Under normal circumstances the market is like playing roulette in Vegas, mainly because of day traders and ultra high volume algorithmic traders trying to speed hack the system.
Medication is pretty closely watched these days (thanks to the shipman/allit type cases.) the days of giving the very elderly with likely terminal pneumonia a bit too much morphine to die peacefully are long gone. Now they suffer to the end, because we are so progressive.
For a while the only ID I had was my US Passport and because it was a replacement for one that had been stolen it had "FOREIGN SERVICE" (edit-it was replaced at an overseas embassy) stamped prominently on the picture page. I don't know why but people became suddenly obsequious after seeing it, even when I should have gotten a ticket I never did (especially since I had no license at the time lol). Maybe everyone thought I was a spook or diplomat, idk.
Walked up to Walmart this morning.
First thing you see are arrows on the floor supposedly directing you in the way to walk through the store. Entrances to some aisles have green "This way" stickers and others have "No entry" stickers, universally ignored by customers and employees alike. Also blue stickers on the floor in many places reminding people to stay six feet apart. Most people tend to have a bit of distance between themselves and strangers anyway. Nobody was being hassled for any "distance violations".
Lots of water. Improved supply of paper products. Fair supply of toilet paper, brand-name and Walmart brand. Fair supply of paper towels, both national brand and Walmart. Some tissues and paper napkins.
tard cum supply good, but still a shortage of butter and margarine. Bread supply good. Egg supply okay, one carton to a customer. Fresh meat/poultry supply okay, frozen meat/poultry supply okay, as well. Still a shortage of frozen desserts. None of my Outshine bars.
Was looking for vitamin C for my wife. For some reason there are shortages of many vitamins. Finally found something. Got the other things I needed and left.
From what I have seen, Walmart employees aren't fucking with customers, unlike some Costco employees.
Got back home, ran into some neighbors who have a cleaning business. Their business has gone way down. They have a cleaning contract at the nearby state university. Since no students, no need for cleaning. In the meantime they're out hustling for jobs. They haven't gotten a stimulus check, either.
Tried IRS website's tool to check on stimulus check. Same old shit. "We can't tell if you are eligible based on information we have." And that's all, cannot input bank info for direct deposit. My ass. To be sure, there was a shitload of pressure to get as many payments in people's hands as soon as possible. This means not all features of the distribution have been properly developed and tested. If nothing else, we'll end up getting paper checks. Whatever. Will be glad to see the payment any time and in any form. Just mighty grateful we can do without it, if need be. Am sorry for those who desperately need this payment for food, etc, and have had the same problems we're having.
In the "hoist upon his own petard" department, check out the mayor of Los Angeles, whining like a little bitch over city worker furloughs and city budget problems. Yet this cocksucker has threatened more than once to keep extending house arrest for L.A. Dude, lighten up on the house arrest. Get people back to work and paying taxes. Maybe you won't have such city budget problems. Hope President Trump doesn't give him a penny. NFG here.
‘This is the worst it’s ever been’: L.A. Mayor announces city worker furloughs during State of the City address
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced plans to furlough thousands of city workers for 26 days out of the next fiscal year as one of several measures to help balance the budget amid the COVID-19…ktla.com
nypost.com
De Blasio’s social distancing tip line flooded with penis photos, Hitler memes
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s critics let him know how they really felt about him ordering New Yorkers to snitch on each other for violating social-distancing rules — by flooding his new tip l…
Predictable outcome. Hoes still mad.
www.aljazeera.com
They have now added a disclaimer on the page from which the report can be accessed (available here) stating that the 1 in 1000 figure mentioned in the earlier version of the summary was wrong, but the current version of the report still states that 99.9% of corona cases go unnoticed. I'm not sure what's going on herePublic Health Authority on the figures: "It was just crazy"
During today's press conference, figures were shared that "there is about one confirmed case of covid-19 of 1,000 cases in total". This would mean that there were 6 million confirmed cases in Stockholm. During the press conference, they held on to the numbers - but now they poodle.
