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comment by am_Unition

Trump's $850 billion economic stimulus package is a little north of $2k per person. Mnuchin says that they're targeting "small to medium-sized businesses", and giving $50 billion in relief to airlines. Edit3: fuck the airlines.

Yeah, I know when I travel by plane, I always look for the medium-sized commercial airline, or I simply charter a private jet. /s

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, to me, this looks like a quick cash grab by CEO's and Wall Street, and there's no way that us filthy proles will ever see anywhere around $2k in any form, including mortgage waivers, student loan debt forgiveness, or a direct cash injection like Romney's talking. Some form of the mortgage and student debt easing have been floated, I think, but the particulars aren't clear, and I wouldn't be surprised if almost no one qualifies. Hey, just like early covid-19 testing!

Lately, I've found myself wanting to be wrong an awful lot.

Edit: The fed's buying commercial papers. vvvvVVVOMIT

Edit2: There sure are a lot of promises being made to help people at the individual level. I'll believe it when I see it.





user-inactivated  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's like 2008 all over again, isn't it? Bail out wall street, bail out the banks. It has to be done. Sacrifices need to be made for the good of the country. What's that? Debt relief assistance for the average citizen? What are you? A socialist?

am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Debt relief assistance for the average citizen? What are you? A socialist?

I'm pretty sure you could get on Tweeter.com and find someone @'ing Romney with those exact words.

    It's like 2008 all over again, isn't it?

Heh, earlier this morning, I was talking to my wife, and said "It's just like 2008, but this time, we all die! :D". Obviously, I'm joking. Humor's mos def one of my top coping mechanisms.

kleinbl00  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

We blew through 2008 last week economically. This is going to be the Great Depression and the 1918 pandemic on top of each other. WW1 and WW2 had the advantage of wartime production, we don't. Gonna be interesting.

am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I’m working on an app that shows you the nearest supply of pitchforks and torches, and the 10 most expensive mansions within walking distance

user-inactivated  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"...The Hamptons are not a defensible position. The Hamptons are on a low-lying beach. Eventually the people will come for you." - Mark Blyth

am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Maybe we can charge something like a multi-million dollar "Egress Fee" as the wealthy flee rising sea levels. A troll toll.

user-inactivated  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No, it was 20 gallons of milk in multiple peoples' shopping carts at Sam's Club yesterday. TP, nonperishable, but milk? The fuck?

I'm pretty sure these idiots just see other people randomly panic buying something, and then decide to also hoard the same item, without ever questioning exactly how the item will help them in this particular situation.

user-inactivated  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

user-inactivated  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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kleinbl00  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Careful. Most of those mansions were retirement plans for your boomer overlords and are probably empty.

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Shoreline/151-NW-Highland-Dr-98177/home/76663

I first saw that for sale in 2018 for $9m. That there is a bag holder recognizing that he will never. Ever. Ever recoup his investment and doing whatever he can to get out from under it.

$4k a month in property taxes. $1500 a month in HOAs. Probably $500 a month in power to keep the pipes from freezing and the plaster from crumbling. How long ya wanna carry that? And can you hold out until you can donate the fucker to the city?

We're about to see just how naked the emperor is.

am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

IRL (RIP) I've also been saying to my wife that this is the "emperor has no clothes" moment.

Apparently people can't read fucking graphs, but China contained this thing. Yes, there will be hotspots popping up that require quenching, but they're largely done with anything remotely resembling exponential growth.

By my maths, U.S. cases will surpass the ~80,000 Chinese cases within about two weeks, and roughly exponential growth will continue even for weeks after that. I agree with some projections that we're looking at bare minimum around 100 million U.S. cases by the end of 2020.

Most people still have no idea just how much the U.S. fucked up. Sorry, world. Again, I want to be wrong. Please, let me be wrong.

kleinbl00  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Apparently people can't read fucking graphs, but China contained this thing.

And it still kicked their ass.

