree with Elizabeth Warren on anything much but the idea that companies who receive federal funds should never be allowed to buy back their own stock may have some merit. All this sort of thing makes me glad I left the big city for a place in the back end of nowhere.
I'm going to the backend of nowhere tomorrow... Bailout? Sure Until bailout paid back plus 10%.... No dividend increase, but it seems reasonable to keep a dividend in place No stock buyback No dividends to anyone in the c suite No raises or bonuses to c suite
That makes a lot of sense. If the bailout money is repaid with interest there should be restrictions on executive bonuses and financial gymnastics. Come to think of it, that makes more sense than a "never again" approach, although in fairness I suspect the "never again" approach is based on the assumption the bailout will never be repaid.
Our state governor pulled another knuckleheaded move. Having decided a couple of days ago to shut down a load of business types with very little notice he did the same again, once more with less than a day's notice. I can't help thinking if he said there would be shutdowns with a week's notice with encouragement to wrap things up earlier that would be one thing but the steady creep of things getting progressively worse, with each shutdown happening on a few hours notice, seems to do little more than encourage people to rush out and grab stuff while they can. The constant changing of things not only makes it very hard for businesses to answer simple questions (like "are we allowed to open in the morning?") but leaves people wondering what's going to happen tomorrow. When we got news of the wave of businesses likely to be forced to close we went to our favorite brewpub to get some beer. We don't need beer, just wanted to help support them through what must be an impossibly difficult time.
The latest silliness in PA is that businesses not essential to life were to close yesterday at 8pm. The governor apparently gave three hours notice. Nice one. Logging operations don't count as essential to life. Beer distributors do. Go figure. Maybe he's just trying to prevent a riot. Speciality food stores don't count as essential but take-out food does. It's utter madness. It's like the governor has his head, well, you can figure out the rest....
Just leaned that Publix does grocery deliver to my mother in law's house. Just filled her list and she'll have more grub, especially fresh produce, within 5 hours. Coooooooooool.
I found out that my favorite local brewpub just canned another one of their excellent beers, and are soon to be canning my wife's favorite beer. I suspect a trip to pay them a visit is on the cards. We have friends we often go out with, often to the brewpub, who are currently laid up with nasty colds. We might demonstrate kindness to them, and see if they'd like us to bring them anything in cans
Just stopping by to say hi and see how you're all doing in the midst of this situation. Pray you're all doing well.
Hey stranger. Hanging out with my folks. We'll be heading back home on Tuesday once we're sure my wife makes her flight.