The Coronavirus Thread

Yes, I should have made it clear that I wasn't suggesting not to follow recommendations about social distancing, or that transmission was impossible in the absence of symptoms. Very aggessive testing and distancing and self-isolation in the presence of symptoms or suspicion of infection (e.g. close contact with an infected person) should all be encouraged.

 

Worried at all that "dad" wasn't on his list?

 

Little boys love mom, little girls love dad. It's just the way of the world.

 

Too true. I have one little man and two little ladies, so that works out well for me. Luckily the two cats worship mama (and they're also boys) so all is in balance.

 

Yeah, the fatality rate chart on page 5 here is sobering.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

 

Two words to calm people who are freaking out: martial law. Nice, Newsom. That'll definitely help.

 

Is that a 'financial industry' thing, though, or is it just capitalism? I mean, you buy raw materials, pay workers to turn them into a value-added product, then sell the product for more than your costs -- boom, that's grow grow grow.

Which is why the value of, say, the S&P 500 is basically guaranteed to rise over the long term, and more broadly it's what allows conservative long-term investors to make moderate returns even when they're holding a diverse set of mutually-hedging investments -- like stocks AND bonds, dollars AND gold, etc.

Right: https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html

But we're VERY far from any physical-law limit at the moment.

In times like this, P/E ratios go up (because earnings fall much further than prices). But if you mean forward P/E, I imagine that the overall ratio for the S&P 500 could drop as far as it did in 2008 -- from the current 18+ to around 12.

But I think there will still be outliers with high P/E and forward P/E ratios. Amazon, for example, has a very high P/E already, and may be hurt less by current events than other companies.

 

I went into my local Publix (Southeastern Supermarket, home of the Pub Sub™). The breads were mostly out, but the bakery was making new breads, half the meats were gone but people keep restocking them. Of course no TP, PT, or paper products. Milk was half way in stock but they start putting no more than two rule. No more eggs for some weird reason. Most things were stocked just fine. However, the stereotypical Indian who was buying up all the milk didn't read the no more than two, and was bitching at the check out line like a stereotype because he told the clerk that this food is for his culture. Dude, stop being a stereotype geez.

 

As a 954-Floridian, I do want to give kudos to the staff of our own home grown Publix chain these guys have been busting their humps for 3 weeks straight keeping the shelves stocked. Yet they have remained consistently helpful and cheerful under the circumstances. Good job Publix!
Bad news for y'all in the midwest: I drove from So Fla to Tallahassee today to reposition my FSU daughter, northbound lanes were jammed with every other car and RV bearing Midwest states license plates. I hope that a bag of oranges is the only Florida souvenier they are bringing back....

 

Well, it's a good thing that the stopped the Canadians from coming down and ransacking the shit out of small towns in the US... It's bad on an average day where my brother lives, but this made it wild.

 

As much as we love to ransack your towns (small and large), we can no longer afford to - seen the exchange rate lately?

 

What I don't understand...

This whole coronavirus thing has been ongoing for some time now. I'm currently working as a military officer, and because of the outbreak, I was denied of all leave and have been unable to go home (hence no headphones, no audio) for the last several weeks. I wanted to complain about this situation, yet everything had seemed so peaceful in SBAF so I had kept my mouth shut, and suddenly this week a coronavirus thread was created and everyone seems to be losing their minds over toilet paper. When @JK47 reviewed a bidet I thought it was just for kicks without any real context, now I realize what it was all about.

So what exactly is going on in the outside world?

 

The new flu has literally crossed over to other continents and it is claiming victims. Nobody can deny its dangers anymore. Little is known, research is ongoing.