Economic impact of COVID-19

[Old Dog New Trick]

Good morning all. Hope it’s a brand new day!

Now with all the happy salutations out of the way...how did these hospitals, states and others who use this equipment get to where they only had about a 10-20 day supply of PPE or less?

We now know what happened at FEMA, someone either failed to reorder after the last national epidemic (H1N1) or was told not to. That was eleven years ago!

Since that stuff has a shelf life of more than ten years or forever I don’t see why it’s in such short supply.

Failure of the five “P”s

I can’t tell you that stocks of N95 masks, gloves and other PPE allocated for front line federal first responders, screeners at TSA and other federal agencies have been collected up across the country and sent out to communities in need leaving all the aforementioned personnel and agencies who actually take training every year to properly use these items unable to now protect themselves! It’s a complete sh!t show at work! God help us if we are providing these necessary life saving items to those on the street who have no prior knowledge or proper use of them while exposing our bravest to the same infectious disease with a duty to respond or requirement to report to work in a close contact occupation.

[Pete]

Guess this is the best place to put this.

Folks were probably wondering what was up with the D attempt to put a Post Office bail out in the emergency bill.

Appears the PO might go belly up this summer without it. Now I've been hearing for a number of years that the PO was in trouble and needed to do something - but politicians have been saying "Nothing to worry about. The PO's finances are fine."

Read through the story and count the lack of facts and number of emotional triggers.

‘Postal Service will not survive the summer.’ Lawmakers warn it could go bankrupt

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/cor...#storylink=cpy

[Flagg]

The US has the Strategic National Stockpile:

https://www.phe.gov/about/sns/Pages/default.aspx

Hopefully they had good inventory levels.

——-

As far as the US Post Office goes, I wonder if they might have an opportunity to get in better financial shape, rather than worse?

Let me explain.

Probably(definitely?) the biggest loss category for USPS is delivering international shipments(cheap cr@p from China), at USPS cost, within US borders.

Decades ago when US balance of trade was more export focused, USPS benefitted from this by having the tailwind of receiving payment for shipments, but not having the cost of OCONUS delivery once it reached a destination country’s borders.

Now with balance of trade more import focused, USPS is burdened with the cost of delivery for items it hasn’t been paid to deliver.

It’s not Amazon(they pay big bills via contract to USPS0, it’s China(and others).

So maybe if imports from China decline, USPS finances may improve?

[Pete]

This is an interesting story about world food.

Think hording on a grand scale and who exports and who imports.

Before clicking on the link, reading the story and viewing the world map - picture in your mind who you think imports and who exports.

OK, read the story.

"Countries are starting to hoard food, threatening global trade"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/ma...de/ar-BB11EY3M

"It’s not just grocery shoppers who are hoarding pantry staples. Some governments are moving to secure domestic food supplies during the conoravirus pandemic...."

Were you right?

[cbtengr]

Originally Posted by Pete

This is an interesting story about world food.

Think hording on a grand scale and who exports and who imports.

Before clicking on the link, reading the story and viewing the world map - picture in your mind who you think imports and who exports.

OK, read the story.

"Countries are starting to hoard food, threatening global trade"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/ma...de/ar-BB11EY3M

"It’s not just grocery shoppers who are hoarding pantry staples. Some governments are moving to secure domestic food supplies during the conoravirus pandemic...."

Were you right?

It's as if the whole world has gone nuts.

[Last hard class]

Originally Posted by mugwump

I’m up, big time.

Congrats! I want to personally thank you for all of the early informative posts. I used them when considering my own financial strategy.


USPS:
UPS and FEDEX are going to receive bailouts. Why not the postal service?


Debt:
I have been saying for years that debt kills. Individuals, companies and governments. A lot of Small companies don't realize that their larger competitors see this meltdown as an opportunity to crush their underfunded rivals. I hope people in NY city like chain food restaurants.

NY Gov:

He seems to be running for president. But I did catch two interesting points. First politician I heard talk about antibodies after someone has recovered. If that is true then there is the path to reopening the economy. We need to develop and produce in large quantities both an antibody test and a virus test that cuts out the labs. You come to work. You have any symptoms you go home until you test neg on the virus. If you have the antibodies above a certain level you get the proceed to the bar, do not pass go card.

Second point was about sharing the ventilators with other states. Seems tricky but still an interesting concept.




LHC

[mugwump]

Originally Posted by Last hard class

Congrats! I want to personally thank you for all of the early informative posts. I used them when considering my own financial strategy.
LHC

Jeez don’t do that again lol! I’m like 1 for 3 with this stuff. I’m giving away PPE I collected during the H5N1 days. I am happy to have the Mountain House though.

