jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
If this interrupts production and supply chains, a lot of Americans might know the feeling of hunger for the first time in their lives. Then again, collectively we can all afford to lose a good amount of weight.
Coronavirus
- Thread starter Stereodude
- Start date
This is a new low for the administration and that's saying a lot.
www.theguardian.com
Trump 'offers large sums' for exclusive US access to coronavirus vaccine
German government tries to fight off aggressive takeover bid by US, say reports
www.theguardian.com
Newtun
Storage is nice, especially if it doesn't rotate
From Ars T.: Firm wielding Theranos patents asks judge to block coronavirus test [Updated]
Legal expert calls it "the most tone-deaf IP suit in history."
Legal expert calls it "the most tone-deaf IP suit in history."
Stereodude
Not really a
Keep pushing the fake news. That story has already fallen apart.This is a new low for the administration and that's saying a lot.
Trump 'offers large sums' for exclusive US access to coronavirus vaccine
German government tries to fight off aggressive takeover bid by US, say reports
And the coup de grâce:
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Nothing has fallen apart yet. I'm not seeing a credible source from your point of view. Grenell is a Trump loyalist...so no thanks, can't trust a Trump crony.
Second...Trump is the largest proponent of fake and misleading news daily...right from his own mouth but you're ok with that. Why should I trust your source?
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Amazing in all this that I'm still getting telemarketing calls (which I never answer of course). If there's any silver lining to this, it could be that it lasts long enough to put most of these telescammers out of business for good.
I doubt we could be that lucky for them to go out of business. I haven't even connected my home phone in the year I've been at my new place. I can see in the online records it gets tons of calls.
So now everyone is Andrew Yang and wants to throw out money. Maybe Trump will announce that Bank of America will send the money quickly and they've worked something out. BoA will reply in a surprised tweet...we're doing wut now?
www.theatlantic.com
www.npr.org
thehill.com
What If Andrew Yang Was Right?
Mitt Romney has joined the chorus of voices calling for all Americans to receive free money directly from the government.
www.theatlantic.com
White House Wants To Send Checks To Americans As Coronavirus Stalls Economy
"We want to go big," President Trump said as his administration seeks to revive the now-stalled economy.
www.npr.org
GOP Sen. Cotton calls for monthly cash payments to Americans during coronavirus pandemic
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said Monday he wants to give monthly checks to low-income and middle-class Americans so they can afford necessities during the coronavirus outbreak.”Let’s cut out emp…
thehill.com
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I think it's a good idea but at the same time we should make sure that people who already have money coming to them don't have it seized. I'm talking specifically about people who have tax offsets because they owe on student loans. The government should suspend these tax offsets so these people can spend their refunds instead and help the economy.
And as I said earlier, the government should seriously consider canceling a large swath of student loans, starting with the oldest loans first. You want a stimulus? I can't think of anything better. This is trickle up economics at its finest. That money will be pumped right back into the economy.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Caller ID verification may well be a game changer as more phone providers roll it out.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Anyone else thinking that if large numbers of people aren't vaccinated by November that we should just postpone the election until 2021?
Stereodude
Not really a
I think you might need help... A denial directly from the company isn't good enough, but you'll believe an anonymous report from fake news specialists with no credibility while other media outlets are surreptitiously walking back their reports by watering down the initial claims.
Stereodude
Not really a
Can't do it without changing federal law and amending the constitution. So, no it won't happen.
Telemarketers will be the second to last thing to perish on this planet. The first being cockroaches.
(what happened to the head scratch emoticon?)You are paying for a landline that's you don't have a phone on? Part of a "internet/tv/phone bundle" you can't, or not worth it to, cancel/seperate? I gave my Ooma "landline" number to 4 family members that I'd take a call from. And I only call them with that number. I don't call anybody outside that circle with that number. Have never received telemarketing calls.
Have all the banks and corporations been given their free money yet? Because we all know they come first. And second. And thrid. Fourth, fifth. etc. Maybe the lil guy is 9th on the list.
