Geoff > Status Update

750 is peanuts, a drop in the bucket, and a cruel joke for people living paycheck to paycheck facing weeks of unemployment. More grotesque than let them eat cake.

Peter (Pete) wrote: "750 is peanuts, a drop in the bucket, and a cruel joke for people living paycheck to paycheck facing weeks of unemployment. More grotesque than let them eat cake."

Two certain things:

It’s a damn far cry from what Booker proposed.

And far less poetic than M. Antoinette’s response

Peter (Pete) wrote: "750 is peanuts, a drop in the bucket, and a cruel joke for people living paycheck to paycheck facing weeks of unemployment. More grotesque than let them eat cake."

It's obscene. Starting to think this could get very bad indeed.

ATJG wrote: "Peter (Pete) wrote: "750 is peanuts, a drop in the bucket, and a cruel joke for people living paycheck to paycheck facing weeks of unemployment. More grotesque than let them eat cake."

It's obscen..."

So I’m confused: WILL there be cake then? I could use some fucking cake about now.

Cody wrote: "ATJG wrote: "Peter (Pete) wrote: "750 is peanuts, a drop in the bucket, and a cruel joke for people living paycheck to paycheck facing weeks of unemployment. More grotesque than let them eat cake."..."

Yes, there is cake. It is a handful of yellowcake on your way to the firing squad.

ATJG wrote: "Cody wrote: "ATJG wrote: "Peter (Pete) wrote: "750 is peanuts, a drop in the bucket, and a cruel joke for people living paycheck to paycheck facing weeks of unemployment. More grotesque than let th..."

I’m gonna interpret yellow as lemon. I despise lemon cake. Straight to the lines like Dostoevsky!

Peter: if you’re talking to me: not at all, friend.

https://www.facebook.com/GrittySander...

Remember: Marxists have predicted 13 of the last 2 crises; we know nothing, me least of all. Maybe everything will be fine.

I am not big on prediction. I don't know where things are going. I only know where I would like them to go and push in that direction if I can.

Peter (Pete) wrote: "I am not big on prediction. I don't know where things are going. I only know where I would like them to go and push in that direction if I can."

Concur.

But the predictions about the end of US global hegemony that have been doing the rounds for about ten years now? This may well be a defining moment. Trump would be racist about the virus anyway, but this must be an important undercurrent in what he and some supporters are saying. It could mean history comes to see his MAGA plans not just as a damp squib but as massive hubris.

I think the ideas about a temporary UBI are needed for the short term with whole sectors of the economy especially in hospitality, retail, education being laid off in mass and people living paycheck to paycheck. I don't think it will be near enough but there has to be something to help people put food on the table.

Desperate people often make for civil unrest.

Yeah, I don't believe that even during the worst days of the '08 crisis there was ever mass unemployment. This could be the first we've had this problem since the thirties.

My wife and I were discussing how to cope with all this last night and we came to the conclusion that the old Buddhist adage of living in the now is about the only thing we can do. Take it one day at a time because fuck knows what tomorrow will bring. Then someone broke into my parent-in-law's house last night (they are in their 70s and staying isolated) while they were sleeping and stole a bunch of stuff. Now they are terrified and traumatised from that on top of the virus. Way to go humanity.

Jonathan wrote: "My wife and I were discussing how to cope with all this last night and we came to the conclusion that the old Buddhist adage of living in the now is about the only thing we can do. Take it one day ..."

JM

I’m sorry for your in-laws. Write me offsite if I can avail myself in any way. Xx
C

David wrote: "Yeah, I don't believe that even during the worst days of the '08 crisis there was ever mass unemployment. This could be the first we've had this problem since the thirties."

Depends what 'mass' means. It peaked around 10% for a couple of years. That's nothing compared to the Great Depression, when it was over 10% for a decade, and peaked at over 20%.

But it is possibly the second-worst unemployment in the last 150 years of US history. the 82-83 recession produced a marginally higher peak unemployment rate, but didn't last as long. The two waves of the Long Depression, and the depression of the early 1920s, have all been suggested by some to have reached or surpassed 10% unemployment, but all three are also often estimated below that figure.


