The Spreading (And Potentially Deadly) Coronavirus Epidemic....

[fcgamer | 4,769]

6 hours ago, RetroMichel said:

Hey guys, I work in a grocery store and lots of people come here every day. I am starting to get anxious about being infected by a customer or something. I mean, in Québec, schools are getting closed for minimum two weeks and gatherings are not allowed anymore. But, I interact with many customers, since they need my help. I am thinking about not going to work for the two next weeks, but then, my coworkers would have trouble with all the stuff they need to place in the aisles. Any advice ?

Just keep working, unless you get sick of course.

I'm sure some of your coworkers might share the same worries as you do, imo everyone should stick it out as a team.

As others mentioned too, you should be glad you have the opportunity to receive a paycheck, furthermore the whole thing is being blown out of proportion by the media.

[Estil | 1,265]

2 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Just keep working, unless you get sick of course.

I'm sure some of your coworkers might share the same worries as you do, imo everyone should stick it out as a team.

As others mentioned too, you should be glad you have the opportunity to receive a paycheck, furthermore the whole thing is being blown out of proportion by the media.

If the media blowing it out of proportion ends this crisis that much quicker then I'm all for it...just so long as people don't resort to panic and such...just being better safe than sorry.

[Estil | 1,265]

4 hours ago, Link said:

AND. (knew I was forgetting something.) 

I’m sorry to all my friends, but I’m further putting off interaction. I’m REALLY sorry to my friends who are bartenders, musicians, artists and the like, whose lives are more severely interrupted. 

If you not exercising this caution caused them to get sick (remember the virus can be inside of you for a week or two without you even knowing it) that's the kind of thing to be sorry for.  I've been doing the same thing myself...only leaving my apartment to get groceries and only during very early morning or very late night when there's hardly any people there.  Though I'm mostly an introvert anyway I figure I gotta do my part in anyway I can.  Because this coronavirus thing does not sound fun and I for one refuse to take any unnecessary chances. 

[jonebone | 1,307]

Ugh... Fed reduced their rates to zero already!  My gosh, this is way worse than I could have imagined.

This is being spun as a health crisis but it is no longer than that, it is a full fledged economic crisis that is going to get much worse.  They just dropped rates a couple of weeks ago, they have effectively used all of their ammo at this point.  And we're just getting started on the closures and outbreak!  

Bottom is going to fall out of the stock market, who knows where we'll end up.  Not necessarily in a day but god only knows how low it'll go. 

[OptOut | 8,892]

2 minutes ago, jonebone said:

Ugh... Fed reduced their rates to zero already!  My gosh, this is way worse than I could have imagined.

This is being spun as a health crisis but it is no longer than that, it is a full fledged economic crisis that is going to get much worse.  They just dropped rates a couple of weeks ago, they have effectively used all of their ammo at this point.  And we're just getting started on the closures and outbreak!  

Bottom is going to fall out of the stock market, who knows where we'll end up.  Not necessarily in a day but god only knows how low it'll go. 

It's at times like this I'm glad my entire networth is tied up in nintender tapes!

And all the better seeing as I can play them too while I'm waiting for the pox to die down! Win-win!

[Californication | 1,490]

19 minutes ago, jonebone said:

Ugh... Fed reduced their rates to zero already!  My gosh, this is way worse than I could have imagined.

This is being spun as a health crisis but it is no longer than that, it is a full fledged economic crisis that is going to get much worse.  They just dropped rates a couple of weeks ago, they have effectively used all of their ammo at this point.  And we're just getting started on the closures and outbreak!  

Bottom is going to fall out of the stock market, who knows where we'll end up.  Not necessarily in a day but god only knows how low it'll go. 

They've been dropping the rates for what a year or two now. 

Everyone that was looking saw this coming.

[jonebone | 1,307]

26 minutes ago, Californication said:

They've been dropping the rates for what a year or two now. 

Everyone that was looking saw this coming.

Yeah, we all saw that fall off a cliff rate drop coming right?  Shaking my head...

We knew they would drop them but most people expected it be a bit gradual and keep some ammo in the gun.

