CCP holding back virus data . . . . . . Spanish Flu 1918 MUTATED, Came in 3 waves, Lasted 14 months and killed upward 5% World population

[0R0 + 6,251]

12 hours ago, Michael Jones said:

i dont know why but how come HK hasnt had major outbreaks like other places?  Were they more prepared expecting it to happen and took precautions (learnt from SARs)? Many more people went back and fore to the PRC after the outbreak than any other country in the world.  not one or two plane loads a day to milan

Exactly what they did. The big experts in SARS are from Hong Kong. They knew what to do and despite pressure from the central gov. in Beijing they shut the border. Besides which, unlike the mainland,, they are civilized and try not to hurt others so are willing to self quarantine. Same in Singapore and Japan.

[El Nikko + 2,145]

12 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Good question! Also, why is Singapore having such a problem while Indonesia (last time I checked) has not reported a single case?

It could be political or that some countries still do not have sufficient means to identify the virus.

OR, nasi lemak prevents the spread of the virus!!!😂

No testing -----> No problem

Simple 😆

[Marcin2 + 726]

10 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

ORO has presented some pretty damning financial statistics on the financial health of China going forward, are you refuting these stats??

If ORO is correct I cannot see China getting anywhere near USA in 20 years, so you needn't be worried about security in Eastern Europe from Russia. Your Eu friends should start paying their way into NATO and the US may actually be happy to continue to foot most of the bill.

 

Reality of last 20 years refutes 0R0 arguments, I do not have to add my input.

For 20 years it is a job, a good job of hundreds of people to predict imminent collapse of Chinese economy.

A lot of books were written on the subject.

The Economist was wrong only 45 times in such predictions. I read every week at NY Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, The Economist, zerohedge etc. about such predictions.

And until now they all proved wrong.

I understand the major reasons why each of them was wrong, some are just pure propagandists, need to rise readership, or need of fame or just to earn money on topic always fashionable in the United States.

There is a small group of people with real knowledge of China and I enjoy when they speak about specific Chinese problems/dangers and solutions. But across the board rants, please spare me.

I noticed some economic indicators that COULD mean crisis in 2020-2021 (even without COVID-19) but the data series are too short only a few months.

So until I will see some real historical data I do not expect the reverse of 42 years trend.

It is not that I am pro- or anti- China but I just noticed a lot of demand for China crisis stories in US readers. Where there is demand there is also supply.

Really enjoyed this lately, 45 days of supply chains disruption by force majeure and all manufacturing by some miraculous forces goes back to 4 times more expensive United States, or to some small Asian countries without infrastructure or manpower. I hope US readers enjoyed them as much as I did.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Marcin2
edit

[Marcin2 + 726]

@Rob Plant I also do not think I need to convince anybody about future China rise/ development or future China crisis narrative. In the short and middle term it has no effect on my life and I have exactly zero impact on this issue.

I think it is more important what EU and US can do about Chinese rise, waiting for crisis in China is not optimal strategy or any strategy to be fair.

[Anthony Okrongly + 114]

I live deep in the woods in East Texas. It'll take a while before people out here feel the real fear of the spreading virus, not that anyone else in America is really taking it seriously yet either. They will when the testing starts happening nationwide and they see cases in their own areas, their own cities, their own school districts, then their own neighborhoods. 

I was sitting in a Pizza Buffet and I watched the waitress clear the tables as people left. Watching that I thought... this is how the virus will spread. Waitresses are constantly touch things that people have touched, coughed on, etc. Constantly!  But they are also young. So when they catch the virus they will get the most mild version.  They also have no health insurance. The latest report I saw, going to the ER and getting tested will run about $3,500. We don't have socialized health care like most of the nations that already have widespread infections.  So, for someone to choose to go get tested they are choosing a $3,500 bill (or a $1,000 deductible for an ER visit).  Either way a waitress can't pay it. Also, she's poor. This means she can't miss work. 

So, the people who have contact with the most people and the most people's THINGS that have hard surfaces that are in contact with the most people (think a Denny's on I-30 or I-10). She will get the least sick (but be a carrier), have the least ability to get healthcare, and have the least ability to miss a day of work. And then she touches every plate and every dish and every fork (wrapping them in napkins) and every salt shaker and every customer's credit card, etc. 

Multiply this out and I realized that the COSTS of American healthcare and the fact that the vast majority of people do not have the option of skipping work - particularly the ones who have the most contact with the most strangers - and I realized that the idea that this is "contained" is a farce. 

*****

Next I listen to everyone talking about it. I have yet to hear someone seriously talk about THEM getting seriously ill.  We already know that 30% are hospitalized (and they aren't all old people in nursing homes) for serious respiratory distress and failure. But not a single person thinks it will ACTUALLY HAPPEN. Why?

