All things Chinese CoronaVirus

[Typical Lax Dad]

Someone mentioned this drug on this board yesterday. Lots of companies working on a solution.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/433975 ... ource=cnbc

Interesting.

As I'm not a stock picker, I won't bite on ANY of these, but it's interesting nevertheless.

I tend to think that Bill Gates has a good handle on all this. Bill's message is that there's many, many therapeutics and many, many vaccines in the pipeline and the odds are good that there will be some successes.

The degree of efficacy matters.
Some help is good, higher efficacy obviously better on the therapeutics.
There may be multiple 'winners' based on specific types of patients, specific symptoms, and timing.
"Best" for each will win, but not all that produce some efficacy will be 'winners' in the marketplace.
According to Bill, some approaches appear more promising than others, typically aren't touted publicly.

On the vaccines, the big question may be how persistent any immunity is relative to a mutating virus. No sure things.
But super important to actual return to something reasonably close to pre-pandemic 'normal'.

I would not invest based on this Coronavirus. I just happen to know a company working on a treatment. I can’t invest in the company nor would I based on Coronavirus research alone. Time will tell if they are successful. Smart people are working on it at a lot of companies...we will come up with something. I find it strange that Gilead has received so much press and others are just as far along or close? An effective treatment will go a long ways toward restoring normalcy. A couple of the drugs these guys offer are 90+% effective which is outrageous. These diseases are far worse than Coronavirus....as in your life expectancy will go from 4 years or less to normal. A similar action, on paper, seems like a promising solution.

[ggait]

On this point above, I understand where you're coming from, except the evidence is Trump appears to make relatively sane decisions when you are able to take a step back and weigh objectively.

Petey -- my take has always been that Trump is primarily a BS-ing salesman -- a talker. He's a reality TV guy putting on the Trump show. That is the only job he does. He really doesn't do much/any other work in a serious manner.

In an ideal world, he'd love to be a dictator like Putin or Xi. But doing that job actually requires a lot of strategy and hard work -- I don't think Putin and Xi have much time to watch TV and screw around on Twitter.

Since Trump does little actual substantive work, most decisions are made (and more importantly implemented) by inertia and the bureaucracy. On Covid, there'd just be too much work and accountability for Trump to do much other than follow what the experts tell him to do. And he doesn't have any alternative plan anyway -- just a gut feel that he doesn't like the situation and would like something else. So he does (reluctantly) what they tell him to do. He focuses on trying to happy talk his base (Liberate!, Chloroquine!, Hot weather! Sunlight! Dem Hoax!) and the stock market so he can get re-elected.

On occasion, Trump's small, inexperienced and under-powered team will try to actually get something done. But those things invariably FUBAR quickly and are abandoned/forgotten.

That's why Trump mostly focuses on deleting/cancelling things rather than creating/building things. It is very easy to pull out of the Paris Accord or the Iran Nuke deal; quite hard to get a replacement done or actually build that wall. Easy to sign badly constructed exec orders banning immigration and other things -- his base doesn't much care if those exec orders mostly get squashed a few months later by the courts. While Trump came close to repealing Obamacare, he could never even come up with an alternative plan.

Trump is a lot of talk, but with very little credibility or follow through. Thank god -- he'd be way more scary to me if he actually did what he said.

[MDlaxfan76]

Someone mentioned this drug on this board yesterday. Lots of companies working on a solution.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/433975 ... ource=cnbc

Interesting.

As I'm not a stock picker, I won't bite on ANY of these, but it's interesting nevertheless.

I tend to think that Bill Gates has a good handle on all this. Bill's message is that there's many, many therapeutics and many, many vaccines in the pipeline and the odds are good that there will be some successes.

The degree of efficacy matters.
Some help is good, higher efficacy obviously better on the therapeutics.
There may be multiple 'winners' based on specific types of patients, specific symptoms, and timing.
"Best" for each will win, but not all that produce some efficacy will be 'winners' in the marketplace.
According to Bill, some approaches appear more promising than others, typically aren't touted publicly.

