1 hour ago, bmags said:

testing back up to 14,500 yesterday in illinois. Cases up to 2100, so pretty much at the 15% mark.

The best countries (in terms of effective testing) have been been at the 2-7% range, correct?   On the plus side, it’s better than the national average for the entire country, largely skewed upwards because of NY/NJ.

 

 

And, drum roll please, the biggest recipients of SBA loans?

Ashford and two real estate investment trusts that it advises, Ashford Hospitality Trust and Braemar Hotels & Resorts, collectively applied for $126 million for 130 hotels and luxury resorts across the country that employed 14,000 people.

All three are headed by Dallas hotelier Monty J. Bennett. The companies had combined revenue of $2.2 billion last year. They sought PPP loans for each hotel location with 500 or fewer employees.

The companies earlier disclosed receiving $58.7 million in loans for hotels branded with some of the industry’s biggest names, such as Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Westin. In new regulatory filings Friday, the companies reported millions more in approved loans.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2020/04/26/publicly-traded-dallas-hotel-group-says-its-keeping-126-million-in-small-business-rescue-loans/?utm_content=bufferfdbb6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

Quite the list of political contributions during the 2016 cycle from Mr. Bennett, lol...$143,250 to Trump Victory and that’s just the starter.  He can afford nearly $400k in political contributions, but can’t manage to take care of his employees?  

https://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/monty-bennett.asp?cycle=16

 

Edited April 28, 20205 yr by caulfield12

Since Trump claims to be the biggest cheerleader, he should visit the meatpacking plants he is ordering open and have a rally. No mask.

8 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

The best countries (in terms of effective testing) have been been at the 2-7% range, correct?   On the plus side, it’s better than the national average for the entire country, largely skewed upwards because of NY/NJ.

South Korea is hanging out at 2%. That's where you have to be, combined with aggressive tracing, to have any shot at control when businesses open, because you know that some people will pass it along without showing symptoms and you have to be ready to track down those clusters before they spread..

16 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

Since Trump claims to be the biggest cheerleader, he should visit the meatpacking plants he is ordering open and have a rally. No mask.

At the very least, a Waffle House.  Doing that might help him clinch Georgia, Florida...and protect Sen. Kelly “Insider Trading” Loeffler simultaneously.   Plus, the cholesterol numbers are right in his normal fine dining wheelhouse. 

3 hours ago, StrangeSox said:

How about Amazon employees being underpaid and working in dangerous conditions while Bezos becomes unfathomably wealthy off of their labor?

 

Edit: I bet all those travel CEO's are still doing much, much, much better than the hundreds of thousands of low wage workers who have been laid off in their industry.

Can't speak for all the airlines but I know United Airline's CEO and President aren't taking a salary for the time being. Conversely, my friend who works there has no work to do but is still employed and is guaranteed to be employed through September (unless he violates the code of conduct). So he's currently making his full salary to trade stocks and answer a few emails a day.

Pretty sure airlines who took bailout money can't lay off their workers until a given date so not sure this is the best example. 

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/04/28/pence-mayo-clinic-mask-nr-vpx.cnn
 

Really, not wearing a mask at the Mayo Clinic, Mr. VP?   Just do it to set an example, instead of being stubborn/macho or whatever not wearing a mask signifies these days...

Edited April 28, 20205 yr by caulfield12

10 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/04/28/pence-mayo-clinic-mask-nr-vpx.cnn
 

Really, not wearing a mask at the Mayo Clinic, Mr. VP?   Just do it to set an example, instead of being stubborn/macho or whatever not wearing a mask signifies these days...

So if Pence had COVID, there was a 70% transmission chance between him and the people who were masked.

Congress isn't going to be back to work, because it isn't safe.  You can't make this stuff up.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/reversing-course-house-won-t-return-d-c-next-week-n1194316?fbclid=IwAR1JwTvQiza63_2J7vq5RvyoGEyL-r5AF3G1oBb6jrMneZHluiVbk8zY0vI

48 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

South Korea is hanging out at 2%. That's where you have to be, combined with aggressive tracing, to have any shot at control when businesses open, because you know that some people will pass it along without showing symptoms and you have to be ready to track down those clusters before they spread..

Still trumpeting this plan of attack eh?  I respect your unwavering commitment to containing the virus.  

18 minutes ago, Jerksticks said:

Still trumpeting this plan of attack eh?  I respect your unwavering commitment to containing the virus.  