Because we all have the same three ideas:

1.  We have "the best" healthcare in the world. Which (1) is false on the face of it. Which (2) only exists if you have the MONEY and INSURANCE to use it (the working class have neither) and (3) will be absolutely overwhelmed.  The last time you walked through a hospital did you see wings or floors or sections marked "reserved for 10 million pandemic cases"... nope! Our healthcare system is "at capacity" for the most part. 

28% infection rate in Dallas/Fort Worth is 1.8 million cases. 30% of that (hospitalized) is 550,000.  Divide that over 5 months (Sept - Jan) flu season and you have 100,000 hospitalized patients per month who need "respiratory support" up to and including mechanical respirators. This does not account for any support for the remaining 1.3 million cases.  NONE. They just "go home and call 911 if you can't breath anymore." 

This is true everywhere. Picture the most densely populated (inner-city) part of your major city with 1 or 2 hospitals serving hundreds of thousands of people who have no cars, minimal income, no ability to go to Costco and buy $200 worth of "preparations." etc. Then imagine all the suburbs who have minor hospitals (that are generally specialized to outpatient care) and the hundreds of thousands of self-important white people who will be SHOCKED - Shocked, I say! - when they hear the words "GO HOME!" They will be morally outraged when they are refused care because there is no capacity. Then take the Upper-Middle class who live in the ex-berbs where the $500,000+ (this does not count California) houses are.  They have no hospitals.  Just pretend 24/7 "Emergency Rooms" that are actually just clinics that call themselves emergency rooms so they can charge the insurance $1,500 for what a clinic would only be able to charge $300 for. P.S. the hospital bill if your are admitted will run $100,000 - $300,000 per patient. Even if you die, it's due!

So, this is no "best healthcare" in the world when you can't get access due to capacity overload, can't pay for it because you don't have insurance, and can't afford for you and your entire family to be "quarantined" for 2-4 weeks so the CDC can say you're safe. 

2. The financial issue are just a stock market panic.  Which is only true if Coronavirus was a social media scare (like Sanders for President) which it is not. 9/11 only impacted the travel industry ... and it only impacted it for a short time. 2008 only impacted the housing and finance industry and it only impacted them for a few months.  Both of those were followed by multi-trillion dollar stimulus (wars and bailouts) and they still caused massive unemployment issues. Coronavirus is both a supply side depression in that you cannot buy what cannot be made. So 30% of the economy disappears because the things that used to be bought aren't being made (China, etc.). It is a financial collapse in a domino line of industries starting in Airlines, leisure, hospitality, then rolling through food service, and restaurants, which creates layoffs and firings of the "working poor." This affect demand for cell phones, gasoline and the things they buy. Hospitals are paid by... Insurance Companies.   5% of $100,000 - $300,000 hospitalizations crater the insurance companies. 30 million hospitalizations x $150,000 per person.  No health insurance industry can stand up to that. Where is all the "Safe" money invested? Insurance companies. The pension funds collapse. Banking?  The Fed was propping up the REPO market when the stock market was at all time highs!  There's no way credit markets stand up to this. Housing?  Layoffs lead and massive healthcare bills lead to missed housing payments, foreclosures, etc.  What is our entire economy? Finance, Insurance, Real Estate and Consumption. Consumption gets hit from both the supply side and the demand side.  The rest in inevitable. 

3. The Fed will Intervene.   A $30 trillion dollar healthcare calamity, a collapse in the housing market, a stock market implosion, and a 30% collapse of the banking system, insurance system and mortgages on top of it... while Europe, China, Japan, India and the Middle East all are in financial collapse as well?  The 2008 bailout was less than $3 trillion. The fed would need a gun the size of Jupiter to hold the bullets to "bail out" this level of collapse. 

 

The counter-argument... The Spanish Flu increased poverty in 1918 but had 'no discernible affect on corporate earnings."   That is a valid counter argument.

The delusional argument... "This won't affect us because we are 'America'." Your lungs are just as pink, warm and moist as the lungs of every Iranian, Chinese or Italian. Your 98.6 body temperature is just as valid a host as the 98.6 body temperature of every plague victim in the 1300's. There is no vaccine. There is no natural immunity. This virus will only kill 1% of the 28% of Americans who get it... so just about 1 million people.  What will YOU do when it is spreading in your schools and neighborhoods? In your families? When Joe Biden gets hospitalized or Donald Trump dies from the virus. There is NO treatment other than breathing support.  Old, fat people with aviator glasses and yellow comb-overs aren't magical. 

