Massdriver

There has always been tension between rigid ideology and reality. Libertarianism always had trouble dealing with climate change because the market, absent a carbon tax, would do nothing about it. The solution usually was to simply deny climate change was happening. How could it be? The market takes care of everything. In this case, the chronic nature of climate change made it easy to bend the facts and confuse people because in order to firmly conclude it's happening, you have to believe experts and charts. Now we see the ideology being brought to its knees by SARS-CoV-2, an acute health issue that people can see with their own eyes. You would think this would be a point where people got off the crazy bus, but it appears that even still people will cling to ideology even as a virus is killing them right in front of their eyes.

Prediction: Rocket launch is delayed to paint a large pic of Trump with a bald eagle perched on his shoulder on the rocket.

Don't worry. We have our brightest working on this:

“Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” --John Maynard Keynes

I would like Texas to team up with the NM, CO, KS, UT team rather than go east. OK can go somewhere else.

I was asked earlier ITT about what ETFs are my favorite. For people setting up new portfolios, I now recommend one ETF for global stocks: VT Buy VT, chill, and don't look at it. Simplicity and diversification in one. Avoid the debates and just own the entire global index, market cap weighted.

I have more content than I can consume with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.

I am having a hard time supporting the Fed propping up junk bonds. If they are going to back shitty borrowing, we might as well all buy JNK since apparently it’s a free lunch. There’s an absurd amount of distortion going on and it is completely unethical to the average person in this country. The bail outs should be throwing money at individuals and families. Let’s do a massive debt forgiveness program and forgive $15k+ of everyone’s most high interest debt they have. Let’s throw more cash into people’s accounts and beef up unemployment more. Let’s get some real universal healthcare in this country. Companies that borrowed shit loads to do buybacks and dividends should lose right now. They may say that’s not fair because the virus. Well reality is far harsher to the average consumer right now. That risky behavior should not be rewarded. Let some of the bad companies fail. Prop up the economy by stimulating demand from the consumer and throwing lifelines to small businesses.

I can't say he's wrong. Nobody knows what is going to happen. As he notes, the IMF baseline case could be wrong, and it could be even worse than their own worst case scenario where the virus mutates more rapidly than we thought and we can't get a vaccine and it becomes more deadly. This seems very unlikely based on everything I've read though, so I'm more inclined to believe the IMF baseline case with a sprinkle of regional outbreaks that lead to regional lockdowns. The true recovery won't happen until we get a vaccine, but 18 months may be too optimistic there. What if we end up with social distancing and staggered regional lockdowns for the next 5 years because a vaccine proves to be far more difficult than the optimistic scenario? Uncertainty sucks for everyone.

I'm very cautiously leaning towards a U shaped recovery in the economy and a V in the stock market, with the right side of the stock market V being 3/4 of the way up where it may stagnate for a little as the U catches it. The caution comes from the lack of data. I would like to see 2nd quarter earnings and how banks are doing when we get into the Fall before concluding we are good to go, not to mention more evidence on the virus.

What's the policy you would set on someone that is running a temperature in the absence of SARS-CoV-2 testing? Do you allow them to come back to work when the fever is gone, or mandate they separate for two weeks, or is a doctor's note sufficient? Given there are asymptomatic carriers, temperature checks are only going to help a very small amount.

I agree, but that's because PC and liberal minded people are more likely to listen to what WHO and others have said to start calling it. I call it the novel corona virus if I refer to it normally. But it's worth thinking about whether it really should be considered inappropriate to call the virus by a name based on where it crossed into humans and broke out. We have often called viruses after where they originated throughout history. In this case, there is some utility in doing so if it pressures China to clean their mess up.

The Chinese government should be called out by the world to shut down their wet markets. We shouldn't have to be quiet about where the virus came from and why it exists because some people are racists. The Chinese government hid what it was from the world and allows these markets to exist. Fuck 'em. I'm hoping no one forgets. With that said, it doesn't do any good to focus too much on this right now. We want someone to be angry at and it's obvious who, but too many people are still suffering for us to be angry and lose sight of what is still in front of us. We have to actually beat the virus, and people need help now.

Abbott is behaving like Patrick. Dumb asses

I forgot that Bernie was still running.

The bank is usually the one worried about its clients, but in this case I'm starting to worry about our bank, which is a moderate sized regional bank. They are lending to a lot of real estate projects, and with the stay at home orders, I'm wondering how they're going to hold up if no one pays their lease. Our business is somewhat recession proof because we are processing food with a reasonable portfolio of domestic/export. Aside from some hiccups in logistics (the port of Houston even closed one day because they had a case), we are pretty much running full speed ahead. However, we are small enough to where a COVID case would significantly hamper our operation, which is why we are emphasizing social distancing as much as we can. We can't afford to shut down. We are doing everything we can reasonably do to mitigate risk, but I don't know if I've ever been this stressed out trying to put fires out every fucking day, and lately almost half my time seems to be spent on issues around the virus. Edit: P.S. We are in the middle of planning a wedding, or we were. It's impossible to do with all the uncertainty. It's pretty much dead in the water. It looks like the wedding may be a very small event.

This could end up being the case. I'm going to be real curious how they handle ours.

The stock market is wrong to be this optimistic. Unfortunately we are looking at a perfectly terrible scenario that will stress the entire system. I think we could be looking at some major bank stress if this thing lingers. There’s a lot of debt out there. I hope I’m wrong. It just seems like everyone thinks the virus is going to magically disappear in a couple of months. The progress we are making is because of social distancing. Social distancing is harming the economy severely. Yet the moment we stop practicing distancing, the virus will likely come back. And if we stop distancing, the virus will likely result in us distancing anyway but with more death. We are fucked until we get a vaccine. Does anyone here feel safe flying until they have either has the virus and survived or has received a vaccine? Massive testing both antibodies and for the virus seem to be the only way out with social distancing in the meantime. And to think this is a soft pitch compared to what a pandemic could be. I really hope support is there for a beefed out WHO and CDC.

ICQ still exists? I used to use that back in high school when I played Ultima Online.

Texas guidance exempts religious activities and Abbott is overriding county lockdowns with respect to religious gatherings.

Curbside H-E-B. I haven’t set foot in a grocery store in around 3 weeks.

I sent this to him in an email

It has already begun. I just had an argument with a coworker about how he said public health models are all using the same model and they're all wrong. Something something about a UK study. I told this person that this is all so predictable. Blame the left wing public health experts for getting it "wrong" and tanking the economy when the virus isn't that bad even though the worst case models he was referring to have built in assumptions that government and people would not take social distancing and hand washing measures. Edit: I think what makes me more angry about politics isn't necessarily what each ideology states. What pisses me off is how people that are otherwise intelligent can go home and watch a 1 hour talk opinion show on Fox News and that now they are experts on biostatistics and epidemiology. I don't know that much about them which is why I listen to epidemiologists and bio-statisticians, not Laura fucking Ingraham, a worthless sack.

The markets are always forward looking, so it’s all about expectations. Apparently the market anticipated worse than 3 million job losses (hard to believe) and it seems to think we will be out of the woods in the next 3 months with a strong bounce. It likes the Fed respond and it likes the stimulus. I think the market is overly optimistic, but who knows. I’m not going to time it and I just buy a little. Let’s keep in mind the market completely missed the pandemic a couple months ago. One piece of unanticipated bad news and it will spiral.