- It went completely crazy, says Lisa Brouwers, at the Public Health Authority.
The news came as a point of powerpoint presentation during the press conference, based on a calculation of how widespread the infection was in Stockholm. The figures were taken from a major report released by the Public Health Authority today.
During the press conference, I was given the opportunity to ask follow-up questions about the claim, but the deputy state epidemiologist could not clarify further, but referred to Lisa Brouwers, head of the unit for analysis at the Public Health Authority.
She now says it was wrong.
- It was just crazy.
So you should not interpret it as in the slide, that for each confirmed case there is an additional 999?
- It is not correct, it is a rapidly developed powerpoint which unfortunately does not match.
She refers to the report, page 12, where a table shows how to understand the 99.9 percent. That it gives a figure of how many people are believed to be infected in Stockholm on 1 May.
For someone who is not a mathematician it is not quite easy to keep up with the table or what the 99.9 percent means.
So when it says 99.9 percent in the report, how should you understand it?
- Yes, I have to refer that question to the mathematician who has done this, because I am not the person to tell.
The mathematician is named Disa Hansson.
- Yes, we have a lot now, thanks to your question, and when you said it I thought "how could we not just think about it". This has gone through so many people. But that's not what the report has produced or so.
She explains that the error can essentially be summed up as one in a hundred, rather than one in a thousand, for April 11.
Today's death toll is 185 (which includes deaths that happened earlier but weren't recorded before due to a delay). The state epidemiologist team once again states that Sweden has reached its peak at this point. http://archive.li/wip/6r13j
www.freep.com
MDHHS said:
I finally dug up that news item about Google and Apple:
How the Russian-Saudi Oil War Went Awry—for Putin Most of All (Archive)Oh, you mean the thing that sparked the oil price war?
no shit the price war (the one between Saudi Arabia and Russia, y'know) was a reaction to falling demand. you don't just choose to ruin your economy for fun. you were trying to imply that Saudi Arabia and Russia didn't have a price war to begin with and that all countries are just equally competing to the tune of supply/demand, which is just wrong. every fucking party involved acknowledges that Saudi Arabia and Russia sparked an aggressive oil price war, including Saudi Arabia and Russia themselves lmao. This isn't some sort of secret, it's publicly acknowledged that this happened. It's not a coincidence that the day oil first took the steep dive of over -60% was after talks between Russia and Saudi Arabia about controlling the oil market . Russia literally cannot stop producing oil, I think their rigs will freeze or some shit. And obviously Saudi Arabia's economy is propped up on oil. So they both took desperate measures to control the space and drastically reduced prices while continuing to produce far further than what the real demand required (and yes, the overproduction aspect has since been reconciled peacefully, but there's still a huge surplus to contend with). And they went back and forth doing this for days, until prices were ridiculously low. And yes, every other oil producer in the world had to lower prices too, because who the fuck would buy oil for the normal price when the Saudis are practically giving it away? I know you feel required to dEbAtE or some shit because you got called you out, but just take the L.
How the Russian-Saudi Oil War Went Awry—for Putin Most of All
Unwilling to tap his country’s financial reserves, and facing a pandemic and ever-worsening oil prices, Putin became inclined to make a deal, but the details reveal its dangers for Russia.www.newyorker.com
I personally don't think it's likely to go lower than what it closed at, but it won't just make an instant recovery when there's a reason no one was buying. The reason it hasn't turned into a SHTF moment yet is because the stock market is inflated from infinite QE. But that doesn't fix the supply/demand issue. It's just concealing what's happening under the hood and maybe delaying things for a bit longer.
At least historically, when inflationary/deflationary periods are spurred on by real, physical supply and demand issues, it can be difficult to combat with monetary policy. Zimbabwe didn't get their "one hundred trillion dollar" bill from bad central bank management, it was because there was a massive food shortage. Taking money out of circulation doesn't take away the demand for bread. Similarly, propping up a bunch of failing businesses with money injections doesn't really increase consumer buying or do anything about the surplus, which is the cause of the problem to begin with. The real value of the dollar is driven by supply and demand and will adjust accordingly, so structural problems in supply and demand supersede monetary policy imo.