This Spring will be the Spring of "fear." This Summer will be the Summer of "relief." And this coming flu season will be the Flu Season of Epidemic Death in the hundreds of thousands.  To kill 800,000 people in 6 months 4,500 people will have to die every day.  It could be me (I'm 51 and overweight).  It could be you (fill in your age and health conditions here). It's gonna be someone... Some four thousand five hundred American someone's every day... 

Or, because we are "America" and viruses don't infect Americans (unless they are bad people who went to China) everything will be Okey dokey.

[0R0 + 6,251]

 

1 hour ago, El Nikko said:

14 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Good question! Also, why is Singapore having such a problem while Indonesia (last time I checked) has not reported a single case?

It could be political or that some countries still do not have sufficient means to identify the virus.

OR, nasi lemak prevents the spread of the virus!!!😂

No testing -----> No problem

Simple 😆

The virus - like most of them, dies at 27 C in the air or surfaces without the protection of the biological activity of a cell.  So it is less transmissible in the tropics and in the summer. Which is why flu is seasonal, 

[El Nikko + 2,145]

3 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

 

The virus - like most of them, dies at 27 C in the air or surfaces without the protection of the biological activity of a cell.  So it is less transmissible in the tropics and in the summer. Which is why flu is seasonal, 

Yes I've said as much in this thread, I'm not concerned about it at all...unless I get it lol

Flu season is pretty much over

[Anthony Okrongly + 114]

16 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

 

The virus - like most of them, dies at 27 C in the air or surfaces without the protection of the biological activity of a cell.  So it is less transmissible in the tropics and in the summer. Which is why flu is seasonal, 

Every year's North American flu starts in Australia. This summer they will be the harbinger of things to come. 

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

2 hours ago, Anthony Okrongly said:

When Joe Biden gets hospitalized or Donald Trump dies from the virus.

Anthony: Watch Monday's clip on the CEO's of Regeneron, JNJ, Pfizer, Sanofi, Inovio, Moderna, Giliad, Novavax presenting their pitch to Trump and Pence (I posted the link on 'Don't sneeze.') In particular, watch Dr. Kim. Then tell me, if you developed a vaccine using messenger-RNA three hours after the viral genomic sequence was published by the Chinese, what would you do with it? I'd vaccinate ten primates, monitor their health and if they did alright and formed antibodies against the virus, I'd vaccinate myself and allow my top ten guys to do the same, along with their parents. Let me ask you, after you watch the clip and ponder the concept, do you really think the president hasn't been vaccinated? 

Edited March 5, 2020 by Gerry Maddoux

[BLA + 1,666]

1 hour ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Anthony: Watch Monday's clip on the CEO's of Regeneron, JNJ, Pfizer, Sanofi, Inovio, Moderna, Giliad, Novavax presenting their pitch to Trump and Pence (I posted the link on 'Don't sneeze.') In particular, watch Dr. Kim. Then tell me, if you developed a vaccine using messenger-RNA three hours after the viral genomic sequence was published by the Chinese, what would you do with it? I'd vaccinate ten primates, monitor their health and if they did alright and formed antibodies against the virus, I'd vaccinate myself and allow my top ten guys to do the same, along with their parents. Let me ask you, after you watch the clip and ponder the concept, do you really think the president hasn't been vaccinated? 

Gerry

Would Inovio go to China to test the RNA directed vaccine.  They could give a damn about 18 month trials ?

[0R0 + 6,251]

1 hour ago, Marcin2 said:

Reality of last 20 years refutes 0R0 arguments, I do not have to add my input.

For 20 years it is a job, a good job of hundreds of people to predict imminent collapse of Chinese economy.

A lot of books were written on the subject.

The Economist was wrong only 45 times in such predictions. I read every week at NY Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, The Economist, zerohedge etc. about such predictions.

And until now they all proved wrong.

I understand the major reasons why each of them was wrong, some are just pure propagandists, need to rise readership, or need of fame or just to earn money on topic always fashionable in the United States.

There is a small group of people with real knowledge of China and I enjoy when they speak about specific Chinese problems/dangers and solutions. But across the board rants, please spare me.

I noticed some economic indicators that COULD mean crisis in 2020-2021 (even without COVID-19) but the data series are too short only a few months.

So until I will see some real historical data I do not expect the reverse of 42 years trend.

It is not that I am pro- or anti- China but I just noticed a lot of demand for China crisis stories in US readers. Where there is demand there is also supply.

Really enjoyed this lately, 45 days of supply chains disruption by force majeure and all manufacturing by some miraculous forces goes back to 4 times more expensive United States, or to some small Asian countries without infrastructure or manpower. I hope US readers enjoyed them as much as I did.

