[Ibon]

Ibon wrote elsewhere:

Is this our short to mid term future?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... arantined/

A certificate to move about freely to those who have recovered from Covid19?

My instant analysis can see this thing providing some real investment opportunity.

Imagine the infrastructure required to do 6-10 billion tests and then maintain the results!

It will encourage, perhaps require, ALL people to be tested. And perhaps the test result will become part of your permanent record somehow, like eye color on a drivers license.

Think about it beyond employment. Airport screening, going to a concert? Dating? I could see this thing exploding. Maybe moving to some online database where some key points of your medical history are stored. Also put your HIV status on there, herpes also.

In the name of public safety your privacy will be secondary. I can see this. Any inroad to have more control and transparency is of interest to the state.

Which ever company can succeed in making a highly reliable test kit with fast turnaround would be a company I would invest some money into.

[SeaGypsy]

My intuition is a cash ban or fast track phase out is imminent. If & when this happens, it will cause financial ruin to the illegal drug trade. My bet is drug rehabilitation is going to boom.

[vtsnowedin]

My intuition is a cash ban or fast track phase out is imminent. If & when this happens, it will cause financial ruin to the illegal drug trade. My bet is drug rehabilitation is going to boom.

I doubt if that is a vote getting policy for the middle and welfare classes. They are still the numeric majority after all.
If all the money is electronic it can disappear at any moment from foreign hacking or our own government stiffing us. The fear of that can be whipped up among the deplorables along with other voters with a brain.

[SeaGypsy]

My intuition is a cash ban or fast track phase out is imminent. If & when this happens, it will cause financial ruin to the illegal drug trade. My bet is drug rehabilitation is going to boom.

I doubt if that is a vote getting policy for the middle and welfare classes. They are still the numeric majority after all.
If all the money is electronic it can disappear at any moment from foreign hacking or our own government stiffing us. The fear of that can be whipped up among the deplorables along with other voters with a brain.

Maybe, maybe not. The panic frenzy being whipped up is as good a scenario as the establishment is ever likely to get with regards to associating cash with a deadly Chinese pangolin virus.

[Plantagenet]

As I feared, China is now seeing a "second wave" of virus infections. Henan Province in China has just announced a province-wide lockdown.

chinese-county-coronavirus-lockdown-second-wave

And as I predicted, if China was hit with a second wave of virus infections, the US stock market would take the news very badly----and so far the DOW is down 970 points

Cheers!

[Newfie]

A good article about the see saw trade situation. First we could not get stuff from China, now we are getting more but shops are closed and not accepting.

And in the next phase ( separator article at same site) China is getting hit again and may slow shipping once again.

https://gcaptain.com/congestion-looms-at-u-s-ports/

VERY confusing.

I’m seeing more and more giant warehouses along the NJ Turnpike.

[vtsnowedin]

Warehouses perhaps?
Yes post Covid-19, I see us making ourselves economically secure, not defendant on any import stream for any critical commodity from antibiotics to computer chips and cell phone parts and military material and supplies. Drug makers that want to hold a US patent will have to keep sufficient production lines in the USA to supply all of the US demand and can only off shore production for the export market. All other critical industries would have similar tax and patent laws in effect that will assure adequate supplies in times of crisis and war.

[Newfie]

How do we invest in that stuff?

[Outcast_Searcher]

My intuition is a cash ban or fast track phase out is imminent. If & when this happens, it will cause financial ruin to the illegal drug trade. My bet is drug rehabilitation is going to boom.

I doubt if that is a vote getting policy for the middle and welfare classes. They are still the numeric majority after all.
If all the money is electronic it can disappear at any moment from foreign hacking or our own government stiffing us. The fear of that can be whipped up among the deplorables along with other voters with a brain.

In reality the money, re 99+% of what is legally spent daily and moves around the world, at least in first world countries, IS electronic, like it or not.

Hell, in the late 80's, sitting in my broker's office so I could trade options on his green screen terminal, I overheard him telling some well dressed client with a chuckle, "XXXXX, no, I CAN'T just take a briefcase full of cash to open an account. The IRS wouldn't even let me take $10,000 in cash, and my management wouldn't even let me take a few thousand without a check or electronic transfer". And the dude (looking a bit like some Italian hit man), left with his briefcase.

After 9-11, apparently you can't even open a bank account without signing various forms for them to verify you're not a terrorist -- even for US citizens with an adult life full of financial transactions with banks, and a completely clean criminal record re ANYTHING financial.

That idea might upset the uninformed, but that ship sailed long ago. Just the FX (foreign exchange) markets trade around $5 TRILLION a business day on average, and I'm rather certain that it's all electronic.

If you want to pay for a soda at the 7-11 with cash, that doesn't change the reality.

If it weren't for parking meters (I have no smart phone), laundromats, and yard workers who want cash instead of checks, I literally would never even HAVE cash any more -- and that's been true for a good decade.

[SeaGypsy]

Kind of misses the point. Cash $USD large denominations disappear into the ether almost as quickly as they are printed. They are about as good as 24 carat gold to mafias & cartels, & in most of the world, especially developing countries, no questions asked you can live like a king on cash $USD. Force that money back into banks, that's the biggest Bonanza in world history, for the banks & for governments, not just the US government.