The student loan messes needs work. I agree. And screwing over banks to help the little guy sounds really appealing. Fuck the banks. But just canceling "large swath of student loans" sends the wrong message. So no. I worked tons of OT, nearly a whole year, and lived on "bread & water" to save enough to pay off my student loan. It was tiny by today's standards (under $20k total, final lump payment was just under $10k) but I took responsibility for my actions (wasting time/money at uni) and paid my debts.
What needs to be done is the gov't needs to put up a big middle finger to the scummy banks and private lenders that went ape shit with interest and MORE IMPORTANTLY EXPENSES, FEES, PENALTIES, ETC. People are crapping their pants about the guy "profiteering on hand wipes and sanitizers" yet these scummy lenders cause a $10-20k loan to balloon up to $200-300k due to missed payments and default. Now if you did default, you should be punished and pay SOME fees and penalties but you shouldn't be, and Merc used to say, "anally chainsaw raped" because of it.
1) Cap the stupid shit from happening. 2) Eliminate all the bullshit fees/penalties. Return your balance to a sensible number. I don't know the number but a percentage of the principle, NOT multiples of the principle. 3) Create a real consolidation repayment structure that enables people to realistically give them the ability to pay back their loan. 4) Allow for generous deferments for those in true need. 5) Allow for bankruptcy after 15, 20, 25 or however many years.
-few other things that just slipped my mind-
And most importantly, CUT OFF THE FREE MONEY TO EVERY DUMBFUCK WHO WANTS TO GO TO COLLEGE. I don't know a perfectly fair way to do this, but perhaps your total loan amount tied to your ability, grades, SAT scores, etc. Einstein in high school, you can borrow $200k, 2.7 gpa and 1000 total SAT score = $15k loan. 1.7 gpa and 700 SAT score = jr college. Maybe set aside a good portion of loan money for NON-COLLEGE trade schools.
Free money = explosion in costs because, hey free money = "A $280k Harvard degree in 'horse-shit' studies. = High debts = hElP Me i caNnOT pAy mY LoAN bACk.
If it's enforcement is active and the phone companies lose MORE money by not enforcing it than actual enforcement. Then maybe the telemarketing will stop. If the "real" caller ID program causes financial losses the telecos won't enforce it. And if they are not fined heavily it won't happen.
Unless we enter Mad Max times we should NOT postpone election.
Edit: Added #5 above.
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Ah smooth...you edited you post to add the CureVac tweet after the fact. What kind of help do you think I need?
Telemarketers will be the second to last thing to perish on this planet. The first being cockroaches.
You are paying for a landline that's you don't have a phone on? Part of a "internet/tv/phone bundle" you can't, or not worth it to, cancel/seperate? I gave my Ooma "landline" number to 4 family members that I'd take a call from. And I only call them with that number. I don't call anybody outside that circle with that number. Have never received telemarketing calls.
The phone was part of verizon's triple play package deal for two years. I didn't want their phone service but it was more expensive without it. After the deal ends I won't renew it unless it some how keeps the price the same or lower.
Anything that questionably needs a phone number gets my Google voice number. Lately I use it for most things that need a number regardless.
Stereodude
Not really a
Slow your roll. I didn't add it after your reply. At best I added it at the same time as your reply. None of which changes that the story you posted as proof of the depravity of Trump and his administration is still just as fake and was just as debunked as it was before you posted it.
I'm not sure what sort of help will cause you to stop falling for fake anti-Trump news. Maybe employ the Bongino rule and wait 24-72 hours for the inevitable debunking before believing it.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Loans more than 20 years old should be cancelled. Here's why. Starting a while back, maybe during the Obama administration, new student loans had two things older ones didn't. First, they had what was called income-based repayment. This means your payments were capped at some reasonable percentage of your disposable income regardless of how much you owed. I think if you made under the poverty line, your payments were zero. Second, after 20 years any remaining balance on the loan was forgiven. Therefore, to treat older loans the same any loan older than 20 years should be cancelled.
