Today is Thursday [DOT 3/9/20]

3/9/20 MegMegMcGee 30

I swear. No matter how confused you may be from yesterday.

Gearing up for a long weekend for most of you; I hope you get to enjoy some time off.

Time off from the news might be ideal, but if that’s not an option, here’s a little to tide you over…

Imagine dying because you went to South Dakota.

More ‘rona news:

Steroids can save lives of patients with severe covid-19, earning WHO endorsement
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/02/steroids-covid-19-coronavirus/?hpid=hp_hp-banner-low_steroids-1015am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has told public health officials around the United States to prepare to distribute a potential coronavirus vaccine as soon as late October. It also provided planning scenarios to help states prepare.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/02/health/cdc-covid-19-vaccine-distribution/index.html

I know I’m supposed to admire them for their smarts and drive (and I do), but they also have so much style!

Stonks!

Dow Rallies Above 29000; S&P 500, Nasdaq Hit Fresh Records
https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-stock-markets-dow-update-9-02-2020-11599039549

Sprots!?

Vikings’ Kirk Cousins explains his ‘if I die, I die’ comment about the coronavirus
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/09/02/kirk-cousins-covid-face-masks/

Commence pearl clutching.

The British prince and former actress will produce films and series for the streaming giant.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-09-02/prince-harry-meghan-netflix-production-deal

Ban Men.

Comedian Chris D’Elia accused of exposing himself
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/02/entertainment/chris-delia-accused-of-exposing-himself/index.html

Because we need something pretty today…

Misty Copeland has become the first ballet dancer to appear on the cover of Architectural Digest in more than three decades after she opened the doors to her Manhattan home.
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/misty-copeland-home-architectural-digest/index.html

Have a great Thursday!

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30 Comments

  1. I shouldn’t laugh about the Chris D’Elia item, but it made me think of this scene from Seinfeld. It must be a common enough occurrence to make it onto the show.

    It happened to a friend of mine after what, up until that moment, she considered the perfect date. She laughed when she called to tell me, and I laughed hearing about it. But it was a shocked laugh, “OMG, what was he thinking?” I’m going to assume that the men on Deadsplinter are not the type of guys who do this sort of thing. But just in case I’m wrong – we aren’t impressed by your penises. Please leave them in your pants unless we ask you take them out. Thanks

    • Imagine going to South Dakota, period. 
       
      We have Bike Week in several locations now in Florida, because it’s a cash grab. There are merchants whose entire year’s business is made or broken by Bike and Race Week. Problem is that group of consumers is at extremely high risk for COVID-19. I have at various times experienced Bike Week (once by choice, the others involuntarily). To completely generalize, attendees are predominately older and overweight, and are exactly the type of people who should not be risking infection. 
       
      I also read somewhere that attendees returned to some 60% of the country, doubtlessly bringing the virus back with them. Bottom line: More will die, and they will take innocent people with them. 

  3. I’m not very stonks oriented – tried it a while back and lost most of it in a downturn – anyway, can anyone tell me why the stock market keeps going up? It doesn’t make sense to me. And, I listen to Marketplace and Marketplace minute. 
     
    AIso, I love the squad.

    • …there are definitely people who could answer this better than me but “the market” is generally a specific list of say the FTSE 100 stocks tak n to be indicative of the market as a whole (I forget how many are used for the Wall St numbers off the top of my head) or in the case of something like the NASDAQ a specific subset

      …so when Apple leaps from a value of $1trillion (which took a long time to achieve) to $2trillion in the course of the pandemic it skews the thing, for example

      …saying the gains in the market (for some) have balanced out the losses (for many) is in large part an example of the classic notion that “there are lies, damn lies & statistics”?

