[livinincali]

[quote=spdrun]Since the US (outside of NY and a few other states) can’t seem to handle basic fucking precautions like wearing masks, the cynic in me says maybe it’s best to let it go, infect and kill where it may, burn out, so we can return to normal standards of healthcare. I can understand not liking full lockdowns, but I feel like the anti-mask, anti-science crowd has made its bed. Let them lie in it with a bucket full of bedbugs.

We in the NY area should just institute hard border controls to keep ‘zonies from coming in.[/quote]

The CDC itself doesn’t believe in face masks preventing anything. Handwashing it fairly proven but that’s hard to measure with viral photos, wearing facewmasks is easy. You can public shame someone for not wearing a facemask but hand washing not so much.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article?fbclid=IwAR2V1hPqN0WKb2kXVExP_1UE9ARvru6mtPZvZN0w1jx0S3l3fXLhxMP_bXs

[quote]
Face Masks

In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.51–1.20; I2 = 30%, p = 0.25) (Figure 2). One study evaluated the use of masks among pilgrims from Australia during the Hajj pilgrimage and reported no major difference in the risk for laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infection in the control or mask group (33). Two studies in university settings assessed the effectiveness of face masks for primary protection by monitoring the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza among student hall residents for 5 months (9,10). The overall reduction in ILI or laboratory-confirmed influenza cases in the face mask group was not significant in either studies (9,10). Study designs in the 7 household studies were slightly different: 1 study provided face masks and P2 respirators for household contacts only (34), another study evaluated face mask use as a source control for infected persons only (35), and the remaining studies provided masks for the infected persons as well as their close contacts (11–13,15,17). None of the household studies reported a significant reduction in secondary laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the face mask group (11–13,15,17,34,35). Most studies were underpowered because of limited sample size, and some studies also reported suboptimal adherence in the face mask group.

Disposable medical masks (also known as surgical masks) are loose-fitting devices that were designed to be worn by medical personnel to protect accidental contamination of patient wounds, and to protect the wearer against splashes or sprays of bodily fluids (36). There is limited evidence for their effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.
[/quote]

Bottom line Covid ain’t going away and a vaccine is unlikely to work. It’s probably time to just live with it and let the cards fall where they may. Thinking another couple of months of social distancing and face masks is going to resolve it is a pipe dream.

[livinincali]

[quote=Coronita]
BTW, I don’t think this problem is just CA. It’s going to be a problem for multiple states… I see it a bigger problem for states and locales that that depend on a specific industry that was wiped out by covid, particularly a lopsided local economy completely dependent on indoor leisure activity….if not now, later.[/quote]

States and counties are always the last to feel the effects of an economic downturn. It’s usually about a year behind the general populace. I worked for a county related company back in the 2000 internet crash and they were fine up until mid 2001 and then things went south real fast.

This current situation might not feel that bad if you’re working from home in software or something but it’s going to get really bad soon. I’d be surprised if the market doesn’t take a 80% plunge in the next 2 years. Somebody is going to get in trouble with liquidity. Ie. commercial real estate or REITs.

[livinincali]

[quote=zk]I think most people in that category were influenced by right-wing propaganda.

I mean, I can see not thinking Hillary would be a great president. I can see not thinking she would be a good president (although I would disagree).

But thinking she was anywhere near as bad as the piece of shit now in the oval office required belief in a lot of the bullshit that fox news and the rest of the right-wing propaganda machine were spewing.

Which is exactly what I was talking about when I started this thread.[/quote]

Oh really let’s see here. Fox news reaches it’s highest primetime viewership ever of 3.5 million viewers in February 2020. https://www.foxnews.com/media/highest-viewership-network-history-msnbc-cnn-2020. I think we can agree to be brainwashed you’d probably need to watch that far right media a lot. You’d probably need to be in that group of 3.5 million average primetime viewers to even be considered brainwashed.

So how many people voted in the 2016 presidential election? About 139 million. So how much is 3.5 million of 139 million? About 3%. So was the bulk of the electorate influenced by right wing brainwashing? No, but it’s a convenient excuse for not actually understanding how other people live their life and why they vote the way they do. Most importantly it doesn’t explain why Trump beat Hillary.