Another reason for cancellation is that the government retroactively changed the loan terms after people borrowed. In 1991 I think they ended the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. A few years later they ended applying the statute of limitations on debt to student loans. These laws somehow applied not only to new loans, but also to loans taken out years earlier. I always thought retroactive laws were unconstitutional. Anyway, when I signed my loan papers I agreed to the set of laws governing them at the time, not some new set of laws passed years later.
And that's another problem similar to the one I just mentioned. ALL my promissory notes have collection fees capped at 25% of the original principal but that didn't stop them from adding fees above and beyond that, and then recategorizing the fees already added as "interest". I'm sure this is 100% illegal but they did it anyway. This is part of the problem. The majority of people who supposedly still owe money already made more than enough payments to pay off their loans if the payments were applied as they are with other types of debt (i.e. part goes to interest and part to principal). Instead, they apply the payments in the least favorable way. First they go towards outstanding interest. Once that's paid off they go towards outstanding collection fees. Only once there's no outstanding interest and collection fees do some of the payments go towards principal, with the rest going towards whatever interest was added that month.
So if you're unable to get a job out of college and default because of it, you should be penalized? That's making an already difficult situation even worse. The only people who maybe we should penalize with collection fees are those who have the ability to pay but decided not to.
Here's my idea:
1) Eliminate any and all collection fees.
2) Recalculate the balance owed by retroactively applying all payments ever made 100% to principal first, then to accumulated interest only once the principal is zero. These are the terms most favorable to the borrower. Since interest only accumulates on principal, reducing the principal as rapidly as possible makes sense. Also, once the principal is zero, then by definition the amount owed can never increase, even with no payments, since it's 100% interest.
3) Retroactively make the interest rate some low number, like 3%. People who borrowed years ago are being shafted with 7% or 8% interest rates.
4) Issue refunds to anyone who overpaid after applying #1 through #3.
If we do these three things, my guess is a lot of people who supposedly owe money will find their loans paid off, or nearly paid off. Some will even be due refunds.
Do this but instead replace loans with grants. I agree we shouldn't give people large sums of money if they're poor students or want to study fields with poor prospects for getting a job. However, if they're smart and getting a useful degree, we should be willing to foot the bill for them, contingent upon their keeping up a certain GPA. Nobody should start off their working life with a huge loan balance.
I'm saying don't forgive students loans, but eliminate the current horseshit and past fuckery (like all the things you mentioned) and the problem would be reduced. And it might be instantly solved for many who have already paid the entire principle of their loan plus a healthy amount of interest and fees.
If you want something that has value (college degree) you need to pay for it. With your own money or money you borrow. If you borrow money you should have to pay it back with some benefit (interest) for the lender. With student loans, I'm OK with "extra or special" protections being put into place so that new borrowers/students don't destroy their future either through their own incompetence or through malfeasance of lenders.
Maybe it's just semantics (cancel debt vs fairly recalculating debt) but simply allowing people a free pass for their irresponsibility is wrong. Many, many people would not have defaulted or been buried under impossible debt if all the current horseshit and retroactive fuckery didn't take place.
I prefer loans to qualified students over grants. Sensible loans, not the horseshit mess we have now. My #4 point of allowing for sensible deferment would solve the problem of a newly graduated student that could not immediately find a job, or a job with a high enough pay.
Private grants are fine for those that want to give them. And a limited amount of federal grants to those extraordinary kids from the lower socioeconomic classes is warranted. Stop the free money. Eliminate most of the loan guarantees so banks will lose if they haphazardly give away money like candy. This will cut back supply. Colleges will be forced to lower costs. etc.
We need to reverse the upward spiral of costs.
If you want something that has value (college degree) you need to pay for it. With your own money or money you borrow. If you borrow money you should have to pay it back with some benefit (interest) for the lender. With student loans, I'm OK with "extra or special" protections being put into place so that new borrowers/students don't destroy their future either through their own incompetence or through malfeasance of lenders.
Maybe it's just semantics (cancel debt vs fairly recalculating debt) but simply allowing people a free pass for their irresponsibility is wrong. Many, many people would not have defaulted or been buried under impossible debt if all the current horseshit and retroactive fuckery didn't take place.