The correct way you mean?

The funny thing about jerksticks is he acts like shutting down is something we "want" to do. I dont want to be shutdown. As many have I'm sure, I've lost a lot in the shutdown. It sucks. But why should my materialistic things be more important and valuable than an actual human life? 

What is wrong with the selfish nature of so many. My goodness. 

When you see things bad happen to people and say it's not me and turn a blind eye, you're merely kicking the can down the road. Do that enough times and you'll be the one getting hit by a car.

Edited April 28, 20205 yr by Look at Ray Ray Run

30 minutes ago, Jerksticks said:

Still trumpeting this plan of attack eh?  I respect your unwavering commitment to containing the virus.  

In mid March you were insisting 50-100M people already had this in the US.

Another GOP state rep is suing to overturn pritzker's order

1 hour ago, Dick Allen said:

Since Trump claims to be the biggest cheerleader, he should visit the meatpacking plants he is ordering open and have a rally. No mask.

This man is getting worse by the day.  He doesn't use his powers to order masks and other equipment to be bade, but he is doing this crap. And when he is not doing crap like this, he is trying to make political hay of this crisis. Why any working class person thinks Trump has his interest at heart I will never know. His approval rating should be at 10%. 

12 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

The funny thing about jerksticks is he acts like shutting down is something we "want" to do. I dont want to be shutdown. As many have I'm sure, I've lost a lot in the shutdown. It sucks. But why should my materialistic things be more important and valuable than an actual human life? 

What is wrong with the selfish nature of so many. My goodness. 

When you see things bad happen to people and say it's not me and turn a blind eye, you're merely kicking the can down the road. Do that enough times and you'll be the one getting hit by a car.

Just wondering, do you exercise this thought in all aspects of life? Do you strictly avoid buying products that were made in third world countries from potential sweatshops or in awful conditions?

1 hour ago, Jerksticks said:

Still trumpeting this plan of attack eh?  I respect your unwavering commitment to containing the virus.  

The 3 ways I've got that the next 18 months can go are:
1. Cut transmission down to low levels followed by aggressive tracking, testing, and tracing (led by the federal government), wait for a vaccine.
2. At least 1.5 million people and more than likely 3 million people die nationwide and the economy is destroyed because it's impossible to open anything when that many people are sick for weeks to months and the Health Care system is paralyzed. Hope that transmission doesn't re-start if people begin losing immunity, because then the death toll is way more than 3 million.
3. Keep everything, schools, businesses, closed for the large majority of the next 18 months, wait for a vaccine. 

Literally everything we've seen for the last 7 weeks tells that exact same story. No magic bullet has appeared, no magic drug or treatment, there's a giant pile of bodies and every bit of evidence says that the 1-2% death rates seen in January will absolutely hold, including most notably the nightmare that New York City became. Spots like Singapore and Hokkaido show clearly that if there are any areas that open up even to a minimal degree without aggressive tracing, the Virus will begin spreading rapidly there again, forcing new shutdowns with much larger case totals. 

If you've got a better idea, please let me know.

50 minutes ago, Yearnin' for Yermin said:

Just wondering, do you exercise this thought in all aspects of life? Do you strictly avoid buying products that were made in third world countries from potential sweatshops or in awful conditions?

He’s not talking about consumer needs vs. wants, and My Pillow Guy vs. Nike.

It’s how can the economic livelihood of one person be put ahead of the health care concerns of another...?    

Money can always be gained and regained.  You can’t say the same thing about a human life.   And there’s a multiplier effect here at play, too.  For every suicide or family breakdown due to economic circumstances, there’s a highly trained doctor or nurse feeling even more intense pressure when we overload hospitals with our self-centered, me first decision-making.

What will your attitude on this topic when you or your family can’t access a doctor because too many Americans are putting themselves individually ahead of the collective good?   A cavalier dismissal...that’s just life?   Some inevitably have to die to save the rest of us?  Why are you the arbiter who gets to make these life and death determinations?

An entrepreneur is always going to be a risk taker taker by nature.  They will succeed no matter what obstacles you place in their path because it’s our way of life.  Cycles of boom and bust repeat.  We will eventually replace capital, printing more money and injecting additional stimulus/liquidity into the system.

What we can’t easily or as quickly do is replace our best, most experienced doctors who have been burned out compensatating for poor judgment.
 