Government estimates suggest something under 5% of jobs are at risk from coronavirus, although some of those will immediately be taken up by the new jobs the virus is creating (right now: a surge in demand for drivers!).

Even if it's worse than that, the virus by itself shouldn't cause any major, long-lasting employment issues. It doesn't affect the underlying supply and demand, it's just a temporary shock, much like a resource shock.

It could be worse if it terrifies people into never again going to restaurants or theatres.

But the real threat is only if this downturn triggers a financial collapse. Fundamentally, it's the health of banks that matters economically, not the health of people...

[of course, it would also be pretty bad if the coronavirus just never goes away, there's never any cure or vaccine and immunity is shortlived... that would indeed potentially be world-changing]

Maybe we'll have the collective realization that the way we we were living was never that great anyway.

Looking for some good news? Well listen to your good-news Nostradamus:

I predict fewer school shootings this year than in the last five years running.

Less pollution too.

Hello dear American friends - hope you are all ok - any clues you can give me on how on earth Trump’s approval ratings are so high? It seems to an outsider that things have been going disastrously, and I was thinking this might hurt his re-election, but it seems not. It can’t just be that everyone is watching Fox. Any ideas?

Jonathan wrote: "Hello dear American friends - hope you are all ok - any clues you can give me on how on earth Trump’s approval ratings are so high? It seems to an outsider that things have been going disastrously,..."

I’ve not heard of a single person in real life that isn’t livid. All spectrums. Be wary of polls, darling.

It’s a clusterfuck here.

XX

Jonathan wrote: "Hello dear American friends - hope you are all ok - any clues you can give me on how on earth Trump’s approval ratings are so high? It seems to an outsider that things have been going disastrously,..."

I think his message of going back to work quickly actually resonates with a lot of people, as a) quarantine sucks and b) many many people are more afraid of financial ruin than dying of the virus, given that we have such a meager welfare state here.

David wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "Hello dear American friends - hope you are all ok - any clues you can give me on how on earth Trump’s approval ratings are so high? It seems to an outsider that things have been go..."

(And yes, definitely, public discourse in the US is desperately bad, so a lot of the electorate has a very tenuous grip on reality)

Just talking about covid, not the overall, longterm understanding of Trump's rise: there's kind of a paradox with crisis. Voters usually reward politicians for failing to handle a crisis: the worse they do, the worse the crisis gets, so the more the flag effect takes hold.

The same thing is happening in the UK. This is a crisis in which highlights have included a) the government saying it wanted to intentionally get everyone infected quickly, and if hundreds of thousands of people died then that would be a 'beneficial crisis' in culling the herd of non-productive citizens; and b) the government failing to order cheap, quickly-supplied protective gear through an EU scheme, claiming at first that it was more important to maintain our "independence" than to save lives, and then finally admitting that actually it was all an accident, nobody in government knew how their e-mail system worked yet, and the EU's email was just in the wrong folder and nobody had seen it until it was too late...

...and yet support for the government is rocketing up every day; around 3/4ths of the population now approve of the (manifestly incompetant!) job the government is doing, including a majority of Labour supporters and a majority of Lib Dem supporters (and about 95% of Tories). Boris Johnson's personal popularity has likewise risen, to its highest point in at least the last four years, if not ever. In one week, his favourability has risen from around 0 to over +20 (it was -40 in early 2019, -20 when he took power, and -10 when he won re-election). In fact, since 1977, the only time I can find this much love for the PM and government is for a couple of months after Blair's 1997 landslide; that's it. Johnson is now probably the most popular PM since Churchill.

