On Wednesday, April 1, 2020 at 5:53:31 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, April 1, 2020 at 4:29:50 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote:
On 4/1/2020 12:10 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, April 1, 2020 at 11:53:15 AM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Wednesday, April 1, 2020 at 10:48:53 AM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 08:00:19 +0700, John B
wrote:

The Economic Policy Institute (which is a privately funded
'think-tank') estimates that some 14 million jobs could be lost by
summer 2020.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...sses-by-summer
By states: California - Projected job loss:1,609,975 Washington -
317,721 Ohio - 505,380 Illinois - 551,061 and so on. -- cheers,

I think those are likely underestimates by 50% or more. Not only
millions of jobs but hundreds of thousands of businesses will go up in
smoke. Mine might be one of them. Millions of people face eviction or
foreclosure as they can't pay the rent or mortgage.

The right-wing delusional alternative appears to be to pretend it's not
a problem, do nothing, try to keep the economy purring along in the face
of a couple of million US deaths and tens of milions of deaths worlwide.
I guess that's an option, except the economy still collapses and
probably much harder since the wealthy will throw everyone else under
the bus to protect themselves.

Manufacturing has largely collapsed. The hospitality industry has
collapsed. Oil has collapsed. The housing market will collapse.
Unfortunately the virus doesn't give a ****. Every human is
susceptible, it seems that none are immune, and our best hope is to
delay as many people from getting it as long as we can.

And to surive more or less intact we bite the bullet. We replace
incomes of people whose jobs have gone away so they can pay their rents
and mortgages and have health insurance. Those of us who get to keep
our jobs and benefits- like myself and my wife so far- practice
gratitude rather than seeing it as people getting "something for
nothing." We replace at least some of the revenue businesses have lost
so they can pay their overhead and keep some of their employees on the
payroll. Massive debt? Yep. Avoiding wholesale economic collapse
might be expensive.

And why the hell hasn't Donald Trump offered his hotels to be used as
temporary hospitals, unlike some others? *That* would be leadership.
Although knowing the Trump Organization they'd probably charge the US
government full rate...

I went through the numbers and came up with an estimate of 33,000 or so people that could possibly die from the effects of civid-19. At the moment we have lost less than 15% of that and in another couple of weeks warmer weather will come on and people that aren't fighting 100 other health problems will be more resistant.

It is FAR more of a problem to lose your job than to be threatened with a relatively minor disease don't you think?

No, not if you're infecting people who will die, or your customers are infecting people who will die. Do you not understand the reason why certain businesses have been closed?



Remember that the larger part of the yearly 38,000 lives have been lost to the seasonal flu at this same time. Are you panicked because of the seasonal flu?

People under 60 comprise less than 3% of the covid-19 deaths and the average age of death from covid-9 is 80 years old. In the US the average age of death from all other reasons is also 80 years old. (actually using the group that is dying it would be 79 years old because women who usually live longer are underrepresented.)

What I'm saying is that the REAL threat isn't to the lives of American but to the economy. There is no reason to be running around in circles crying that the sky is falling.

You, as an individual, have a much higher chance of dying in an auto accident.

Despite all of the statistics that we now have a fairly tight hold on, we see resolute panic in people like Jay who I would really expect a great deal more of. Perhaps his health isn't all he says it is?

Or as Winston Churchill said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

WTF? Winston Churchill? A fifth grader knows that was FDR. His first inaugural address.

-- Jay Beattie.

Jay, Winston Churchill said /everything/. Kept him pretty busy. Others
subsequently copied him. I thought all of Usenet knew that.

... or am I thinking of Ben Franklin?

Mark J.

Well, according to the Wiki Page:

Nothing to fear but fear itself may refer to:

A phrase from the 1933 inaugural address of Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Nothing to fear but Fear Itself", an episode of the television series The Golden Girls
"Nothing to Fear (But Fear Itself)", a song by Oingo Boingo on the 1996 album Nothing to Fear
"Nothing to fear but Fear Itself", an episode of the American-Canadian television series Painkiller Jane (TV series)
"Nothing to fear but Fear Itself", an episode of the Canadian television series Class of the Titans


Maybe I was thinking of the Oingo Boingo song. Or Francis Bacon, who actually said something different. Francis was a great orator. I remember him well.

I mean really, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" comes from FDR's speech. Most people don't know Francis Bacon from a bacon cheeseburger. And Churchill didn't say it. He said other great things, and some humorous things after Scotch number three at 10:00 AM. TK refuses to acknowledge FDR as a great leader because he was a communist Democrat.

-- Jay Beattie.

And if there is ever the perfect reference it is Wikipedia.