Objectively intelligent.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The Senate is actually going to pass this 10-weeks-of-2/3-of-pay-if-a-worker's-kid's-school-is-closed bill.

This is insanity. First, it leaves 59 million workers out in the cold, as they work for firms with 500+ employees.

Second, it's going to destroy a lot of mid-sized businesses that can neither shut down nor afford to pay it.

Third, every business that can afford to shut down for a bit is simply going to do so and lay off employees.

This bill is insane. It's going to turn this from a recession into a near depression.

If you're a mid-sized business with 50-200 employees, the number of people you're going to have to pay for 10 weeks, up to $200 per day, is going to break you. Because we all known, the schools are not going back in session this year.

Cost to Amazon, Wal Mart, Target? 0.000 Risk to them? 0.000

We are living in a banana republic.

it doesn't apply to companies with 500+ NWTAF?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

it doesn't apply to companies with 500+ NWTAF?

Oh yeah. How about them apples! Wal Mart gets a pass.

The law will simply not be followed or enforced in many instances. How do you determine if the claimant isn't lying? What if he or she can find alternative day care? The claim and defense process will be a shitshow. And who hears the cases?

It sets up a scenario where workers find themselves at war with their employers. It's also built for fraud and abuse.

"Heckuva of a job there, Stevie."

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Oh yeah. How about them apples! Wal Mart gets a pass.

The law will simply not be followed or enforced in many instances. How do you determine if the claimant isn't lying? What if he or she can find alternative day care? The claim and defense process will be a shitshow. And who hears the cases?

It sets up a scenario where workers find themselves at war with their employers. It's also built for fraud and abuse.

"Heckuva of a job there, Stevie."

The FMLA exempted companies with under 50 employees- that's what I like!

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I'm wondering if I can still run outside if they go to that.

They will have to catch me. That is one rule I will break if it comes to it.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

I think it's going to be really hard to put the work from home genie back in the bottle after this is over.

I think just the opposite if your kids are home and both parents work away from home but are now working from home.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

When I went to Sam's Club two weeks ago, the bottled water was gone by 8 AM. But the beer was untouched.

I try to remind friends that everyone has 40+ gallons of clean water in their hot water heater and toilet tanks.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I think just the opposite if your kids are home and both parents work away from home but are now working from home.

Or where kids are home and only one parent works from home. Plus, it's raining.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I think just the opposite if your kids are home and both parents work away from home but are now working from home.

Ah yes, this is where the divide between those with kids and those without is going to be really clear.

My dogs and I have a pretty good deal going.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

They will have to catch me. That is one rule I will break if it comes to it.

Me too, but on a bike. On city back streets because there are too many people on the off-street trails.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I think just the opposite if your kids are home and both parents work away from home but are now working from home.

Yes, when I stay home right now we have four people in the house working from home. If I go into the office, just a few miles away, there are two or three of us in a space twice as large as my house. So far, this is more like a month of Sundays than work at home.

One of my neighbors now has eight cars parked out front. Work-from-home has a different meaning when you have a surplus of fertile Irish-Catholics around.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Or where kids are home and only one parent works from home. Plus, it's raining.

Yeah we are trying to throw them in the backyard as much as possible.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Thought experiment (and I'm not making an argument, just trying to think this through logically - feel free to fire away...in fact, I think that's the whole point: for someone to tell me I'm not thinking about this correctly*):

We are all more likely than not to become infected, right?

And the goal of social distancing is flattening the curve, right?

And the goal of flattening the curve is easing the stress on health care facilities, i.e., slowing down the infection rate to keep it within the U.S. health care system's capacity, right?

And the goal of keeping things within the U.S. health care system's capacity is to limit/prevent deaths from COVID-19, right? In other words, if the health care system's capacity is exceeded, certain people who have COVID-19 will not get medical attention and will die, and certain of these people's deaths could have been prevented had they been able to obtain medical care. Right?

Are we prioritizing preventable deaths from COVID-19 over other easily preventable deaths? We could easily ban tobacco/smoking - that would prevent (exponentially) more deaths than what we are doing for COVID-19. And it wouldn't be nearly as costly. So, are we saying that people who may die from COVID-19 are more important than people who may die from smoking?


*and I'm not necessarily thinking this way - it's just one thought that has crossed my mind.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Thought experiment (and I'm not making an argument, just trying to think this through logically - feel free to fire away...in fact, I think that's the whole point: for someone to tell me I'm not thinking about this correctly*):

We are all more likely than not to become infected, right?

