caulfield12

#AloneTogether

UK locked down by PM Boris Johnson...

The final bill will be almost unanimous...except for contrarians like Paul and Lee if they vote. Dow now down 37%, right around Election Day, 2016, numbers. 57% fall in 2008-09.

Governors Hogan, Baker, Inslee, DeWine, Cuomo have been really impressive, fwiw. The juxtaposition is pretty jarring when you compare Congress/executive branch to local levels.

Thanks. New angle is that vaping among young people is contributing to alarming numbers under age 35.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/opinion/coronavirus-economy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage Thomas Friedman, Dr. Adam Katz and Governor Cuomo seem to be coalescing around this plan. Can anyone summarize? Am blocked behind paywall, didn't follow interview/conversation with Friedman and Jake Tapper closely enough...

That’s way way way too extreme.

22 min ago Dow tumbles 700 points after Senate procedural vote fails a second time From CNN Business' David Goldman US stocks sank sharply again this afternoon after Senate Democrats blocked a coronavirus economic stimulus bill from advancing. It was the second time in two days Democrats blocked the measure as talks over the giant bill continue. The Dow, which had been moderately lower earlier in the day, fell 700 points, or 3.7%. The S&P 500 fell 3.6% and the Nasdaq was down 1.5%.

We don’t have unions in China, so schools have 90-95% of the power over employees. That said, we have leverage in the sense almost nobody from US, UK, Canada, etc., wants to head off and start a new career in Wuhan, China, of all places.

We’ll see what happens. I have enough savings to muddle through 4-5 months of this, but the prices of international flights alone are going crazy. There's definitely going to be a high attrition rate for single teachers with no ties to China. With a wife, kid and even mother in law, going back to the US would put them in more harm than here (well, Iowa is relatively isolated) and also into two week quarantines at US military bases. Just as importantly, no health insurance in the US, obviously. The students who aren’t graduating should be returning to school in about 2-3 weeks. Guess we will see then. On that regular schedule, I had five classes of seniors (30-35 students) but online now I have five classes of 70-100 (332 total.) Probably my biggest “added value” area is helping about half the graduating students each year with essay/US application guidance, so that skillset will be necessary regardless. One of my co-workers is quitting to start a consulting agency with another teacher...and I considered joining, but it seemed too risky at age 50 to leave guaranteed five year contract and free tuition for my son in one year, when he reaches first grade (saving $13,000 per year). I should be okay, hopefully. But it will quickly get interesting depending on how the school responds. We are branching into elementary and just added Grades 7-9 in the past three years, so they’re extended financially with three campuses running. Economy of scale doesn’t exactly exist.

The one encouraging number (so far) has been mortality rates much closer to countries like South Korea or Germany. But the idea of things letting up at the end of 15 days is absolutely nonsense...novel viruses don’t work that way. We’re still 21-31 days from NYC peak, and they’re already worried about making it through the weekend, and reusing masks, bandannas, etc. If we follow trends in Italy and China, that’s anywhere from a 7.5-10% infection rate with doctors and nurses. Disastrous, potentially...even bringing back retired and pushing forward medical and nursing school students onto the battlefield.

We pretty much just lost our jobs. CIE followed suit with IB and cancelled all A-Levels exams around the world. Now the question becomes what they do with online teaching (students not in Grade 12), planning, Extended Essays, personal statements, etc. The local/Chinese teachers who were working online were just at 30% of previous salaries. That said, the students paid all their school fees at the beginning of the year, so the parents of current seniors aren’t going to ask for partial refunds (tuition around $15-17,500 for most) but things are going to get dicey for Grades 7-11. The students I was working with have their AS (Grade 11) exams cancelled and will go with internal/predicted grades instead. It’s going to be quite the mess for university admissions offices to sort out. Glad that’s not my job, at least. If they cut salaries, until August, we will lose 50-75% of teachers. And good luck recruiting new intl. teachers (maybe recent US education graduates desperate for any job with hiring freezes) to come to Wuhan, Coronavirus Central.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/22/feds-bullard-coronavirus-shutdown-not-a-recession-an-investment-in-survival.html Cramer was right on Zoom and Teledoc...at least for now The US economy is expected to contract and unemployment is expected to jump in the second quarter of the year. "This is a planned temporary shutdown of the US economy. This is going to be, throttle back the US economy from what it usually is," said James Bullard, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, on CNN's "First Move." The US will be missing around $2.5 trillion worth of second-quarter income because of that "throttling back" -- roughly half normal output. “So that is what Congress is trying to bridge. That is the revenue that isn't there for businesses. That's the income that isn't there for households,” Bullard told CNN’s Julia Chatterley. Unemployment insurance programs will help keep Americans whole during this period, Bullard added. He earlier told Bloomberg that the unemployment rate could jump to as high as 30%. The point of the various stimulus programs -- which would better be called "insurance programs," said Bullard -- is to have the economy completely intact when we emerge from the coronavirus crisis. cnn.com

Well, we could do this with pretty much every president. Bay of Pigs. Cuban Missile Crisis. Or we could dredge up all the criticisms of the Ebola crisis from 2014. In the end, the people will judge in November.

