the pound

SteveBorland · Mar 23, 2020

marshg246 said:
Not to minimize this at all, but in some ways it's an overblown media event. For many, it's not even as bad as a cold. For us old folks, the death rate is a lot higher than the flu, but for most of the workforce it's not very dangerous.

1 Oct 2019 to 14 Mar 2020 flu is estimated to be 38-54 million cases with 23-59 thousands deaths.

As of a few minutes ago, there have been 282395 reported cases of the corona virus:
https://www.bing.com/search?q=coronavirus+outbreak+map&filters=dtbk:"MTQwNTU5MzE1IW91dGJyZWFrIW91dGJyZWFr"&FORM=SNAPST

The infect rate is tiny compared to the flu.

The death rate seems to be related to medical care or something I'm not understanding.

Italy 8.6% France 3.6% USA 1.4% Germany 0.3%

I'm assuming that this is a very big story in Italy and taken in stride in Germany - is that true? In the Washington DC area, it's the only news.

I suggest you read this, copied from the Protect Yourself thread :
https://www.propublica.org/article/...ilure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients

One has to keep a balanced view of the crisis, but do not under estimate it. I suspect the US will have a major problem, possibly worse that what we are seeing in Italy.

Don't even begin to think of what's going to happen in Africa.

kommando · Mar 23, 2020

Fast Eddie said:
My point is only that the ‘mortality rate’ percentage is currently being bumped up, perhaps by a lot, due to only counting confirmed cases as the ‘total infected’ and counting all who die (some of which would have died anyway). Bumping one figure down and the other figure up gives a false ratio.

There are 2 relatively accurate area's where you can see the real figures. South Korea where they have extensive testing including people with no symptoms tested randomly and the Cruise Ship Grand Princess where no one could escape.

This suggests that will a fully functioning health care system in place that the death rate overall is 1%.

But as you say outside these 2 area's the testing is too limited, however the death rate does seem to go over the 1% when the capacity of the health care system is breached.

The 1% is bad but could be managed, however if your health care system is breached then you can see much higher than 1%, how much higher is hidden by lack of testing.

xbacksideslider · Mar 23, 2020

The tests are not standardized and the criteria for who gets tested is not standardized.

Therefore, the denominators of all fractional statistics are unreliable. That means that rates of infection and of mortality generally and by age group must be treated with great skepticism.

kommando · Mar 23, 2020

UK now moving on the Malarial drugs and some other anti virus drugs plus a Steroid.

Researchers plan to enrol Covid-19 patients from NHS hospitals for trials of a decades-old anti-malaria drug as soon as this week.

A team from Oxford University has applied to test hydroxychloroquine on patients who are ill enough to be admitted to hospital. If, as expected, regulatory approval is given, the first patients will be recruited within days.

The same team has just started recruiting subjects for the first British tests of two other medicines, the HIV drug Lopinavir-Ritonavir and the steroid dexamethasone.

The hope is the same for each medicine: that they will boost patients enough to avoid them having to be put on mechanical ventilators, which the NHS could be desperately short of.

xbacksideslider · Mar 23, 2020

N0rt0nelectr@ said:
Not to go into the weeds here but the Federal Reserve (which is neither Federal or a Reserve) is busy printing money out of nothing. There is no backing for US currency but the US reputation since we were take off the gold standard. I will get off my soap box now.

If all the “stimulus” they’re talking about actually happens, then there will be inflation. In six months or so we could be looking at worldwide hyperinflation. All fiat currencies eventually fail. Another race to the bottom? I know these ideas are extreme; still, they are worth considering. Maybe buy some small gold or silver coins? Or ammo, .22 LR?

Craig · Mar 23, 2020

I have a brick of .22LR (500) rounds a couple boxes of clay pigeon 12ga. , and maybe a box of goose shot .00 12ga. .... sure hope it doesn’t come down to that , everything in locked metal locker bolted to wall .... wife and I watched the 2011 movie “Contagion” last night on a cable movie station , kinda made us think of what happening now , good avoidance strategies are in full focus , plus what bad stuff is possible , sure thankful we live in small quiet town separated by rest of the Continent by 17kms of marsh ....

