OT: COVID-19 thread #2

[AKfanatic]

Thanks all for the well wishes. I’ll be sure to keep everyone up to date. May be a bit silent on here over the next days as it’s likely I’ll move into my folks living room and help as well as I can.

[dice]

Lakers received 4.6 million under the PPP loan program:

Several companies returned their loan money in recent days amid the backlash, including the Los Angeles Lakers basketball franchise, which on Monday said it had given back its $4.6 million loan. Mr. Mnuchin said on Tuesday that he thought it was “outrageous” that the Lakers had taken money and warned other public companies that they could face criminal liability if they did not refund the loans by May 7.

“The purpose of this program was not social welfare for big business,” Mr. Mnuchin said.

lol, he's outraged his program is allowing big business to get loans? hey who designed the program anyways!

Unfortunately, the way this thing was rolled out, a lot of the onus was put on borrowers to follow the rules and to only request funding if they had no other source of loans. Now they are saying they will retroactively be auditing firms who get the loan to make sure they really needed it. Would have been a lot better had they eliminated the kinds of loopholes that allowed these large and wealthy businesses from qualifying in the first place. Apparently there was a big lobbying effort by the start up industry group to allow them to participate, even though many of them have access to millions in loans through their private investors.

gonna be real interesting to see what happens w/ the $500 billion earmarked for corporations in the larger stimulus bill and to be distributed by mnuchin? does anyone really think that there won't be a whole lot of shady **** that goes on after trump said he won't heed the oversight stipulation?

[ImSlower]

Best wishes you too and your fam, AKfanatic. We'll be here if you need to lurk or argue. The Bulls are the most mentioned name in the national news for two weeks now! Hopefully it provides some healthy distraction while you all beat this vile little virus.

[Nikola]

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741

But just last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

So there are 20,000 wet markets in China. The virus supposedly breaks out at the wet market 200 yards from China's highest level biolab, openly working on the transmission of corona virus. There are big coincidences and small coincidences.

Of course this has been known for months but it did not fit the mainstream media agenda.

[dice]

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741

But just last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

So there are 20,000 wet markets in China. The virus supposedly breaks out at the wet market 200 yards from China's highest level biolab, openly working on the transmission of corona virus. There are big coincidences and small coincidences.

Of course this has been known for months but it did not fit the mainstream media agenda.

now you have to invent a story as to why the mainstream american media would have any hesitation at all to blame a chinese lab for COVID-19 if there was a preponderance of evidence to suggest that that was the case. or blame the trump administration for funding it! and why, if they were going to create a fabricated origin story, they wouldn't choose a location far away from the actual source they were attempting to conceal...

[Nikola]

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741

But just last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

So there are 20,000 wet markets in China. The virus supposedly breaks out at the wet market 200 yards from China's highest level biolab, openly working on the transmission of corona virus. There are big coincidences and small coincidences.

Of course this has been known for months but it did not fit the mainstream media agenda.

now you have to invent a story as to why the mainstream american media would have any hesitation at all to blame a chinese lab for COVID-19 if there was a preponderance of evidence to suggest that that was the case. or blame the trump administration for funding it! and why, if they were going to create a fabricated origin story, they wouldn't choose a location far away from the actual source they were attempting to conceal...

You can guess as to why the media, government, and social media suppressed stories about it yourself.

[dice]

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741



So there are 20,000 wet markets in China. The virus supposedly breaks out at the wet market 200 yards from China's highest level biolab, openly working on the transmission of corona virus. There are big coincidences and small coincidences.

Of course this has been known for months but it did not fit the mainstream media agenda.

now you have to invent a story as to why the mainstream american media would have any hesitation at all to blame a chinese lab for COVID-19 if there was a preponderance of evidence to suggest that that was the case. or blame the trump administration for funding it! and why, if they were going to create a fabricated origin story, they wouldn't choose a location far away from the actual source they were attempting to conceal...

