Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[ET80]

22 minutes ago, incognito_man said:

I'm typically the other way, but my gut reaction was to question the outrage thinking "why would employees of larger chains matter less than those of smaller establishments?"

The counter to that is if the larger companies actually have enough capital or other means to get loans they *should* have utilized in good faith first (but I have no idea what is available).

Otherwise I see it as Joe Server from Ruth Chris vs Jill Cook from Mom's Chicken Shack. Both need jobs.

I get this 100%, but it's not just Ruth Chris - DMC Global is a Metalworking outfit, with a valuation of a little under half a billion - not Amazon, but not exactly small. They are publicly traded and an industry that is still essential, qualified under Critical Manufacturing - so their doors are still open.

I'm trying to wrap my head around why they would need PPP. Even less than that, why can't they find alternate funding? I'm sure taking out a line of credit with a guy like Chase is assuming debt, which will look bad on the Q1 ledger, which will in turn bring the stock price down - but isn't that really the most ethical move, considering their loan will not go to someone who really needs it?

I guess I'm putting a premium on ethics with this one (which is admittedly rare for me).

I'll also admit I'm wading into a pool on emotion, and probably not thinking of other downstream impact. I'm balancing my stance on how these organizations should have other avenues to consider before going this direction.

[mission27]

5 minutes ago, ET80 said:

And that is a problem, I agree. But... get more creative with your assets, get creative with your supply chain, liquidate some shares (because people ARE buying right now) something, anything. Anything at all but this, right?

Its not that simple though tbh. Many of these companies have no equity value, nobody would buy their shares even if there was some way to IPO a company right now which there isn't, but many of these large companies are probably insolvent. Debt capital markets are jacked up right now. Banks are not lending money. Asset values are depressed if there are even buyers.  Supply chains are ****ed.  What you mention is the normal playbook but this is a new world.  If you were a CEO or CFO faced with laying off tens of thousands of people who relied on you to feed their families, you might look at it differently.  After all, its the governments job to set these programs up in a way that benefits the parts of the economy its meant to benefit. 

[mission27]

mission is quite smug to hear the new estimates of case fatality rate between 0.1% and 0.3%, consistent with the range of CFRs mission and @TLO, also known as the MoL, have long suspected 

[Xenos]

1 hour ago, mission27 said:

I get it dude but the assumption that just because a company is 'big' they do not help right now is plain wrong 

There are going to be many many very large companies employing hundreds of thousands of people, no millions, that fold in the next six months.  More than we have seen in any of our lifetimes

So if you're the management team of one of those companies and you're in trouble, of course you try to take advantage of any programs that you legally qualify for, even if through a loophole

I don't have problems with big companies as long as they use the loans to keep their employees employed instead of buying back stocks or paying executives big bonuses. My problem was that they had another pool to get the money from. Why did they have to tap into this one?

[mission27]

4/21/2020 MoL Scores:

Methodology and disclaimer: MoL score is a simple metric for measuring rate of spread of the novel coronavirus within communities.  The metric was developed by mission and TLO and has not been subjected to academic peer review.  The MoL looks at a trailing average of daily new cases and compares this to trailing active cases within the community.  These rankings do not represent the opinion of anyone other than mission and TLO and should not be taken as advice of any kind.  Please note while the numbers themselves are objective calculations, smugness and Taylor Swift lyrics may factor into our commentary and decisions on tiers.  The MoL reserves the right to make changes to this methodology at any time.  Please follow all relevant governmental and/or WHO/CDC guidance.  We will defeat this virus.

"'I could show you incredible things."

- Taylor Swift

Today things are looking up across the world as the USC Trojans confirmed the MoL are geniuses and all of our enemies have been vanquished or admitted defeat. 

