EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

[touchring]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

italy has locked down a quarter of its population. italy, at least, doesn't seem complacent to me.

I was at a lost of words, but EJ made a great breakdown of the situation. Italy was complacent and the measures are only "reactionary". Yes, it's difficult to implement a real lock down, but no excuse for the shortages of testing kits and face masks.

Italy and Iran has shown us what happens if you let the disease spread unhindered. It will overwhelm the healthcare system.

[jk]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

see this graph showing many countries following italy's path, with lags

https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/sta...19688578138112



see also "don't test, don't tell"

https://quillette.com/2020/03/06/don...ovid-19-tests/

[gugion]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

Earlier I said that the only effective COVID-19 containment approach that's been proven to work once the cat's out of the bag is the one that China took: lock down. The approach is both economically and politically disruptive.

Italy is now doing taking this approach out of desperation since their health care system was already in pretty tough shape before the crisis. Iran's leadership has stated an intent to employ the military to contain the spread but so far has not done so, presumably because this cure may be worse than the disease, so to speak.

But that's not quite accurate. There's Taiwan, a nation of 25 million, 80 miles across the Taiwan Straight from mainland China, and not far from South Korea where as of today out of a population about twice the size of Taiwan's there are 7,500 confirmed cases and 54 deaths. In Taiwan: 45 cases and 1 death.

Here's how they're doing it.

It's an impressive display of technical and institutional competence developed out of necessity to survive a giant hostile neighbor.

Missing from the commentary about the stock market crash and bond market's extreme reaction to the prospect of sudden deleveraging of a trillions of bad debt accumulated over the past decade is the usual lauding of the stock market as an efficient discounting mechanism. Today the market reaction is attributed to irrationality, algorithmic trading, anything but what it is: a recognition of the fact that the USA and most of the 100+ countries now coping with COVID-19 don't even remotely have their act together like Taiwan.

Here's how this goes worldwide over the typical course for a new virus like this one, if the numbers continue at the current average of Italian, Iranian, German, US, etc.

Oh my. 12 million dead by June 2020? Is that what most in the media are estimating or is this considered "extreme"? Is the CFR of 6% around what the current average is now? I've read it's difficult to determine CFR. 12 million dead would certainly be a shock.

[EJ]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

Oh my. 12 million dead by June 2020? Is that what most in the media are estimating or is this considered "extreme"? Is the CFR of 6% around what the current average is now? I've read it's difficult to determine CFR. 12 million dead would certainly be a shock.

The 6% fatality rate is calculated using the correct method during an outbreak when new cases with no outcome cannot be lumped together with closed cases to derive an accurate cases/deaths ratio. If only cases with outcomes is used for the past month since CV-19 spread to the world, the rate has been holding steady at 6%.

As for the 12M estimated fatalities globally, that's based on an extrapolation of existing trends, and assumes COVID-19 runs out of new humans to infect by the end of May. If the raw numbers versus existing trends are applied, 12M is less than 1/10 the number predicted by the low end of the 40% to 70% total infection rate: 7.7 billion * 40% * 6% = 148 million fatalities.

Events are accelerating:

Cuomo: National Guard Sent To New Rochelle To Help With Coronavirus Outbreak

We won't be able to keep up with this on these forum threads anymore. Let's move this conversation over to the iTulip ChatBox to see if we can keep up with things there.

[kbird]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

Oh my. 12 million dead by June 2020? Is that what most in the media are estimating or is this considered "extreme"? Is the CFR of 6% around what the current average is now? I've read it's difficult to determine CFR. 12 million dead would certainly be a shock.

Neil Howe (co-author of the Fourth Turning) writes about the coronavirus withs similar death estimates as EJ -- https://app.hedgeye.com/insights/817...-even-in-china

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

italy has locked down a quarter of its population. italy, at least, doesn't seem complacent to me.

One of my good friends is from Lombardy, Italy, the epicenter of Wuhan Virus there. His parents, both over 60, are on lock down, and now the rest of the country. His father works at a hotel, he has to go to work everyday but there are no customers.

The North of Italy is predominately older and richer. The skewed age of this part is leading to a lot more deaths IMO. Individuals 80+ are dying at a rate of 14%.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

Just checked the iTulip chatbox, it seems to be working just fine for the breaking news, I see your new comments there.

This thread still seems useful for longer form comments of a less urgent nature, like this one:

About 30 million working Americans have no paid sick leave. That has two likely influences on this situation.
First, those folks will be reluctant to miss two weeks of pay to self quarantine. We can expect many of them to work while sick despite knowing better.
Second, if they are forced to stay home those people will miss rent payments and utility bills, cut back on purchases, and otherwise generally drag down demand which will ripple through the economy.
It's inevitable, they have no savings and little credit.