[livinincali]

[quote=FlyerInHi]
Now that Trump has turned out to be so horrible, you’re hearing more “Democrats caused Trump” because Democrats didn’t turn out to vote, Democrats didn’t nominate someone more inspirational, blah blah.

Really? The people responsible for Trump are Trump voters. They own Trump and they are first and foremost responsible. There is no blame shifting allowed.
[/quote]

Obviously you own what you voted for. I think for a lot of people this last election was viewed as a choice between 2 bad choices. That’s the mindset of someone who makes that sort of comment. They’re saying you gave me two really bad choices. I made the one that I thought was marginally better than the other but neither was my first or ideal choice. I didn’t vote for either so I don’t own Trump or Hillary for that matter but it also meant I wasn’t going to be voting for the eventual winner.

It’s a bit like the choice that Covid-19 has put on the various executives in our government and other governments. Choose between two pretty bad choices. Let the virus run it’s course and kill people or basically destroy the economy for however long you think you can before the cure becomes worse than the disease. I’m sure plenty of progressive liberals and independents will vote for Biden. Not because they want Biden but it has to be better than Trump.

[livinincali]

Let’s all think back to the subprime crisis. Early on it was no big deal it was just some dumb people that took out loans they couldn’t afford. Stock market went down a bit at first but recovered somewhat because again it was no big deal it didn’t matter those dumb asses took out bad loans. But then those dumb asses stopped paying and there was a cash crunch. Bear Streans failed Lehman failed etc. Then the market went down 80% from the highs. Employment hit 10%.

THIS TIME IT’S WORSE. GOOD LUCK TO THE STOCK MARKET. HAVE FUN RIDING IT DOWN

[livinincali]

[quote=FlyerInHi]The whole controversy over hydroxychloroquine seems to indicate that the government is in panic mode. They are shifting to worrying about treatment as more and more people get sick. Maybe they are not so confident a vaccine can be developed and rolled out soon.

Plus “flattening the curve” just means pulling on the right and spreading the numbers over a longer period. This will prolong lockdowns and the effects on the economy.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/06/navarro-fauci-feud-coronavirus-treatment-167855%5B/quote%5D

A vaccine in the near future is a pipe dream. You’ve got at least 1 and more likely multiple winter flu seasons before you could ever hope for a mass scale reliable vaccine. Forms of coronavirus have been around for a long time, they cause the common cold and vaccines have been worked on but never succeeded in decades. It’s really unlikely that you’ll see a vaccine anytime soon if at at. The best approach is probably can you find some sort of remedy that makes getting the disease less likely to be fatal. There’s a bit of promise with hydroxychloroquine which has been around for a long time as prophylaxis for malaria. It side-effects are generally minor and understood. It’s a 50 year old drug. It wont work for everybody but it might work for some cases that become serious enough to warrant it.

You’ll never get this thing under control unless you reach herd immunity hopefully with mild cases. It’s r0 is close to 3 and it seems like in certain situations it’s way higher than that. If social distancing was a real solution you would have seen significant decrease in cases after 10 days and we really haven’t. There’s definitely other vectors of spread that don’t involve coughing/droplets which is letting this thing linger. Most likely it’s the hospitals where unhealthy people that don’t have covid-19 are forced to go for other reasons and then pick up the virus from there and bring it back to wherever they came from.

[livinincali]

[quote=burghMan]
There is nothing in that mishmash of statistics or anything in those links that supports your initial claim that ACA is a $1 trillion annual unfunded liability. The first link was about the overall national debt and had nothing specific to ACA. None of the links addresses the total cost of ACA or any debt created by it.
[/quote]

The Congressional Budget Office says the ACA subsidies is costing $737 billion in 2019 and it will rise to 1.3 trillion by 2029. If you’re saying roughly 1 trillion per year for the next 10 years it’s pretty accurate.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55085

[livinincali]

I don’t expect rates to drop in a significant way unless there’s a recession. In that scenario I’d expect home prices to decline moderately as well. So let’s way we get a recession and rates drop 100 basis points. Home prices drop 10-15%. Do you have enough entity so that you still fall into a conforming loan to get the lowest rates. I.e. is your LTV still < 80% if home pries fall moderately. If yes might as well wait since we're somewhat overdue for an economic downturn. If not then the decision gets more complicated.

