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2020-03-17 05:10:51
uziq
Member
+528|3877
i feel helpless and scared? no i don't, jay. i know exactly what is coming, and me and my family are adjusting our lifestyles to accommodate it. major changes to our lifestyles, incidentally, ones that involve life and death as very real probabilities, not like your self-pitying 'i'm going to have to work from home for 3 months and find ways to entertain my children, and might have to dip into my savings' sobbing (whatever happened to the jay of a few pages ago, mr-salary-man and wife-a-multinational-director? surely this can't worry you financially?)

we are all here reading and discussing the issue like adults. you're the one telling people to 'fuck off' when they link to epidemiological studies. the governments of the world all seem to be in agreement, after consulting with their own advisors and looking at their own data, that we are in the midst of a pandemic that needs drastic action. you're still screaming about left-wing people as if a pandemic is partisan. this is an issue on which china and taiwan and hong kong, iran and europe, the united kingdom, all are in agreement and cooperation -- now think about that -- and still you're ranting like some apoplectic fox news anchor like it's a matter of ideology.

you are delusional and a hapless fool.

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-17 05:17:50)

2020-03-17 05:35:39
Larssen
Member
+99|2313

Jay wrote:

Larssen wrote:

Jay wrote:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/03/restaurant-fired-staff-coronavirus-new-york.html
Citing this article to toss in the wind reports about this disaster from every expert there is is absolutely willful ignorance. As if they don't know, and as if we don't understand what the real-life consequences of the quarantine measures are. It's a choice between millions of dead people and millions of unemployed. As I said before, pick your poison. Don't believe it? The entire US population would be infected with the virus in about 150 days if left unchecked, you can calculate it yourself based on the current global daily growth rate (7.8%). Higher risks patients are those with asthma, heart conditions, diabetes, obesity - the dead will include a lot of young.

The real problem is that you live in a deeply selfish society that will let these people out in the cold because solidarity is an alien word in the United States. The great ideal of self-reliance comes tumbling down in a time of national crisis, as now it becomes painfully apparent that there has never been a safety net for anyone who has to suffer because of circumstances out of their control. A reality comfortably ignored for decades. I'm sure the federal reserve can drum up another 1,5 trillion for the stock market, but as you said "there will be riots!". Well, good luck.
What on earth are you talking about? Have you ever been to the US? Have you ever lived here? Do you get your only information from the propaganda that European countries sell their populace to make themselves feel better about their atrocious tax rates?

America is like a family that fights with each other constantly. We'll sit there and pummel each other all day long but when there is an external threat, or even an internal one to rally against, we'll drop our differences and unite against the threat in a heartbeat. Why? There's no hatred within the family, just drama.

Anyway, we spend roughly a few trillion dollars a year on our social safety net. Everyone who is indigent or of retirement age qualifies for and receives medical insurance. We expect those that are not poor and not old to either have their employer provide it, or for them to purchase their own. Some people choose not to, but it's a choice not to. If you lose your job there is gap coverage that you can pay for for a year between jobs.

Then there's unemployment insurance which you receive if you've worked 52 weeks out of the previous 4 years (I believe) and are laid off. There's food stamps for the truly needy, and this benefit and that benefit, and housing credits and blah blah blah.

You should probably stick to whatever low level government function you have and stop pontificating about the state of affairs in the US. You obviously know nothing.
Allow me to reiterate yourself: go fuck yourselves.

I no longer work in government but enjoyed my low level function very much, thanks.
2020-03-17 05:43:24
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,822|6531|eXtreme to the maX

Jay wrote:

I'm well aware how callous it is to say things like that. I'm also well aware that suppression won't work. We live in free societies, with free movement, free travel, and international supply chains. This suppression crap is akin to what happened during the Black Death when people used to wall off the roads and kill travelers in order to avoid contamination. It didn't work and people still died. Every measure my governor is now taking is going to fail. He can't block travel between states. He can't shut down the borders or stop air travel. He can't stop people from defying his orders and congregating anyway. There are always people that will ignore warnings. Always.

And this is why we're having the same argument we always do about everything. It comes down to this: you feel helpless and scared in the world and want to exert some control over it, so you demand that your government agents do something to regain control. Everything is catastrophized. Global warming, plastic in the oceans, Komy, it's not just you, it's everyone of a certain thought pattern that does the same thing. In America, those people tend to be Progressives and they are in control of my state government. I feel that my state government has overreacted. I feel that it has put millions of people out of work for what will amount to no good reason. Millions of lives are being damaged so that a vocal minority can feel like they have some control. This is why I am bitter.