On the vaccines, the big question may be how persistent any immunity is relative to a mutating virus. No sure things.
But super important to actual return to something reasonably close to pre-pandemic 'normal'.

I would not invest based on this Coronavirus. I just happen to know a company working on a treatment. Time will tell if they are successful. Smart people are working on it, we will come up with something. An effective treatment will go a long ways toward restoring normalcy. A couple of the drugs these guys offer are 90+% effective which is outrageous. These diseases are far worse than Coronavirus....as in your life expectancy will go from 4 years or less to normal. A similar action, on paper, seems like a promising solution.

Fingers crossed on any and all efforts...other than injecting disinfectant or sunlight!

Yes, I think Gates is saying similarly that there are some approaches that have real promise, indeed multiple such. A lot of smart people.

On the other hand, there's my pessimistic friend, an ex Pharma finance guy who said (paraphrasing), "you know, the common cold is a form of coronavirus...and if it was straightforward to prevent/cure the common cold, we'd see that cure sold for $20 a pop all over the world, massive market...but we don't see that."

[Typical Lax Dad]

Someone mentioned this drug on this board yesterday. Lots of companies working on a solution.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/433975 ... ource=cnbc

Interesting.

As I'm not a stock picker, I won't bite on ANY of these, but it's interesting nevertheless.

I tend to think that Bill Gates has a good handle on all this. Bill's message is that there's many, many therapeutics and many, many vaccines in the pipeline and the odds are good that there will be some successes.

The degree of efficacy matters.
Some help is good, higher efficacy obviously better on the therapeutics.
There may be multiple 'winners' based on specific types of patients, specific symptoms, and timing.
"Best" for each will win, but not all that produce some efficacy will be 'winners' in the marketplace.
According to Bill, some approaches appear more promising than others, typically aren't touted publicly.

On the vaccines, the big question may be how persistent any immunity is relative to a mutating virus. No sure things.
But super important to actual return to something reasonably close to pre-pandemic 'normal'.

I would not invest based on this Coronavirus. I just happen to know a company working on a treatment. Time will tell if they are successful. Smart people are working on it, we will come up with something. An effective treatment will go a long ways toward restoring normalcy. A couple of the drugs these guys offer are 90+% effective which is outrageous. These diseases are far worse than Coronavirus....as in your life expectancy will go from 4 years or less to normal. A similar action, on paper, seems like a promising solution.

Fingers crossed on any and all efforts...other than injecting disinfectant or sunlight!

Yes, I think Gates is saying similarly that there are some approaches that have real promise, indeed multiple such. A lot of smart people.

On the other hand, there's my pessimistic friend, an ex Pharma finance guy who said (paraphrasing), "you know, the common cold is a form of coronavirus...and if it was straightforward to prevent/cure the common cold, we'd see that cure sold for $20 a pop all over the world, massive market...but we don't see that."

Exactly. That’s why I say there is no guarantee that we will have a “cure” or vaccine. An effective treatment may be a lower hurdle. Save lives and keep the hospitals from being overrun. Anything that would lessen the duration and severity would be helpful. Couple this with more reasonable mitigation efforts could cut a big chunk out of the crush on the healthcare system which is the bottleneck.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 072712.htm

[Typical Lax Dad]

Let the scientists and public health officials recommend treatments.....not a schlocky real estate developer that’s not even good at his main vocation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/24/coronav ... cerns.html

[ggait]

You have to take an all of the above approach.

We still don't have a vaccine for HIV -- which at first was thought to be quite do-able in a couple years time.

But HIV is pretty much under control with great therapeutics, testing, and public health measures to limit spread.

[Typical Lax Dad]

You have to take an all of the above approach.

We still don't have a vaccine for HIV -- which at first was thought to be quite do-able in a couple years time.

But HIV is pretty much under control with great therapeutics, testing, and public health measures to limit spread.

+1

[Peter Brown]

On this point above, I understand where you're coming from, except the evidence is Trump appears to make relatively sane decisions when you are able to take a step back and weigh objectively.