I don't really know when things will actually get bad, but I'd be surprised if they don't. It'd be naive to actually believe that the economy is bullish. I'd even go so far as to say that the asset market has completely decoupled from economic reality.
1. the prisoner's dilemma (Archive)the large surplus we have now is influenced by the price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, which was initially sparked due to falling demand. this caused a trading competition, because they both require oil export for their economy. Instead of going along with the natural supply/demand they both refused to set reasonable production rates and made huge price cuts in order to take control of market share. idk why this hard for you to understand. Have you heard of the prisoner's dilemma? Saudi Arabia and Russia themselves aren't hiding that this occurred so it's truly weird to me that you're acting skeptical. Are you arab or smth? pls explain your bias.
btw: https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudis...head-of-schedule-as-price-crashes-11587416271
also stocks don't just immediately go to zero lol. even putting aside the fact that it was always unclear how long this would last, people invest for different lengths of time. e.g. just to repeat, the US gov has been continually bailing out oil & buying shit tons of barrels from US companies. fuck, i made money off an option on an airline forever ago, because it rallied for a presumed bailout. it was always obvious it would go down longer term, but you can still usually make money in the short-term off of speculation (here meaning: gambling lol)
omg, $-6, no way, prices are really mooning! are you telling me stonks dont only go one direction?
do I have to say it? "even a dead cat..." yadda yadda. oil crashed today. that isn't debatable. we've had oil crashes in the past, but it's never gone this low. I mean if -200% in a single day, putting the price into negative isn't a "crash" I have no idea wtf you would consider a real crash. that doesn't mean oil is headed to go lower (i mean its fucking negative, that alone is unheard of), but expecting it to just spring to life is pretty fucking dumb.
ultimately the problem to contend with is the effect that that commodity in particular has on the economy. even ignoring the direct deflationary pressures of supply/demand issues, oil is essentially a currency. the US economy is inextricably tied to it and it doing poorly really does not bode well. there are many countries it doesn't bode well for, actually.
1. which even at the start (Archive)
COVID-19 Hits Some Healthcare Workers With Pay Cuts and Layoffs (Archive)
Georgia beginning to reopen its economy lifting some coronavirus crisis limits (Archive)
An open letter to governor cuomo from wgys kelly lynch (Archive)Select parts of New York Cities Healthcare system were hit hard. Not even the entire city system. Sections of Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx and their associated hospitals. With some stress out on Long Island as the locusts fled. Particularly in Eastern Suffolk. The larger Manhattan hospitals were not anywhere near capacity. The rest of New York State was viewed to be so well off that the Governor stripped Ventilators from them at gunpoint and has refused to send them test kits or PPE.
An Open Letter to Cuomo from one of the Upstate NY Radio Stations
And the Radio station is not lying about Cuomo and the PPE. A friend is high ranked in Health Response in an upsate NY City. The State gave them 1 mask per medical staffer per week of n95 Masks. For the past month. And has only given them 600 test kits total. Which have been rationed to Hospital Personnel and First Responders.
1. coronavirus pandemic (Archive)
De Blasios social distancing tip line flooded with obscenities (Archive)De Blasio’s social distancing tip line flooded with penis photos, Hitler memes
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s critics let him know how they really felt about him ordering New Yorkers to snitch on each other for violating social-distancing rules — by flooding his new tip l…
Predictable outcome. Hoes still mad.
Philippines jails inmates staff test positive Covid-19 (Archive)Oh....in one of the jails in the Philippines, most of the inmates and staff tested positive
Philippines jails: Many inmates, staff test positive for COVID-19
The coronavirus is spreading rapidly in some of the world's most congested jails in the Philippines.
Spain? I was thinking that would be India.
