Re: But wait, there's more
 

There are no "It's a new car!" doors here. I watched Sweden's head epidemiologist on Fareed Zakaria GPS on Sunday. (I like Zakaria and I don't care what anyone thinks of that.)

Pertinent text:

"ZAKARIA: Can you explain the death rate? Because you have in Sweden a death rate that is a good bit higher than in your neighboring countries, though as we pointed out not compared to the worst countries in Europe but why do you think - was there - you know, did this kind of - is this an unintended or accidental occurrence or is it, you know, is it a cost you had to pay?

TEGNELL: It's certainly an unintended occurrence. It's not something we counted on. Not something we wanted. There are two different reasons for this. One is that actually our incidence in Sweden has been much higher than in neighboring countries. We're quite sure about that. Our testing capacity has been limited. And I think the number of people in Sweden that has been infected so far has been quite a lot greater than our neighboring countries. That's one part of the answer.

The other part is an unfortunate number of introductions of the disease into our elderly in Sweden that caused a very high level of mortality in those places. And that's been very unfortunate. But a large part of our mortality has taken place in those institutions."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../fzgps.01.html

Specifically, one third of deaths (most of which are coming from Stockholm) are in nursing homes:

"That same week there were numerous reports in Sweden’s national news media about just how badly the country’s nursing homes were starting to be hit by the coronavirus, with hundreds of cases confirmed at homes in Stockholm, the worst affected region, and infections in homes across the country.

Since then pressure has mounted on the government to explain how, despite a stated aim of protecting the elderly from the risks of Covid-19, a third of fatalities have been people living in care homes."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...virus-strategy

This is comparable to the US, where 20% of cases are from nursing homes: https://www.businessinsider.com/us-c...g-homes-2020-4

It's a used diaper, no doubt. But these ultra high death tolls seem to have many common features. Quite advanced age, co-morbidities, density of location. This diaper seems, for reasons beyond my pay grade, a lot smellier in NYC, and nursing homes everywhere, than anyplace else.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

One nice side effect of a crisis is seeing some highly amusing flip flops.

So many orthodoxies of the past are show to be idiocy in these moments.

Argument: "We can't spend our way out of a crisis! We need austerity!"
Rebuttal: "MMT is a godsend!"

Argument: "We need to keep people jailed for long periods of time even for non-violent crime, as they are dangers to society."
Rebuttal: "We'll get sued if they get Covid and die! It was dumb to keep them all jailed under such draconian sentences! Time to free them!"

Argument: "The climate is fine. The air is good."
Rebuttal: "Look at these before and after Covid lockdown maps."

Argument: "This is a great economy!"
Rebuttal: "This is a great stock market. Half the country lives hand to mouth."

Argument: "Most importantly, we need to bail out the finance sector, as this will help all others -- trickle down style."
Rebuttal (in 2 years): "Now mega businesses and private equity own everything. Good luck getting your degree from Wal Mart University!"

The biggest bullshit, however, is a new argument: "We're all in this together." No. We're all in the most miserable competition for resources, among some serious uber-predators, we're likely to see in our lifetimes. And we'll resemble something more like an Indian caste system than an English class system by the time this is over. Much of it overseen by a clown car of well-connected shitballs not unlike the oligarches who stole Russia's assets from a vodka-stupefied Yeltsin.

...Welcome to New Brazil! Hope you don't live in the favela. Treasury Secretary Steve Schwarzman and Commerce Secretary Larry Fink are tearing them down to put up luxury villas."

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

I would bet that a lot of commerce is happening, if you mean trade in things, even with China.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

This is a pretty accurate take. We have the feds stealing from the state so the pres can make a buck. In 10 years we will be South America style shithole. People won't be trying to get here from Mexico though.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

Any setting where people live in close proximity and share services is going to be a hotbed for contagion. Dorms, prisons, military barracks and ships, cruise ships, hospitals, nursing homes -- all have been trouble. Hospitals are the best at limiting spread because they have people who worry about that sort of thing in ordinary times. Of those hospitals and nursing homes have the most vulnerable populations, for obvious reasons. If you can care for yourself, you try to avoid assisted-care facilities.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

There is this Hail Mary pass, however... It’s called an Excess Profits Tax. And it was used in WWI, WWII, and the Korean War: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_profits_tax

All we need is Bernie to demand it be part of the D platform, and that it be focused on private equity. Biden would win every state.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

It doesn't need to. It needs to control transmission and avoid community spread. If you monitor health, test those with symptoms or who have been in close contact with someone positive, isolate those who need it and have near-universal universal use of masks, you're past the need for lock down to control it. Between this and SARS, we have lots of examples of how this happens.

