Breathtaking!

[Mega]

Pinch me?
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...chdog-11959016

Meantime at the FED:-

[Mega]

Re: Breathtaking!

[GRG55]

Re: Breathtaking!

This is the culmination of our political leaders abrogating their responsibilities to lead.

At the same time as the health authorities, who bear no responsibility for the consequences of their recommendations or policies beyond the potential health outcomes, are systematically shutting down the entire global economy, nation by nation, our Central Banks are desperately trying to (re)goose the same economies to keep them from closing up.

And our feckless leaders virtue signal from their secure and luxurious self-quarantines.

Gotta love it. It wasn't bad enough that us Boomers engineered one of the biggest wealth transfers from young to old in history. Now we are wiping out the jobs and future hopes of the young in the workforce in order to try to save more of the lives of the 80+ in nursing homes who don't need the economy any more.

[jk]

Re: Breathtaking!

the virus is the solution to the social security funding problem

[shiny!]

Re: Breathtaking!

the virus is the solution to the social security funding problem

I don't think for a minute that certain policy makers aren't thinking of this. Not just SS, but Medicare also.

Between now and 2050, more than 28 million boomers will have Alzheimer's. Been wondering for a long time how Medicare is planning to pay for their longterm care. Boomers with dementia will suck all the resources from any government funded health care system.

Personally, I'd rather go out fast with Covid-19 than live in dementia.

[Woodsman]

Re: Breathtaking!

...Gotta love it. It wasn't bad enough that us Boomers engineered one of the biggest wealth transfers from young to old in history. Now we are wiping out the jobs and future hopes of the young in the workforce in order to try to save more of the lives of the 80+ in nursing homes who don't need the economy any more.

We're on the cusp of a deflationary depression driven by a sudden-stop demand crash unseen in modern history. In a few weeks it will be undeniable even to a muddle-headed youngster. I imagine more than a few of those kids partying in South Florida, South Padre, and the other spring break hot spots, might understand what's in store for them and decide to go visit the grandparents and give them a big hug and kiss of corona.

The idea that the boomers are going to save themselves by tossing the young overboard is just another one in a series of self-delusions they've held since childhood that somehow they alone are history's chosen generation. Reality is about to bite us in the ass. This has all the makings of a Boomercaust and you can hear the first tiny crackles of realization in the cries of aegism at the very idea that medical systems might prioritize the needs of younger people over say, hip replacements and cataract surgery.

Bye Grandma. At least you got to go to Woodstock.

Throughout the developing crisis in Italy, however, I've noticed a worrying ageism in the language surrounding the question of who to treat first. Some medics have been openly admitting that they are prioritising younger patients over older ones.

I appreciate the huge difficulties doctors in Italy are facing, but this is not acceptable. Ageism is the last bastion of acceptable prejudice in society. Phrases such as 'they were old anyway' and 'they've had a good life' are bandied about without thinking about what they really mean.

Does your age mean your life is worth less than someone else's?

Well, yes. It absolutely does. There are multiple reasons to prioritize saving younger people in these circumstances and every elderly individual worth his salt wouldn't hesitate to agree. Damned Boomers can't even die with dignity; it's no surprise that so many of them are going out caterwauling and crying about their importance to the bitter end.

First, the principles of triage dictate that the old people most at risk be treated last. Their treatment consumes more medical resources to less avail than any other population. Second, the principles of economics dictate that old people most at risk be treated last. Their treatment costs considerably more, which means fewer of them can be treated. Third, the principles of fairness dictate that old people be treated last. They have already lived most of their lives, where the young have not. And fourth, the principles of societal survival dictate that old people be treated last. They can neither maintain or sustain society, while the young must live if society is to survive.

Prioritizing medical treatment - and by implication, economic opportunity - for the young over the elderly is not only acceptable, it is absolutely necessary, especially in times when resources are limited. Not only is it not "ageism" to deprioritize the treatment of the elderly, it is pure anti-societal narcissism for any elderly individual to demand equal medical priority for his age cohort.

It should come as no surprise that the same generation who said "never trust anyone over thirty" will have as its last and final cri de coeur "Save the useless old people first!" That's just par for the course for a generation utterly unable to imagine that everyone else isn't as relentlessly narcissistic as they are.