So while we are seeing the first wave of financial causalities at the airlines, cruise ships, and music festivals there will be other waves to follow.
Mortgages, auto loans and utility companies spring to mind.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

I was at a lost of words, but EJ made a great breakdown of the situation. Italy was complacent and the measures are only "reactionary". Yes, it's difficult to implement a real lock down, but no excuse for the shortages of testing kits and face masks.

Italy and Iran has shown us what happens if you let the disease spread unhindered. It will overwhelm the healthcare system.

So far the majority of cases in Iran are within the 30-50 degree N zone, at consistent similar weather patterns (5-11 degree C and 47-79% humidity), the same as in China, Italy and the rest of the world, including central Iran, Qom. The risk of an outbreak and the fight against it needs to be concentrated in this band worldwide.

See map in linked paper.


Research paper here: Temperature and Latitude Analysis to Predict Potential Spread and Seasonality for COVID-19

"AbstractA significant number of infectious diseases display seasonal patterns in their incidence, includinghuman coronaviruses. We hypothesize that SARS-CoV-2 does as well. To date, Coronavirus Disease2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, has established significant community spread in citiesand regions only along a narrow east west distribution roughly along the 30-50 N” corridor atconsistently similar weather patterns (5-11OC and 47-79% humidity). There has been a lack ofsignificant community establishment in expected locations that are based only on population proximityand extensive population interaction through travel. We have proposed a simplified model that showsa zone at increased risk for COVID-19 spread. Using weather modeling, it may be possible to predictthe regions most likely to be at higher risk of significant community spread of COVID-19 in theupcoming weeks, allowing for concentration of public health efforts on surveillance and containment."

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

Something to consider:

Zoom: NASDAQ: ZM

They’ve doubled since the Coronavirus outbreak kicked off.

The P/E is insane though.

Probably a bit too late, but it(remote meeting) and others like it in a basket might represent a bit of a portfolio hedge.

Glass half full, there’s a real possibility of distributed/remote work ratcheting up permanently in the wake of this.

Slack (work) is still cheap. Long term hold as remote work goes from 3% to 10% of US workforce population.

[EJ]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

Slack (work) is still cheap. Long term hold as remote work goes from 3% to 10% of US workforce population.

Agree. VirZOOM team using Slack not only as usual for continuous "stay on the same page" conversations but for video conferencing instead of Skype and Zoom.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

Agree. VirZOOM team using Slack not only as usual for continuous "stay on the same page" conversations but for video conferencing instead of Skype and Zoom.

Yep! Other names I love coming out of this: SQ square, V Visa (long term hold with their buy of Plaid, amazing internet infrastructure to read about for fintech), ZM Zoom, Uber, and DPZ (dominos pizza).

[LazyBoy]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

The 6% fatality rate is calculated using the correct method during an outbreak when new cases with no outcome cannot be lumped together with closed cases to derive an accurate cases/deaths ratio. If only cases with outcomes is used for the past month since CV-19 spread to the world, the rate has been holding steady at 6%.

With the poor testing coverage and overwhelmed health systems in some countries, I imagine that recoveries are more likely to be under-counted than deaths. Any idea if 6% holds in countries with good testing coverage?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

The action on Wall street was stunning today, at least to me.

Gap down at open, trading halts.
Trading resumes, Dow loses more than 2,000 points
New York Fed fires the big bazooka at 1 PM, promising a trillion dollars in liquidity through repo facility.

Traders cheer and Dow shoots up a thousand points.
But then the Dow gives it all back in the next 3 hours.

Full out shock-and-awe action has no effect at all.

To quote the movie "Jaws" - We're gonna need a bigger boat.

[Milton Kuo]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

The action on Wall street was stunning today, at least to me.

Gap down at open, trading halts.
Trading resumes, Dow loses more than 2,000 points
New York Fed fires the big bazooka at 1 PM, promising a trillion dollars in liquidity through repo facility.

Traders cheer and Dow shoots up a thousand points.
But then the Dow gives it all back in the next 3 hours.

Full out shock-and-awe action has no effect at all.

To quote the movie "Jaws" - We're gonna need a bigger boat.

Beyond the fact that the Fed's actions didn't and doesn't fix the problem, the Fed keeps giving more and more free money to the same idiots who created the problem in the first place. We're probably going to need $10T of quantitative easing and other insane policies to get this bubble back on track. Of course, some day in the future, there will be yet another crisis which will demand even more free money from the Fed.

[jk]

Re: EJ: The countdown to the next crisis of The System has started.

at some point they might figure out that it would work better to give money to people who will spend it.