Tier 1: Outbreak under control, safe to begin relaxing social distancing measures

Hong Kong: 0.5 (yesterday's 0.3 is likely to be an all time low when this is all said and done, hard to maintain a number that low without eradication) 

South Korea: 0.5 (South Korea at yet another all-time low and back in a tie for first, to be clear though I expect their number like HK will start to go up soon)

Australia: 1.3 (holding steady at an all-time low and Shady tells me they are working on the other things for a re-opening) 

Austria: 1.6 (while they ticked up ever so slightly, 4 straight days under 100 cases and active cases are a third (!!!) of what they were just a few weeks ago)

Czech Republic: 2.3

Israel: 2.4 (Israel's active case numbers continue to fall steadily, not seeing a P bump just yet)

Switzerland: 2.8 (similar to Austria, active cases are plummeting, just half what they were a few weeks ago)

Tier 2: New case growth is minimal suggesting social distancing is working, likely a few weeks away from breaking into tier 1

France: 2.5 (this is a result of a very large number of new cases reported on 4/3 and 4/16 now washing through our numbers, we are going to hold them at the bottom of Tier 2 for a while to make sure there is no repeat)

Italy: 2.8 (they're getting damn close to Tier 1 territory, let me tell you, a more substantial drop in active cases today)

Portugal: 2.9 (there is a risk this goes up tomorrow, if not they are probably going to hit Tier 1 status soon)

Netherlands: 3.8

Germany: 3.8

Philippines: 3.9 (#seasonality)

Spain: 4.2 (ticking down again, they've come a long way in a couple weeks)

Ireland: 4.4 (outstanding) 

Denmark: 4.6

USA: 4.8 (US breaks into the 4s as MoL predicted a week ago, could we be just a week or two away from knocking on the door of Tier 1? perhaps. One thing that's clear, in most states, we still probably need more time, although I wish those opening up earlier the best of luck) 

Global: 5.1 (after holding steady for a week, this is starting to really fall again)

Sweden: 5.2

Belgium: 5.5

UK: 5.8 (a word of caution - UK's number is messed up because they do not report recoveries, which makes it look like there are more folks still sick than is actually the case and skews the numbers)

Japan: 5.6 (slowing down a bit?)

Iran: 6.5* (consistently bs numbers, tbh)

Turkey: 6.5

China: 7.2 (if you believe the numbers it looks like they've got the outbreak on the Russia border under control, we are slightly unsure) 

Canada: 8.7 (moving in the right direction, my hope is they are lagging because of excellent testing and are just a week behind the US due to shutting down a bit later)

Tier 3: Countries in this group that are showing increased MoLs have the potential to go deep into the danger zones, but countries with falling MoLs may only be a couple of days from tier 2 status and may have already peaked in gross # of new cases

Brazil: 11.3

India: 11.9

Mexico: 17.9

Tier 4: Aggressive growth, still likely have not peaked in single day cases, and likely a week or two minimum from peak in deaths (however many of these countries are still slowing down)

Russia: 19.5 (they're slowing down, gonna hold in Tier 4 for just a bit here)

USA State Level MoLs

South Carolina is on the verge of opening back up and gets a very strong reading today.  Georgia isn't bad but a little bit further down.  As you can see with CT for example, a couple of days in the 4-5 range is no guarantee you wont see another spike and word on the street is that may be coming tomorrow.  However, I'll take the governor at his word that his approach is reasonable and balanced.

The MoL would like to thank everyone for their contributions to this important work including @ET80 @acowboys62 @dtait93 @Dome @naptownskinsfan @kingseanjohn @Malfatron @Shady Slim @malagabears @daboyle250 @vikesfan89 @ramssuperbowl99 @sdrawkcab321 @Nazgul @kingseanjohn @mistakey @TwoUpTwoDown @Xenos @Nex_Gen @FinneasGage and the others who love us so much

We'd even like to thank @pwny @Glen and others for their critical attitude because of the attention it brings to the great work MoL is doing 

@TLO

[mission27]

9 minutes ago, Xenos said:

I don't have problems with big companies as long as they use the loans to keep their employees employed instead of buying back stocks or paying executives big bonuses. My problem was that they had another pool to get the money from. Why did they have to tap into this one?