GRG, you seem to think that Gen-Xers, Millenials, and Zoomers aren't perfectly aware that this is what is planned for them. As if starting with the X-ers, somehow they've missed the fact that we Boomers have sucked the oxygen from the room the whole of their lives. I think the images of youngsters ignoring the warnings against crowds and traveling to spring break is instructive as to what these kids are really thinking:

Spring Break Continues at South Padre Island Despite Coronavirus

I think they're saying "we know it might kill the old ones, but we don't care! We're only doing in our youth what they did in theirs! For as long as we can remember, you Boomers were putting yourselves first. You put yourselves first when you were getting divorced and our friends were returning to elementary school in the fall with haunted expressions and new last names. You merely annoying when Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven was named the #1 most-requested song on the main rock station for the 25th year in a row. And you were just ridiculous when first you proclaimed that 40 was the new 30, and then 50 the new 30, and now 70 the new 50."

And the ridicule is so well deserved. I recently saw a grotesque television commercial that literally showed incontinent old women rolling around in their underwear, with the tagline OUR BODIES CHANGE, BUT WHY SHOULD WE? The name of the commercial? Of course, it's AGELESS.

Companies wouldn't still be marketing to the Boomer's trademark generational narcissism if it didn't continue to work for them.

Since GenX entered the workplace, they and every generation since have known they weren't going to be collecting much, if anything, in the way of social security, literally since the very first day they paid into it. They have known that their selfish, self-centered predecessors weren't going to leave them any inheritances since they first started saving money. Their only mistake was to believe that they would at least leave them a functioning society. Whenever we are given the chance, we Boomer's never fail to reveal our total ignorance of the generations that followed us.

Of course, these kids are not monsters. This isn't The Day of the Pillow. This isn't a "Boomers must die" program. This is merely the time-honored concept of "child-bearing women and children first". Only a Boomer could possibly assume that not being prioritized is tantamount to a death sentence.

Even in their cries of ageism, Boomers reveal the narcissism we're so famous for. Who would work to support such a regime? The very same sort of men who have planted the acorns for the mighty oaks under whose shade they never sat for generation after generation. The fact that this is not only an alien concept, but one that is actually perceived as a negative one is something that damns the Boomer far more comprehensively than anything these kids can possibly say.

We Boomers haven't changed because we don't want to change. Most boomers are abundantly proud of who and what they are and are utterly incapable of realizing the mess of a world they've left for their children and grandchildren. And that is why the younger generations, particularly Generation X and the Zoomers, relentlessly despise Boomers. The thing is, they've despised them all along, only we Boomers were just too self-absorbed to even notice. But now that the media culture no longer caters solely to us, we're shocked to discover that we're no longer considered cool, aren't admired, and no one with an ounce of common sense wants to be like us.

Even so, it's not the kids who cast aside the elderly. They loved their grandparents. They prioritize their children. It was Boomers who adopted the twin philosophies of "never trust anyone over thirty" and "he who dies with the most toys wins". Saving women and children first is the better way, it's the old way, the way of our ancestors, the way - like so many other longstanding norms and traditions - we Boomers long ago proudly rejected.

And what triage might need to be established is inevitable. The math doesn't lie. There are only so many hospital beds, so many ventilators, so many doses of medicine, so many young doctors and nurses with the stamina to make it through this crisis. There are 5,000 respirators in the UK available to serve as many as 7.9 million cases. The Italians are already adopting triage practices and other European nations are anticipating the need to do so.

We boomers made our beds. Now it may be that our generation will have to die in them, preferably with some dignity if we as a generation can at long last muster it for the first time in our cursed dyscivilizational existences. And one thing is for sure. These kids are going to fight back. If they see themselves left out again while the banks and corporations bail themselves out after spending billions in stock buybacks, they'll lose it because they have nothing left to lose. By the fall, I wouldn't be surprised if they'll be in the streets in a redux of Occupy. I might just join them if I can make it until then.

[jk]

Re: Breathtaking!

i don't know where that quote complaining about "ageism" in triage came from, but it was obviously written by an idiot. triage is no fun, but it is at times necessary, and remaining lifespan and remaining healthspan are always factors in making those unpleasant decisions.

so for the most part i wholeheartedly agree with you woodsman. even as an early wave boomer, though, i too never expected that social security would still be around if i reached that age. to my surprise, i collect it now, although i still work, but i don't expect it to last, assuming i last.

i joked that covid-19 will be at least a partial solution to the social security and medicare funding problem, and it will, but the big solution will be printing a lot of money. and the young will benefit more from that printing, since they will be working and presumably, hopefully, their nominal and real incomes will rise. meanwhile social security payments will be linked to a fake, suppressed, cpi - gradually reducing its value to those who collect it. fixing medicare will depend on reforming the healthcare system, which will be to the benefit of the whole society, bar insurance company executives.

more generally, aggressive end of life care is an exceedingly expensive and undignified waste of resources. we, as a society, have yet to grapple with this issue. the death-with-dignity, assisted suicide movement is of some value there, along with the growth of hospice care, but still far too much is spent on the old and debilitated who refuse, or whose families refuse, to accept a DNR designation.

i was taught in medical school that pneumonia was the old person's friend, meaning it was a peaceful and painless way to die. but i don't think that applies if you're intubated and on a ventilator.