Partly, this is because when things are bad, it's easy to look good - you don't have to fulfill dreams, you just have to say it could be worse without you. Similarly, companies engender more loyalty from customers by fucking things up and then fixing them then they do from not fucking up. [a good political example: thatcher won re-election by NOT losing the Falklands; but the Falklands were only in a position to be lost because of her incompetence in effectively telling the Argentines that they could invade unopposed - if she hadn't fucked up, she wouldn't have had that massive surge in popularity (from something like -40 to +40, iirc) ]

But also it's just that humans instinctively become loyaly and obedient to their tribe and its leaders when they perceive danger. Notably, for instance, the popularity of all government ministers has risen in the last week or two - not just the incompetent ones, but also the ones whom nobody has really heard from, who haven't been in the news, but have somehow become more popular nonetheless.

[the big winner is obviously Sunak, who now has something like a +50 approval rating - Boris should be getting really worried!]


However, this sort of support is notoriously fickle once the shock of a crisis passes. Whether it'll still be there in six months is anybody's guess.


[and actually, while Trump's approval has risen, it's still risen remarkably little, given the scale of the crisis - he's still in negative territory]

Rally round the leader is probably most of it. You are right. Just remember how Churchill was summarily dumped at the end of WWII so the effect is temporary.

Poll just published has Biden beating Trump by a pretty substantial margin
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-...

Just want tontheow my 2 cents in where it is not wanted. I am dedinitely NOT an expert on anything political. In fact, I abhor politics. Anyway, that being said, someone earlier here said that we are rallying around the leader? I have to say, I absolutely cannot stand Trump. Never have. Don't know hownhw fot ro be President. These circumstances are so dire, and everybword out of his mouth is contradictory to the precious things he said, which he then goes on to deny having said in the first place.
I rhink what is happening is absolute gross negligence on his part. I don't know much about politics, so you can disagree with me or correct me, but all the rallying is coming from his direct suoporters...ie..those directly in his span. Yes, he has created a whole lot of racial and social unrest, but like a toddler, he has no idea the ramifications of his actions and words. I also believe he simply doesn't care. And he's done so muxh double talk and cross talk and has no idea what even he is sayinf anymore.

This stimulus package is nothing if not a slap on the face to all the blue collar workers working paycheck to paycheck. Even if as said earlier that it is not limited...ir does not account for anything. Hiw many weeks/months is this supposed to last that family of 5? Cause, I got news for you, people still have to eat. Not all foods lastnindefinite amount of time.

Ok..I am done. Let me have it...how wrong I am, etc, etc

I know a lot of people thrown out of work and the package from the Senate is dogshit and won't help much at all. If wall street decides (through the political class) to open up things too soon and end social distancing the bodies will pile up it will be a bald and grotesque testament to the dictum of profits before people.

Catherine wrote: "Just want tontheow my 2 cents in where it is not wanted. I am dedinitely NOT an expert on anything political. In fact, I abhor politics. Anyway, that being said, someone earlier here said that we a..."

Nothing to let you have. You air legitimate concerns.

Best to you and yours
C

Peter (Pete) wrote: "I know a lot of people thrown out of work and the package from the Senate is dogshit and won't help much at all. If wall street decides (through the political class) to open up things too soon and ..."

I know lot of people put out of work as well...Thankfully, I am still gainfully employed (both my jobs are essential)...but I feel you. Definitely, opening up the workforce again in full will cetainly exacerbate this problem. This country won't be destroyed because of all the unemployment and the virus...it is already on that (very) slippery slope due to his idiocy and inaction

Cody wrote: "Catherine wrote: "Just want tontheow my 2 cents in where it is not wanted. I am dedinitely NOT an expert on anything political. In fact, I abhor politics. Anyway, that being said, someone earlier h..."

Thanks. I feel like this country has gone so far downhill, that one can't see the horizon!

Cody wrote: "ATJG wrote: "Peter (Pete) wrote: "750 is peanuts, a drop in the bucket, and a cruel joke for people living paycheck to paycheck facing weeks of unemployment. More grotesque than let them eat cake."..."

So...if there is cake...he can have it...and I hope he chokes on it. ( I hope karma doesn't come for me because of this)

Don't get me wrong....I am not for or against either side. I see (and want) both sides to behave fairly. Key word being FAIR!! The question for me becomes which side of the coin is the lesser of two evils...and even then I want fair play.