Petey -- my take has always been that Trump is primarily a BS-ing salesman -- a talker. He's a reality TV guy putting on the Trump show. That is the only job he does. He really doesn't do much/any other work in a serious manner.

In an ideal world, he'd love to be a dictator like Putin or Xi. But doing that job actually requires a lot of strategy and hard work -- I don't think Putin and Xi have much time to watch TV and screw around on Twitter.

Since Trump does little actual substantive work, most decisions are made (and more importantly implemented) by inertia and the bureaucracy. On Covid, there'd just be too much work and accountability for Trump to do much other than follow what the experts tell him to do. And he doesn't have any alternative plan anyway -- just a gut feel that he doesn't like the situation and would like something else. So he does (reluctantly) what they tell him to do. He focuses on trying to happy talk his base (Liberate!, Chloroquine!, Hot weather! Sunlight! Dem Hoax!) and the stock market so he can get re-elected.

On occasion, Trump's small, inexperienced and under-powered team will try to actually get something done. But those things invariably FUBAR quickly and are abandoned/forgotten.

That's why Trump mostly focuses on deleting/cancelling things rather than creating/building things. It is very easy to pull out of the Paris Accord or the Iran Nuke deal; quite hard to get a replacement done or actually build that wall. Easy to sign badly constructed exec orders banning immigration and other things -- his base doesn't much care if those exec orders mostly get squashed a few months later by the courts. While Trump came close to repealing Obamacare, he could never even come up with an alternative plan.

Trump is a lot of talk, but with very little credibility or follow through. Thank god -- he'd be way more scary to me if he actually did what he said.

You've written something that I have always felt and can't quite put the words down to say! Also why Trump doesn't bother me; he's relatively harmless. Politicians who want to do a lot tend to scare me far more...

+1000

[RedFromMI]

On this point above, I understand where you're coming from, except the evidence is Trump appears to make relatively sane decisions when you are able to take a step back and weigh objectively.

Petey -- my take has always been that Trump is primarily a BS-ing salesman -- a talker. He's a reality TV guy putting on the Trump show. That is the only job he does. He really doesn't do much/any other work in a serious manner.

In an ideal world, he'd love to be a dictator like Putin or Xi. But doing that job actually requires a lot of strategy and hard work -- I don't think Putin and Xi have much time to watch TV and screw around on Twitter.

Since Trump does little actual substantive work, most decisions are made (and more importantly implemented) by inertia and the bureaucracy. On Covid, there'd just be too much work and accountability for Trump to do much other than follow what the experts tell him to do. And he doesn't have any alternative plan anyway -- just a gut feel that he doesn't like the situation and would like something else. So he does (reluctantly) what they tell him to do. He focuses on trying to happy talk his base (Liberate!, Chloroquine!, Hot weather! Sunlight! Dem Hoax!) and the stock market so he can get re-elected.

On occasion, Trump's small, inexperienced and under-powered team will try to actually get something done. But those things invariably FUBAR quickly and are abandoned/forgotten.

That's why Trump mostly focuses on deleting/cancelling things rather than creating/building things. It is very easy to pull out of the Paris Accord or the Iran Nuke deal; quite hard to get a replacement done or actually build that wall. Easy to sign badly constructed exec orders banning immigration and other things -- his base doesn't much care if those exec orders mostly get squashed a few months later by the courts. While Trump came close to repealing Obamacare, he could never even come up with an alternative plan.

Trump is a lot of talk, but with very little credibility or follow through. Thank god -- he'd be way more scary to me if he actually did what he said.

You've written something that I have always felt and can't quite put the words down to say! Also why Trump doesn't bother me; he's relatively harmless. Politicians who want to do a lot tend to scare me far more...

+1000

The problem is the nation actually needs a president at this moment who can actually accomplish something. Because of that he is nowhere near the "harmless label" but rather is a giant hurt on the country.

