For anyone interested, a quick calculation tells me the current number of the world population that has already died from coronavirus expressed as a percentage is 0.00034 (27,000 / 8 billion x 100 — Baden

It'd actually be 27,000 / (8 billion x 100).

So, overall, 0.4 of a person has died from coronavirus? Wow, it really is a hoax then.

Anyway, yes, let's open things up now, because no matter what the death rate is, we need MORE. — Baden

I provided. accurate raw data. The incorrect commentary is your own.

The worldwide coronavirus death rate has now risen to .00000004%.

My county just went to a total lock down. The only person allowed to travel is my son's girlfriend who comes and goes, but other than that, no contact with others.

I had a chance to do some research into your family tree, and note that when the first wave of European immigrant trash found its way to Ellis Island, there were a good number of Joseph Badens on the original ship entry logs. It seems they were fleeing Ireland for sheep fucking. When they exited the ship, the guy who logged them into the US misunderstood them due to their missing dental work and wrote down Biden.

So now we know that Joe Biden is a sheep fucking cousin of yours. I didn't know if you knew that.

With the current assessment of Trump as being a shit for brains fucktard through this crisis, does anyone think Hillary would have done much better, or do you think she would have been a sloppy dripping fuck hole? And if Biden's elected, will he rise to the occasion, or do you expect him to drop a turd while standing naked at the podium while asking where his pants went?

Jesus fuck on a stick.
— StreetlightX

Some Gods are funkier than others. — Baden

We should have expected the former messiah to have been sexually modest, so I'm not sure if he would have accepted penetration from a stick (or an animate object either), but I did not know him so can't speak to his predilections, but, in any event, I am not one to judge, lest I be judged, or so he said.

I hope BoJo recovers, but I also hope he suffers to the utmost before he does. May prompt him to take it seriously. — StreetlightX

Everyone has grown so religious as of late, now even showing compassion for one's opponents coupled with a respect that struggle is a necessary component for growth. I do like what I see here, and am encouraged in a cautious way by this coronavirus in bringing forth positive change.

There is a God.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/boris-johnson-positive-coronavirus?origin=shp&ref=hpsplash — unenlightened

A deeply religious notion. God is responsible for all. Nice.

By peeing in a Venitian canal? — frank

I know of no other way to celebrate. We're not all professional party planners like you.

We should have done this a long time ago! — frank

Assuming you think clean waterways are better than people using waterways because you have some anti-human bias. For some reason people think crowds are ugly and emptiness is pretty. Maybe because it's more rare or maybe because people are self loathing. I celebrate humanity myself.

Bullshit.

Bankruptcy of one of the most successful franchising companies operating in well over 100 countries would be a big issue. And if you think a company like McDonalds isn't important, what company you think would be then? The one you have in your stock portfolio? GM isn't in the position as it used to be, you know.

And yes, we are talking about the service sector. It was the sector that didn't suffer from the Great Recession so much and did provide work when a sector like construction collapsed. — ssu

You're certainly passionate about nothing we were taking about. But no, the demise of McDonald's wouldn't have far reaching consequences to the US economy. Not sure why we're talking about GM now or my stock portfolio either.

Wrong. — ssu

Wrong. The bankruptcy of McDonalds would not have a significant impact on the US economy. Nice graph showing the significance of the entire services sector, as if that's what we were talking about.

Let's take McDonalds as an example. According to this they have 210,000 employees and a revenue of $21.076 billion. If we shut down McDonalds and pay their (former) employees $15 an hour, 40 hours a week, for an annual salary of $31,320 to not work, that's $6,577,200,000.

So a (worldwide) tax increase of $6,577,200,000, with $14,498,800,000 that can now be spent/invested elsewhere.

And you think that's going to introduce economic problems that will cause more suffering than is saved by McDonalds' employees not having to work? — Michael

I don't think McDonald's, despite having delicious sandwiches, fuels the economic engine of my great nation. So yes, Uncle Sam could give the hard workers of Mickey Dees a proverbial lottery ticket winning and tell them they no longer need to work and they could then do whatever it is they had planned to do but for their prior McDonald's obligations and none of would see any appreciable difference before or after other than no one will be there to stir us up our artificially flavored milkshakes. Do that to enough people and businesses, and yes, we will have a problem. The more we do it, the bigger the problem.