The historical precedents are legion. China has surpassed them all. Hence the many folks in credit analysis have been writing about the coming China crisis for so long, I was with your point of view in 2000 when they would borrow rapidly and lever up and it was followed by huge growth in economic activity. I did PPP calculations to compare it and touting the consequences of Triffin's dilemma in projecting a hollowing out of US industry for at least the next decade, I used Dent's approach to project their growth trajectory and followed their marginal credit efficiency.  All was great coming out of the 2008 crash, but their credit efficiency started falling rapidly while credit growth continued. The Dentian peak would be in the peak of the Shanghai market, and would be echoed later which it was in the 2016 peak amidst their greatest credit impulse.  Those were 2008 and 2016. Not quite where Dent would have predicted. But we are well past this now. China's young boomer wave and the truncated Millennial wave that followed had peaked in their peak spending age cohort's in those years.

There was a shift in that demographic as the population of 35-55 that Dent points to is 30-45 in China because of early retirement age, particularly of Women, recently raised to 55 starting in a few years. So they shift to savings at a younger age. So this last decade, China has battled the loss of demand growth from demographic decline of its consumer age cohort with huge credit expansion to increase their incomes and access to credit to compensate for the fall in their numbers. The result was that they levered up more but got very little Yuan for Yuan growth. 2011 and onwards, things progressively got worse. Each round of credit growth resulted in a smaller fraction of it expressed as GDP growth. From over 75% to 15% in 2018. 

That is all visible in the official statistics. 

What is not showing is that the weaker SOE sector with its ever increasing leverage and ever decreasing share of economic activity is not showing a substantial increase in non performing loan growth, while those blew up in the private sector which is the bulk of the economy and source of 90% of new jobs. It is obvious that non performing loans in the SOE sector and of provincial SIVs are being refinanced to give them more cash so they can pay unpaid interest. That is why fresh credit is producing less growth. It is going to cover unpaid interest rather than investment. 

The credit expansion solution to cover lacking demand is reaching its end. Consumer balance sheets are rapidly reaching US levels while the discretionary incomes are just not there to service it. 

The current business cash flow halt and consumer income drop due to the virus are equivalent to a 4% increase in Debt/GDP just for Feb. and likely 6% for Q1.  Assuming things are back to normal by the start of Q2 for the most part - but for businesses that have entirely shut down (1-2% by initial look), then we will see the kick in of prevailing trends from before covid 19, construction should remain strong since that is where consumer's investment demand is. PMI was over 60 before. But the weak export orders will fall faster and persist for years as supply chains move out of China so very much faster than they had.

 

As to moving to the US, that is less of a problem as there is low cost labor in Mexico and automation has moved hard in displacing workers in the US, so there is no shortage of labor if you are willing to train it in operating the machines. Which is starting already. The key real problem is the huge number of people that don't get work because they  test positive for drugs. We need to shift to performance tests rather than just take them off the candidate list. Chinese labor rates for migrant labor, 320 million and falling 2-3 mil per year, half permanent with their own homes in the industrial regions shared with flat mates to cover the mortgage, half in dormitories up to 8 per room. They are below median income levels for the industrial centers, but they are no longer getting rural sized pay checks 60% below average. They had to be coaxed back out of their rural homes after 2008's New Year when they just didn't show up. Their pay rose significantly by 2009 and remains growing as the rural population is depleted. After the damage done to farming during the quarantine, they may be finding more work at home so perhaps fewer of them will come back. 

As Currency guru John Taylor said, they will crumble. See also Raul Pal. As I also suspect, the Repo crisis is a funding crisis coming predominantly from China as their quarantine causes severe cash flow problems in the corporate and financial sectors and they are trying to obtain cash from wherever they can. So whatever treasuries and other AAA rep eligible assets they may have are out in the repo market, now 40% oversubscribed on a $100 billion Fed term offer. Remember that China is having nearly no export revenue for weeks. And they have been dollar short most of last year. 

https://app.hedgeye.com/insights/81534-webcast-navigating-the-madness-of-markets-wisdom-from-a-hedge-fund

They discuss China  in a short segment starting about minute 35 in the video.

 

 

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

35 minutes ago, BLA said:

Gerry

Would Inovio go to China to test the RNA directed vaccine.  They could give a damn about 18 month trials ?