    • I’ll take a spin. The stock market reflects the health of the businesses that issue the stocks. This health is currently being artificially supported by the Federal Reserve, which is keeping interest rates insanely low. Essentially, businesses can borrow for “free” so they’re using credit to offset declining sales. This is, as you might imagine, unsustainable in the long term. If consumers are unemployed and have no money to spend, eventually businesses will feel the lack of demand. Currently the speculation is that we will enter a long-term recession that will be devastating to the US economy. But, as you might imagine, the Fed, and its boss, whom you might recall is orange, hope that will not occur until after the election. 
       
      Meg’s actually closer to it than I am, and might have some different thoughts. 

        • To be clear, Loveshaq’s interpretation is also correct. The Fed is also buying up corporate debt for the benefit of individual companies. How do they select which companies to benefit? Lol, it’s the Trump Administration — I’d bet my entire retirement savings on corruption being part of that process. But the Fed is also keeping the interest rate artificially low. 
           
          Loveshaq is looking at it from the perspective of an individual investor. I’m looking at it from a larger market perspective. It’s my belief that depressing the interest rate affects more companies than the debt purchases, which are a small percentage of the overall market capitalization. Eventually, it’s like if you keep using credit cards to make other credit card payments — you will go bankrupt. And the failure of several individual companies can trigger a massive stock selloff and next thing you know, recession. 
           
          However, again from Loveshaq’s perspective, buying debt for an individual company also has limits. You’re not eliminating it, it’s just got a new owner, like when your mortgage company sells your defaulted loan to a collection agency. You still owe money! And the bankruptcy of an individual company (or several companies) can trigger a cascade effect where investors (particularly institutional investors) get spooked and start selling off stocks. Recession! We can get there lots of ways, and currently we’re staring at all of them!
           
          The only way to eliminate debt is to sell more of your products. But your consumers are dying/dead and unemployed. Both these conditions preclude them from purchasing your products. Everyone realizes this except Republicans! Those dead people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps! (This is also why trickle-down economics is bullshit but I’m gonna table that for now.)
           
          That’s what I mean about economics. Everybody looks at the economy differently (like the blind men describing the elephant) and all of those perspectives are frequently equally valid. That is, if you are reasonably well-informed. Which eliminates absolutely everyone in the Trump Administration. 

    • I’ll admit, I do play the stock market & have more than I care to admit invested in it.  One of the main reasons the stock market no longer represents our economy is the Fed is propping up the market by buying stocks.  They have been doing this since March and will continue until after the election unless Trump loses then all bets are off.  Not sure why nobody is really talking about this other than Thom Hartmann & Richard Wolff.
       
      https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2020/03/12/fed-injects-15-trillion-to-prop-up-crashing-markets/#757953f66adb

      *just saw that Bryan beat me to this.

      • I always appreciate other perspectives. Economics is a very broad and diverse system, and nobody can tell you for sure what’s coming. When I used to write financial newsletters, I hated economic articles, because it doesn’t matter what one noted economist says, you can find another that’s just as noted that says exactly the opposite.
         
        When I’m waxing metaphorical, I describe the worldwide economy as similar to the world’s ocean ecosystem. Nothing happens in isolation, and small things that happen clear across the world can create tsunamis in other areas. It’s also impossible to quantify or isolate the effects of individual actions — they typically rebound in ways we don’t always expect. That’s one reason economics isn’t classified as a science (though some might refer to it as a social science — in my university it was a liberal art). 
         
        That said, we can be pretty sure that the Fed is fucking up, and Trump is behind it. You might not know when the tropical storm is going to become a hurricane, but you know no matter what it’s probably going to mess up some shit. And everything Trump touches dies. That’s the closest thing to a solid economic fact that you’ll ever see. 

  4. Meg’s linked article about Chris D’Elia contains this comment: “I had marked him as safe, which equals a non-threatening male. He was friends with some of my friends, I had met him before. That’s what you do, at least that’s what I did, you mark certain people as safe.”

