RANT & RAVE & MAYBE MORE

Always found truth in F8's quote from Fairwind "..You get braver as your options dwindle.." -- Fairwind

In regards to this situation:
..You get braver as your hunger increases.
..You get braver as your money to support your family evaporate
..You get braver as your car or house are repossessed

We don't want millions of very desperate people in the streets, at some point we will all need to be brave as only a vaccine will give us true safety. The 3 phase approach to opening up America sounds reasonable so far, but will still come with risks.

Crossing the line to me is stopping others thoughts or ideas which does nothing but hinder the best ideas.

mattam said...
I would have to agree with Buddy in that our economy has been an artificial house of cards ever since it was resurrected by WWII.

So, we may as well give everybody $2,000 a month for the next year and kick the can down the road again until some semblance of an economy returns.

A wise man once told me "service economies are for servants" (and that means we need to go back to production, of everything).

One more thing I would like to add. Actually two more things.

Unlike the Spanish flu of 1917/1918 which wiped out young healthy people and children with as much prejudice as other segments of the population, Covid-19 seems to prefer people who are older and more infirm. While certainly not all patients that succumb to Covid-19 are old, the vast majority are.

These draconian economic steps we've taken disproportionately impact the younger generation both now, and in their future (what is the national debt these days?).

Is that fair?

We cannot stay closed forever. Risk is everywhere. I dont want to die on a ventilator struggling for air, but then again I don't want to die of PCa either, or a heart attack or a stroke or a car accident....or (fill in the blank).

"Trump signed, the CARES Act on March 27. It expands jobless benefits to nearly everyone put out of work, including part-time workers, contractors and the self-employed."

Every state where I've worked allows unemployment benefits for part-time employees. - Mattam

This is true in theory, but not playing out in reality. In Georgia, people who applied 3 weeks ago are still waiting on benefits. And the system is not even set up for self-employed people to apply, although the Department of Labor keeps promising that it will be ready "next week". My son-in-law manages nurse-practitioners in a local ER and is having to furlough half the staff because the ER is losing money. A young lady I know who started her own business in June (salon) is trying to raise rent money on a go-fund-me page. Her landlord isn't willing to work with her because he has bills to pay, too. This is on the ground reality, so I get the "let's open it up" argument.

On the other hand: My 77 year old mother (healthy...we'd like to keep it that way) lives is the house with us. Randy and I both are "essential" workers. As things are, we both are able to avoid contact with all but very few people, but when it's "opened up" that won't be the case. Our neighbor is an ICU nurse who cries everyday because she cares for Covid-19 patients and is terrified to go to work and even more terrified to come home to her family. She says this thing is no joke, and people are dying because we don't really even know what to do for them. My son-in-law comes into contact daily with people who have or are presumed to have Covid-19. He sleeps in the basement to avoid his children. Our county has about 200 confirmed cases (many, many others presumed but un-tested). If (per statistics) 20% of those are hospitalized, then we have 40 folks in the hospital, many of whom will need to be intubated in a town with about 10 ICU beds. We are just up the road (about a hour) from Albany, Georgia, one of the worst hot-spots in the world. All these folks who live is smaller more rural towns should be aware that this thing is coming for them, too. And to make matters worse, there are now reports that this thing is also causing kidney failure, and long term lung/cognitive problems. So I get the need to maintain social distancing.

Yes, I'm very good a balancing on a fence. Personally, given the choice, I'd err by being more cautious in preserving life over finances. We can make do with very little. And no amount of money is worth a life. But, I have not missed a pay-check. I don't have young children looking to me to provide. Very few people in our house-of-cards economy have 3-6 months expenses saved, as recommended. Apparently, neither do our big businesses, since they were the first lined up with out-stretched hands. It's a hard thing.

We need to hold off a little longer, I think, until true wide-spread testing and contact tracing can be implemented. But, what do I know? I don't think there are any easy, or even truly correct answers.

Donna

They used to call it "banker's welfare" and it hold true today, because the Fed is pumping TRILLIONS into Wall St., as Ed said. They're bailing out speculators who made bad bets (on strip malls that were failing BEFORE the pandemic hit). Main Street? They get tossed a few scraps, then told to get back to work, only a few of you will die.

Wow watching that guy work so hard made me tired I'm gonna go take a nap

When do we get to discuss our glorious leader...good and bad...the Hypocritic boast and other quarks of nature ???
F8 are you a double agent man...your instalink has comrade embedded and when I linked insta with link to kill two birds...well...you can see for yourself the result...you sly old fox...now both sides are confused...brilliant...I like that in a human being...no worries...we are all gods...'...just a chillen...umm...I passed by English a long time ago..life has never been the same...writing "correctly" is the equivalent of painting by the numbers...Chinese food...decent...but never quite satisfying

https://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/article/6867

Skypilot56 said...

It can't be said much better than Halbert's post. " We have to find a way to do both. That's all anyone is saying. It's not--it cannot be--either/or. "

I think that this is the right approach; however, it needs to be done with great forethought and scientific evidence to move forward in ways that protect us and allow us to resume a semblance of our former lives and livelihoods. I've read a lot of medical expert opinions about how to accomplish this. The rub is that the virus pandemic is something we've never dealt with before. And my opinion is that we'll be dealing with it for a very long time.

Actually, if we had locked down the entire country, all at once, for a month, at the start of this, the virus would be gone. The haphazard way it has been done ensures it is going to continue to spread.

The good news is....in PA, as of today, you can order from the state liquor stores for curbside pickup. Previously, if you wanted wine or spirits, you had to get it out of state. It truly is all about the Benjamins. How much revenue was the state losing? (in PA, the state sells the hard liquor, it's only been very recently that some grocery stores have limited selections of beer and wine)

Well I'm gonna rave here, l'm ordering a 10,000 gallon tank and am gonna fill it with oil. Since they have to pay me to take the oil at $-38 a barrel there should be enough to pay for the tank. LOL The craziness continues! 😜😜

Larry

Buddy Blank said...
LOL whoever thought we'd see gas under a buck.

I averaged 25k miles a year before quarantine. I haven't used a tank a gas in the last 6 weeks.