[vtsnowedin]

[
In reality the money, re 99+% of what is legally spent daily and moves around the world, at least in first world countries, IS electronic, like it or not.

.

Yes that certainly is the case but that is not the question. The question is will the government try to remove that last one percent (or whatever the actual number is) from our hands and have every transaction in their view and under government control.
I think that is and should be unpopular with an informed voting public. I also think such a move would violate both the forth and fifth amendments in the bill of rights.
It is also well past time to inflation adjust that IRS $10,000 limit on unreported transactions up to around $50,000.

[SeaGypsy]

Then there's the fact that $1 million weighs 17 Lb, 8 kg in $100 bills. The same value in gold today weighs 55 Lb, 25 kg. Splitting off a $100 or $1000 of gold is a serious hassle, requires expert help, unlike cash, unlike E-Cash.

[Newfie]

Here is an interesting article in Slate on infrastructure spending.

I was some what involved with a few of the Obama “shovel ready” infrastructure plans. I’ve no need to elaborate on what the “shovel” was used for. What I saw was useless beyond the fact that I got sent on some interesting junkets.

None the less, it seems to be something that has bipartisan appeal.

Big engineering and construction companies will be all over this.

https://slate.com/business/2020/03/trum ... do-it.html

[EnergyUnlimited]

My intuition is a cash ban or fast track phase out is imminent. If & when this happens, it will cause financial ruin to the illegal drug trade. My bet is drug rehabilitation is going to boom.

These are false assumptions.
1. Cash ban is unlikely.
2. Even if have happened illegal drug trade will proceed in gold, silver, crypto, hours with nice female and all sort of similar ways.

Illegal drugs themselves may become to be currency too.

[SeaGypsy]

My intuition is a cash ban or fast track phase out is imminent. If & when this happens, it will cause financial ruin to the illegal drug trade. My bet is drug rehabilitation is going to boom.

These are false assumptions.
1. Cash ban is unlikely.
2. Even if have happened illegal drug trade will proceed in gold, silver, crypto, hours with nice female and all sort of similar ways.

Illegal drugs themselves may become to be currency too.

Congrats on joining my block list. Why? 1/ you are a racist dipshit. 2/ you are a racist, dipshit. Bye

[EnergyUnlimited]

Congrats on joining my block list. Why? 1/ you are a racist dipshit. 2/ you are a racist, dipshit. Bye

I won't block you.
There is some fun in watching what idiots are doing.
Sometimes I will also comment on it.

[evilgenius]

If I had the money right now I would buy Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Rockwell Automaton, ABB, NIO, Livent, Mastercard and Visa. I wish there was a better way to buy LG. I like New York Community Bankcorp NYCB, but not as much as those others. Depending upon how much money, I would put 10% into oil. I think Exxon will buy up enough smaller players that it will come out well ahead. Facebook looks like it will be a $500 stock one day. Amazon looks like it will continue to dominate.

Yes, I do consider that cash will have a problem. Things are headed that way. I don't have a clue about what to do about it, other than to be afraid. I don't like the danger of poor political leadership such a thing exposes me to. Privacy becomes more important the farther away from the basics we get. A cashless society is only as fair as the players make it. People love to embed all kinds of sweetheart favors for themselves. They don't think about people who try to be fair, unless they can treat them like suckers and make some money off of them. It could be that a stock like Google, either one, is a good way to invest safely while the change takes place. Search will still be important, and Google isn't likely to disappear right away.

[Newfie]

Immunity Certificates

https://m.economictimes.com/news/politi ... 963050.cms

[Outcast_Searcher]

Immunity Certificates

https://m.economictimes.com/news/politi ... 963050.cms

Despite the spin of fear and doom that many will put on this idea, given what is going on re the nature of this thing, and given the need to spin up factories and other businesses over time, this seems like a great idea re practicality -- ONCE WE KNOW THE CLAIM OF 99.9%ish IMMUNITY IS VALID, once testing confirms a person has had it.

And the way this thing spreads, it seems like it would HAVE to be a positive data point (that these are likely), given how much it helps the global economy to avert massive shutdowns across the board for many months.

So, assuming this happens re the validity of the testing and the relative immunity, I believe it lessons the "catastrophic doom-inducing depression" scenario probabilities significantly.

(Unpopular as that idea will be with the usual suspects.)

IMO, nice to see a little good news in what seemed like a pretty bleak overall week, re likely spread, likely further waves, situation for many supplies, and ineptness of government to actually DO SOMETHING EFFECTIVE (vs. make claims), especially re the US.

Still doesn't make me want to rush out and buy a bunch of stock at these levels, BTW!

[vtsnowedin]

Still doesn't make me want to rush out and buy a bunch of stock at these levels, BTW!

Not a problem. Better to wait until mid summer when the true bottom has been reached after the government has exhausted all means of propping up the market.
Plenty of time in the meantime to research just which stocks to buy when the time comes and to watch how those stocks are faring in the new reality post CV.