FYI: everyone in hunter gather societies actually have a lot of time to sit around and bullshit. Far more than us fools on the capitalist hamster wheel. — praxis

I am aware of this, having been raised in the jungle as a hunter gatherer myself, only to be rescued by missionaries and forced into hours of tedious labor so that I could appreciate the joys of hard work. True story, except for the part of ever having been raised a hunter gatherer.

But the money isn't coming from trees. It's coming from the government, which in turn is coming from tax payers who would have spent that money at fast food restaurants. — Michael

The government isn't producing. It's taxing the producers. If the producers are having their money redistributed, they are losing their incentive to produce and then the government will have less and less to dole out to the lazy and worthless who choose to piss their days away philosophizing.

Stop being a snowflake Hanover. — Baden

But I'm unique and delicate, so a snowflake I'll be.

You shut down the economy for a couple of months until you get transmission rates below 1:1 then you open it up gradually with lots of social distancing rules in place and the other things you said about extra precautions for the vulnerable. Things eventually get back to normal, but with a bigger debt. End. What you don't do is take off the bandage before the wound has healed otherwise you start the whole cycle again. — Baden

I like this post, not because I necessarily agree with it, but it's filled with optimism, maybe even the reckless optimism that defines me. It could be I'm being played, though, and you're just saying to me what you know I'll embrace, but whatever, I applaud that then, your ability to figure out your audience and appeal to it, even if it's comprised only of me.

Let me share something of no interest to you, my personal philosophy of tracht gut, vet zein gut, Yiddish for think good and it will be good. I actually believe that, so, yes, I will go with what you said awhile, and everything will be just fine.

Of course, it also leads me to say things like stop all the restrictions and everything will also be okay.

What do you mean by being better off? You brought up suffering before so I was just addressing that. Does it matter if some people aren’t incentivised to work? They might be happier for it. Do we really need fast food restaurants? We could do away with them and their employees can live off UBI. — Michael

I don't believe money comes from trees, so the lack of work in a society will result in its eventual failure. Would it be better in a hunter gatherer society for everyone to sit around and bullshit all day instead of hunting and gathering, sure, until dinner time. Same thing for our society, just bigger scale.

I guess you'll be in favour of tax-funded UBI? Reduces the amount of suffering. If a few thousand rich people have less money to spend on second homes and diamond watches so that millions more people can get out of poverty or having to have second jobs then the country will be a quantitatively less miserable place. — Michael

For the record, I don't own a second home nor do I own a single diamond. I might have a watch of small value in a drawer somewhere, so I have no self-interest here.

No, I'm not in favor of UBI because I don't think things will be better off offering a segment of the population a disincentive to work and I don't think removing incentives from those who seek them will result in an overall better society on any number of levels.

Your question is an interesting one though because it assumes an open lack of concern for others on the part of the conservative right. I fully understand that you believe that the policies of the right serve no purpose other than to promote the rich (despite the fact that many are far from rich), but if I were to believe that UBI would make us all better off (and what I think is of value might vary from you), then of course I would be in favor of it. I just don't think it would.

I guess not everyone subscribes to such a utilitarian position. — Michael

Yeah they do. They just don't admit it

There may be other ways we could have done this. We took the path that seemed smartest at the time. We can't change course now because the whole country is waiting for it to bear down. We're prepared according to the information we have. — frank

As a general principle, why are we required to see through a plan just because it seemed reasonable at the time but not now? I get that it would should stubborn resolve, but that's not always a good reason to do things.

Incidentally this is also why your question about car deaths misses the point. The healthcare industry can cope with that loss of life. It can't cope with a pandemic. — Michael

The ultimate question is how many people can have their suffering reduced or death averted, regardless of how that can be accomplished (e.g. by having adequate hospital beds, having fewer businesses open for the spreading of a virus, or by having additional highway safety protections to reduce highway deaths), and that question will come down to cost and how much we as a society are willing to invest in those life saving measures.

