How are you guys doin?

[J.]

Stimulus passed. Will probably keep my job now! Now waiting on check from Daddy Trump.

Houston instituted a "stay home, work safe" order. Which is basically a big fat nothing burger.

 

[einride]

in order to alleviate the burden on the company and make sure we don't all lose our jobs, i and all my colleagues now work 40% (i.e. just over 3 hours a day) and get 92% of our salary, of which the state now pays 50%

so i mean... so far this is working out alright for me, i work 40% but get paid 92%, and i have a good state-sanctioned reason to lock myself up at home and meet nobody for 21 hours of the day, which is kind of a dream come true

that said i am still concerned with sweden's apparent inability or unwillingness to take decisive action to slow the spread

 

[MFJ]

in order to alleviate the burden on the company and make sure we don't all lose our jobs, i and all my colleagues now work 40% (i.e. just over 3 hours a day) and get 92% of our salary, of which the state now pays 50%

so i mean... so far this is working out alright for me, i work 40% but get paid 92%, and i have a good state-sanctioned reason to lock myself up at home and meet nobody for 21 hours of the day, which is kind of a dream come true

that said i am still concerned with sweden's apparent inability or unwillingness to take decisive action to slow the spread

Yup. Our "president" is already talking about rolling back the restrictions sometime in the middle of April, which is when this WHOLE THING is going to be really popping off. Fuck this world. Interesting to hear about your new work schedule, because we're doing the same thing over here. The 11 employees are split up into two teams which work on opposite days. So this week I'm in on Mon, Wed, Fri, and then next week its Tue and Thur, and then repeat (basically you work every other day).

We're still being paid for 5 days, so I have absolutely nothing to complain about at the moment. This plan is good for limiting exposure and making sure there are two separate teams, but it would have been a great idea to start this a month ago instead of a week ago. All it'll take is one person getting sick and the whole plan is out the window. Really hanging by a thread over here...

 

[einride]

yeah from over here it looks like america is going to be a bloodbath even if you do everything right from now on, but it looks like you're... not. so i'm sorry about that. stay safe folks.

my gut feeling is the aftermath of this could be the beginning of the end of usa as the dominant economic and political power in the world, but we'll see. maybe instead we'll all bounce back stronger and learn valuable lessons about love, selflessness, community, a resilient economy and the necessity of universal healthcare.

 

[MFJ]

my gut feeling is the aftermath of this could be the beginning of the end of usa as the dominant economic and political power in the world, but we'll see. maybe instead we'll all bounce back stronger and learn valuable lessons about love, selflessness, community, a resilient economy and the necessity of universal healthcare.

Thanks for the laugh, and we're currently way ahead of what your gut feeling is telling you. Very seriously considering moving to Canada when all of this settles down (if it does). My wife would have an incredibly hard time leaving family behind, but do you want to live in... this?

 

[NAD]

I don't know 'bout y'all but tonight I'm gettin' shiiiiiiitfaaaaaaaced.

 

[Ellestin]

maybe instead we'll all bounce back stronger and learn valuable lessons about love, selflessness, community, a resilient economy and the necessity of universal healthcare.

Yeeeeeaaaaaaa... No

 

[einride]

re: sweden remaining hell bent on killing people for ideological reasons or to preserve the pride of anders tegnell, the chief moron state epidemiologist and butcher of thousands; an interesting article:

https://www.ft.com/content/31de03b8-6dbc-11ea-89df-41bea055720b

here is an exhaustive list of the restrictions imposed upon us by the government as of 26/3:
* no gatherings of more than 500
* restaurants are restricted to serving food at tables only; no hanging around in bars
* high school and higher education closed. primary schools/junior high for kids up to 17 yrs still open.

impressive, huh? meanwhile, our neighbours prohibit gatherings of more than 2 or 10 people, shut down borders, shut all schools, etc.

did you think we were a free healthcare socialist paradise where Shit Just Works? think again. of all the OECD countries, sweden has the least amount of hospital beds per capita except india, indonesia, mexico, colombia and chile.

already today our death toll is racing past finland, norway and denmark. infection rates? who the fuck knows, we gave up on testing over a week ago. this is going to get A LOT WORSE. stockholm's health system is already pretty much overwhelmed and this shit hasn't even really begun yet.

we are so well and truly fucked. let the future know that it was very easy to predict what was going to happen, but our leaders, out of pride, chose to do nothing and to let people die.

 

[Ellestin]

Here our politicians suddenly realized that due to the travel restrictions, farmers are not going to be able to hire tens of thousands of cheap labor from Africa and Eastern Europe for the harvesting season, as they usual do. So in another panic move they lost no time putting up an online platform, calling every able-bodied individual to go out and help their local farmers in some kind of war effort.

As I'm currently more or less unemployed, I feel compelled to offer my services and will probably do, a few weeks in the fields would be great on many levels too, though this feels absurdly at odds with the general instruction of "no matter what stay the fuck home".