For those interested in current stats on the coronavirus here is NORAD like big board that looks like something out of the movie war games with a graphic picture of the data. It is from John Hopkins and you can click on countries to get both national and global data. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/ap...

Peter (Pete) wrote: "For those interested in current stats on the coronavirus here is NORAD like big board that looks like something out of the movie war games with a graphic picture of the data. It is from John Hopkin..."

It's weird thinking there are people who follow a lot of news but haven't been looking at that every day since late January... It's become so integral to the online day for me now. (But news consumption is so much more individualised now.) When I don't look at other news I still type in 'map'. Last couple of weeks I've taken to guessing a big number and thinking "it won't be up to ___ yet", but this week it started getting much closer to those each time, and it started to really *feel* like a coping strategy. Basically exponential growth in action. Though there are times of day when they add more stats to it so the rise is likely to be bigger then.

I am not sure about the way it divides US toll by state. To non-Americans it looks tricksy but guess it feels reassuring for people in in US states other than NY, or who don't know people there, not seeing their place on that side of the front page without scrolling.

But isnt that map totally meaningless because no country is testing properly? I would assume the number of cases is actually massively higher than reported there.

And thanks everyone for their comments on the Trump point - very helpful and makes a lot of sense.

"Totally meaningless" takes it too far, though it's obviously incomplete information, and it's the tip of an iceberg to different degrees in different countries/states, depending on the extent to which they are testing. (Deaths are also recorded differently, e.g. in some countries, incl Italy anyone who dies who is also positive for the virus is classed as having died of it, even if they may have actually died of something else. The stats will probably eventually be tidied up and collated, in months/years time.)

Meaningless and very inaccurate. People die every day from lots of causes, yet somehow a good number of these deaths are being attributed to Corona regardless if whether or not it is the cause. I certainly hope they are able to tally an accurate number, sad as it will be, when this is under control &/ over.

yeah sorry - meaningless was lazy commenting on my part. The really interesting thing will be once we get the test for antibodies so we can see who has already had it. I can totally see us getting green passes or something once we are immune meaning that we are free to move about unrestricted.

Jonathan wrote: "But isnt that map totally meaningless because no country is testing properly? I would assume the number of cases is actually massively higher than reported there.

And thanks everyone for their co..."

The data on case numbers is pretty much meaningless for comparative purposes, unless you know the differences in testing between countries. It's a bit more useful for getting a sense of the growth in any one country, though, provided there hasn't been a big shift in testing policy during the time period.

The data on deaths is also suspect - some places overreport, and some underreport. However, it's probably fairly robust on average - dead is dead, and very noticeable - so I think it's seen as a reasonably fair comparison basis, albeit with an asterisk.

I don't think it's particularly helpful - or healthy - to obsess over these numbers, however. They have no day-to-day impact on our lives, and we can't do anything about them (and I don't need to know the growth rate in Peru to understand the rules of the lockdown in the UK). I have a look every now and then to get a sense if the trajectory has altered particularly, but I think tracking the data too closely would just encourage anxiety.

Jonathan wrote: "yeah sorry - meaningless was lazy commenting on my part. The really interesting thing will be once we get the test for antibodies so we can see who has already had it. I can totally see us getting ..."

What about people who may have a naturally good immune system and have been exposed, but not contractrd it?!?! The ones who are carriers, who don't know they have it, but still pass it to others?!?

Wastrel wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "But isnt that map totally meaningless because no country is testing properly? I would assume the number of cases is actually massively higher than reported there.

And thanks ever..."

Wastrel,

Completely agree that obsessing over statistics is unhealthy. My wife keeps throwing figures at me and I’m constantly reminding her that they don’t change anything in praxis. Data plus inaction equals data; nothing more. As for what action can be taken, well we’ve all got our strategies.
But I do understand people’s attraction to the numbers. It’s something they can quantify and understand in very easy packaging. I’d guess it helps them reify their gross, poly-fears into a literal sum.