Still scared witless about H5N1, actually

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by Pete

Folks were probably wondering what was up with the D attempt to put a Post Office bail out in the emergency bill.

Saw that too; was not surprised although that amount would not do it. For many years I've read they're unable to even make their interest payments. The repeated forgiveness of that (forget the actual debt) seems to be SOP at this point.

[1stindoor]

Originally Posted by Pete

This is an interesting story about world food.

Think hording on a grand scale and who exports and who imports.


Were you right?

I was more "right" than wrong. Thanks for the link.

[mugwump]

Originally Posted by Last hard class

Congrats! I want to personally thank you for all of the early informative posts. I used them when considering my own financial strategy.


USPS:
UPS and FEDEX are going to receive bailouts. Why not the postal service?


Debt:
I have been saying for years that debt kills. Individuals, companies and governments. A lot of Small companies don't realize that their larger competitors see this meltdown as an opportunity to crush their underfunded rivals. I hope people in NY city like chain food restaurants.

NY Gov:

He seems to be running for president. But I did catch two interesting points. First politician I heard talk about antibodies after someone has recovered. If that is true then there is the path to reopening the economy. We need to develop and produce in large quantities both an antibody test and a virus test that cuts out the labs. You come to work. You have any symptoms you go home until you test neg on the virus. If you have the antibodies above a certain level you get the proceed to the bar, do not pass go card.

Second point was about sharing the ventilators with other states. Seems tricky but still an interesting concept.




LHC

Antibodies show who was sick, and recovered, more that currently active cases.

What we need is an antigen test that indicates who has virus or virus components in their system. That works more like a pregnancy test where you get a blue dot if you’re positive after 2-45 minutes.

Can’t remember who, but a Cali biotech has gotten approval for their antigen test. If they can ramp up it could be a game changer.

[mugwump]

80% of the chinese tests donated by Ma to Prague have proven to be crap. The Czech's aren’t dummies and compared the Chinese test to their own known-good test in patients with known status. The Chinese test is crap. Or maybe just the donated tests are crap.

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by mugwump

80% of the chinese tests donated by Ma to Prague have proven to be crap. The Czech's aren’t dummies and compared the Chinese test to their own known-good test in patients with known status. The Chinese test is crap. Or maybe just the donated tests are crap.

Not surprised to hear such a thing. And apparently the tests weren't gifted. Over half million bucks paid to the Chicoms from a couple of CZ gov't ministries. And China gets a PR spin around the block.

[JJ_BPK]

Privately owned

Coronavirus: Government orders 10,000 ventilators from Dyson
By Simon Jack Business editor

The government has ordered 10,000 ventilators from Dyson to help deal with the coronavirus crisis.

The firm, headed by British inventor Sir James Dyson, said it had designed a new type of ventilator in response to a call on behalf of the NHS.

The order is still subject to the devices passing stringent medical tests but that is expected to happen quickly.

Dyson has had hundreds of engineers working round the clock to design the ventilators from scratch.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52043767

About Dyson:
Dyson is a global technology company. It transforms every category it enters with radical and iconic reinventions that work, perform and look very different. Dyson currently has four main areas of technology. Floorcare (corded vacuum cleaners and cord-free vacuum cleaners), Environmental Control (fans, heaters, purifiers, humidifiers), personal care (Supersonic™ hair dryer), and Dyson Professional (Jake Dyson lighting and Airblade™ hand dryers). Dyson machines are sold in more than 75 countries, and it invests £5m ($6.6m) per week in R&D. It employs close to 7,000 people worldwide, 3,000 of whom are engineers Dyson was founded by James Dyson in 1993 and is based in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, in the UK.

link: Dyson Air Purifier Products

[mugwump]

Originally Posted by JJ_BPK

Privately owned

As I recall, Dyson closed all manufacturing in Britain and moved it to guess where about 18 mos ago.

[GratefulCitizen]

Trucking tonnage is very closely correlated with GDP.
Anecdotal observations on trucking volume through Arizona's main UPS hub:

Spoke with a few other drivers from other areas of the state.
They say volume has increased significantly.

I only have first hand knowledge of northern Arizona stuff.
Flagstaff outbound volume has seen a massive increase, mainly due to online orders of pet food from the local factory.

Inbound volume (in terms of literal trailer volume) for Flagstaff has dropped, but package and delivery stop count is still high.
This probably due to the combination of decreased business volume (large package), increased residential volume (small package), and a partially missing population of 20-30k students from NAU.

Far north region has seen a similar effect.
(Decreased business, increased residential).

Dispatch is too busy Monday-Thursday to ask detailed questions about volume in the UPS system.
I'll try to dig up some information on Friday night to find out the general volume trend.

Again, trucking tonnage is closely correlated with GDP.