And the goal of social distancing is flattening the curve, right?

And the goal of flattening the curve is easing the stress on health care facilities, i.e., slowing down the infection rate to keep it within the U.S. health care system's capacity, right?

And the goal of keeping things within the U.S. health care system's capacity is to limit/prevent deaths from COVID-19, right? In other words, if the health care system's capacity is exceeded, certain people who have COVID-19 will not get medical attention and will die, and certain of these people's deaths could have been prevented had they been able to obtain medical care. Right?

Are we prioritizing preventable deaths from COVID-19 over other easily preventable deaths? We could easily ban tobacco/smoking - that would prevent (exponentially) more deaths than what we are doing for COVID-19. And it wouldn't be nearly as costly. So, are we saying that people who may die from COVID-19 are more important than people who may die from smoking?


*and I'm not necessarily thinking this way - it's just one thought that has crossed my mind.

Total tobacco related US mortality is about 500,000 per year, all in (cancer, heart disease, etc.). But much of that results from past use - if you banned tobacco today the number would decline to zero only over 40-50 years. You'd basically get 10 years of life expectancy for the portion of the population that smokes back.

Max. deaths from this round with the TrumpVirus approaches about 3 million.

Assuming high numbers on both, even if you fully eliminate all tobacco consumption, it would likely take more than a decade to save as many lives as we can with good management of this problem.

It's a big fuckin problem.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Total tobacco related US mortality is about 500,000 per year, all in (cancer, heart disease, etc.). But much of that results from past use - if you banned tobacco today the number would decline to zero only over 40-50 years. You'd basically get 10 years of life expectancy for the portion of the population that smokes back.

Max. deaths from this round with the TrumpVirus approaches about 3 million.

Assuming high numbers on both, even if you fully eliminate all tobacco consumption, it would likely take more than a decade to save as many lives as we can with good management of this problem.

It's a big fuckin problem.

Someone needs to write a really good history of how quarantines and public health measures worked in pre-WWI America. It was a time when public health measures may well have had more to do with lengthening people's life span than pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and personal healthcare.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Thought experiment (and I'm not making an argument, just trying to think this through logically - feel free to fire away...in fact, I think that's the whole point: for someone to tell me I'm not thinking about this correctly*):

We are all more likely than not to become infected, right?

And the goal of social distancing is flattening the curve, right?

And the goal of flattening the curve is easing the stress on health care facilities, i.e., slowing down the infection rate to keep it within the U.S. health care system's capacity, right?

And the goal of keeping things within the U.S. health care system's capacity is to limit/prevent deaths from COVID-19, right? In other words, if the health care system's capacity is exceeded, certain people who have COVID-19 will not get medical attention and will die, and certain of these people's deaths could have been prevented had they been able to obtain medical care. Right?

Are we prioritizing preventable deaths from COVID-19 over other easily preventable deaths? We could easily ban tobacco/smoking - that would prevent (exponentially) more deaths than what we are doing for COVID-19. And it wouldn't be nearly as costly. So, are we saying that people who may die from COVID-19 are more important than people who may die from smoking?


*and I'm not necessarily thinking this way - it's just one thought that has crossed my mind.

We don't ban tobacco because we know it doesn't work - my wife worked on tobacco policy for 10 years - prohibition will just lead to an active black market. We know other policies, like higher tobacco taxes, do work and help save lives. These days, they're working on raising the smoking age to 21, on the theory that it will make it harder for teenagers to get them and delaying when kids try them prevents people from becoming new smokers.

The wife has left tobacco policy but was/is skeptical that the science was there do back up this theory, but it's what her old org is doing.

But there are lots of things around cars and guns we could do that wouldn't cost that much (ban SUVs, lower speed limits, repurpose street space to other modes to narrow lanes, background checks, etc) and prevent lots of deaths. In many cases, the political will isn't there.

And then there are the side effects of not preventing a lot of deaths in a crisis, like economic panic and uncertainty.

But let's not forget that what's going on now is out of desperation, after having spent month not doing anything. We should have the capacity for widespread testing, and might have with a competent administration. We should have been doing temperature checks on arriving passengers for months. Our leadership completely dropped the ball.

Speaking of which, some friend were in Spain when Trump announced the European travel ban. 48 hours of chaos but they came home early from their trip. No one asked them where in Spain they had been or did anything to check their health. Until the Uber driving taking them home.

They're on day four, I think, of voluntary self-quarantine.