I prefer loans to qualified students over grants. Sensible loans, not the horseshit mess we have now. My #4 point of allowing for sensible deferment would solve the problem of a newly graduated student that could not immediately find a job, or a job with a high enough pay.
Private grants are fine for those that want to give them. And a limited amount of federal grants to those extraordinary kids from the lower socioeconomic classes is warranted. Stop the free money. Eliminate most of the loan guarantees so banks will lose if they haphazardly give away money like candy. This will cut back supply. Colleges will be forced to lower costs. etc.
We need to reverse the upward spiral of costs.
Stereodude
Not really a
Then they shouldn't take out a huge loan to pay for their "education". This isn't hard.
The problem doesn't need more gov't intervention in the student loan market to fix it, it needs the gov't taken out of the student loan business. The cost of college has spiraled out of control because there's a near unlimited supply of money for schools to suck up because the lender (gov't) doesn't care about your ability to repay it. They'll effectively loan you however much money you want regardless of how invaluable the degree you're buying is and your likely inability to make good on the loan. Colleges are businesses, not institutions of learning. They're busy competing with one another not over who can educate their students the best or guarantee the highest salaries for their graduates with a particular degree, but who has the most resort like accommodations for the students since they're selling you a multiyear lifestyle with a piece of paper at the end.
If the lender had a vested interest in getting repaid this would all stop. Many, perhaps most, people wouldn't be able to get loans to cover their current degrees because the lender would decide the risk on the loan is too high. Once the money train stops, colleges will have to adjust prices to what people can afford to pay and compete on what value they're offering for the cost. There'd be a rough few years of transition in there, but it would all work out.
DrunkenBastard
Storage is cool
Some depressing news regarding Italy, 1/4 of the population is 65+.
mobile.abc.net.au
Coronavirus has sparked apocalyptic scenes in Italy. There are lessons to be learned from the country's missteps
My experience with trying to get tested for coronavirus in Italy was an early glimpse into a confused bureaucracy racing to come to grips with an unfolding crisis. This is how things went so spectacularly wrong there, writes Europe correspondent Linton Besser.
mobile.abc.net.au
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
You're forgetting that lots of types of degrees benefit more than just the person getting them. Doesn't having more engineers, doctors, and scientists benefit society at large? And society also benefits from the higher taxes someone who realized their potential will pay over their working lives. Telling people they can go to school only if they're willing to go into hock sends a very wrong message. If a person has potential, that person is worth investing in via grants. If they don't want to invest in you, then my attitude is once you're making the big bucks the tax man shouldn't have his hand out. That seems fair. If you have to borrow your way through school, you get a lifetime exemption from income and sales taxes since the government felt you weren't worth investing in. What otherwise would have gone towards taxes can go towards repaying your loans.
It's pretty much a matter of semantics because if student loan balances were recalculated based on a reasonable interest rates and applying payments to principal first most loans would be gone. The only difference is they would be paid off fair and square, versus forgiven. If my loan was given the treatment I mentioned above, I would be due a refund of over $2,000 plus whatever interest they chose to give me on overpayments. And given the disparity in treatment between older and newer loans, which are forgiven automatically after 20 years, applying those terms to all loans essentially means loans over 20 years old would be gone regardless of how much was paid towards them.
You can do this with grants. Here's my idea. You give grants for education instead of loans, but limit those to some reasonable number, like maybe $10K to $15K annually. Any school that agrees to take students getting grants also agrees to not charge that student anything. They would have to accept the grant to pay for 100% of tuition, room, and board. The only way a school could charge more would be to not accept any government grants, and rely 100% on payments from students, their parents, and private endowment funds. Those schools could charge whatever they want, but at least what they could charge would be inherently limited by what the sources of income I mentioned were able to pay.
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jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
The problem is the system feeds on itself. Years of government throwing money at the problem means it's no longer possible to work your way through school by waiting tables or something similar.
See my response to snowhiker above. We first fix existing debt by recalculating balances as I described. Many loans will be repaid fair and square if that's done. If some people still owe money, it will be a much smaller, more manageable amount, and we can probably get them to pay most of it.