I think the US is hosed but I think the UK is more hosed. Brazil? Venezuela? Africa? Suppose we do get a vaccine. That's gonna go to the same people the tests go to - the Twitter Checkmark Posse. I guess Indiana could do about 70 tests a day when they tested all 58 people from the Utah Jazz organization.

veen  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    but I think the UK is more hosed

Can you elaborate? I am on a plane back home in 24 hrs if everything goes all right, largely because I also had this suspicion and want to get the fuck away from it. But I haven't had any data to look at for example.

kleinbl00  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

UK is playing this weird "herd immunity" game. They figure let the millennials get sick while the 'boomers hunker down in their flats for four months.

I'm willing to bet there's a memo in Downing Street somewhere that says they can cure the pension crisis by allowing some percentage of old people to just fucking kick the bucket.

am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My implicit trust in Chinese statistics and reported living conditions is a bit perilous, totally agree.

LOL, maybe we've been doing too much digging? Nah, actually, it seems mostly retaliatory.

kleinbl00  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

We call it the Spanish Flu because everyone's journalism was heavily censored during WW1 so the only country anyone could report on was neutral Spain.

If you were Xi you'd expel the shit out of all American journalists too. Everyone else's journalists? You can threaten their aid if they don't say what you want them to say.

ButterflyEffect  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm pretty fucking cool with death to the airline industry.

kleinbl00  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Lol I am too? But that's a lot of jobs.

ButterflyEffect  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

hey hold on wait

where are things at with boeing and the 737-MAX...

kleinbl00  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Allow me to introduce you to the M561 Gama Goat. They were... not great.

Read just some of these comments.

At some point, the Army realized how hard the Goat sucked. As a consequence, they completed the contract and shipped them off for scrap without so much as wiping off the cosmoline. If I recall, the last 8,000 or so (of 15,600 contracted) were never driven - they went from raw materiel to parts to vehicles to raw materiel without so much as being assigned to a unit.

There will come a time when Boeing lobbies to write down every MAX they own (which is all of them) in order to save the company. Boeing will be permitted to do this. People will gripe but it will be a national emergency - if Boeing is not allowed to do this, commercial air travel will be a European monopoly for all intents and purposes. And such, an entire generation of aircraft will be chewed up for scrap, and the taxpayer will foot the bill.

Mark my words.

And watch what they do with the F-35.

am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Things are at a ratio of eight for Boeing’s total debts over annual profits. And that was before covid.

am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Kinda same, but one of my besties is a pilot.

It sucks for him now, but I think in a couple of years there will be some job openings, as the older generation of pilots, um, "retires".

In the meantime, we really should have a discussion about whether or not air travel is sustainable, and if we really need to travel so much. It's a luxury that Earth may not be able to afford.

Carbon emissions are much worse from global commerce via boat. Not sure how to solve that one without uprooting the entire global econo-...

Hey, wait, we're already doing that. Even though the coming months are a golden opportunity, I have the utmost faith that we can completely squander affecting change in the right direction. We can debate things here in a pseudonymous forum, and that'll be about the end of it.

It's shitty, because at a personal level, my loved ones and I are mostly going to be fine. My nuclear family (two entire people & two kitties) are going to be fine no matter what. Feeling some guilt, but also like, "OK 'Boomer, you did this to yourself. Sleep in the bed you shat."

ButterflyEffect  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    In the meantime, we really should have a discussion about whether or not air travel is sustainable, and if we really need to travel so much. It's a luxury that Earth may not be able to afford.

Short answer: prooooobably not.

Long answer: lots of math followed by a proooooobably not. kb did some math a few weeks back but I am terrible at finding things on Hubski.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation

but then again, what modes of travel involving fuel aren't bad for the environment?

kleinbl00  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I, too, have failed to find that thread which is a drag because a lot of effort went into it.

So in the spirit of "lot of effort" and to lighten the mood a little let's look back to this awesome thread where we all dunked on Spinlaunch 'cuz that was fuckin' fun.

ButterflyEffect  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A perfect example of the "Before Time".

am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

God that was so fun. I sent that to my other grad school space peeps, and none of us can explain how SpinLaunch could ever work.

kleinbl00  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

peterpan.gif

am_Unition  ·  1472 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I dunno, but I suspect “sheltering in place” for most of 2020 is gonna make me wanna burn somethin’, goddamnit.