[GRG55]

Re: Breathtaking!

This is a larger issue in the USA than it is in my country (Canada) and others like it that have a public basic health care system.

In the USA a significant portion of the nation's health care capacity is allocated based on "ability-to-pay". That favors the older, wealthier cohort, including the Boomers. It also means there is an entire strata of society in the low income cohort that may not seek the medical attention it needs in situations like this as they cannot afford it. Some in the US Congress, notably Rep Katie Porter, get it. I hope they are successful exerting influence.

At times like the present, the single-payer systems such as in Canada can more quickly and easily re-allocate services on a broader, societal context. And, yes, that means the aged and already health compromised are generally lower on the totem pole. They generally are anyway as the system capacity is always below demand, with some wait times for almost every level of service type.
However, the ever present danger with the Canadian style systems is the influential and politically powerful can still secure preferential access (even in Canada physicians are high income professionals and tend to circulate socially in those circles). A certain level of corruption is inevitable in such systems, unfortunately.

[Mega]

Re: Breathtaking!

"i was taught in medical school that pneumonia was the old person's friend, meaning it was a peaceful and painless way to die. but i don't think that applies if you're intubated and on a ventilator. "

JK, thanks for that.....my father Gordon died a few years ago in just this manor......the doctors gave us the option of moving him to a ventilator but it would only prolong his life by a week or so.

As a family we decided that he would NOT want that, it was painful but it seemed the best & only course we could take.........I often thought if we were right.
Thanks
Mike

[shiny!]

Re: Breathtaking!

And one thing is for sure. These kids are going to fight back. If they see themselves left out again while the banks and corporations bail themselves out after spending billions in stock buybacks, they'll lose it because they have nothing left to lose. By the fall, I wouldn't be surprised if they'll be in the streets in a redux of Occupy. I might just join them if I can make it until then.

I'll see you there, Woodsman. I watched the early months of the Democrat campaigns with interest, as Buttigieg, Yang and Gabbard injected fresh ideas into our moribund state of politics. I disagreed with them on a lot of points but appreciated their energy. It's time, I thought, for a new generation to take charge. They'll make a lot of mistakes but they'll hopefully be different mistakes than the ones we made, and they'll learn as they go. But still the 70-somethings clung to control and pushed them out. It's grotesque!

I have a good friend who has provided hospice care for many years. She's seen the best and the worst in her patients and their families. Her philosophy is that she will allow herself ONE and only ONE medical intervention to save her life. More than that she feels is robbing her children and grandchildren.

[Mega]

Re: Breathtaking!

I agree to a degree but the same must be said for other "Gens".........I saw a "kid" (well 25-27 year old) driving very fast an Audi S4 (new). This little bastard could only of got that on lease hire........made possiable only by ZERO rates, don't worry about the bill kid, it will be writtern off (like the car).....I see alsorts of car up drive ways that only got there by this bulshit.

I LOVE to see a return to the 1980's.........No SJW/Woke/Me2 bulshit............inflation & high RATES!!!!


BTW Watch the uk £....it was $1.32 at the start of this, now $1.17 !!!!!! & Falling as $ demand ramps up

Mike

[Mega]

Re: Breathtaking!

BREAKING:- Every American to get 2X $1,000 cheques.............+ more !!!!!

[llanlad2]

Re: Breathtaking!

BREAKING:- Every American to get 2X $1,000 cheques.............+ more !!!!!

It's not even 1 month's pay.... Here in the UK the hospitality industry is shutting down completely with workers being told they will have no job from tomorrow and some will be lucky to get paid...This money will not offset income loss by any stretch of the imagination.

[Mega]

Re: Breathtaking!

As someone whom joined the Labour market in late 1979 in LIVERPOOL I can assure you I know what now faces these people, not good at all!

[Mega]

Re: Breathtaking!

Meantime