That is why we have a death toll of greater than 50K when a competent president could have marshaled resources and efforts to keep it under 10K and maybe even a couple of thousand. And the economic toll would be far less as well.

[Peter Brown]

On this point above, I understand where you're coming from, except the evidence is Trump appears to make relatively sane decisions when you are able to take a step back and weigh objectively.

Petey -- my take has always been that Trump is primarily a BS-ing salesman -- a talker. He's a reality TV guy putting on the Trump show. That is the only job he does. He really doesn't do much/any other work in a serious manner.

In an ideal world, he'd love to be a dictator like Putin or Xi. But doing that job actually requires a lot of strategy and hard work -- I don't think Putin and Xi have much time to watch TV and screw around on Twitter.

Since Trump does little actual substantive work, most decisions are made (and more importantly implemented) by inertia and the bureaucracy. On Covid, there'd just be too much work and accountability for Trump to do much other than follow what the experts tell him to do. And he doesn't have any alternative plan anyway -- just a gut feel that he doesn't like the situation and would like something else. So he does (reluctantly) what they tell him to do. He focuses on trying to happy talk his base (Liberate!, Chloroquine!, Hot weather! Sunlight! Dem Hoax!) and the stock market so he can get re-elected.

On occasion, Trump's small, inexperienced and under-powered team will try to actually get something done. But those things invariably FUBAR quickly and are abandoned/forgotten.

That's why Trump mostly focuses on deleting/cancelling things rather than creating/building things. It is very easy to pull out of the Paris Accord or the Iran Nuke deal; quite hard to get a replacement done or actually build that wall. Easy to sign badly constructed exec orders banning immigration and other things -- his base doesn't much care if those exec orders mostly get squashed a few months later by the courts. While Trump came close to repealing Obamacare, he could never even come up with an alternative plan.

Trump is a lot of talk, but with very little credibility or follow through. Thank god -- he'd be way more scary to me if he actually did what he said.

You've written something that I have always felt and can't quite put the words down to say! Also why Trump doesn't bother me; he's relatively harmless. Politicians who want to do a lot tend to scare me far more...

+1000

The problem is the nation actually needs a president at this moment who can actually accomplish something. Because of that he is nowhere near the "harmless label" but rather is a giant hurt on the country.

That is why we have a death toll of greater than 50K when a competent president could have marshaled resources and efforts to keep it under 10K and maybe even a couple of thousand. And the economic toll would be far less as well.

Respectfully, I disagree. But I understand your thought too.

I am the world's greatest believer in the free market. That means, you will suffer as well as thrive, and the thriving far outweighs the suffering. Unfortunately for you Red, the one and only time I violate my creed of never saying never (besides that oxymoron of course) is I will never veer from my embrace of the free market. The free market always wins. I'd rather not even have a President if you allowed that.

[youthathletics]

Let the scientists and public health officials recommend treatments.....not a schlocky real estate developer that’s not even good at his main vocation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/24/coronav ... cerns.html

Agreed, to a certain point, but entertain and listen to everything...ya never know. What if harry homeowner who has CV19, breaks out his old 1990's tanning bed with all the UV lamps in there and kills it immediately. Would be funny as heck if it were some southern fella in a trailer park who solves it in a McGyver way.

There are companies like Heraeus Noblelight Fusion UV that specialize in UV, tech may converge with medical options.

[Typical Lax Dad]

On this point above, I understand where you're coming from, except the evidence is Trump appears to make relatively sane decisions when you are able to take a step back and weigh objectively.

Petey -- my take has always been that Trump is primarily a BS-ing salesman -- a talker. He's a reality TV guy putting on the Trump show. That is the only job he does. He really doesn't do much/any other work in a serious manner.

In an ideal world, he'd love to be a dictator like Putin or Xi. But doing that job actually requires a lot of strategy and hard work -- I don't think Putin and Xi have much time to watch TV and screw around on Twitter.