At some point I just think the other posters here are going to have to admit there is no bright line rule that states we are willing to bear any financial cost to save a single life, but that the question is how much we will financially bear to save a life. Once we admit the latter, we need to take out our calculators and start doing the math, regardless of how offensive that feels.

In the US, 102 people die on average in car accidents per day. That number doesn't take into account the number left seriously injured. A single law prohibiting car usage would save 102 body bags per day. Why don't we pass that law?

I've mentioned this before but it's not just about old people dying from the disease. It's also about the health service being overburdened. There are lots of people (young and old) who require hospitalization but don't die. That's why there's all this talk about "flattening the curve" which I believe is the prime motivation behind the quarantines. — Michael

I think that is the prime motivation as well.

The question I'm asking is what is the cost burden of a complete lock down versus other lesser forms of quarantine and then seeing what the loss of life is based upon each of those options and from there deciding which option to choose.

To do otherwise would demand no one can leave their homes and all deliveries be made by guys in hazmat suits. If we're serious about this thing and we really had this absolutist view that human life be preserved regardless of cost, we'd do that, and it'd all be done. Maybe doing nothing makes sense as well. I'm willing to look at the numbers.

Sure, it feels disgusting, but we do it all the time in other contexts and it's part of reality. We send kids off to war with an understanding that x number of deaths will result in preferred outcome y.

place a higher burden on the old to protect themselves
— Hanover

I'll let this abyss of moral excreta speak for itself. — StreetlightX

Not really. You've taken it out of context and ignored just basic common sense. As I noted:

The universal protection is that which you afford yourself, meaning the person who chooses not to cross the road won't get hit by a car. Fortunately we have a government that is not willing to just allow folks to get run over and continuously blame the pedestrians, so they paint the lines and try to warn motorists — Hanover

I've clearly indicated the societal duty to protect others, but that doesn't absolve your duty to care for yourself. Are you suggesting that those in greater danger should not take greater precautions, or have you just assumed the tact of others here in thinking that your indignation has persuasive power or, as seems more likely, it will allow you to just recite your position in the echo chamber you're trying to create?

Taking a step back here, I really don't want to just exchange barbs. It'll just predictably result in our just ignoring each other. I fully appreciate this is real and there is emotion here, and maybe we disagree over whether it's even appropriate to consider this in the abstract. I really do believe we make public safety decisions based upon amount of resources every day in all sorts of contexts. If what you're saying is that my analogies to other contexts aren't applicable, I'm open to reconsidering what I've said as it applies to the coronavirus context. But, if what you're saying is that you reject outright the concept that safety measures can ever be limited by preservation of resources issues, then I just think you're wrong, and I can't just accept your comments in an effort to play nice and get along well with others.

I think, and my son, who has the virus tells me, that the real real pain is being felt by those who struggle to breathe. But fuck you too. — unenlightened

I'm sorry to hear about your son. I truly am. Whether he is in need of a respirator and cannot get one or whether he isn't in need at all, I don't know, but such questions are relevant, as the suggestion is that if we were to allow a greater spread of the disease, he would be without due to lack of resources.

Whether the ultimate consequence of someone being unable to pay rent will be greater than the ultimate consequence to your son, I don't know. I do know I have no desire to discuss the personal healthcare of your family member, but we certainly can if you want to, but expect the conversation to be objective, regardless of what outbursts you wish to make. It would sort of like me telling you, or anyone, to fuck off for the death of my loved one who was struck by a car because I objected to some reasonable limitation to the amount of money the government was willing to spend on pedestrian tunnels.

The new, developing language is instead that of 'necessary sacrifice', which is nowhere near as empowering and makes obvious just how much the rich and their unthinking shills are all too happy to trade people for money and its promise. — StreetlightX

So now we're back to class warfare? The old standby to politicize the situation and polarize it. Maybe it'll work in shutting people up who might wish to argue that we have to look at the economic consequences to decisions we make regarding dictating public safety. As I've noted, we consistently make similar decisions in all other types of contexts, which include whether we wish to dig underground tunnels at every intersection to allow pedestrians to safely pass under or whether we just paint some warning lines on the road to let folks know a pedestrian might be walking in front of a car.