I am not callous. I do not want people to die. I do not want my parents or my in-laws, or my many aunts and uncles who are all in retirement age to die. I am simply being realistic. We don't live on easily isolated farmsteads anymore. We live in major cities with constant deliveries of goods, goods that have to be manufactured someplace. You can't shut down all the farms, or the packing plants, or the canneries, or the places that make building materials etc. Mechanics still need to go to work to repair vehicles. You can't shut down all the vectors for disease or stop it's travel. We're all too connected.

You have dinged me for not being an idealist in the past, well, here's another example. I am not an idealist. I am a realist and, I am, as always, pessimistic about the extents of political power and what it is capable of. I don't think this is doing anything to stem the tide. Color me unimpressed by your statistical models. For all I know, they're written by the same people that try to whip up hysteria about global warming by focusing on only the most conservative, dire, estimates and reacting to that.
So you don't believe the theories or the solutions so your answer is to do nothing and hope for the best.

Just remember, the Chinese and Koreans have achieved everything which you say America can't.
Fuck Israel
2020-03-17 05:43:34
uziq
Member
+528|3877
jay has never had anything like a respectable, university-qualified role. he dismisses experts, which says it all. he's a technician educated by the US military at a naval college. he likes to make-pretend that he's joined the brooks brothers khaki'd middle-classes, but you can tell from his total lack of analytical skills and ability to filter and synthesise information that his mindset is still unreconstructed grunt. his ‘critical thinking’ is the type more akin to that practiced on loony conspiracy blogs and infowars than to the proper independent thought which is the aim of education.

and you can tell from his immediate financial panic that he's probably mortgaged to the hilt and living beyond his means, to impress the suburban neighbours. how is he going to send his fake-religious kids to a fake-respectable faith school now?!? this is a disaster!

the guy is the embodiment of the pig-headed petit bourgeoisie, make no mistakes about it. always at the cured meat counter helping himself to more and kidding himself that the rest of society are just as shallow, cynical and avaricious.

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-17 06:44:17)

2020-03-17 05:46:04
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,822|6531|eXtreme to the maX
Maybe I'll go through the suspension on my Subaru, new shocks and bushings all round, it'll be fun.
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2020-03-17 06:48:14
uziq
Member
+528|3877
so italy are now at this point. triaging patients and letting others die.



their health system is overwhelmed. most models claim that the UK and US are 3-4 weeks behind italy (the UK in fact has less capacity for intensive care than italy).

jay seriously proposes we just let it go on and get to this stage. a non-stop wave of severe and critically ill patients hitting the healthcare system. for 18 months.

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-17 06:50:49)

2020-03-17 07:09:22
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,072|7197|PNW

Washington:

Taking precautions to reduce the spread of a serious disease with many unknown factors.

Jayland:

"How do I entertain my kids?"

What? I thought your whole thing was being concerned about people's jobs. You're confused about what to do with your kids? Ever play games, read books, watch movies? You could always teach them how to mentally block critical thought when it doesn't align with an implanted viewpoint.


Trump tells US 'relax, we're doing great' as his virus expert says worst is yet to come
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ … st-to-come
2020-03-17 07:23:13
uziq
Member
+528|3877
this is the first real test of his presidency. this isn't some foreign big-boy he can clap on the back and give his best golf-course handshake. putin humours trump because trump is his unwitting fool. kim was just happy to be recognised on a global stage. viruses don't have egos you can appeal to.

he wants it to go away but all of his yuuuuge successes have been consensual fantasies. build the the wall! the economy is surging bigly!

nothing quite cuts through fox news hype cycles and white house press office bluster like an invisible, indiscriminate pandemic.
2020-03-17 09:58:14
uziq
Member
+528|3877
up to 55,000 people in the UK have it, at best guess. testing is hopeless at this point, despite the WHO's protestations to 'test, test, test'.

with a total scramble we can get our ventilator count up to about 10k in the coming weeks. the infected number will rise way beyond 100k in the same time, with potentially no limit.

this is going to be an awful few months.

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-17 09:58:43)

2020-03-17 11:02:01
Larssen
Member
+99|2313
I'm trying to gauge the economic consequences of what's about to happen. This is all still somewhat surreal as an almost complete shutdown in productivity and the standstill in all catering, hospitality & tourism industries is unprecedented in history. There is no comparable situation to draw from as we haven't dealt with a crisis of this magnitude in our economically globalised & interdependent era.

I don't know what the numbers are but it's fairly certain the economies of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy might as well be flushed down a toilet. The measures until the start of april in most European countries will probably be extended. However much money central banks and governments have, I don't think it'll be enough.