Sometimes these things are complicated these companies may have had eligibility under various pools and this was the quickest way to get the most money

Ultimately I don't disagree at all that large businesses shouldn't have been eligible for a small business loan program, but I'd put more of the blame on Congress and Treasury for not properly setting this up rather than a company that's just trying to survive in all liklihood 

[Xenos]

Just now, mission27 said:

Sometimes these things are complicated these companies may have had eligibility under various pools and this was the quickest way to get the most money

Ultimately I don't disagree at all that large businesses shouldn't have been eligible for a small business loan program, but I'd put more of the blame on Congress and Treasury for not properly setting this up rather than a company that's just trying to survive in all liklihood 

Without making this too political, oversight was a huge concern for me about this bill. But I was willing to let it go because the stipulations for the $500 billion felt good enough. Never suspected this loophole so it took me and my wife by surprise when it happened.

[mission27]

1 minute ago, Xenos said:

Without making this too political, oversight was a huge concern for me about this bill. But I was willing to let it go because the stipulations for the $500 billion felt good enough. Never suspected this loophole so it took me and my wife by surprise when it happened.

Yeah it was a major **** up all around.  Hopefully they will fix it, but understand a lot of the damage is already done

[Xenos]

Sorry everyone. I'm going to stop complaining now. There's still a lot good.  We both still have our jobs. For me personally, the Chargers got some awesome new uniforms today and the draft is this Thursday. So yeah, I'm not going to let something like this get me too down.

[TLO]

7 minutes ago, mission27 said:

4/21/2020 MoL Scores:

Methodology and disclaimer: MoL score is a simple metric for measuring rate of spread of the novel coronavirus within communities.  The metric was developed by mission and TLO and has not been subjected to academic peer review.  The MoL looks at a trailing average of daily new cases and compares this to trailing active cases within the community.  These rankings do not represent the opinion of anyone other than mission and TLO and should not be taken as advice of any kind.  Please note while the numbers themselves are objective calculations, smugness and Taylor Swift lyrics may factor into our commentary and decisions on tiers.  The MoL reserves the right to make changes to this methodology at any time.  Please follow all relevant governmental and/or WHO/CDC guidance.  We will defeat this virus.

"'I could show you incredible things."

- Taylor Swift

Today things are looking up across the world as the USC Trojans confirmed the MoL are geniuses and all of our enemies have been vanquished or admitted defeat. 

They are still our second favorite Trojans tbf

[mission27]

17 minutes ago, Xenos said:

Sorry everyone. I'm going to stop complaining now. There's still a lot good.  We both still have our jobs. For me personally, the Chargers got some awesome new uniforms today and the draft is this Thursday. So yeah, I'm not going to let something like this get me too down.

Hope it works out for you guys, good luck.

[mission27]

17 minutes ago, TLO said:

They are still our second favorite Trojans tbf

My favorite Trojans are the invisible ones that only i can see

[CWood21]

41 minutes ago, mission27 said:

4/21/2020 MoL Scores:

Add Oklahoma to the list of states.

[mission27]

11 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

Add Oklahoma to the list of states.

[mission27]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/21/georgia-got-lifting-coronavirus-restrictions-backwards-connecticut-gov-ned-lamont-says.html

I see a lot of people saying this but Georgia Gov. made a good point today

If you are a state that didn't lock down as hard in the first place, your most essential / easiest to distance businesses are already open

So the next step has to be stuff like gyms, right?  Those are the guidelines

I totally appreciate the concern with the George situation but someone is going to have to be first and whoever it is is going to be criticized no matter what, Georgia is not in a worse spot right now than many areas in Europe that are opening similar things back up.  Maybe they could've held off on movie theaters and massage parlors