Hope EVERYONE is well.

C

On the positive side: just think how lucky we are with this pandemic!

With the virus itself, we're lucky that it's not very contagious. People can be coughing and sweating virus over every surface for up to a week, and even without social isolation they still on average infect only 2, maybe 3 other people each!

Imagine, on the other hand, that this was like measles - which infects somewhere between 12 and 18 people per person*. We'd basically all have caught it long before we'd heard the term 'social distancing'.

And we're lucky it's not very dangerous, relatively speaking. Many of the reported death rates are elevated by massive under-reporting of mild cases (and the Italian figures are probably the result of the healthcare system collapsing under the intensity of cases, so that many patients aren't properly treated, rather than the disease itself). Looking at the countries with the most extensive testing, the real figure looks to be 1% or lower, and will drop further once extensive antibody testing is deployed (it's currently 0.6% in Germany, 1.5% in South Korea, 0.4% in Australia). That means it's somewhere between "about as dangerous as measles" (0.3%) and "five or six times as dangerous as measles".

Which isn't great, but just imagine that this was like smallpox (30%), or ebola (50%), or Marburg (80-90% in the largest modern outbreaks), or rabies (100% without vaccination prior to first symptoms). Actually, better yet: let's not. And a much deadlier covid may have been a close call: the closely-related MERS kills over 30% of victims.

And we're also lucky that the coronavirus doesn't hop species that easily, it seems. Yes, related coronaviruses have been found in bats and pangolins, but neither this version nor the original SARS seems to easily infect cats and dogs - SARS did repeatedly infect them, but they had no symptoms and couldn't pass it on; covid is only reported to have infected one dog, which, again, had no symptoms and doesn't seem to have been infectious. This means coronavirus could at least potentially be contained and eliminated, and without necessitating the mass culling of all our pets. Perhaps even more importantly, there's no sign yet of covid spreading to birds - the fact that flu can reside in the enormous and constantly migrating pool of wild birds effectively makes it ineradicable and uncontrollable. Once covid has passed (if it does), we'll continue to be at risk of a third outbreak from whatever the chinese reservoir is, but that's a much more controllable risk than "any bird anywhere, plus also pigs and horses and probably other things too", as with flu.



And finally, wow, we're lucky it's happening in 2020. Economically, imagine if this had happened in 2010 instead, when countries were already all but bankrupt from the financial crisis, interest rates were already down to near zero, households were poorer and homelessness was higher, and the financial system still teetered on the brink of oblivion. It would be the end of the world.

And then imagine if it had happened in 2000 instead - when working from home was almost unimaginable, and shopping online for basic necessities was a pipe deam - and chatting to people on Goodreads while isolated was not an option. Thank heavens covid waited until we had the internet!


*in the developed world, measles kills about 0.3% of victims - in other words, in Germany, it'll probably end up more than 50% as deadly as covid, once all the a- or low-symptomatic covid cases are discovered. In the developing world, however, it can kill up to 30% of victims without proper care. And just as covid is more dangerous for those with underlying conditions, so is measles - even with the best care, measles kills around 30% of people with pre-existing autoimmune conditions. And as mentioned above, measles is between 5 and 9 times more infectious than covid (if you even just stand near someone with measles, you have a 90% chance of catching it), more than making up for its lower fatality rate.

And yet, much of America doesn't think measles is serious enough to be worth vaccinating for. So really, it's remarkable that coronavirus is even being talked about on US news!

Actually covid-19 has ideal characteristics for a high body count like spanish influenza in 1918. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0t...

Of course, if you think US response is bad, just check out Sweden where they are essentially just letting it rip. It going to be interesting to see how long they can do that before changing course.

I suspect that the actual scientists who study this kind of phenomenon are more precise than either we or many news reporters have been. E.g. death rates would likely be reported as a percentage of symptomatic cases, or as a percentage of infections based on some reasonably well established measure of infections, rather than as a percentage of a nebulous guess at how many may or may not be infected which assumes such things can't really be measured.

