Wheels and tires

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 06:59:45 -0700, jbeattie wrote:


The businesses that are most "about the people" are shuttered right now,
and some are looking at permanent closure. I don't know what kind of
business you are in, but I've never been in any business that is sitting
on a pile of cash. Most business are not Apple.

I am no longer in business and i'm firmly retire, no matter what the
project. I've had a few business in the past and one thing I never was
willing to do was endanger existing assets by going into debt to fund a
business venture.

The mom-and-pop bike shop which turns enough profit to support its
owners and employees cannot weather zero cash flow for long.

When you enter a business, many people are so full of hope, they do not
set the circumstances when it is time to cut and run. Big dodo.

Same goes with the local coffee shop and restaurant. These are
not poorly run businesses, they're just small businesses.

Tom disagrees on that area. YMMV, but again I never enjoyed precarious
existence that largely benefits some one else. Hint modern franchising
arrangements. why do they bother.


Most businesses have access to credit,
Which means you are basically working for someone else first. Queue the
bank, the landlord, the franchisor, the equipment leaser..., why bother!
These people made a decision and bet of the good times always rolling and
now they have met a pot hole on the party road.


but if you're looking at permanent damage from the shut-down,
you may not want to take on new debt -- particularly if you're just
hanging on by a thread anyway

But isn't that the point, many of them are and have been for a while.
Their business models were really "event" style business that they were
trying to run full time.

I do not know what the fidures are for the USA, but I think is it about
1/3rd of new businesses do not last three years in this country.


because of Amazon and the internet.

Just an illustration f thinking the good times will always roll. Some
people ignore the future until it steam rollers right over them,then they
have to adapt.

Story time; When Amazon first started, I had a part time/2nd business
selling books by mail order. We were taking orders away from Amazon
because we delivered fast (one week to the USA) rather than the 4 to 6
weeks Amazon(no warehouse model) was taking.

When I ran out of the wanted books(no longer a localsupplier), I had a
choice of taking a mortgage against the hovel and bulk buying books in
the USA with three months delivery delay to then sell them back into the
USA. Nope, blind freddy could see that Amazon was taking a hammering, but
it had way deeper pockets and would have to adjust it's business model,
which it did by starting to build warehouses. The game was gong to be up
then, so we sold our stock to another business and did other things.


Even for small businesses that survive, the hit will be huge
and will depress wages, defer maintenance, growth, etc., etc.

Funny how now everyone wantsto claim to be a small business , when they
are really the major employers.

There will be permanent work-force reductions

Isn't it funny, how every Pollies, and "business" have has been saying
for decades that change and new technology always brings MORE jobs. Now
they are on the butt of that change, they are screaming for bail outs.

to cover new debt

Isnt that what underpns the American way?
screw te workers toline the bosses pockets.

and the inevitable tax hit from
a $2T bail-out of the entire nation.

They have already recieved major tax cuts. What did they do with that
money

Jay, a lng time ago I studied accoutancy and I've reaqd the bleating of
the dismal scientists and i am abe to tell the "glossy pages'(most of
what s inthe press) from the "white papers"(balance sheets, etc).

Whenthe concet of a job for lfe followed by a gold watch died decades
ago, what is the equvalent for "business".

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 14:01:02 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich
wrote:

On Friday, March 27, 2020 at 10:14:38 AM UTC-7, Ralph Barone wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/27/2020 10:43 AM, AMuzi wrote:

One wonders how a society decides to ignore 12,500 dead:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-res...-pandemic.html

And then commit national suicide 11 years later under not-worse
circumstances. That decision has been made but I wonder what spurred
this attitude change?

The attitude changed because of the rate of change of infection cases.
The current rate of change indicates a likely overwhelming of our
emergency medical system, as has happened in Italy and is happening in
NYC. That was not true in 2009.

The extrapolation of current data isn't difficult. But it is scary.


There are two types of people right now. Those that are scared and those
who don’t understand math.

I have to wonder which one you are? Of the 9134 deaths in Italy only about 600 of them were attributed to Covid-19 and not pre-existing health conditions. This means that even under one of the most deplorable health systems in Europe only 0.7% died primarily from this disease. This despite death panels.

What is this math you think you know that supposedly should strike fear into the hearts of men everywhere?

And that is another lie. The current number of deaths attributed to
the virus by the Italian Government is 9134.

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/20...-T1&refresh_ce
The fact that some of those who died may or may not had other physical
problems is essentially immaterial. The virus is what killed them.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 05:57:56 +0700, John B. wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 14:18:03 -0500, AMuzi wrote:


China just closed its borders.

see
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/...-restrictions-
border-shutdowns-country-200318091505922.html
The date stated to be "7 hours ago"

China started welcoming(asking?) expats to come home and predictably they
brought more cases of covid-19 with them and their numbers went up.

Our "leader"; "Scotty from Marketing"h, also though that was a good idea
and has made the same call and is arranging flights back home for expats
and stranded Tourist.

He also authorised tourist ships to dock and discharge, all their
covid-19 infected passengers without any pre-checkng(catch a local plane
home). Our numbers of infected have ballooned in all states and a few
have since died.

I wonder f another "sacking*" is in the offering, if the contry survves
to hold another election.