The gaming analogy would be you walk into a 100 floor dungeon and go through all your healing potions on the first floor.  Can you make it through the other 99 floors?  

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

41 minutes ago, Californication said:

They've been dropping the rates for what a year or two now. 

Everyone that was looking saw this coming.

Over the last two years there was no realistic expectation that they would actually drop rates completely to zero, let alone THIS QUICKLY.

It was certainly strongly speculated over the last couple of weeks, though, especially after the emergency 0.5% rate drop.

 

Jonas - they aren't all out of ammo, though, as they obviously still have "helicopter money" at their disposal. 

Expect a couple of rounds of targeted QE to keep the most impacted industries from collapsing.

Would also expect some kind of government provided short term disability to pay out to people that get sick and/or quarantined to avoid a wave of foreclosure and loan/credit defaults.

[jonebone | 1,307]

7 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Over the last two years there was no realistic expectation that they would actually drop rates completely to zero, let alone THIS QUICKLY.

It was certainly strongly speculated over the last couple of weeks, though, especially after the emergency 0.5% rate drop.

 

Jonas - they aren't all out of ammo, though, as they obviously still have "helicopter money" at their disposal. 

Expect a couple of rounds of targeted QE to keep the most impacted industries from collapsing.

Would also expect some kind of government provided short term disability to pay out to people that get sick and/or quarantined to avoid a wave of foreclosure and loan/credit defaults.

Did you see that QE5 for about $700B was part of that rate cut too?  They really did fire their bazooka shot.  Too much too soon, further attempts are really going to devalue the dollar even more.  I suspect the market is going to see through this, realize that there's simply no way to get through this without even more Govt. intervention, and the market is really going to go in the shitter.

[Californication | 1,490]

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Edited March 16, 2020 by Californication

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

1 hour ago, jonebone said:

Did you see that QE5 for about $700B was part of that rate cut too?  They really did fire their bazooka shot.  Too much too soon, further attempts are really going to devalue the dollar even more.  I suspect the market is going to see through this, realize that there's simply no way to get through this without even more Govt. intervention, and the market is really going to go in the shitter.

I guess I was mis-remembering, but I had thought that the QE events back during the Great Recession were on the order of a full trillion, each.

But now that I look it up, the first two were about on this current scale, with the third one being open-ended.

[Californication | 1,490]

We have been having these same conversations since atleast 2018. I said the economy was shit and the Trump adminisration was bandaging it together with interest rate cuts, tax cuts, and deregulation.

I expected the rates to hit zero at some point. I expected the economy to go to shit.  

I didn't know that the Corona virus would be the catalyst, but if it wasn't the Corona virus it would have been something else. And yes, I expected everything to fall off a cliff including interest rates, maybe because of my naievety since you all didn't expect it.

As I look at this, I have a feeling the government isn't going to put the money in the right places to fix the economy. I don't know how you expediate the process, but I know they need to go bottom up instead of top down.

They can still do infrastructure spending when the time is right. 

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by Californication

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

2 minutes ago, Californication said:

As I look at this, I have a feeling the government isn't going to put the money in the right places to fix the economy. I don't know how you expediate the process, but I know they need to go bottom up instead of top down.

They can still do infrastructure spending when the time is right. 

 

It gets the term "helicopter money" from Bernanke's classic explanation of how to stave off a second Great Depression by literally throwing money from helicopters.

 

The way they tried this during Great Recession was (1) Payroll tax holiday (2) adding/increasing a number of refundable tax credits and (3) massively extending unemployment benefits.

The more immediate way to do this is probably along the lines of my suggestion of federal-level short-term disability payments for people that need quarantine or become ill.  They're already trying to plan how to cover sick time for small employers that don't offer it.

 

[docile tapeworm | 4,204]

at least, maybe, loose nes prices will continue ro drop?

[Californication | 1,490]

59 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

It gets the term "helicopter money" from Bernanke's classic explanation of how to stave off a second Great Depression by literally throwing money from helicopters.

