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That's my position as well. Whatever is done with loans/tuition, it has to have measures put in place to make sure this situation never happens again. The irony here is we did bail out the banks and they eventually went back to the same shit which caused 2008. The financial hit from this...

Thanks Doug. That's a good start. Remember loan forgiveness is only part of the equation. If college continues to be very costly we'll be right back in the same situation 10 or 20 years from now. Free public university might start putting some downward pressure on what private colleges can...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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...

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...

Anyone else thinking that if large numbers of people aren't vaccinated by November that we should just postpone the election until 2021?

Caller ID verification may well be a game changer as more phone providers roll it out.

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...

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.

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.

These guys are probably the reason for the hand sanitizer shortage. In fact, profiteers are probably to blame for the shortages of everything now. I'm seeing 16 oz bottles of rubbing alcohol going for over $20 on eBay and idiots are buying them. If, or rather when, eBay shuts all these people...

"Oh shit!" is all I have to say. Turns out this is fake news: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-19-found-in-toilet-paper/

As much as I hate to say this because I'm not a fan of Trump, the better person won the last election cycle. We had two really shitty choices, and Trump was marginally less shitty. If Hillary had won, I think it would have been a disaster on many levels. It's even entirely possible we might have...

Crises have a tendency to unite people, so maybe this pandemic has a silver lining. This country can't go on this way with both parties completely at odds with each other. First the religious right took over the GOP. And the hard left took over the Democrats this election cycle. Even if Biden...

I have some money in a taxable account. It's mostly fairly safe stuff but the important part is a lot of it pays dividends. If you put money in, do something similar. Since my dividends automatically reinvest, I'll be buying more stocks at a good time. Last year the account gave me about $3K in...

Wait....wait....wait. I don't think we've seen the bottom yet. We'll know more in a few weeks. I have some of my father's savings bonds which fully mature in November. That might be a good time to get back in the market. As for what I already have in, only thing to do at this point is hold...

Nope. I usually like to be surprised.

I'm fine with that! (y)

And make sure the forecast doesn't call for rain. If you get a lot of stuff delivered, that might make sense. Now that I'm thinking about this, regular local mail is suspect even more than international shipments. I might be a good idea for USPS to suspend bulk mail delivery for the duration...

I'm talking about the lowest cost shipping option, which is what I typically choose unless someone else, like a company I'm doing work for, is paying the shipping. I think the fastest I ever had stuff arrive from China via the low-cost option was 10 days. I just ordered a pipe camera on eBay...

Spray the box with disinfectant before you even touch it, then let it sit, perhaps in your garage, for a while.

So that means stuff coming by ship from China is a locked shipping container should be OK. Most international air shipments take over a week overall, so we should be OK there as well, provided nobody opens the packages en route (and we disinfect the packages themselves).

As it should be. This virus has a very low survival time outside of living things. With a few precautions, no reason worldwide cargo flights can't continue for the duration of this.

I know that but you have to diffuse things like this with a little humor. I'm pretty sure a disease which really turns people into zombies is medically impossible but such a thing can serve as an imaginary worst-case scenario.

I found this. AGE DEATH RATE confirmed cases DEATH RATE all cases 80+ years old 21.9% 14.8% 70-79 years old 8.0% 60-69 years old 3.6% 50-59 years old 1.3% 40-49 years old 0.4% 30-39 years old 0.2% 20-29 years old 0.2% 10-19 years old 0.2% 0-9 years...

So the vaccine will turn people into zombies instead of the disease? Interesting. Now I'll be lying awake at night worried my mother will come in and start eating me. 😱

The only way I see things calming down is if we get a vaccine for this in record time.

It's because the first people to get it and "recover" are now turning into zombies after a latent period of a month or so.

Actually, if the 3.4% mortality rate holds, and everyone gets exposed, you're looking at 10 million dead in the US alone, as many as 250 million dead worldwide. My guess though is the real mortality rate is much, much lower than 3.4%. Most of the mild cases go completely unreported. When all is...

Don't bet on it. It took about 5 years to recover from the losses in 2008. This might be worse.

The EU already voted to scrap DST by 2021. Countries would have the option of being either permanently on standard time or DST. In my opinion we should adopt standard time since it's, well, standard. If people want to start their day earlier or later, let the school or work place adjust the...

Being from an Italian family I had small amounts of wine as early as late grade school. That probably was a good thing as it killed any mystique associated with drinking. Drinking age was 18 when I was young but I never got involved in the drinking scene in college. Because most of the kids...

Probably but I figured I would ask. I meant to buy one a long time ago just as an insurance policy but never got around to it. At least I have plenty of toilet paper, paper towels, and hand sanitizer. 😀

This is one of the few times I don't mind being home bound on account of caring for my mother.

I'm looking for a biohazard suit with a respirator. Can anyone here point me in the right direction?

My guess for these stats is either people have mild or no symptoms, and don't go to a doctor (hence the case isn't even counted in the official statistics), or they wait until they're at death's door before seeking treatment (accounting for the rather high mortality rate versus the number of...

https://nypost.com/2020/03/05/airlines-could-lose-113b-in-revenue-to-coronavirus-epidemic/

Similar prices for cheap wines in the US. Keep in mind I'm going strictly by total alcohol content here. By that standard, even cheap wines don't give much bang for the buck. Beer is probably one of the harder things to make, at least to make something drinkable. Most of the people who do this...

Nobody is going to drink 190 proof liquor. The idea is you dilute it with something else. The 1.75 liter bottle of Everclear might be equivalent to 2 bottles of cheap <$20 booze.

It's a lot cheaper if all you're after is getting crocked, and not taste. For example, the cheapest I've seen a 1.75 liter bottle of Everclear 190 go for is about $38. That contains about 1.67 liters of pure ethanol, so the cost is roughly $23 per liter. When it was available, you could get two...

I'm actually doing that. Just started it as a new hobby. I got a distiller on eBay, although you don't need one if you're making wine, beer, or anything else with a low alcohol content. I made two batches so far. Sugar, tomato paste, and yeast. Let ferment about two weeks, then distill out the...

You have to be careful and look at the ingredients. Drinking it straight out of the container probably isn't a good idea regardless. You should salt it first to precipitate out the solids, then run it through a coffee filter. You'll still have a lot junk in at that point, especially fragrance...

Bleach can't double as cheap booze. 😵