Dr. Kim told Trump in the conference that they planned on human trials in S.Korea and China. Trump said, "What about Seattle?" In a nutshell, Kim is partnered up with a Beijing company and has strong ties to China. If I had to guess--and I do--I'd guess that Kim already knows that the vaccine works, and that he has human trials ongoing in China right now. Go to the "Sneeze" thread and find the link and watch it. I can guarantee it's the most impressive meeting I've ever seen run by a guy who knows nothing about the virus. I mean, all these hotshots have about two minutes each to make a pitch. Kim comes right out and says, "We're the leader in coronavirus vaccines, having built platforms for the MERS and SARS viruses"--paraphrased. This guy got the genomic sequence off the published data the Chinese put out and within three hours--he says to to the president of the United States--he had a vaccine. Now tell me Dr. Kim hasn't had time to check it out in primates (takes ten days to form antibodies)----he had the genome when everyone else did (Jan 30). I'll bet you a dollar to a donut he and his lab workers have all been vaccinated--check out the link but he seems coked to the gills to me, bursting with pride and excitement. Let me know if I'm full of it. 

[Anthony Okrongly + 114]

5 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Then tell me, if you developed a vaccine using messenger-RNA three hours after the viral genomic sequence was published by the Chinese, what would you do with it? I'd vaccinate ten primates, monitor their health and if they did alright and formed antibodies against the virus, I'd vaccinate myself and allow my top ten guys to do the same, along with their parents. Let me ask you, after you watch the clip and ponder the concept, do you really think the president hasn't been vaccinated? 

That's why you don't have a medical license. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

I wonder how many Chinese dissidents and prisoners are being used as guinea pigs while they search for a vaccine.🤔

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

1 hour ago, Anthony Okrongly said:

That's why you don't have a medical license. 

Not really. Through the eons of time, lots and lots of physicians--and scientists--have first used their discovery on themselves. I was merely postulating a hypothetical, but in a pretty serious, pragmatic way. If you were a front-line guy, making a vaccine, with ties to China, and you had a vaccine that you'd proved to work, and if you were probably going to be in China supervising that vaccine where the death rate was over 2%, I suspect it would be considered a humanitarian right to administer that vaccine to yourself first. I really don't see an ethical conflict in that. As a hypothetical, I'd be surprised if one or another scientist hasn't used their own coronavirus vaccine. There are actually several that have been made by now. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

19 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3065132/how-chinas-coronavirus-crisis-exposes-achilles-heel-communist-party

The little poofters would not let me create an acct coz they scared of me!

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 3/5/2020 at 1:55 PM, 0R0 said:

Not even in the same solar system. China's system went beyond what any have done before. Only financial centers like Austria have higher leverage, but their external assets and external liabilities are the vast bulk of it. China is leveraged internally with weakly performing assets. The only clear bit of balance sheet is the central government, which still has 40% of GDP in balance sheet space before they reach trouble. But that is not the issue in economic and financial terms. What matters is the overall Total Debt to GDP of all sectors and particularly of the corporate sector and household sector that matter. The corporate sector is over leveraged and only grow profits in short spurts of a year or two. 

The financial sector is over leveraged spectacularly due to the WMPs and trust products they sell to the public and the main bank's 150 Trillion Yuan in holdings of each other's bonds on an M2 of 200 T Yuan. While the PBoC has direct numbers from asset management products sold by banks, Other non bank institutions like finance companies and insurers (particularly HNA who's CEO was assassinated by his minders/bodyguards). The debts they took on and what they financed is not always registered with the regulators. But the 60% of the economy that is private has been financed that way. The official bank and bond finance are about 90% SOEs and provincial and municipal SIVs. I think the stat is that the SOEs do 20% of China's GDP and 80% of the corporate debt on the books. 

Household debt in China has exceeded US household debt already but their incomes are lower by quite a large margin.

I here you Oro, but rest assured, the West is "cookin the books" even worse than China? Do u really believe US no longer has household debt problem? They count rise in share price and house prices as "assets", hence things sound hunky dory. Until they don't?

[Wombat + 1,028]

23 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Well, the Aussie engineers in PNG did...and enjoyed it!

I grew up in PNG. My father was pilot, initially with Air Niugini, but later with DCA and flew the PM around. Which company were u with?

[Wombat + 1,028]

16 hours ago, Anthony Okrongly said:

I live deep in the woods in East Texas. It'll take a while before people out here feel the real fear of the spreading virus, not that anyone else in America is really taking it seriously yet either. They will when the testing starts happening nationwide and they see cases in their own areas, their own cities, their own school districts, then their own neighborhoods. 

I was sitting in a Pizza Buffet and I watched the waitress clear the tables as people left. Watching that I thought... this is how the virus will spread. Waitresses are constantly touch things that people have touched, coughed on, etc. Constantly!  But they are also young. So when they catch the virus they will get the most mild version.  They also have no health insurance. The latest report I saw, going to the ER and getting tested will run about $3,500. We don't have socialized health care like most of the nations that already have widespread infections.  So, for someone to choose to go get tested they are choosing a $3,500 bill (or a $1,000 deductible for an ER visit).  Either way a waitress can't pay it. Also, she's poor. This means she can't miss work. 