You can guess as to why the media, government, and social media suppressed stories about it yourself.

no, no i can't. because i cannot put myself in the mindset of the paranoid conspiracy theorist. nor do i want to. conspiracy theory is a cottage industry with its own ulterior motives and i'm not going to participate

have you just not concocted an answer to my questions yet? because you should have been considering these questions prior to any acceptance of the theories you've been reading about on whatever non-mainstream sites you are frequenting

[Nikola]

now you have to invent a story as to why the mainstream american media would have any hesitation at all to blame a chinese lab for COVID-19 if there was a preponderance of evidence to suggest that that was the case. or blame the trump administration for funding it! and why, if they were going to create a fabricated origin story, they wouldn't choose a location far away from the actual source they were attempting to conceal...

You can guess as to why the media, government, and social media suppressed stories about it yourself.

no, no i can't. because i cannot put myself in the mindset of the paranoid conspiracy theorist. nor do i want to. conspiracy theory is a cottage industry with its own ulterior motives and i'm not going to participate

have you just not concocted an answer to my questions yet? because you should have been considering these questions prior to any acceptance of the theories you've been reading about on whatever non-mainstream sites you are frequenting

Do you not find the article and my comments original post to be very coincidental? If so all of this has been known for months and msm is only starting to talk about it this week. It was highly censored on social media.

[dice]

You can guess as to why the media, government, and social media suppressed stories about it yourself.

no, no i can't. because i cannot put myself in the mindset of the paranoid conspiracy theorist. nor do i want to. conspiracy theory is a cottage industry with its own ulterior motives and i'm not going to participate

have you just not concocted an answer to my questions yet? because you should have been considering these questions prior to any acceptance of the theories you've been reading about on whatever non-mainstream sites you are frequenting

Do you not find the article and my comments original post to be very coincidental? If so all of this has been known for months and msm is only starting to talk about it this week. It was highly censored on social media.

why was it "censored" then but not now? and by whom? the illuminati? there is no fundamental substance to your allegations

the mainstream media would have loved, loved, LOVED a story about trump's NIH funding the creation of coronavirus in a chinese lab and mistakenly letting it infect people in the general population. because the mainstream media is concerned with one thing above all else: eyeballs ($$$). they have no incentive to clam up and suppress bombshell reporting on the orders of some unnamed shadow overlord

[MrSparkle]

Lakers received 4.6 million under the PPP loan program:

Several companies returned their loan money in recent days amid the backlash, including the Los Angeles Lakers basketball franchise, which on Monday said it had given back its $4.6 million loan. Mr. Mnuchin said on Tuesday that he thought it was “outrageous” that the Lakers had taken money and warned other public companies that they could face criminal liability if they did not refund the loans by May 7.

“The purpose of this program was not social welfare for big business,” Mr. Mnuchin said.

lol, he's outraged his program is allowing big business to get loans? hey who designed the program anyways!

Unfortunately, the way this thing was rolled out, a lot of the onus was put on borrowers to follow the rules and to only request funding if they had no other source of loans. Now they are saying they will retroactively be auditing firms who get the loan to make sure they really needed it. Would have been a lot better had they eliminated the kinds of loopholes that allowed these large and wealthy businesses from qualifying in the first place. Apparently there was a big lobbying effort by the start up industry group to allow them to participate, even though many of them have access to millions in loans through their private investors.

The thing that bugs me is all the administrative time it takes to audit these loans. So inefficient. The sum cost of all the back-and-forth and audits and phase 2 and 3 legislations that will need to be past, could've been grandly alleviated by no-questions-asked 2-3 month stimulus for every business and private citizen. Would've been in the tune of $3 trillion, with zero headaches, better short-term and much better long-term outlook. This is going to be a debt pile-up, with unemployment and bankruptcies skyrocketing for the next 2-3 quarters.

I'd love a more efficient government. But I truly think lawyers, politicians and lobbyists get a genuine kick out of running laps with their charades.

