Coronavirus Diaries

I find myself eating more.

Sometimes it's the less healthy (bread, donuts, cookies) sometimes better (raw carrots, green beans, green grapes, raw onions)

dang glasses keep fogging up... NOT wearing them is not an option...

I almost panicked today. Local credit union had a line of cars half a block long, waiting on the drive up. Thought about that tonight and went to my bank's ATM. Out of money. Tried the machines at the main bank, and they were closed. WTH is going on? Is this 1929, or what ?

Now I'm worried, so I went home, wrote a check, took it to the drive up and got some money. Somehow, cash seems like a good thing to have. Actually, my local bank is quite solid, but I sure hope everyone else doesn't panic at once.

Holy ****.

I am more worried about inflation. I don't want to have a lot of cash right now. (I actually do have several hundred dollars in cash in my poker fund... I suppose I will use that if there is an emergency).

So, where do you think it's safe from inflation?

Just what I was thinking. Hopefully, there was just a city wide demand that exceeded ATM supply. Still, that demand was extraordinary.

With inflation, cash is one of the least useful forms of money.

So are bonds. How about stocks? Of course, they can move in either direction.

What Chomsky has to say about coronavirus
https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-ventilator-shortage-exposes-the-cruelty-of-neoliberal-capitalism/?utm_campaign=Truthout+Share+Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3Rc4tdirlHwXZJPge777fB3Yjjv0pDMTdKP_RKrTGZlsvCPOnZQo4Iq6Y
First few lines:

Chomsky: Ventilator Shortage Exposes the Cruelty of Neoliberal Capitalism

COVID-19 has taken the world by storm. Hundreds of thousands are infected (possibly many times more than the confirmed cases), the list of dead is growing exponentially longer, and capitalist economies have come to a standstill, with a global recession now virtually inevitable.

The pandemic had been predicted long before its appearance, but actions to prepare for such a crisis were barred by the cruel imperatives of an economic order in which “there’s no profit in preventing a future catastrophe,” Noam Chomsky points out in this exclusive interview for Truthout. Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics at MIT and laureate professor at the University of Arizona, author of more than 120 books and thousands of articles and essays. In the interview that follows, he discusses how neoliberal capitalism itself is behind the U.S.’s failed response to the pandemic
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Another lovely nugget:

Putting aside the ritual obeisance to the benign government and its laudatory goals, the comment is true enough. We may add that focus on maximizing profits is also “not always consistent” with the hope for “the survival of humanity,” to borrow the phrase of a leaked memo from JPMorgan Chase, [the U.S.’s] largest bank, warning that “the survival of humanity” is at risk on our current course, including the bank’s own investments in fossil fuels. Thus, Chevron canceled a profitable sustainable energy project because there’s more profit to be made in destroying life on Earth. ExxonMobil refrained from doing so, because [it] had never opened such a project in the first place, having made more rational calculations of profitability.
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People should be publicly executed.

Inflation-adjusted treasury bonds.

I’m doing the same thing. I broke down and bought a lot of packaged, processed foods and I guess boredom or avoidance has increased my munching.

I usually cope pretty well with adversity—I’ve had lots of practice, but I was already trying to adjust to living alone and not being allowed to have a pet. The way I did that was developing relationships with wait staff and other patrons like me—who are doing the same thing—in restaurants and boutiques. It was still not great to come home to an empty home, but it was an improvement. Now, I can’t see my co-workers, students (interacting with them online just isn’t the same), and face to face interactions in those other places is gone.

It’s like this huge steel wall has slammed shut.

My econnections are rich, but. I miss hugging my kid and my grandbairn. Trader Joe’s shu mai dumplings 🥟 seem to be my next best thing. 🔥

It could be two reasons:

No walk ins so they have to go through the drive through for ANY banking needs

That there are fewer people working to fix or put more money in the ATMs

One note ... you can go to many stores and use your debit card and get cash back

Thank you.

Thanks. I thought of two of those myself.

I knew I was in trouble when I ripped open the fourth Party Size bag of Fritos in one week..


...or was it Cheetos?

I really hope that there is no run on the banks. There is no reason for any run on the banks. The banking system isn't going anywhere. If you have a functioning credit card, then what's the issue. It is not like you can spend cash on anything anyway.

If a run on the bank happens, it would destroy my faith in the intelligence of Americans even further.

And, too, we didn't have FDIC in 1929.

I got an e-mail from my dentist's office that said they are closing because of the virus. They said that the phone will continue to be picked up "in case anyone has an infection," but that even in that case they won't have access to the building.

It seems to me that a lot of service providers are just abdicating. What if you have a crown fall off? Are you supposed to just live with it for months? What if someone had a denture and it broke? Just do without for months? What about a tooth breaking in half? You're on your own?

I understand that the providers don't want to get the virus and they also don't want to spread it, but to make no provision at all for things that aren't trivial seems irresponsible.

In the end, the patient would just have to locate a provider who was not only protecting his patients but willing to protect someone else's.