So, the people who have contact with the most people and the most people's THINGS that have hard surfaces that are in contact with the most people (think a Denny's on I-30 or I-10). She will get the least sick (but be a carrier), have the least ability to get healthcare, and have the least ability to miss a day of work. And then she touches every plate and every dish and every fork (wrapping them in napkins) and every salt shaker and every customer's credit card, etc. 

Multiply this out and I realized that the COSTS of American healthcare and the fact that the vast majority of people do not have the option of skipping work - particularly the ones who have the most contact with the most strangers - and I realized that the idea that this is "contained" is a farce. 

*****

Next I listen to everyone talking about it. I have yet to hear someone seriously talk about THEM getting seriously ill.  We already know that 30% are hospitalized (and they aren't all old people in nursing homes) for serious respiratory distress and failure. But not a single person thinks it will ACTUALLY HAPPEN. Why?

Because we all have the same three ideas:

1.  We have "the best" healthcare in the world. Which (1) is false on the face of it. Which (2) only exists if you have the MONEY and INSURANCE to use it (the working class have neither) and (3) will be absolutely overwhelmed.  The last time you walked through a hospital did you see wings or floors or sections marked "reserved for 10 million pandemic cases"... nope! Our healthcare system is "at capacity" for the most part. 

28% infection rate in Dallas/Fort Worth is 1.8 million cases. 30% of that (hospitalized) is 550,000.  Divide that over 5 months (Sept - Jan) flu season and you have 100,000 hospitalized patients per month who need "respiratory support" up to and including mechanical respirators. This does not account for any support for the remaining 1.3 million cases.  NONE. They just "go home and call 911 if you can't breath anymore." 

This is true everywhere. Picture the most densely populated (inner-city) part of your major city with 1 or 2 hospitals serving hundreds of thousands of people who have no cars, minimal income, no ability to go to Costco and buy $200 worth of "preparations." etc. Then imagine all the suburbs who have minor hospitals (that are generally specialized to outpatient care) and the hundreds of thousands of self-important white people who will be SHOCKED - Shocked, I say! - when they hear the words "GO HOME!" They will be morally outraged when they are refused care because there is no capacity. Then take the Upper-Middle class who live in the ex-berbs where the $500,000+ (this does not count California) houses are.  They have no hospitals.  Just pretend 24/7 "Emergency Rooms" that are actually just clinics that call themselves emergency rooms so they can charge the insurance $1,500 for what a clinic would only be able to charge $300 for. P.S. the hospital bill if your are admitted will run $100,000 - $300,000 per patient. Even if you die, it's due!

So, this is no "best healthcare" in the world when you can't get access due to capacity overload, can't pay for it because you don't have insurance, and can't afford for you and your entire family to be "quarantined" for 2-4 weeks so the CDC can say you're safe. 

2. The financial issue are just a stock market panic.  Which is only true if Coronavirus was a social media scare (like Sanders for President) which it is not. 9/11 only impacted the travel industry ... and it only impacted it for a short time. 2008 only impacted the housing and finance industry and it only impacted them for a few months.  Both of those were followed by multi-trillion dollar stimulus (wars and bailouts) and they still caused massive unemployment issues. Coronavirus is both a supply side depression in that you cannot buy what cannot be made. So 30% of the economy disappears because the things that used to be bought aren't being made (China, etc.). It is a financial collapse in a domino line of industries starting in Airlines, leisure, hospitality, then rolling through food service, and restaurants, which creates layoffs and firings of the "working poor." This affect demand for cell phones, gasoline and the things they buy. Hospitals are paid by... Insurance Companies.   5% of $100,000 - $300,000 hospitalizations crater the insurance companies. 30 million hospitalizations x $150,000 per person.  No health insurance industry can stand up to that. Where is all the "Safe" money invested? Insurance companies. The pension funds collapse. Banking?  The Fed was propping up the REPO market when the stock market was at all time highs!  There's no way credit markets stand up to this. Housing?  Layoffs lead and massive healthcare bills lead to missed housing payments, foreclosures, etc.  What is our entire economy? Finance, Insurance, Real Estate and Consumption. Consumption gets hit from both the supply side and the demand side.  The rest in inevitable. 