These "outrageous" left-wing "socialist" proposals that are rejected as unaffordable dreams, people will one day realize that the way they are actually very reasonable requisitions. The Democrats "crazy" $2000 per person stimulus wage would've navigated out of this mess and created a clarity and rest to the health freeze.

But when you get moderate requests gutted and compromised, you're really just asking for a right-of-center piece of legislation once it gets through the US-gov. pipeline. You ask for moderate/conservative legislation, you get trillions of dollars dumped to the corps with no oversight. Trickle down all right ... collect some rain drops from the gutter for your water supply.

This $2+ trillion CARES Act going to go down in history as one of the worst disaster-time legislations. I have to imagine they will have to pass another piece of legislation as this lingers towards June.

[Dresden]

There is a huge amount of red tape involved, and admin costs. The banks are taking something like a 5% cut to process the loans. I read that democrats had proposed a while back, that every person in the country have an account with the FED, and for things like this, they could just direct deposit into that account. So much simpler and more efficient. Not to mention it would be a lot more fair, too. this was a big money grab, and the ones with better connections got to the head of the line.

[TallDude]

I thought something was going in front office/Boylen gone or new players. It was that MJ doc. I like documenteries and might even see this one but is it really big in there? We still have virus nro 1. Is it any good? I know how it ends

[moorhosj]

You can guess as to why the media, government, and social media suppressed stories about it yourself.

This story was so suppressed, you had to go to the deep, dark web of Newsweek to find it.

[moorhosj]

There is a huge amount of red tape involved, and admin costs. The banks are taking something like a 5% cut to process the loans. I read that democrats had proposed a while back, that every person in the country have an account with the FED, and for things like this, they could just direct deposit into that account. So much simpler and more efficient. Not to mention it would be a lot more fair, too. this was a big money grab, and the ones with better connections got to the head of the line.

I don’t get our obsession with “businesses” in this country. The LLC structure allows for companies to declare bankruptcy and the owners to keep their personal assets. Back in business school, we used to say this was one of the secrets to America’s economic success. It allows people to take risks but protect their personal wealth. You aren’t a capitalist if you don’t let companies fail or fire people.

This type of structure doesn’t exist on the individual side. Even worse, some things like student loan debt can’t even be discharged in a bankruptcy. Explain again why we insist on giving money to companies instead of spreading among workers.

- $349 billion - original small business bailout
- $310 billion - second small business bailout
- $450 billion - large corporate loans

This is $1.1 trillion in gifts to US companies. There are 130 million households in the US. We could have given each household $8,500 instead.

[Bullstuff]

Faulty testing is likely the result of these anecdotal "second infection" stories you see pop up from time to time. Historically speaking, it would be inconceivable to think we wouldn't get some kind of immunity for a period of time after being infected.

i got chicken pox twice as a kid, so even with conditions that we know involve protection from re-infection, it's not necessarily foolproof. people should still take all the precautions even if they've recovered

Probably in theory possible, but the more likely explanation is that you didn't have chicken pox twice, but were misdiagnosed (at least once).

[Taikuri]

Deaths per 1M of pop:

Sweden: 213
Denmark: 70
Norway: 37
Finland: 32

So having a death rate 3-5x higher than nearby countries is not a good argument for how they are doing things, I would say.

In my opinion too early to say. Sweden chose economy first approach and it's very interesting to see what will happen in the next few months. Of course they sacrificed many of their elderly folks choosing this strategy. Nice way to respect the elderly folks... So it's not the most ethical way but Sweden along with Belarus will take far less economical damage than a lot of other countries will.

I never would've guessed before the pandemic that Sweden is one of the few countries choosing a strategy like this that differs so much from the majority. Always thought of them as a very ethical country but at the same time they aren't locking down anyone while most other countries pretty much are so that in a way is ethical I guess to keep everyone free. Well it's a bigger question than that and I could go on forever but I guess I'll leave it there.