Since Trump does little actual substantive work, most decisions are made (and more importantly implemented) by inertia and the bureaucracy. On Covid, there'd just be too much work and accountability for Trump to do much other than follow what the experts tell him to do. And he doesn't have any alternative plan anyway -- just a gut feel that he doesn't like the situation and would like something else. So he does (reluctantly) what they tell him to do. He focuses on trying to happy talk his base (Liberate!, Chloroquine!, Hot weather! Sunlight! Dem Hoax!) and the stock market so he can get re-elected.

On occasion, Trump's small, inexperienced and under-powered team will try to actually get something done. But those things invariably FUBAR quickly and are abandoned/forgotten.

That's why Trump mostly focuses on deleting/cancelling things rather than creating/building things. It is very easy to pull out of the Paris Accord or the Iran Nuke deal; quite hard to get a replacement done or actually build that wall. Easy to sign badly constructed exec orders banning immigration and other things -- his base doesn't much care if those exec orders mostly get squashed a few months later by the courts. While Trump came close to repealing Obamacare, he could never even come up with an alternative plan.

Trump is a lot of talk, but with very little credibility or follow through. Thank god -- he'd be way more scary to me if he actually did what he said.

You've written something that I have always felt and can't quite put the words down to say! Also why Trump doesn't bother me; he's relatively harmless. Politicians who want to do a lot tend to scare me far more...

+1000

The problem is the nation actually needs a president at this moment who can actually accomplish something. Because of that he is nowhere near the "harmless label" but rather is a giant hurt on the country.

That is why we have a death toll of greater than 50K when a competent president could have marshaled resources and efforts to keep it under 10K and maybe even a couple of thousand. And the economic toll would be far less as well.

The economic toll is real damage. Germany getting back up. German soccer taking the field next month.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Let the scientists and public health officials recommend treatments.....not a schlocky real estate developer that’s not even good at his main vocation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/24/coronav ... cerns.html

Agreed, to a certain point, but entertain and listen to everything...ya never know. What if harry homeowner who has CV19, breaks out his old 1990's tanning bed with all the UV lamps in there and kills it immediately. Would be funny as heck if it were some southern fella in a trailer park who solves it in a McGyver way.

There are companies like Heraeus Noblelight Fusion UV that specialize in UV, tech may converge with medical options.

Let me know how long it takes to stuff that tanning bed up your ass. A bulb may be easier...




People were talking about outfitting stored and other public spaces with UV lights a month or two ago.

[a fan]

I am the world's greatest believer in the free market. That means, you will suffer as well as thrive, and the thriving far outweighs the suffering. Unfortunately for you Red, the one and only time I violate my creed of never saying never (besides that oxymoron of course) is I will never veer from my embrace of the free market. The free market always wins.

No it doesn't. And we've established that over and over and over. We wouldn't have great public schools and universities if that was even close to being the case.

Or public parks. Or public beaches. Or public roads. Or public libraries. Or, or, or......

[ggait]

That is why we have a death toll of greater than 50K when a competent president could have marshaled resources and efforts to keep it under 10K and maybe even a couple of thousand. And the economic toll would be far less as well.

I think most of us can see that Trump is mostly a do-nothing bull shirter. He talks strong, but is actually quite weak and lazy.

While that profile is not the worst possible (evil and effective), it also is far from the best. Nero may not have lit Rome on fire, but it is still sub-optimal to do nothing to put the fire out.

My bet is that the legacy of Trump's do nothing/happy talk/BS will not be the death toll. It will be that the economic damage will be far worse than it needed to be.

Trump thought he was saving the stock market (and his re-election) with happy talk, BS and smack. Had he gotten off twitter and TV and done his forking job, he could have saved a lot of livelihoods (and lives too). Ironic, since his wind-baggery is all focused on the economy.


Negligent incompetence (while not the worst possible profile) still has consequences.

[Typical Lax Dad]

I am the world's greatest believer in the free market. That means, you will suffer as well as thrive, and the thriving far outweighs the suffering. Unfortunately for you Red, the one and only time I violate my creed of never saying never (besides that oxymoron of course) is I will never veer from my embrace of the free market. The free market always wins.