Hortons Norton · Mar 23, 2020

Back from shopping, wife normally decides where we shop (her job) so Walmart it is. First impression was where do people store all the stuff they buy? The shelfs in many places are empty and not just toilet paper, can goods, crackers, soda, frozen goods and many other food items. Plenty of water, beer, milk and Easter candy though. Some people wearing masks and others wearing gloves some people wearing both, store has plenty of a spray people were using on the cart handles and hand sanitizer as you entered. Seemed like there were fewer people than normal but people didn't seemed stressed out that I could see. But I did talk to a gentleman before leaving that said a guy at that very store came in and filled his cart full of food and just left without paying, when he was confronted he pulled a gun. This is in Cortez, Colorado. WTF?

JimC · Mar 23, 2020

Hortons Norton said:
Back from shopping, wife normally decides where we shop (her job) so Walmart it is. First impression was where do people store all the stuff they buy? The shelfs in many places are empty and not just toilet paper, can goods, crackers, soda, frozen goods and many other food items. Plenty of water, beer, milk and Easter candy though. Some people wearing masks and others wearing gloves some people wearing both, store has plenty of a spray people were using on the cart handles and hand sanitizer as you entered. Seemed like there were fewer people than normal but people didn't seemed stressed out that I could see. But I did talk to a gentleman before leaving that said a guy at that very store came in and filled his cart full of food and just left without paying, when he was confronted he pulled a gun. This is in Cortez, Colorado. WTF?

Idea!

xbacksideslider · Mar 23, 2020

.22 LR - I see it as potential money, not so much ammunition.

Cheap insurance, inflation hedge, why not? Wont lose its value, a permanent fungible store of value.

JimC · Mar 23, 2020

xbacksideslider said:
.22 LR - I see it as potential money, not so much ammunition.

Cheap insurance, inflation hedge, why not? Wont lose its value, a permanent fungible store of value.

When the banks collapse everyone will wish for something of value they can actually put their hands on. Gold, for me.

Oh, FDIC you say? That’s part of the outfit that’s $23 trillion in debt. Soon to balloon up to $30 trillion. Sorry son, if you think the banks have any thing of real value your ass is sucking buttermilk. Buy some gold. Keep it someplace only you have access to. Do not put it in a bank safe deposit box. When the shit hits the fan those banks will be locked tighter than a bull’s ass at fly time. Once you can get in, surprise, surprise. The bank vault is empty of anything of value.

This morning the president of the Federal bank in Minneapolis said on TV last week a customer of a major bank in Minneapolis wanted to withdraw his $600,000. Bank didn’t have enough cash. Just a digital number. Same thing with the brokerage houses. If you bought stock from one, they credit you for the shares you buy and take your money and play the market. Friend of mine had to wait 3 months after the crash of ‘87’ to get his money from the largest brokerage in Minneapolis. If you can’t hold it in your hand and it don’t weigh a lot, you don’t have shit.

xbacksideslider · Mar 23, 2020

There’s counterfeit gold and silver, bars, ingots, coins out there. Not a good time to be trying to buy physical. The spread between Paper gold/silver - ETFs and the like - and physical is big right now. Delivery dates in the future.

oldmikew · Mar 24, 2020

xbacksideslider said:
If all the “stimulus” they’re talking about actually happens, then there will be inflation. In six months or so we could be looking at worldwide hyperinflation. All fiat currencies eventually fail. Another race to the bottom? I know these ideas are extreme; still, they are worth considering. Maybe buy some small gold or silver coins? Or ammo, .22 LR?

Is that all fiat currencies will eventually fail or do eventually fail.. ? Worth remembering that one of the reasons FDR took the US off gold was
supposedly hoarding. So gold might be good in your investment portfolio but not as a backing for the dollar.

Big issue here is what the Chinese do.. They will not need to reinflate but simply spend their dollar holdings..That could tip the US into inflation .
Trumps pronouncements on China are not sensible or helpful.

xbacksideslider · Mar 24, 2020

Do eventually fail.

“Hoarding” was FDR BS; he wanted to buy votes with money he didn’t have; the Fed could not create new currency so long as money was defined as gold. The “gold clause,” which was found in EVERY contract for any good or service, said that payment could be made in currency but at the payee’s option had to be made in gold. THAT is why FDR confiscated all gold and why he, by executive order, invalidated every single gold clause in every single contract. Without the gold clause he and the Fed were free to inflate., free to dilute all the currency. Free to “water the stock.”