The universal protection is that which you afford yourself, meaning the person who chooses not to cross the road won't get hit by a car. Fortunately we have a government that is not willing to just allow folks to get run over and continuously blame the pedestrians, so they paint the lines and try to warn motorists, but they don't dig tunnels and pedestrian bridges except in the most unusual circumstances, and they don't simply shut down the intersection. I'd suggest the decisions they make are based upon the cost of interfering with commerce and the cost of being able to have sufficient money to build roads, with an actuary being able to tell you how many lives each safety option will likely cause you. We paint lines for $500 and 5 lives will be lost. We dig a tunnel for $500,000 and 0 lives will be lost. Must we now dig tunnels at every intersection?

And this is not the rich versus the poor. It's the young versus the old. The economic cost of the shut down, whether you agree with it or not, will affect everyone who works and now doesn't. The idea that the rich are the most fidgety ones during this crisis because they see their portfolios taking a hit ignores where the real pain is being felt, and that is by those who can't pay their rent. The economy will rebound, and I think most investors know that, but that's much harder to explain to someone who can't pay his basic sustenance bills right now.

So what I'm suggesting isn't just to let the old folks die, but it's to place a higher burden on the old to protect themselves, and it's to temper their protection by governmental mandates and expenditures in the same way we do it in other contexts. That's not cold hearted. It's just reality.

To anticipate possible crises is a thing what the government ought to do. Unfortunately this kind of thinking is usually confined to the armed forces, which optimally should be in peacetime preparing for war. Other sectors, like the health care sector typically understand the importance, but don't do anything to prepare for these kinds of events. Too expensive! — ssu

I don't know if it has as much to do with expense as it does the inability to accurately predict the type of crisis that might arise. It would have taken a crystal ball for someone to have predicted we'd need 1000s of respirators and whoever predicted it would never have been able to convince Congress to actually make the purchase and then store the respirators in a warehouse somewhere for decades until some novel virus emerged. In fact, if someone had made that prediction, I wouldn't think of them as much a prophet as I would think they were a suspect.

At any rate, for things somewhat predictable, like a sudden need for additional petroleum, the US does have a storage of it: https://www.energy.gov/fe/services/petroleum-reserves/strategic-petroleum-reserve/releasing-oil-spr . I remember during Hurricane Katrina when it knocked out the main refinery in New Orleans, amounts were released.

there's one thing that really ought to change from this, it's the attitude against strategic reserves. — ssu

This is an argument in favor of the preppers it seems. Noah was a crazy old coot until the rain started to fall.

Somewhere between 700,000 and 7 million cases. — Punshhh

Which is just another way of saying they have no idea. My guess is that you have somewhere between $0 and $6.3 million dollars in your checking account, which is that same 6,300,000 range.

I'm really not following the argument that Trump will soon lift the lock downs, considering he's not ordered any as far as I can tell. The lock downs I am aware of where I live were issued by the state and local governments, and honestly, they started prior to that due to social media and peer pressure. I guess maybe there were some federally ordered things, like closing airports and borders, but the airports were clearing out long before it was mandated. Domestic travel is open, but the cross country flights for $50 or less tell the tale that nobody is looking to the government for direction for what they ought to do. The counties closed the schools and city closed the beer fest. I just can't imagine that if the local school board ordered kids back to school they'd survive the blow back. Exactly which entertainer is going to pack out an arena and just see what happens?

The most irrational parties are the moderators. — frank

Present company excluded.

But, to your question, if your most rational conversation is with a troll, you're being really well trolled.

Worth noting that the failure of the Italian state has largely owed itself to the EU bureaucracy, which, thanks to a decade of imposed neoliberal austerity programs, have gutted the Italian public sector, leaving it one of the most fragile economies on the continent. Once again, capitalism fucks everything. — StreetlightX

You blast the policy makers for imposing austerity and then you blame capitalism as the culprit. It sounds like unsound government policy got the Italians where they are. As I recall, and I didn't follow it too closely, was that the EU imposed austerity because the richer nations (like Germany) were tired of propping it up. The Italians inability to control their currency because they were stuck to the Euro made their problems worse.