No it doesn't. And we've established that over and over and over. We wouldn't have great public schools and universities if that was even close to being the case.

Or public parks. Or public beaches. Or public roads. Or public libraries. Or, or, or......

Obviously PB is a product of private school education over the course of his lifetime.

[DocBarrister]

On this point above, I understand where you're coming from, except the evidence is Trump appears to make relatively sane decisions when you are able to take a step back and weigh objectively.

Petey -- my take has always been that Trump is primarily a BS-ing salesman -- a talker. He's a reality TV guy putting on the Trump show. That is the only job he does. He really doesn't do much/any other work in a serious manner.

In an ideal world, he'd love to be a dictator like Putin or Xi. But doing that job actually requires a lot of strategy and hard work -- I don't think Putin and Xi have much time to watch TV and screw around on Twitter.

Since Trump does little actual substantive work, most decisions are made (and more importantly implemented) by inertia and the bureaucracy. On Covid, there'd just be too much work and accountability for Trump to do much other than follow what the experts tell him to do. And he doesn't have any alternative plan anyway -- just a gut feel that he doesn't like the situation and would like something else. So he does (reluctantly) what they tell him to do. He focuses on trying to happy talk his base (Liberate!, Chloroquine!, Hot weather! Sunlight! Dem Hoax!) and the stock market so he can get re-elected.

On occasion, Trump's small, inexperienced and under-powered team will try to actually get something done. But those things invariably FUBAR quickly and are abandoned/forgotten.

That's why Trump mostly focuses on deleting/cancelling things rather than creating/building things. It is very easy to pull out of the Paris Accord or the Iran Nuke deal; quite hard to get a replacement done or actually build that wall. Easy to sign badly constructed exec orders banning immigration and other things -- his base doesn't much care if those exec orders mostly get squashed a few months later by the courts. While Trump came close to repealing Obamacare, he could never even come up with an alternative plan.

Trump is a lot of talk, but with very little credibility or follow through. Thank god -- he'd be way more scary to me if he actually did what he said.

You've written something that I have always felt and can't quite put the words down to say! Also why Trump doesn't bother me; he's relatively harmless. Politicians who want to do a lot tend to scare me far more...

+1000

The problem is the nation actually needs a president at this moment who can actually accomplish something. Because of that he is nowhere near the "harmless label" but rather is a giant hurt on the country.

That is why we have a death toll of greater than 50K when a competent president could have marshaled resources and efforts to keep it under 10K and maybe even a couple of thousand. And the economic toll would be far less as well.

Respectfully, I disagree. But I understand your thought too.

I am the world's greatest believer in the free market. That means, you will suffer as well as thrive, and the thriving far outweighs the suffering. Unfortunately for you Red, the one and only time I violate my creed of never saying never (besides that oxymoron of course) is I will never veer from my embrace of the free market. The free market always wins. I'd rather not even have a President if you allowed that.

PB ... your views were out of date in the 18th century, needless to say bordering on nonsensical fantasy in the 21st century.

A large, strong, activist federal government isn’t a problem, it’s a necessity. And no delusional uber-libertarian fantasy will change that cold, harsh reality.

Besides ... the “free market” isn’t some golden calf that you are supposed to worship. No, it’s a dumb, brutish oxen that you place a yoke around and regulate, letting it do the hard work of tilling the field. But you don’t let the stupid animal tell you how to respond to a frickin’ global pandemic.

DocBarrister

[cradleandshoot]

On this point above, I understand where you're coming from, except the evidence is Trump appears to make relatively sane decisions when you are able to take a step back and weigh objectively.

Petey -- my take has always been that Trump is primarily a BS-ing salesman -- a talker. He's a reality TV guy putting on the Trump show. That is the only job he does. He really doesn't do much/any other work in a serious manner.

In an ideal world, he'd love to be a dictator like Putin or Xi. But doing that job actually requires a lot of strategy and hard work -- I don't think Putin and Xi have much time to watch TV and screw around on Twitter.