3. The Fed will Intervene.   A $30 trillion dollar healthcare calamity, a collapse in the housing market, a stock market implosion, and a 30% collapse of the banking system, insurance system and mortgages on top of it... while Europe, China, Japan, India and the Middle East all are in financial collapse as well?  The 2008 bailout was less than $3 trillion. The fed would need a gun the size of Jupiter to hold the bullets to "bail out" this level of collapse. 

 

The counter-argument... The Spanish Flu increased poverty in 1918 but had 'no discernible affect on corporate earnings."   That is a valid counter argument.

The delusional argument... "This won't affect us because we are 'America'." Your lungs are just as pink, warm and moist as the lungs of every Iranian, Chinese or Italian. Your 98.6 body temperature is just as valid a host as the 98.6 body temperature of every plague victim in the 1300's. There is no vaccine. There is no natural immunity. This virus will only kill 1% of the 28% of Americans who get it... so just about 1 million people.  What will YOU do when it is spreading in your schools and neighborhoods? In your families? When Joe Biden gets hospitalized or Donald Trump dies from the virus. There is NO treatment other than breathing support.  Old, fat people with aviator glasses and yellow comb-overs aren't magical. 

This Spring will be the Spring of "fear." This Summer will be the Summer of "relief." And this coming flu season will be the Flu Season of Epidemic Death in the hundreds of thousands.  To kill 800,000 people in 6 months 4,500 people will have to die every day.  It could be me (I'm 51 and overweight).  It could be you (fill in your age and health conditions here). It's gonna be someone... Some four thousand five hundred American someone's every day... 

Or, because we are "America" and viruses don't infect Americans (unless they are bad people who went to China) everything will be Okey dokey.

So, what's ur point?

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

1 hour ago, Wombat said:

So, what's ur point?

I think his point is that he wants to be a victim...you know, go ‘alarmist’ while at the moment he is unaffected.

I suggest we give the experts a chance to figure this out. I live in Malaysia, maybe 10% of the people wearing masks. Life goes on. No panic yet.

[Anthony Okrongly + 114]

1 hour ago, Wombat said:

So, what's ur point?

Are you factoring in 60 - 100 million cases in the U.S. with 30% hospitalizations at a cost of $100,000 - $300,000 per hospitalization ($300,000 is only $21,000 per day for acute respiratory support)?  NO. Nobody is doing the real math on this yet. 25 million hospitalizations (like the hospitals can accommodate that many... but it will be over 6 months so maybe) times an average of $200,000 per case = $5,000,000,000,000. That's $5 trillion just for hospitalizations.  Can the U.S. Insurance Industry take a $5 trillion hit?  Not even close. 

That's bailout #1.  That's 5 times the banking bailout. 

People are pretending that the stock market is crashing.  It hasn't yet begun to crash. 

A supply side Depression. Plus a demand side Collapse.... GLOBALLY. In the middle of a Pandemic that will kill between 500,000 and 1 million Americans.... Insurance (dead) Finance (dead) Real Estate (teetering) Consumption (Cratered). 

The good news is that all the Baby Boomers with diabetes and underlying conditions will be crippled or die... so the young people in America will finally get a seat at the table. 8 years from now Healthcare will be nationalized (which will be a paperwork process because the government will own all the insurance companies). 

My POINT?  My point is that all this Bullshit about what China knew or whether or not you should wear a mask or go visit grandma this Spring is pretendanitus.... The real disease is coming like a comet. 

Great charts from CNN this morning.  Covid vs H1N1 to date... Covid is more virulent. Then what H1N1 did over the first year. 60 million infections in the U.S. This will be closer to 100 million.  People are talking about what will happen in April.  The reality is that by October the U.S. Economy will be collapsing and people will be praying to their imaginary gods for a way to pay their bills. 

 

 

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

40 minutes ago, Anthony Okrongly said:

Are you factoring in 60 - 100 million cases in the U.S. with 30% hospitalizations at a cost of $100,000 - $300,000 per hospitalization ($300,000 is only $21,000 per day for acute respiratory support)?  NO. Nobody is doing the real math on this yet. 25 million hospitalizations (like the hospitals can accommodate that many... but it will be over 6 months so maybe) times an average of $200,000 per case = $5,000,000,000,000. That's $5 trillion just for hospitalizations.  Can the U.S. Insurance Industry take a $5 trillion hit?  Not even close. 

That's bailout #1.  That's 5 times the banking bailout. 

People are pretending that the stock market is crashing.  It hasn't yet begun to crash. 

A supply side Depression. Plus a demand side Collapse.... GLOBALLY. In the middle of a Pandemic that will kill between 500,000 and 1 million Americans.... Insurance (dead) Finance (dead) Real Estate (teetering) Consumption (Cratered). 