So far this is one of the better articles I found but seeing the full extent of the measures 2 weeks since publication I think their optimism might need adjustment:

https://hbr.org/amp/2020/03/what-corona … al-economy

Last edited by Larssen (2020-03-17 11:14:17)

2020-03-17 14:35:54
RTHKI
mmmf mmmf mmmf
+1,746|7162|Cinncinatti
A local bar disobeyed the bar shutdown, police found 40 people inside. It has since been boarded up and the city is trying to get their licenses revoked.
Meanwhile the county I work in issued a level 2 travel alert which means only essential travel so health/food/work/etc.
https://i.imgur.com/tMvdWFG.png
2020-03-17 14:49:02
uziq
Member
+528|3877

Larssen wrote:

I'm trying to gauge the economic consequences of what's about to happen. This is all still somewhat surreal as an almost complete shutdown in productivity and the standstill in all catering, hospitality & tourism industries is unprecedented in history. There is no comparable situation to draw from as we haven't dealt with a crisis of this magnitude in our economically globalised & interdependent era.

I don't know what the numbers are but it's fairly certain the economies of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy might as well be flushed down a toilet. The measures until the start of april in most European countries will probably be extended. However much money central banks and governments have, I don't think it'll be enough.

So far this is one of the better articles I found but seeing the full extent of the measures 2 weeks since publication I think their optimism might need adjustment:

https://hbr.org/amp/2020/03/what-corona … al-economy
perhaps we’ll have to rethink this charming system that has 70% of any given population living paycheque to paycheque, many without any safety net or basic health care at all, and corporations relying upon immense debt and stock buybacks to keep piping endless good news to their shareholders. food for thought for the orthodox faithful in Brussels, no doubt.

a pathogen doesn’t care about economics, class, race, gender, ethnicity. it makes the same of us all. perhaps we can put some of those glimpses through the ideological curtain to better use in the future. china are a more willing and cooperative partner in these times than an enemy. we all have a common interest. perhaps it’s time to rethink this monomaniacal pursuit of the profit motive, which turns neighbours like avuncular Jay against neighbours and nations against nations?

all too early and grandiloquent for this talk, of course, but massive disruptions to the status quo point to other ways and paths less travelled.

realistically of course i don’t think anything will come of it. but it’s depressing to think this is the second major economic crash of my lifetime thus far and it’s still the same bozos in charge, plugging away with the same flawed solutions to every problem, acting surprised that their national economies are houses of cards.

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-17 14:52:45)

2020-03-17 16:24:29
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,822|6531|eXtreme to the maX
Yes but what is the govt doing to entertain Jay's kids for him?
Isn't that a core govt responsibility?

I'm actually reasonably confident there will be a virus for this thing in 6-12 months, it'll take time to undo the damage of this blip, the Chinese can get back to eating bats, snakes and live rats.

I'm glad Trump isn't being a pussy and calling this what it is, a Chinese virus. Are they going to stump up the trillions this has cost the world?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-51928011

Fuckers, when this is over we need to cut ties with them.

China Threatens to Throw America 'Into the Mighty Sea of the Coronavirus.

The Chinese government has used its favorite playbook to make the world dependent on its drugs: protecting and subsidizing domestic manufacturers to undersell American competitors, aided by Chinese industrial espionage. Indeed, biotechnology is one of ten categories of Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” industrial strategy which has driven so much of its theft of intellectual property and dumping of goods at below-market prices to kill U.S. businesses.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ch … rus-130877
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2020-03-17 16:32:31
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,072|7197|PNW

Seems tit for tat after that Chinese official blamed the US Army, but it's still a low game. Probably not the best idea to stoke additional racial tension at home.
2020-03-17 16:37:03
uziq
Member
+528|3877
the national interest, dilbert? really? don't you rant and rave about the absolutely insane neocons on here? the hawks for the fake wars in iraq and afghan?

now you're citing their drumbeating over china. lmao.

never change, man.
2020-03-17 16:39:45
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,822|6531|eXtreme to the maX
Go read the source, the same message is coming from multiple Chinese mouthpieces.
https://twitter.com/YanzhongHuang/statu … 35170?s=20
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2020-03-17 16:51:48
Larssen
Member
+99|2313
While presidents and central bankers at the moment insist that there's enough cash and credit on hand to keep everything afloat for a number of months, that well will dry up. I believe much of that story is necessary political messaging to calm the public, it would be impossible to announce that we're staring down a cliff edge. A do-what-we-can mentality is in place and I'm unsure if the people at the wheel even dare ask eachother the really hard questions. The looming problem is clearly so large people can barely wrap their heads around it.