Since Trump does little actual substantive work, most decisions are made (and more importantly implemented) by inertia and the bureaucracy. On Covid, there'd just be too much work and accountability for Trump to do much other than follow what the experts tell him to do. And he doesn't have any alternative plan anyway -- just a gut feel that he doesn't like the situation and would like something else. So he does (reluctantly) what they tell him to do. He focuses on trying to happy talk his base (Liberate!, Chloroquine!, Hot weather! Sunlight! Dem Hoax!) and the stock market so he can get re-elected.

On occasion, Trump's small, inexperienced and under-powered team will try to actually get something done. But those things invariably FUBAR quickly and are abandoned/forgotten.

That's why Trump mostly focuses on deleting/cancelling things rather than creating/building things. It is very easy to pull out of the Paris Accord or the Iran Nuke deal; quite hard to get a replacement done or actually build that wall. Easy to sign badly constructed exec orders banning immigration and other things -- his base doesn't much care if those exec orders mostly get squashed a few months later by the courts. While Trump came close to repealing Obamacare, he could never even come up with an alternative plan.

Trump is a lot of talk, but with very little credibility or follow through. Thank god -- he'd be way more scary to me if he actually did what he said.

You've written something that I have always felt and can't quite put the words down to say! Also why Trump doesn't bother me; he's relatively harmless. Politicians who want to do a lot tend to scare me far more...

+1000

The problem is the nation actually needs a president at this moment who can actually accomplish something. Because of that he is nowhere near the "harmless label" but rather is a giant hurt on the country.

That is why we have a death toll of greater than 50K when a competent president could have marshaled resources and efforts to keep it under 10K and maybe even a couple of thousand. And the economic toll would be far less as well.

Respectfully, I disagree. But I understand your thought too.

I am the world's greatest believer in the free market. That means, you will suffer as well as thrive, and the thriving far outweighs the suffering. Unfortunately for you Red, the one and only time I violate my creed of never saying never (besides that oxymoron of course) is I will never veer from my embrace of the free market. The free market always wins. I'd rather not even have a President if you allowed that.

PB ... your views were out of date in the 18th century, needless to say bordering on nonsensical fantasy in the 21st century.

A large, strong, activist federal government isn’t a problem, it’s a necessity. And no delusional uber-libertarian fantasy will change that cold, harsh reality.

Besides ... the “free market” isn’t some golden calf that you are supposed to worship. No, it’s a dumb, brutish oxen that you place a yoke around and regulate, letting it do the hard work of tilling the field. But you don’t let the stupid animal tell you how to respond to a frickin’ global pandemic.

DocBarrister

As fouled up as the world is Doc I can only say I am glad you are on the sidelines here. If the USA was following your lead we would all be dead and dead broke to boot.

[a fan]

My bet is that the legacy of Trump's do nothing/happy talk/BS will not be the death toll. It will be that the economic damage will be far worse than it needed to be.

This is on both Trump and Congress. They have both failed our nation on this count. It's maddening. EVERYONE knows that you go big EARLY with bailouts and checks. Because if you don't.... the economic damage snowballs exponentially (like a virus), and then fixing the damage costs 2 to 3 times as much....and yields a worse result. Stupid. Idiotic.

Oh well. Maybe they'll figure this out by the next crisis. (nope)

[Peter Brown]

I am the world's greatest believer in the free market. That means, you will suffer as well as thrive, and the thriving far outweighs the suffering. Unfortunately for you Red, the one and only time I violate my creed of never saying never (besides that oxymoron of course) is I will never veer from my embrace of the free market. The free market always wins.

No it doesn't. And we've established that over and over and over. We wouldn't have great public schools and universities if that was even close to being the case.

Or public parks. Or public beaches. Or public roads. Or public libraries. Or, or, or......

Obviously PB is a product of private school education over the course of his lifetime.

You guys have no idea how much better those 'public' anythings would be if they were in private hands. Check mate.