Everything is a great big unknwown at this point...

 

[Ellestin]

here is an exhaustive list of the restrictions imposed upon us by the government as of 26/3.

jeez this is insane

 

[einride]

Here our politicians suddenly realized that due to the travel restrictions, farmers are not going to be able to hire tens of thousands of cheap labor from Africa and Eastern Europe for the harvesting season, as they usual do. So in another panic move they lost no time putting up an online platform, calling every able-bodied individual to go out and help their local farmers in some kind of war effort.

As I'm currently more or less unemployed, I feel compelled to offer my services and will probably do, a few weeks in the fields would be great on many levels too, though this feels absurdly at odds with the general instruction of "no matter what stay the fuck home".

Everything is a great big unknwown at this point...

it's so crazy to see this modern post-everything society in a matter of weeks fall back to a WW2-style crisis mode where volkswagen and ferrari make ventilators, governments promise citizens bags of rice and wheat to prevent starvation, prada and gucci make face masks, and every able-bodied individual is supposed to help with farming and treating the sick

 

[einride]

let me also tell you guys a personal story.

i was going to go on a honeymoon* trip to japan 8-20 march. real expensive shit. once-in-a-lifetime type stuff. i've never even been outside europe. late february we were debating to and fro whether or not to cancel the trip because of the virus; it barely existed in europe and japan had around a hundred infected maybe. i was in full "the panic around this shit is ridiculous, do you know how miniscule the risk is of catching something from one of 100 people in a nation of 127 million" mode but my wife was kind of panicking about the possibility of societal consequences making our trip miserable.

we ended up cancelling the whole thing when japanese schools and a lot of museums and tourist attractions around tokyo closed. back then we were really on the fence about it and it seemed like maybe an overreaction, but now i'm so extremely happy we did. we would not have been able to enjoy the trip; we would have been caught up in quarantines and travel restrictions, probably not even have gotten back home on our booked flight.

people back then were giving us shit about even considering going to filthy filthy asia, but ironically sweden is now in a worse position than japan and progressing much faster.

anyway. luckily most of our trip was refundable. we're out a few hundred bucks but we got off light compared to some others. and i remember after deciding to cancel, we were like "ehh maybe we should take a trip to somewhere in europe instead, maybe like france or austria or some shit, seems safe enough". hahaha. haha. ha. i mean that was early march and that still seemed sensible then. it's crazy how fast shit is going down.


* yes friends i am actually married now

 

[Ellestin]

* yes friends i am actually married now

A candle in the darkness. Congrats!

 

[einride]

you know how in all those disaster movies, there's always a scene where there's a scientist type who's making breakfast for his kids and then he sees something on the news on the tv in the background and just runs for the remote to turn up the volume and look at the graph on the screen and you can see the moment when reality hits him and he takes off his glasses and just stares open-mouthed into nothingness for a moment

that

 

[NAD]

^^^ That figure is shocking, and I'm surprised it is that low. Wait for next week to be even higher. My hours were cut but I haven't even bothered filing yet, and independent contractors can't file at all (I think one of the new stimulus bills changes that law). The US is in phase one of this madness.

The legislation will rush direct payments to Americans within three weeks once the Democratic-controlled House passes it and Republican President Donald Trump signs it into law, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.

In order to put recession-fighting checks into the hands of millions of Americans, the U.S. government will rely on a tax agency that has fewer workers, a smaller budget and the same 1960s-era computer systems it had the last time it was asked to do so.

I read these two articles on Reuters this morning and howled with laughter for a solid 5 minutes. That maniacal we-are-doomed type of laughter. Even if things go smoothly from here forward (good luck), and just for shits/giggles let's say the global economy snaps back into action within a month (it won't), this is a cataclysmic event and I think that we will all be very, very different people on the other side.

 

[NAD]

Also, you know, the whole pandemic aspect. Mom is healthy but she is in her late 60s. I drop off food/supplies to her once or twice a week and keep my distance, outside, but still. I'm worried about her and can't even give her a hug.

 

[NAD]

On the plus side, here is the view from my backyard today. Kind of a summary of California: palm trees, power lines, and the mountains.

 

[Krilons Resa]

...aaaand the USA has already taken the worldwide lead for most ‘Rona cases. This shit has just begun.

 

[Ellestin]

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/24/europe/austria-ski-resort-ischgl-coronavirus-intl/index.html

So some clubbing resort in Austria is apparently one of the key clusters for the propagation of this shit.
Hedonism will be the doom of mankind. The soldiers of Allah were right all along!

 

[dorian gray]

you know how in all those disaster movies, there's always a scene where there's a scientist type who's making breakfast for his kids and then he sees something on the news on the tv in the background and just runs for the remote to turn up the volume and look at the graph on the screen and you can see the moment when reality hits him and he takes off his glasses and just stares open-mouthed into nothingness for a moment

that

Hahahahaha this is perfect