As you can read in the article above only 2 weeks ago the ever-positives were taking this lightly, stating that a recession wasn't a foregone conclusion. Yet now it definitely is. The multinational I'm a part of is seeing income dry up soon enough and entire industries are on the brink. The effects of the production slowdown in China are also yet to manifest. 2-3 months of the current situation will cause irreversible unseen amounts of layoffs and bankruptcies, even among the giants in business. Though economics is not my expertise and I'll gladly defer to others, the air to me is really ominous. I simply can't see measures being somehow lifted in 3 weeks and all shops reopening. The empty streets, the lack of movement, it's a calm hiding the sense that it's already much worse and even more sudden than 2009. Instead of recession, we might be looking at a depression.

If there's anything I learnt in the time I spent with the FCO it's that the structures that govern our lives can be gently nudged and adjusted in ways, but that radical or fundamental change simply cannot happen in reasonable timeframes if at all. Even if it is necessary and if logic dictates there must be change, things like the system of nation-states or the basic rules through which our economies operate are too inflexible and will remain largely the same until they are forcefully destroyed. It's a strange thing but if you pan out far enough these systems seem to behave almost like biological organisms, fighting tooth and nail to sustain themselves. Especially in the West, each individual, be it presidents, ambassadors, even small town officials or a police officer, all just parts whose influence is limited or accepted only by design.

Personally I'm convinced that in Europe the 21st century will bring a moment that could force change in certain ways, either ushering in an era of renewal or a definite end to the 'European chapter' in history. I just expected it to be around the 2050s through a perfect storm of climate change, migration, population growth, resurgent nationalism and all related instabilities. Not to say we're living it now, that would be too melodramatic, but it always ends up being something that we didn't quite expect and arises from a blind spot. I'm hoping covid-19 isn't this event or its catalyst, but it has me beyond worried and I've seen a fair few impending crises up close. None were as unforeseen and immediately catastrophic.
2020-03-17 17:00:09
uziq
Member
+528|3877
it's tit-for-tat and achieves nothing. the pandemic isn't political unless we make it so. trump repeatedly calling it 'the china virus', 'the foreign virus', or whatever depending on whether that day he's blaming europeans or china for his blunders, is not exactly helping.
2020-03-17 17:53:58
uziq
Member
+528|3877
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/ … reak-trump

In minimizing the threat, Earhardt and her colleagues had been echoing Trump’s own response to coronavirus, which initially was to repeatedly downplay its impact. Yet one by one, Fox News hosts and personalities have fallen in line with doctors, health experts and science, in judging the coronavirus outbreak to be severe.
how long til jay changes his tune, then?

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-17 17:55:54)

2020-03-17 17:54:11
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,822|6531|eXtreme to the maX
Thats great, you can bet the Chinese are using every world event to their advantage, this one most of all.

Your liberal sensibilities will be the undoing of all of us.
Frankly you sound like Chamberlain.
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2020-03-17 17:57:10
uziq
Member
+528|3877
china will need tardy, unmotivated, poorly disciplined american plant workers to make all of their affordable white goods and cars in the 21st century. the rising chinese middle class won't do those jobs for the low wages.

why would they want to kill off that honest blue-collar stock?
2020-03-17 18:00:26
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,822|6531|eXtreme to the maX
The Chinese will have automated factories to make everything they want, they pretty much do already.

Its a big fat myth that Chinese industry depends on cheap labour, massive govt investment in machinery has delivered a lot of it.
Plus Western companies dumb enough to throw their money into supposed 'joint ventures'.

Would American companies have invested in German manufacturing and gifted them all their expertise in the 1930s to 'get a piece of that action' instead of considering the consequences?
They'd have looked as stupid then as they do now.

For all we know they're taking the opportunity to buy Western companies on the cheap, look forward to a round of hostile takeovers.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-03-17 18:09:33)

Fuck Israel
2020-03-17 18:08:14
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,822|6531|eXtreme to the maX
But the actual impact? Probably comparable with WW2 economically, and we're starting from a much higher level of consumption, much larger world population etc.
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2020-03-17 18:28:02
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,072|7197|PNW

It's funny how you present that "would have" as a question considering, to name just a couple examples, Ford and GM's sordid history with the Nazi regime. American captains of industry, celebrating the good news of German victories. Enthralled by foreign strongmen. Good times.
2020-03-17 18:40:05
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,822|6531|eXtreme to the maX
All part of the hysterical fear of socialism, and its seen as repugnant now, however did they invest in Germany?

American captains of industry have gifted the nations competitive advantage to the nations enemy, and they've been handsomely rewarded for it.
In 20-30 years they'll be lambasted just as hard, but will they care when they're dead?

Still a mystery why the British PM is so keen for Huawei to take control of the nations telecommunications when every expert and foreign leader has begged him not to. Spooky.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-03-17 18:41:16)

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