Gold could indeed back the dollar - just integrate a thread, or threads, of it into every bill. That would stop the Keynesian dilutors/inflators in two seconds.

If we do suffer an inflation, a dilution, it’s more likely to result from political subsidies and crony supports , coupled with the Fed going nuts, than whatever China might do. Larry Kudlow said 1/3 of GDP today. THAT is risky.

Most of what Trump has said about China turned out to be prescient or on target. I’ve changed my mind about him, and about tariffs and so called “free trade.” He was correct in his tariff policies. I was wrong. Wall Street and the OSHA/EPA regulatory “clean industry” statists cooperated in a take down of our unionized industrial heartland. Big Democrats and Big Republicans - the Uniparty - cheered it on.

JimC · Mar 24, 2020

xbacksideslider said:
Do eventually fail.

“Hoarding” was FDR BS; he wanted to buy votes with money he didn’t have; the Fed could not create new currency so long as money was defined as gold. The “gold clause,” which was found in EVERY contract for any good or service, said that payment could be made in currency but at the payee’s option had to be made in gold. THAT is why FDR confiscated all gold and why he, by executive order, invalidated every single gold clause in every single contract. Without the gold clause he and the Fed were free to inflate., free to dilute all the currency. Free to “water the stock.”

Gold could indeed back the dollar - just integrate a thread, or threads, of it into every bill. That would stop the Keynesian dilutors/inflators in two seconds.

If we do suffer an inflation, a dilution, it’s more likely to result from political subsidies and crony supports , coupled with the Fed going nuts, than whatever China might do. Larry Kudlow said 1/3 of GDP today. THAT is risky.

Most of what Trump has said about China turned out to be prescient or on target. I’ve changed my mind about him, and about tariffs and so called “free trade.” He was correct in his tariff policies. I was wrong. Wall Street and the OSHA/EPA regulatory “clean industry” statists cooperated in a take down of our unionized industrial heartland. Big Democrats and Big Republicans - the Uniparty - cheered it on.

You are also wrong as to FDR taking the US off the gold standard.

The government held the $35 per ounce price until August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus completely abandoning the gold standard.

xbacksideslider · Mar 24, 2020

Jim, I never said, or even implied, that FDR took the US off of the gold standard.

JimC · Mar 24, 2020

xbacksideslider said:
Jim, I never said, or even implied, that FDR took the US off of the gold standard.

Said-no. Implied-yes.

You said, “. THAT is why FDR confiscated all gold and why he, by executive order, invalidated every single gold clause in every single contract. Without the gold clause he and the Fed were free to inflate., free to dilute all the currency. Free to “water the stock.”

Sure sounds like an implication to me. Until Nixon took the US off the gold standard All US currency was backed by gold. You remember Nixon, don’t you?

xbacksideslider · Mar 24, 2020

Jim, if you want to make up stuff, I can’t stop you.

FDR has no choice but to continue the gold standard as to foreign institutions IF they had need to exchange gold for their dollars. So, nominally, the US remained on the gold standard - for foreign banks and governments. But even that was hollow as the US still had trade surpluses, meaning there was no need for foreign banks or corporations or governments to swap dollars for gold. Their problem was that THEY had to use THEIR gold to buy dollars so they could buy American products. For decades the US had had trade surpluses and therefore gold came into the US.

When it came to Americans, every day Joes, however, he screwed ‘em. No gold for you, Joe. Against the law!

JimC · Mar 25, 2020

No, I didn’t make up anything. Facts are stubborn things. The US went off the gold standard in 1971.

xbacksideslider · Mar 25, 2020

Agreed. Nixon took US off of the gold standard

Disagreed. You did make up stuff. I never said what you said I said.

FDR, outlawed ownership of gold by the common man. That is what my point was. What I said.

Yeah, any criticism of the god FDR is heresy. I’m a heretic.

JimC · Mar 25, 2020

xbacksideslider said:
Yeah, any criticism of the god FDR is heresy. I’m a heretic.

Well, you finally got something right.

the pound

Similar threads