 

The way they tried this during Great Recession was (1) Payroll tax holiday (2) adding/increasing a number of refundable tax credits and (3) massively extending unemployment benefits.

The more immediate way to do this is probably along the lines of my suggestion of federal-level short-term disability payments for people that need quarantine or become ill.  They're already trying to plan how to cover sick time for small employers that don't offer it.

 

Now, if I remember correctly wasn't there complaining during the great recession that the Obama administration put to much money into tax cuts, not enough money into stimulus, and on the other side of it when they bailed out the banks they didn't put proper restrictions on the money and it didn't disperse into the economy.

[Boosted52405 | 178]

Yep here in Iowa we now have schools shut down till mid-April I believe (yikes), expecting daycares soon, all public everything cancelled, empty shelves, and growing cases of community spread.  My Mom said she has never seen anything like this in her lifetime.

Spent most of the weekend getting the essentials to stay home as needed, but over the weekend I realized how utterly ridiculous it is how many places we touch with our hands day to day. 

I literally only gassed up vehicles and shopped a handful of times, but felt nearly impossible trying to cautiously washing my hands without touching my face etc etc.  I was very analytical with my thinking and struggled some...I can only imagine how much exposure people that are "winging" it are encountering.  Grabbed some drive thru and felt kind of anxious about it :(.

Props to Kwik Star, who has sanitizer at every pump and a station at the entrance with a huge "PLEASE USE" sign as you walk in.  Sanitized my hands 3 or 4x before finishing my visit there.

There are some peeps that I suggested to start prepping last week and now today they are freaking the F out. 

This is a terrible time, warm wishes to everyone to stay healthy and to get the essentials they need (baby formula shortage is horrific to hear).

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

Bring disposable gloves with you everywhere, in case you need to touch something “public”

[Californication | 1,490]

1 minute ago, MrWunderful said:

Bring disposable gloves with you everywhere, in case you need to touch something “public”

I take the bus to work.

[Richardhead | 2,855]

1 minute ago, Californication said:

I take the bus to work.

About to hop on a bus in a few hours myself!

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

The biggest tragedy are going to be the people that actually believe the conservative propaganda machine, when you have puppets like Fox and Friends and walking garbage can Devin Nunes telling people its nothing to worry about and now is a great time to take a trip. 
 

Elderly people in “fly over” states are going to be the worst affected. Hopefully they snap out of it and stop listening to this joke of an administration, and start listening to experts. 

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

3 minutes ago, Californication said:

I take the bus to work.

Is there any other way to travel?

[Boosted52405 | 178]

10 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Bring disposable gloves with you everywhere, in case you need to touch something “public”

Great point.  Surprised I actually found some decent ones on Amazon, ordered.  Locally I could only find small sized ones at Sams Club.

[Californication | 1,490]

11 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Is there any other way to travel?

Nope. Spent all my money getting my CPA. Family wants to buy me a car, but I don't feel comfortable letting them do that.

[Tulpa | 3,548]

13 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

The biggest tragedy are going to be the people that actually believe the conservative propaganda machine, when you have puppets like Fox and Friends and walking garbage can Devin Nunes telling people its nothing to worry about and now is a great time to take a trip. 
 

Elderly people in “fly over” states are going to be the worst affected. Hopefully they snap out of it and stop listening to this joke of an administration, and start listening to experts. 

Yeah, that is what really steams me. People posting that this is a Democrat plot to take down Trump's awesome economy, and dudes like Alex Jones peddling snake oil.

 

I did like a post online I saw that said, "I know a surefire cure. STAY AWAY FROM US OLD PEOPLE!" Yeah, I tend to do that anyway, but I'll be sure to heed that in spades now.

[Quest4Nes | 376]

Our State was absolutely ridiculous and TEA sent an email stating parents can keep kids home for self quarantine and they would get an excused absence. 

 

So guess what that means. No one shows up to school, and school is open. Teacher nightmare for trying to do anything.

 

 No confirmed cases in the county. Its like they want an excuse to close the schools but cant so they send this email. Destroy attendance, and use that reason to close schools.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Quest4Nes