But you have to be prepared and act early. Two things we did not do.

Having more sick people puts us behind, not ahead. Again, everyone being sick at once is not herd immunity, it's uncontrolled spread. Maybe it will eventually lead to herd immunity, as long as you ignore the inevitable contact with populations that don't have it.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

Regarding who owns everything when this is done, it's a bit strange to me that Warren and AOC are proposing a ban on all HSR-reportable mergers in an effort to keep PE from buying up industries and "protect small businesses" who will be struggling.

Selling to PE means the owners get at least some cash for their assets and the opportunity to do further business in the future. Not selling to PE means liquidating the assets, which will be acquired out of liquidation by PE or other financial buyers, and being left with nothing. Doesn't sound like much protection.

Of course, the proposal isn't going to go anywhere anyway.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

The problem isn't the proximity. It's the people coming and going.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

Re: But wait, there's more
 

An HSR Reportable merger is a decent sized acquisition. Sure, some of those companies are troubled and may have few other options; more of them see synergies of one sort or another (most of my HSR Reportable deals are one-product bio-techs or med device companies where they will benefit from the marketing muscle of a bigger more diverse company - and the result is an anti-trust type issue of industry consolidation). But if you put a pause on HSR reportable mergers in my industry, you just get a backlog and a lot of equity investments preliminary to the ultimate merger. And once in a very blue moon you get an IPO candidate.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

PE consolidates. That means, yes, the owner gets to survive. Many of the workers do not. I think AOC and Warren actually trying to protect small business workforces more than small businesses themselves.

I'd hobble PE differently. I might prevent them from doing rollups by creating a reverse windfall tax. Pass a tax treating the discount at which the PE firm is acquiring the small business versus the value of the small business (defined as average yearly revenue of business for past five years X 3) just prior to the Covid crisis (March 20, 2020) as income to the firm, taxed at 20-80%, progressively increasing with size of discount. This would force the PE firm to pay enhanced value to owner.

Couple that with a tax credit to PE for every employee the PE firm retains on the books of any purchased company for 3 years following purchase.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

But until you have that magical 60-70% of people infected to have herd immunity, you can't allow liberal travel to and from other countries. I understand the logic, but isn't that strategy elongating the timetable for return to normal robust trade and travel?

I've heard the argument that herd immunity is a strategy - that it's defined as carefully reaching the needed infection threshold. But this misinterprets the term. Herd immunity is a goal. If you get there by mass infection which is uncontrolled, I agree, that's not the best way to do so. But however you get there, you get there. If through mass uncontrolled infection, 60-70% of US residents acquire the virus, then we have reached herd immunity. The wisdom or folly of how we got there is a separate issue.

On your last point, I agree that if you think of the herd as the whole planet, any single country achieving herd immunity is not global herd immunity. But the construct under which the countries which have "beaten" the virus for the moment are operating is nation-centric. They're defining the sphere about which they are concerned as the population within their own borders.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

They aren't going to be employed after the liquidation either.

Re: But wait, there's more
 

Why is it assumed these are all liquidations? Ch. 11 typically involves a reorg plan. Investors and unsecured creditors are hammered. Necessary employees are retained.

And in this crisis, Ch. 11 reorg is the preferred method for most small to mid sized businesses. Most of these companies are dying because of a short term extreme lack of revenue rendering them unable to meet fixed costs. In a reorg, you buy them time for revenue to return so they can meet all those costs. No need for liquidation in most small businesses. Liquidation is needed for the larger businesses that are larded up with debt (a lot of them owned by PE, which loves piling them full of debt to extract bullshit "fees") and didn't really have any viable business (zombies).