https://news.yahoo.com/why-italy-coronavirus-death-toll-162100030.html Italy and Spain have struggled because they are more social and thought the herd immunity (see UK) would be effective alone, without extensive testing...until they realized their health care system would be overrun. Now they need to ask for US troops to enforce the quarantine.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/asia/hong-kong-coronavirus-quarantine-intl-hnk/index.html Looking more and more possible...Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Singapore now dealing with second waves of outbreaks after letting their guards down a bit. Guess Josh Donaldson’s aging faster than Grandal...haha...maybe all this time off will really help the catchers’ bodies rebound, though.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/22/coronavirus-stimulus-congress-141360 47-47? The one shocker is that Mitch McConnell isn’t for Senate voting from home/online. Of course, he turns around and schedules a vote tmrw right around the opening of the markets...theoretically headed for their worst week in history if they can’t strike a deal. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/20/coronavirus-myth-economy-uk-business-life-death?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX0Jlc3RPZkd1YXJkaWFuT3BpbmlvblVLLTIwMDMyMA%3D%3D&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=opinionuk_email&utm_campaign=BestOfGuardianOpinionUK The coronavirus shutdown of 2020 is perhaps the most remarkable interruption to ordinary life in modern history. It has been spoken about as a war. And one is reminded of the stories told of the interruption of normality in 1914 and 1939. But unlike a war, the present moment involves demobilisation not mobilisation. While the hospitals are on full alert, the majority of us are confined to quarters. We are deliberately inducing one of the most severe recessions ever seen. In so doing we are driving another nail into the coffin of one of the great platitudes of the late 20th century: it’s the economy stupid.

But how do you do it fairly? Based on total loan amount? Ability to repay? Cost of living in their area? How can you reconcile that with not helping people similarly back in 2008/09? Or do we just go ahead with free community college, reduced or free tuition to state schools, vouchers for private schools? On the campaign trail, debt forgiveness was treated with perhaps the most derision by everyone in the US over age 35. Those Americans, many on fixed or limited incomes, are likewise scared to death about Medicare and Social Security cuts down the line to pay for all this. They wonder why corporations and the Top 10% are paying much less percentage wise in taxes compared to the middle class.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/coronavirus-upends-nation-americans-lives-changed-pandemic-poll/story?id=69696172 One thing is clear...if we are too afraid of a country to actually FORCE private/public corporations to manufacture masks, respirators, ventilators, PPE, etc., then many more thousands of Americans will eventually die. There’s a 12 year old currently fighting for her life on a ventilator. Meanwhile, Cambridge International Exams (A Levels) are still on internationally...even though UK students will be able to rely on predicted scores from teachers for univ admissions. Our students haven’t seen each other in person once since January 8th or 9th. IB just cancelled worldwide last night. AP is going to 45 minute online or take home exams. We have 14 kids with conditional offers to Oxford and Cambridge. Ten now don’t have to take exams, the other four are staring those A2 exams in the face with no guidance. It’s possible we will have to give exams across summer vacation, meaning we will be going from August, 2019 to Spring Festival 2021 without a major holiday. Now that doesn’t sound so terrible if you’re not a teacher...just a difficult situation if you’re abroad. Teachers coming back from UK, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia are facing two week quarantines. I can’t book a flight back to US without knowing summer schedule...and my mom can’t receive visitors in her nursing home and also trying to sell her house in the middle of this crisis seems ill-advised at best.

Has the NBA worked out a plan to pay or not pay salaries? When it comes down to it, they’ll realize empty stadiums but something to divert our attention on t.v. are far better than nothing at all, especially with the dearth of new t.v. and movie programming.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/top-york-surgeon-warns-coronavirus-015200406.html NYC peak 22-32 days out. Things getting much worse in Australia, Thailand, Malaysia....HK, China and South Korea picking up lots of imported cases from residents desperate to return home from abroad.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/21/politics/trump-sanitize-medical-masks/index.html This is one of the dumbest pieces of advice yet...bring out the Dr. Fauci shaking head with hands covering his face GIF.

There’s no way teenagers and 20 somethings will maintain a six foor distance partying on a Florida beach. They just down beaches in Australia and parks in Vancouver. People see others having fun together, think it’s not fair that they aren’t able to enjoy the same freedom and everyone gets in trouble. No haircut in 8-10 weeks, the world won’t end because no one will see you. If you guys try to take the compromise route of everyone doing their own thing...people will be out of jobs for months and months, and it will never end. Hospitals will run out of beds, respirators, staff and ventilators. We will all lose family members over a cup of coffee, a cancelled Spring Break holiday or a haircut. If everyone’s only thinking about themselves first, America won’t make it. If we wait to be saved instead of thinking what sacrifice we can make for our country, what does that say? Nobody is entitled to a great life, they have to earn it. We never had to experience World War II, Korea or Vietnam like some of our grandparents or even parents. That was real courage and sacrifice. Here’s someone on your side... Kevin Hassett, an economist and former CNN contributor who is returning to the Trump administration to help the coronavirus response, said this week that the pandemic could spark a repeat of the Great Depression that began in 1929 and lasted for years. "We're going to have to either have a Great Depression, or figure out a way to send people back to work even though that's risky," he said. "Because at some point, we can't not have an economy, right?" cnn.com

Gatherings canceled: Gatherings of 250 or more people have been banned in Singapore until the end of June to stop the virus from spreading, the Health Ministry announced Friday. For events with less than 250 participants, organizers are required to keep people at least 1 meter (3.3 feet) apart, according to the report.