Sorry for the late reply btw, but just wanted to mention that. Fell behind and browsing through the old pages a bit which I didn't see yet hehe.

[moorhosj]

In my opinion too early to say. Sweden chose economy first approach and it's very interesting to see what will happen in the next few months. Of course they sacrificed many of their elderly folks choosing this strategy. Nice way to respect the elderly folks... So it's not the most ethical way but Sweden along with Belarus will take far less economical damage than a lot of other countries will.

I never would've guessed before the pandemic that Sweden is one of the few countries choosing a strategy like this that differs so much from the majority. Always thought of them as a very ethical country but at the same time they aren't locking down anyone while most other countries pretty much are so that in a way is ethical I guess to keep everyone free. Well it's a bigger question than that and I could go on forever but I guess I'll leave it there.

Sorry for the late reply btw, but just wanted to mention that. Fell behind and browsing through the old pages a bit which I didn't see yet hehe.

The only thing worse than choosing between stay-home or stay-open is vacillating between the two. Our results will likely be worse than Sweden (which stayed open) or New Zealand, Poland, etc. (which closed) because we tried to do both at the same time.

[Taikuri]

In my opinion too early to say. Sweden chose economy first approach and it's very interesting to see what will happen in the next few months. Of course they sacrificed many of their elderly folks choosing this strategy. Nice way to respect the elderly folks... So it's not the most ethical way but Sweden along with Belarus will take far less economical damage than a lot of other countries will.

I never would've guessed before the pandemic that Sweden is one of the few countries choosing a strategy like this that differs so much from the majority. Always thought of them as a very ethical country but at the same time they aren't locking down anyone while most other countries pretty much are so that in a way is ethical I guess to keep everyone free. Well it's a bigger question than that and I could go on forever but I guess I'll leave it there.

The only thing worse than choosing between stay-home or stay-open is vacillating between the two. Our results will likely be worse than Sweden (which stayed open) or New Zealand, Poland, etc. (which closed) because we tried to do both at the same time.

I'm actually from Finland but yeah I know what you mean. Here they are suddenly talking about hybrid strategies and the likes all of a sudden. So it's kind of similar. The officials are saying now that our lockdown / preventions in Finland were too severe and our spike/peak moved from early/middle of the summer to the Fall now unless we open up the country more. They don't want Autumn's flu season to be at the same time when we hit our covid-19 peak now and they are getting worried. So we'll see how it all goes. Sweden's strategy looks better that in mind but I still wouldn't be too happy if I were them with so many elderly lives lost. Not the most ethical thing.

I guess that in the U.S. it varies more state to state whether the lock down was too severe, thus people are having protests or demonstrations about that in some places. That's at least how I understood it.

[wolffy]

Theres one thing in the whole argument about the virus originating in the wuhan biolab that is just so implausible as to make it seem pointless to even debate... china would have pinpointed a different city as the first case.

[Dresden]

There is a huge amount of red tape involved, and admin costs. The banks are taking something like a 5% cut to process the loans. I read that democrats had proposed a while back, that every person in the country have an account with the FED, and for things like this, they could just direct deposit into that account. So much simpler and more efficient. Not to mention it would be a lot more fair, too. this was a big money grab, and the ones with better connections got to the head of the line.

I don’t get our obsession with “businesses” in this country. The LLC structure allows for companies to declare bankruptcy and the owners to keep their personal assets. Back in business school, we used to say this was one of the secrets to America’s economic success. It allows people to take risks but protect their personal wealth. You aren’t a capitalist if you don’t let companies fail or fire people.

This type of structure doesn’t exist on the individual side. Even worse, some things like student loan debt can’t even be discharged in a bankruptcy. Explain again why we insist on giving money to companies instead of spreading among workers.

- $349 billion - original small business bailout
- $310 billion - second small business bailout
- $450 billion - large corporate loans

This is $1.1 trillion in gifts to US companies. There are 130 million households in the US. We could have given each household $8,500 instead.

Bingo.