Furthermore, I find it hard to believe (but am I wrong?) that if I went out and shot someone's head right off the top of their neck, that the police would rush the body to an autopsy lab where they would test it for covid-19 and possibly add it to a statistic of coronavirus deaths. More probable is that the stats include some ambiguous cases because the question of cause of death is often complicated.

Kind of like the cause-of-Trump's-election question: was it "caused" by Comey's announcement of an investigation into Hillary, or was it caused by Hillary's hubris combined with her fundamental unelectability, or was it caused by a news media that gave Trump billions of dollars worth of free publicity throughout the years, or was it caused by a surge of moronic pigs showing up at polling booths all across the country?

Zadignose wrote: "Furthermore, I find it hard to believe (but am I wrong?) that if I went out and shot someone's head right off the top of their neck, that the police would rush the body to an autopsy lab where they would test it for covid-19 and possibly add it to a statistic of coronavirus deaths. More probable is that the stats include some ambiguous cases because the question of cause of death is often complicated."

Ambiguous ones are things like people being admitted after car crashes and being found to also have lungs characteristic of covid pneumonia. Where they die in the hospital rather than in other locations of obvious other reasons. Depends on country and probably also local authority area / hospital itself.

At the moment there is lots of fairly inconsistent raw data flying about, and it's only from reading about different places' policies that it can make even marginally more sense.

Jonathan wrote: "yeah sorry - meaningless was lazy commenting on my part. The really interesting thing will be once we get the test for antibodies so we can see who has already had it. I can totally see us getting green passes or something once we are immune meaning that we are free to move about unrestricted."

Though, as I've heard it said elsewhere, that might create problems with younger people and the fitter low-paid actively trying to catch covid so that they can go out and about again and get back to work.

It also depends what one finds stressful versus interesting. I am not reading news from UK sources and find that helps a lot. You still hear the essentials from other places' headlines. It must be years since I haven't visited Guardian website for this many days in a row. Whereas statistics, medics' content, all very interesting. Though some non-science types find the word inappropriate at the moment.

Antonomasia wrote: "Zadignose wrote: "Furthermore, I find it hard to believe (but am I wrong?) that if I went out and shot someone's head right off the top of their neck, that the police would rush the body to an auto..."

There’s nothing wrong with ‘interesting’ in many interpretations. One: it is in our best interest in terms of fitness to know a fair amount about anything that poses a threat to the same. Two: it’s interesting in that it stimulates internal dialogues of infinite stripe. Three: you get me.

Peter (Pete) wrote: "Actually covid-19 has ideal characteristics for a high body count like spanish influenza in 1918. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0t..."

It really doesn't. An "ideal" set of characteristics for a "high" body count would include beign highly contagious and highly deadly.

Let's put it this way: if covid were as infectious as measles, but as deadly as rabies, then about 3 billion people would have died of it by the beginning of February (on the plus side, it would all be over by now - on the minus side, almost the entire human species would have been wiped out by now, barring a couple of people on Svalbard).

Indeed, even if covid were just as infectious as measles and still only as deadly as it is, then probably around 40 or 50 million people would have died of it by the beginning of February. The (relatively) low infectiousness of covid is a huge saviour - with exponential growth, if you quadruple or sextuple the infectiousness, you end up spreading the disease almost unimaginably quickly.

Whereas if it were just as infectious as it is, but as deadly as ebola, we could have thirty or forty times as many dead as we do.


Indeed, it's not hard to think of small differences that would have made covid much more dangerous. Chiefly, more asymptomatic transmission: covid is considerably less infectious before symptoms develop, and yet even so, pre-symptomatic patients are apparently responsible for the majority of infections. If covid were fully infectious for a couple of weeks before noticeable symptoms developed, we'd all be a lot worse off...

[and yes, all of this also applies to the Spanish Flu, which likewise could have been much worse than it was. Yes, it killed tens of millions of people. But as a percentage of the available population, it was much less dangerous than some previous pandemics]