Next we end student loans altogether and replace it with a system of grants, but with the stipulation that any school which accepts these grants has to accept them as their only form of payment. That inherently stops the money train. If they don't want to accept grants they can charge whatever they want, but even this is inherently limited by the amount of the endowment fund and what students and their parents can afford to pay. Sure, maybe there might still be loans in this latter case, but they wouldn't be backed by the government. Since the lender would be 100% exposed, they would vet any potential borrowers very carefully. Most likely students themselves wouldn't be able to borrow a dime in this scenario, which is as it should be. Most 17 and 18 years don't really know the ramifications of borrowing large sums of money. It's predatory and irresponsible to let them do so. Their parents would be able to borrow, but lenders would look at their income, net worth, and so forth to determine if they're a good risk. So even for schools not accepting grants, the money train would at least be slowed down.
Stereodude
Not really a
Regardless, we've got far bigger and more pressing problems than student loans right now.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
No argument there but I mentioned that cancelling or otherwise readjusting student loan balances will likely eventually be needed as part of the stimulus. There are only so many other levers we can pull, like giving cash directly to people. We need to go big, and we need to do it soon:
It will take a $1.5 trillion stimulus to save America, former Fed economist says
Congress has to ‘go big,’ with a coronavirus stimulus bill of nothing less than $1.5 trillion, said former top Fed economist Claudia Sahm on Tuesday.
www.marketwatch.com
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Just revisiting this 6 days later. Right now we're under 19,000 and I don't think the blood bath is anywhere near over. I wouldn't be surprised if we bottom out at under 10K, although the market will likely quickly rebound to at least 20K once this is over.
I saw...my cash is still sitting in at my broker waiting to pull the trigger on some investments when I feel like the time is right. I don't know if it will go as low or below 10K...that's pretty serious, but maybe? I also don't think we're done heading down. The Dow has now gone below when Trump took office. Hopefully he takes responsibility for the losses just as much as he takes credit for the gains (unlikely). His administration has failed at a proper response and management to this epidemic so he should get that credit just like he would blame any former administration. I can't wait to yet again spend my tax money bailing out airlines/banks/etc that didn't plan for a rainy day like everyone else preaches US citizens should be doing.
Bill Gates is doing an AMA on Reddit regarding Coronavirus if anyone is interested in the Q&A.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Well, I still have the savings bonds from my father to invest, and I could invest some more from my savings account when I think the time is right. I think we're going down to at least 15K. So does this guy. A lot of what happens depends upon the stimulus package(s) and what happens with the virus. Things like this can and have just suddenly died off on their own. There's some talk warmer weather might slow it.
It's really interesting what's happening with bitcoin:
'Bitcoin will go to zero': Davos talks up the future of blockchain tech
Top experts discussed the future of blockchain and cryptocurrency during a CNBC-hosted panel at the Sanctuary in Davos.
If it does drop to near zero, I'm willing to invest a few hundred, or even a thousand, on the chance it would at least eventually get back to four figures. It would be one of those investments with little downside potential (i.e. I can easily afford to lose $1K) but potentially unlimited upside.
Anyway, let's both keep watching things. As bad as this crisis is, it's also going to create once in a lifetime opportunities. I remember a great aunt of mine who become a millionaire by the 1950s buying real estate after the Great Depression.
Stereodude
Not really a
There's no bottom to the stock market. We're on the brink of all the worldwide financial markets collapsing.
It's tough for me to put any value or credit into news orgs trying to analyze Bitcoin and it's value. They're saying the same stuff they've said for many years now. The BTC market is just highly volatile and no one can really forecast it. That said I wouldn't be surprised if it drops a ton. I still have some BTC and have just been riding it out and waiting.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
No kidding. That's why we need to get a handle on this soon. In my opinion the impact on the economy can potentially be much greater than the impact of the pandemic itself. What's not helping is that governments, and many individuals, have zero cash reserve. If people lose their jobs, they're in deep shit. If they had 6 months or a year of savings, then can continue to spend and help the economy until this passes.