 

Edited April 28, 20205 yr by caulfield12

I see a culling of the herd,,,those over 60 for the most part.   The younger folks will eventually consider Covid-19 like just another seasonal  flu outbreak. No biggie.

This virus is a grim reaper for the Woodstock generation.  We are stardust we are covid.

22 minutes ago, tray said:

I see a culling of the herd,,,those over 60 for the most part.   The younger folks will eventually consider Covid-19 like just another seasonal  flu outbreak. No biggie.

This virus is a grim reaper for the Woodstock generation.  We are stardust we are covid.

There are a number of studies out showing different ways that this virus is doing dramatic damage to younger bodies. Kidney damage, liver damage, strokes/circulatory system damage...people under 30 may see death rates comparable to the flu of 0.2%, but some of these mild cases are still showing damage to internal systems that will be problems for years, maybe forever. 

16 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

There are a number of studies out showing different ways that this virus is doing dramatic damage to younger bodies. Kidney damage, liver damage, strokes/circulatory system damage...people under 30 may see death rates comparable to the flu of 0.2%, but some of these mild cases are still showing damage to internal systems that will be problems for years, maybe forever. 

Not to mention the correlation with vaping...

But the rate is 20% among those 18 to 29 years of age compared with 8% among those 30 to 64 years of age, and less than 0.5% among those 65 and older.

Testing 14 of the antibody tests.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/health/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&smtyp=cur

3 tests had few/no false positives, but all of them missed 10%+ of actual infected samples. 

Quote

In the new research, researchers found that only one of the tests never delivered a so-called false positive — that is, it never mistakenly signaled antibodies in people who did not have them.

Two other tests did not deliver false-positive results 99 percent of the time.

But the converse was not true. Even these three tests detected antibodies in infected people only 90 percent of the time, at best.

All of the other tests had false-positive rates higher than 5%.

Quote

Four of the tests produced false-positive rates ranging from 11 percent to 16 percent; many of the rest hovered around 5 percent.

“Those numbers are just unacceptable,” said Scott Hensley, a microbiologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “The tone of the paper is, ‘Look how good the tests are.’ But I look at these data, and I don’t really see that.”

The proportion of people in the United States who have been exposed to the coronavirus is likely to be 5 percent or less, Dr. Hensley said. “If your kit has a 3 percent false-positive, how do you interpret that? It’s basically impossible,” he said. “If your kit has 14 percent false positive, it’s useless.”

 

3 hours ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

The funny thing about jerksticks is he acts like shutting down is something we "want" to do. I dont want to be shutdown. As many have I'm sure, I've lost a lot in the shutdown. It sucks. But why should my materialistic things be more important and valuable than an actual human life? 

What is wrong with the selfish nature of so many. My goodness. 

When you see things bad happen to people and say it's not me and turn a blind eye, you're merely kicking the can down the road. Do that enough times and you'll be the one getting hit by a car.

Dude don’t lump me in with “economy” people.  Since the very beginning in Feb-March, I’ve been steadily arguing this b**** is spreading like wildfire and that the asymptomatic rate is going to end up being ASTRONOMICALLY higher than what’s reported.  That’s all.  I’ve been steady with that.  
 

Some Bloomberg article today indicated that it looks like the virus can just suspend in air in crowded spaces.  
 

So yes, I continually challenge Balta and others that you don’t contain something like this, you just flatten the curve like we’re doing.  Testing is pointless.   But I respect the common opinion of containment.  We’ll see.  
 

Where are the dead Swedes?

3 hours ago, Jerksticks said:

Still trumpeting this plan of attack eh?  I respect your unwavering commitment to containing the virus.  

Holy F@#%. I can't understand how anyone could think this is a bad thing. That's astonishingly horrible. 

4 hours ago, Dick Allen said:

Since Trump claims to be the biggest cheerleader, he should visit the meatpacking plants he is ordering open and have a rally. No mask.

Waiting for him to open up the White House to the public.

16 minutes ago, Jerksticks said:

 We’ll see.  

Honestly, no we won't, because there's no national leadership and as a consequence we're not going to get there, not any time soon. We're going to open up states and see what happens and hope New York was a fluke. The fact that we're not doing what has worked in South Korea, New Zealand, China, and instead doing what we've seen fail in multiple places...is why I keep saying we should do the thing that worked.

A few states might pull it off (Washington had  a 0% positive test rate today), but they'll just re-import cases that they can't trace.