I see it said about gun control too. So when is the right time? — Michael

I don't know, but not while everyone is panicked.

Interesting spellcheck aside: Panic takes on a k when you have to write panicked. Know any other words that end in c that do that? Magicked is one. This game is more fun. I found this too: colicky, havocker, picnicky, plasticky, panicking, picnicking, panicky, magicked, colicking, picnicked, bivouacking, colicked, mimicked, frolicked, picnicker, demosaicked, garlicky, mimicker, havocking, bivouacked, demosaicker, havocked, panicked, mimicking, frolicking, demosaicking.

I feel like I've left the topic. My apologies. ADD much?

Well, I have refrained from mentioning that Mitch there's-no-money-for-crazy-Dem-spending-on-social-programs McConnell took barely a nanosecond to pull 2 trillion dollars out his ass when his donors needed a bailout, so you can't be referring to me. :halo: — Baden

I really don't view the coronavirus crisis as evidence that capitalism is a failed enterprise. Whatever bailout money is available, we must remember, was collected in a capitalistic system. Without getting overly ideological, I think we can all agree that regardless of economic system, from laissez faire capitalism to totalitarian communism, nothing can survive or provide any social security if no one goes to work. I have no reason to expect the economic rebound will be less in America than in Europe.

Already the leadership in this crisis has been taken by the governors. — ssu

Echoing what Frank said, this is by design and is consistent with the federalist notion of states having certain authority. This is really just a quibble about delegation of power, regarding how the public health crisis is to be responded to with a nation so large. To give perspective on this, Finland, your home country, has 5 million people. My home state of Georgia has 10.5 million. The threats in Georgia are no where near the threats in New York, and much less so than in say Wyoming.

When your leaders have the open audacity and shamelessness to argue that gramps probably ought to be written-off and you call critics of this 'contentious' then your scale of what is and is not contentious is so far off median that you've lost the capacity to pronounce judgement on anything whatsoever. — StreetlightX

Regardless of ideology, there is the reality that resources are scare and there is the reality that the availability of resources is directly related to their collection and creation. If we were to institute worldwide universal healthcare, there would be a decline in healthcare for many currently receiving better healthcare than the median (you, for instance), and decisions would have to be made regarding how much healthcare we could allot anyone, including gramps who probably would benefit less from the limited treatment than someone else, and so decisions would be made that, well, he just has to die now.

We also realize every day that vehicles must drive down the road to get workers to work and assembly lines must run to bring products, including healthcare, to the marketplace. We have in fact decided that a certain number of deaths are appropriate because, as every actuary can show you, we should expect x number of workers not to make it work because of a collision in their cars, and a certain number will get caught up on the conveyor belt at work and not see another day of productivity.

You can couch this as heartless, as we are making decisions where we know a certain number of people will predictably die in order to feed the machine of productivity. I think we all also realize that the alternative of having everyone stay in their bed to shelter them from the reality of life is ultimately not better.

And despite what you might say of capitalism, the world becomes safer everyday. Cars are much safer than before and there are guardrails, signs, and all sorts of protective devices everywhere. In fact, American roads are so safe, they become more dangerous because people feel safe driving at much higher speeds and expose themselves to risk.

ncidentally, the flourishing of ecosystems and sky around the world in the wake of the shutdown of capitalist production). — StreetlightX

Why is this a good thing? Under what value system must I adhere to believe that flourishing ecosystems are a good thing to the extent they don't in some way benefit humankind? As my ideology links a positive outcome only to the extent humankind benefits, I would have to weigh the value of these now thriving ecosystems against the prior state of affairs where people had jobs and were supporting themselves versus whatever benefit I now get from enjoying the returned natural scenery.

Politicise this forever. — StreetlightX

One additional one:

Never forget that activists and politicians will capitalize on any tragedy for political gain.

In golf the lowest ordinal score is ranked the lowest cardinal number, so I guess we keep golf the same.

Great idea, except increasing medical capacity takes time — ssu

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.