Stereodude
Not really a
Is there any major gov't in the world that isn't seriously drowning in debt?
The US and Europe didn't taken any lessons to heart from the close call the world has with SARS. Some asian countries like Taiwan, Singapore, etc. did which is why they seem to have been able to put the lid on the Wuhan Flu in comparison.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
China seems to have put a lid on it as well, at least if you can trust their data. There's only been a trickle of new cases for a while now. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to learn their lesson with wet markets. If they had shut those down for good after SARS we may never have seen this pandemic. Hopefully this time around they'll shutter these markets for good.
Most western countries haven't had anything like this hit them in collective memory, so it's no surprise we responded poorly. And honestly, given the penchant in this country for mocking people who try to plan ahead as gloom-and-doom prophets, I doubt we could have done much better. I got the same type of thinking from people whenever they learned I banked most of what I made, stocked up regularly on sale items, and so forth. Why are you so worried about things that might never happen? My answer is the same-because there's no downside planning for them, and if they do happen I'll be better prepared than most. While I'm still worried some items I don't have large amounts of might be difficult to get in the coming weeks, at least I'm not stressing out over money. Even if my mom's pensions and Social Security stopped altogether, she has enough left to pay the bills for years. And so do I. I feel for anyone who's going to really need money to get by in the near future but I can't help but think had they had the foresight to put aside even enough to live on for 6 months they might not be in that position. Granted, people on low-wage jobs can't often do that, but what about the stock brokers in 2008 who complained they had to take jobs as baristas when they had years of earning high 6 figures or more? No excuse not to have a substantial nest egg when you're making that kind of money.
COVID-19 Map - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center
Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)
coronavirus.jhu.edu
Total confirmed cases was just under 200k (198k'ish) earlier this A.M. Now it's at 215k. Maximize the bottom-right panel. The exponential growth does not look good. HOPEFULLY growth will level out like China's growth has the last month.
Italy (pop. 60m), a country with less than 1/20 the population of China (1.42b) has nearly as many deaths! Fuck.
Edit: I just got an email from my sister. She said her family is at DEFCON-1 as far to TP goes. She said she kept putting off her trip to Costco. Now it's too late.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
If you look at on a logarithmic scale the growth is already leveling out. Doubtless there are lots of people who got it before we implemented emergency measures, and will later be added to the case count, but I think the growth is going to top out within a few weeks, provided we don't relax restrictions or get complacent.COVID-19 Map - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center
Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)
Total confirmed cases was just under 200k (198k'ish) earlier this A.M. Now it's at 215k. Maximize the bottom-right panel. The exponential growth does not look good. HOPEFULLY growth will level out like China's growth has the last month.
Two reasons for that. One is the largest percentage of elderly population outside of Japan. Two is their hospitals got overwhelmed. It seems with proper support care the overall mortality rate for this is under 2%, and may be a lot lower since undoubtedly we're still undercounting the number of cases. Without proper care we might be looking at a 10% mortality rate. Yet another reason to flatten the curve so large numbers of people don't get sick at once.
Stereodude
Not really a
Plus you can't trust the numbers from China. Maybe they're correct, but probably not.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
Out of interest, I can't see to find any numbers from DPRK (North Korea)?
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Because everyone there already died from it? Seriously, my best guess is they're being hammered by it but of course to keep their propaganda alive that they're the best country on Earth they're not releasing any figures. Think about it. The population is undernourished and disease-prone to start with. They don't have a great medical system. That's a perfect storm for an epidemic. I wouldn't be surprised if their death toll is already well into the 6 figures.
Kim Jong Un orders new hospital built as North Korea claims it has no coronavirus
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is calling on his country to hastily build a “modern general hospital” to “better protect the precious health and safety of our people” amid growing…
nypost.com
I'm sure this is how they'll deal with the majority of coronavirus cases:
Could This Be the Deadliest Country For Anyone Suspected With Coronavirus?
Tragic: A North Korean official shot dead because he was suspected a COVID-19 carrier.
www.techtimes.com