    There remains so much unsaid in that heavy truth statement. Because then the self doubt spiral starts:

    • What did I do to make him think that was okay?
    • Why are my friends friendly with this creep? They like him, it must be my fault.
    • What is wrong with my judgement that I missed the creep signals?
    • What worse thing could have happened, I was alone and vulnerable?

    And then the hesitation to meet new people, constant high-alert in public, dimming of your inner light and joy, lessening of trust in others starts…

    I literally do not know one women who has not been treated as prey by a man, at some level, ranging from vulgar cat calls to rape and physical violence.

    I still like men, in general. I see the good in them, and like being one of the guys. However this is a lot easier to do at age 60 as I am more often perceived as and interacted with akin to the crone archetype than in it was at age 30 when I was mostly just trying to avoid male aggression.

    Anyway, rant over.Thank you for listening.

    • I feel like as men, the older you get, the more you get to re-evaluate the shit you did when you were younger and realize how much of it was creepy bullshit, even if it was never you intention to do so. I had a lot of “I’m a nice guy, why don’t girls like me” self-loathing bullshit as a teenager, and then I think about how manipulative and whiny and desperate I was to the girls who did like me and I’m like “ooohhh, that’s why girls didn’t like me”.
       
      I feel like there are a lot of men who have the same moments, but rather than properly evaluating why the shit they did was wrong, they justify it somehow and then just keep doing the same old thing. That is why “incels” are technically a thing.

      • In short, they didn’t grow up. It’s more common than we realize, and it has a lot more to do with attitudes and mental state than whether or not you still read comics and watch cartoons (which to be clear, I do). 

    • Rant away. I think this is why the Kavanaugh hearings were so awful for so many women. Every woman I know had to be reminded of every small or large aggression back to HS or earlier and it was all packed away (neatly or not). Then comes along that sniveling POS and we all KNOW he did it because it happened to us in one form or another and of COURSE we didn’t say anything because why fucking bother? And now he’s on the Supreme Court so that just reinforces what we thought in the first place. [rage stroke]

      (#notallmen, #yesallwomen) 

  5. All of this! ☝️
    And as it chips away at your self confidence you may become more vulnerable to the creeps. If you begin to accept the false premise that all men are like this your standards drop and you allow yourself to be treated with less dignity than you deserve. Which continues to erode your self esteem and you find yourself in a vicious cycle of self loathing and bad treatment. 

  7. The whole bit about a vaccine by November is just cruel. They couldn’t set up the Walmart parking lot tests they promised. Testing, making and giving vaccines is so much more difficult, and doing it in less than two months?
     
    We need the press knocking it down, not floating it is as possible. It’s not like there is any shortage of reliable experts to quote.

    • Will there be a vaccine by November? Possibly. Maybe even probably.
       
      Will that vaccine be ready for mass production for the hundreds of millions of people who need it, and can that be done with the US shunning basically shunning every other country’s attempts to help? Most definitely not.

  8. More on (moron) the Sturgis biker from Minnesota:
     
    Sturgis rider from Minnesota dies of COVID-19
     
    If you don’t have the time or energy to read the story, let me just give you a pull quote for emphasis.
     

    The rider was a man in his 60s with underlying health conditions…, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Fifty Minnesotans who took part in the Sturgis event, which draws hundreds of thousands of people each summer, have tested positive. The death is thought to be the first due to infection at Sturgis.

     
    They’ll play Smash Mouth at his online funeral?

  9. I’ve been looking for updates on Toots Hibberts condition. The reports vary, NME says he’s in stable condition and showing progress.

    Toots Hibbert in a “stable condition” following intensive care admission

    Variety says Stable but serious

    https://variety.com/2020/music/news/toots-hibbert-stable-coronavirus-1234755740/

    Jamaica Observer has Toots fighting for his life.

    http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/entertainment/toots-fights-for-life_202276?profile=1754

    and HuffPo that he’s been placed in a medically induced coma.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/toots-hibbert-medically-induced-coma_n_5f501508c5b6578026c8fc9f

    Be tough, Toots.

     

     

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