[livinincali]

Just as an FYI HELOCs interest charges are no longer tax deductible under the new tax laws for most uses of a HELOC. Apparently you can still deduct interest for improvements to the home or condo the HELOC is attached to. You’d probably need a tax lawyer and/or accountant to see if there’s a loophole for deducting it as a business expense for a rental.

Article

[livinincali]

[quote=carlsbadworker]
Media makes no distinguishment between block-chain technology and bitcoin. My view is that buying bitcoin or any other crypto-currency is like buying dotcom names in the 1990s. Investing in block-chain technology is also like investing in e-commerce companies in 1990s. One of these will be Amazon, others will be like pets.com or webvan.com. But the technology will spread due to this bubble.[/quote]

Best case is blockchain tech does get picked up and somebody or a couple somebodies have something of value. Worse case it vanishes into thin air. Bit coin by definition sort of has an end to it. This is exactly like the internet bubble of 2000. It will be easy come easy go for the vast majority of people and a couple lucky/smart ones will get out unscathed. Most will loss their ass and be around in 20 years telling the next generation’s bubble seekers they are stupid for getting involved in X just like the 40 something engineers are telling the 20 something crypto fools they are going to get hammered.

[livinincali]

A gas or diesel generator is far more effective for the occasional power outage. It might not be as green but it’s hell of a lot cheaper and better suited for occasional infrequent use. Generally complete off grid power use deep cycle lead acid batteries because there are just better suited for the work load requirements. Lithium ion’s biggest strength is weight to power density which matters in cell phones, cars and planes but not so much in a house. That doesn’t stop Tesla from marketing Powerwall but it really doesn’t make much sense to do that over deep cycle marine battery storage.

[livinincali]

[quote=spdrun]Question is, are the Border Patrol (migra filth) bothering to Federally charge people for small amounts of weed at their checkpoints? Reading about checkpoints in Texas, they traditionally referred weed to state courts, since the Federal system had no time or stomach for minor weed possession charges.[/quote]

I would doubt it. They are probably not going to do anything to personal use amounts except maybe confiscate it. They’re looking for drug runners with intent to redistribute but you could always run into that one asshole I suppose.

[livinincali]

[quote=DataAgent]
It’s also illegal to carry CA legal pot into a neighboring state even if that state also has legal pot laws.[/quote]

Once something crosses state lines it’s regulated by the federal interstate commerce laws. Since the Federal government still has pot has a schedule 1 drug it is illegal to carry pot from one legal state to another but you’d have to be prosecuted under federal law rather than state law. Essentially you need to get caught by federal law enforcement rather than City, County, or State law enforcement. I guess it’s possible that you could get charged and busted by a federal law enforcement agency now even if state law says it’s legal. That’s essentially what happened to the first round of pot shops in CA for medical marijuana.

[livinincali]

[quote=svelte]Thinking of opening an online account.

Anyone on here use Barclays or Ally? If so what are your thoughts?[/quote]

Ally is formerly GMAC which had to be bailed out by the federal government during the last crash. While FDIC insures money up to $100K it would be nice if consumers actual shunned companies that make stupid decisions with their money. You certainly wouldn’t want to invest with Ally if you didn’t have FDIC insurance.

[livinincali]

[quote=zk]
Maybe some of that is wishful thinking. I keep thinking the democrats are going to put up somebody with vision and charisma. Like Obama. [/quote]

If you look at the current pool of democrat governors and senators who looks like a promising candidate. Booker of New Jersey, McCaskill of Missouri, Cuomo of New York, Tom Wolf of PA, McAuliffe of VA but he has ties to Clinton, Bloomberg as the rich guy with an agenda. The democrats seemed to be all in on Clinton so they are left with a bit of a vacuum right now. There’s obviously time and nobody knew who Obama was prior to the nomination process so who knows.

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