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The biggest fatality in all this is commonsense. Which is understandable given our federal government’s miserable response to the crisis.

Commonsense has flown out of the window as this thing drags on.

A neighbor screamed at us because we walked across her land. She said we’d hurt ourselves, sue her and put her into the poor house. She was spouting gibberish. Such suits never win. But she kept spouting gibberish bout suing her. A neighbor in a frenzy. Not thinking. Scared.

Everyone is making bad investment decisions because they’re doing two things:

  + They’re sticking to their old investment strategy, e.g. buy and hold, or

  + They’re listening to the talking heads on BubbleVision, who are floundering around for something wise to say, so they’ll get invited back.

I know of funds who earned 40%+ in the first quarter and funds who lost 30%. Same market. Different gambles.

Going forward, follow Todd Kingsley’s advice “When in doubt, stay out.

It’s pretty obvious that with the economy tanking big-time and everyone scared, it makes no sense to hold any stocks. Eventually even the hot ones — e.g. Zoom Video — run out of steam.

You can earn 1.85% on a one year CD, which is better than losing 30%. Check out BankRate.com

You can also buy triple S&P shorts — SPXU or SPXS — which do really well as markets tank, like today.

In Australia, they’re using the police and the army to enforce their national stay at home order. It’s working big-time. They’re bending the curve.

Here’s the Australian chart:

Australians are doing 90% — with the police and the army enforcing the stay at home rules.

If you land at Sydney Airport from overseas, they immediately bundle you into buses and quarantine you for 14 days. No questions asked. No contact with anyone, including loved ones. The Australians are serious. I wish we were.

Here we have governors who give stupidity a whole new meaning and a President who has, smartly, figured out that holding virus briefings is better for his visibility (and popularity) than holding election rallies. With TV you hit millions. With rallies, you hit thousands. What would you do?

We fear catching it. I do. Some of us will barely notice it. Some of us will die. Some of us will suffer horribly.

The uncertainty is the big killer.

So, what’s it like having Covid-19?

Hint: it’s not pleasant: Rolling Stone just published a story:

Veteran Rock Guitarist Larry Campbell on Battling Coronavirus: `This Thing Has Been a Beast’
“For the past two weeks, I’ve been struggling to stay alive,” says former Bob Dylan and Levon Helm collaborator. “It really is that serious”

Campbell spoke with RS about his ordeal and what he learned from it.

Take us through what happened after March 16th when you were coughing and felt a fever coming on.
Tuesday it got worse and then Wednesday was a really bad night. [My wife and musical partner] Teresa [Williams] called my doctor and he had me come to the parking lot of his office on that Thursday afternoon, and a woman in a Hazmat suit came out and gave me the test. Then I continued to deteriorate over the weekend. They weren’t able to give me the results until the next Monday.

And you tested positive.
Yeah, but by that time I knew. I had every symptom, including a lack of taste and smell. It’s the oddest thing. Normally, even with a flu and if your taste of smell is deteriorating, you can put an orange in your mouth and you can tell you’re eating an orange. But other than looking at it, I had no idea what I was eating now. There was no response at all from my taste buds. I sautéed a bunch of garlic with broccoli, and I couldn’t even smell it. And if you can’t smell garlic, you can’t smell anything [Laughs].

I’ve had the flu plenty of times but it’s never gotten this debilitating. My temperature fluctuated between 100 and just over 101. It went to 102 at one point. There were days when the effort just to get up and walk to the couch I’d been laying on all day – just to get into the kitchen to force myself to eat something — was monumental. Then trying to walk up the stairs to the bedroom at night and not being able to sleep because of headaches and fever.

I took Tylenol to keep the fever down at night, but then the headaches would come and then you’re so dry you keep waking up to drink water. Then you try to sleep but you wake up because you have to pee. It was just a nightmare. I lost a good 10 pounds at least.

What happened the week after you tested positive?
That last Friday [March 27th], it hit a critical point and I was starting to worry that it was taking a turn for the worse and it could turn into pneumonia. Teresa was looking into getting an ambulance up here and getting me down to the city. I was on the phone with her and my cousin, who is a nurse, and the fever started to break as I was on the phone. I had taken my temperature before the conversation and it was 101. By the end of the conversation it was down to 99. And we decided to just get through the night and see what happened over the next 12 hours. The next morning, Saturday [March 28th], I woke up and the fever was down to 97.6.

I’ve been monitoring and the fever’s never gone up again. I’ve slowly begun to feel an appetite every now and then, which I had none of that whole week. I actually got dressed and went out and walked around in the backyard for a while. Which felt great while I was doing it, but [coughs] I was afraid after I came back that I may have set myself back a little with the pulmonary issue.

So Teresa was in the city at your Manhattan apartment, to play it safe, and you were in your house all by yourself? That sounds doubly awful.
Just me alone in the house. It’s been miserable. People offered to bring stuff and I would say, “You just can’t.” They would bring food and soup and just leave it on the porch outside. I’d wave through the window and wait for them to get away and then go out and pick it up.

You can read the full story here.

So, what can we do and WHY?

Obvious stuff:

+ Wash hands.

+ Keep ten feet from everyone.

+ Don’t touch your face.

+ Wear a mask.

There is good information on the Federal Government’s web site. Click here. But it’s too dumbed-down for my taste.

Mark Johnson sent me this piece It’s not written by a doctor. It’s written by Meryl Ann Butler who is an artist, author, educator and OpedNews Managing Editor. But she checked it out with some doctors.  I found it useful:

You can find her website here.

Things to do while you’re stuck at home

+ Hair salons are now selling “Do it yourself coloring kits.” They contain the precise formula for their clients’ hair. Creativity is in.

+ All our local food stores are a opening web site — Shopify is the best — and letting your order online or by phone. Send your customers an email. Tell them you’re open for business. Customers wait outside. It’s drive-though for ritzy restaurants. It keeps your workers employed.

+ Time to check your web site out for user-friendliness. Hertz is the absolute worst. It took me three hours last night  of online and on-phoning to move the return of my rented car from Manhattan to Pittsfield, Mass. One minute they wanted $5,309. Ten minutes later they said $1,881.84. Someone, please fix Hertz’ totally awful web site. I bet yours is almost as bad.

+ Several friends are writing plans for their new startup, which they’ll start up when this is all over. Remember to find ones that are scaleable.

+ Several friends are learning new skills — like how to program.  This is a critical skill to acquire during this lockdown. Don’t waste the lockdown.

Love these

LandsEnd has the best pajamas. They’re on sale.

And finally some good news

My tennis is improving. But sadly, so is Mark’s. He lets me win one set out of three. Good for my ego and his charity.

Amazon is still delivering the junk I order every day or so.

I find buying stuff therapeutic. One day, I’ll buy something I need.

I use WordPress to publish this blog on the Internet. It comes out OK on the Internet.

But I also email the blog out. How it appear at the other end — in your inbox — depends on the email client you’re using. They’re all different. Some are truly weird. If you’d like to see it in the form I meant, go to the web site. Click here.

See you Monday. — Harry Newton

 

2 Comments

  1. JD says:

    It is the epitome of a black swan event Harry. For example in early February, 2020 Disney raised admission prices to their theme parks due to excess demand, today those parks are closed. What would you have done differently or more effectively? This is a very trying time for everyone. There are more than critics sitting in the cheap seats, you don’t have to join them.

  2. Dman says:

    #adrenachrome

    Q