The good news is that all the Baby Boomers with diabetes and underlying conditions will be crippled or die... so the young people in America will finally get a seat at the table. 8 years from now Healthcare will be nationalized (which will be a paperwork process because the government will own all the insurance companies). 

My POINT?  My point is that all this Bullshit about what China knew or whether or not you should wear a mask or go visit grandma this Spring is pretendanitus.... The real disease is coming like a comet. 

Great charts from CNN this morning.  Covid vs H1N1 to date... Covid is more virulent. Then what H1N1 did over the first year. 60 million infections in the U.S. This will be closer to 100 million.  People are talking about what will happen in April.  The reality is that by October the U.S. Economy will be collapsing and people will be praying to their imaginary gods for a way to pay their bills. 

 

 

Forgive me Anthony but 1 minute I'm reading your thoughts on this is all scaremongering and that it will all blow over in a couple of months, and then you seemed to have flipped totally to we're all going to die and the economy is doomed.

Rather than living in extremes try taking a step back and waiting for expert opinion on the whole thing and then make some middle of the road comments.

The world is still turning and we're still here!

Calm down mate!

[Anthony Okrongly + 114]

11 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Not really. Through the eons of time, lots and lots of physicians--and scientists--have first used their discovery on themselves. I was merely postulating a hypothetical, but in a pretty serious, pragmatic way. If you were a front-line guy, making a vaccine, with ties to China, and you had a vaccine that you'd proved to work, and if you were probably going to be in China supervising that vaccine where the death rate was over 2%, I suspect it would be considered a humanitarian right to administer that vaccine to yourself first. I really don't see an ethical conflict in that. As a hypothetical, I'd be surprised if one or another scientist hasn't used their own coronavirus vaccine. There are actually several that have been made by now. 

Logical except when it takes 12 years to get into a job and 20 years to get respected you take your reputation and ethics pretty seriously, I would bet. Can China do what the President said they should do and make a vaccine, give it to prisoners and then expose the prisoners to the virus?  (Yes, he did basically say that because he's a sociopath.) Yes they can. Would the U.S. then use that vaccine? Not a chance in hell. To "them" (the doctors) you are just another patient. They watch patients die every day.  Should they (as a doctor) ruin their career trying to save another patient or should they let you and a million like you die but still have their reputation when it's all over? The answer is B. It's not even close... that assumed that a doctor could do this in the U.S. anyway, which they can't. Trump or not the FDA isn't going to stop doing what the FDA has done for decades. Follow rules. 

[Anthony Okrongly + 114]

16 minutes ago, Rob Plant said:

Forgive me Anthony but 1 minute I'm reading your thoughts on this is all scaremongering and that it will all blow over in a couple of months, and then you seemed to have flipped totally to we're all going to die and the economy is doomed.

Rather than living in extremes try taking a step back and waiting for expert opinion on the whole thing and then make some middle of the road comments.

The world is still turning and we're still here!

Calm down mate!

Then start a new thread called "Calm down mate." In the thread about how Coronavirus was going to destroy oil I disagreed. Because it won't.  This thread is called Spanish Flu... will kill 5% of the population.  I'm actually taking the CALM view. It will only kill 0.4% of the world's population... less than half a percent.  I'm just explaining in detail what that will mean economically....

You are forgiven.  Keep up. Times are changing. I'm responding to new data.

 

Plus the thread had devolved into arguing over China... boring!

Edited March 6, 2020 by Anthony Okrongly

[Anthony Okrongly + 114]

21 minutes ago, Rob Plant said:

Forgive me Anthony but 1 minute I'm reading your thoughts on this is all scaremongering and that it will all blow over in a couple of months, and then you seemed to have flipped totally to we're all going to die and the economy is doomed.

Rather than living in extremes try taking a step back and waiting for expert opinion on the whole thing and then make some middle of the road comments.

The world is still turning and we're still here!

Calm down mate!

Middle of the road.   Eventually people will need shoes and car tires and the economy will recover. 

Middle of the road.  Old and sick people were gonna die anyway, so the virus just took the crappy years off the end. 

Middle of the road.  The U.S. will end up with nationalized healthcare out of, which we need. Between the exploding drug costs, legal costs and exploitation... plus little to no actually access... it'll probably be better for most people, worse for some others. 

Middle of the road. Kids seem to be safe.

Middle of the road. I had some pizza buffet yesterday that was good. And by the end of next year we will start to have some vaccine and some natural resistance. So, Chill Out!  You will eventually get a job and if you don't die this year you're probably ok.

I left out all the parts about the U.S. Fed collapsing and the western world having to be bailed out by SDR via World Bank.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Anthony Okrongly