* His work history was in Tourism with a history of being sacked, before
he went into politics.

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 16:29:12 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/27/2020 3:55 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 6:21:05 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/26/2020 7:48 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 4:12:48 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/26/2020 6:43 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 1:28:56 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 02:03:30 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

This was in the recent online offerings;
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020...o-much-to-ask-
for-an-actual-plan/

I say that you are a very nasty journalist who wants Donald Trump to
fail in the next election!

Expect the President and his Cabinet to do their jobs and save the lives
of Americans? What are you, a socialist? Save the money first, it
can't take care of itself unlike people.

Tell us all what the President is going to do against a disease. This ought to be interesting to listen to a moron run on about just how ignorant about the world around him he is.

Many public health professionals can tell you what the president
_should_ have done against a disease. It's hardly a secret.


--
- Frank Krygowski

It isn't a secret but you don't know what it is?

Wrong.


--
- Frank Krygowski

And again, you have no answers. You grow tiresome trying to convince anything that somehow the government is a knight in shining armor that can stand in between you and an illness. Trump got private industry involved and we now have testing methods that went from 2 weeks to 45 minutes and that doesn't in the least my you or your wonderful "medical" friends happy. They have found three different methods that all seem to work well when properly applied but most doctors do not wish to use because it is without FDA approval for that use and they open themselves up for massive lawsuit.

There is already at least one vaccine but it will take the FDA between a year and a year and a half to approve it for human use. At least one of those vaccines is made by a method that is known to produce reliable and safe vaccination.

That isn't enough for you though is it Frank?

What's not enough, once again, is your proclaiming your profound wisdom
only on a bicycle discussion group. There are medical doctors,
infectious disease specialists, medical response teams, hospital staff
and countless ordinary physicians across the country with advanced
degrees and decades of experience who somehow disagree with most of what
you post!

Get out there, man! Set the CDC straight! Inform the WHO! And if the
U.S. won't listen to you, at least save some other countries!

Tom, with great wisdom comes great responsibility. Your responsibility
is to set the rest of the world straight, using your own unique
knowledge. Don't shirk your responsibility! Get out there!

I'll bet you haven't even made your sign-on-a-stick yet, you slacker.

You know... Tom is really missing what might be a great deal, although
granted a full beard and long hair would certainly serve to dignify
his efforts.

Think of it! A sign on a stick and a used Macdonald's coffee cup for
donations and he might be able to afford groceries.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 16:01:43 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

AMuzi writes:

On 3/26/2020 9:44 PM, John B. wrote:
tOn Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:10:31 -0500, AMuzi
wrote:

On 3/26/2020 7:40 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:09:24 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Radey Shouman wrote:
Ralph Barone writes:

John B. wrote:
On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 19:26:32 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/25/2020 12:43 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:

[snip on-topic bicycle stuff]

On Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 3:18:09 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

I can't figure out what Newsome thinks he's doing saying that a couple
of weeks from now isn't long enough to keep businesses shut down. Its
been two weeks already and in another couple of weeks all of the
restaurants, the largest business sector, will be dead.


If your auntie was Nancy Pelosi, you could try your hand at
being Governor too!

Given that the virus "new case" rate in the U.S. is now the highest in
the world (as of March 26, 2020, 00:12 GMT) the question of whether
the restaurants go out of business because of a shutdown or whether
they go out of business because their customers catch the virus is
probably immaterial.
--
cheers,

John B.

It’s a tough call. Either way people are going to be
uncomfortable or die,
but my guesses are with the shutdown being the better choice. Considering
that pandemics are just compound interest with a very high interest rate
and a very short compounding period (take out a loan at 250% interest per
week and tell me how that works out for you), I’m surprised at
the lack of
serious response from the guy running things south of 49.

Interesting analogy. Going a bit further, it seems immunity and
bankruptcy are two sides of the same coin, while death works the same
for both compounded debts and pandemic illness. Looks like we elected
an experience-qualified guy after all.


I guess, except his “go-to” move is declaring bankruptcy and letting the
other people deal with the mess.

So, if you’re paying 250% a week interest on a loan, when is a good time to
start selling stuff on Craigslist for a two week repayment program? The
correct answer is As Soon As You Borrowed The Money. The second best answer
is Right ****ing Now!

Perhaps an even better solution is "don't borrow money at 250% a
week". That would be, 1100% over one year :-)
--
cheers,

John B.


Mr Slocumb-
You have many skills but this isn't one of them.
Taking a $100 loan at 250% per week for 52 weeks on a
regular amortization table sums to:

$1 397 688 109 531 440 000 000 000 000 000.00

Compound interest is a powerful thing, underestimated by
borrowers in every era, in every place.

Which demonstrates that, at least for me, my policy of never borrowing
money is the correct one :-)

But are you sure? I just calculated it and I get
$49,303,806,576,313,200,000,000.00 :-)

--
cheers,

John B.


Simple or compounded weekly?

For compounded weekly I get:

$1,956,991,596,955,520,295,245,474,499,646

after 52 weeks. This value is not exact, I rounded to the nearest
dollar every week.

This is of the same order of magnitude as Mr. Muzi's figure, but not up
to accounting standards.

I suspect that Mr. Slocomb computed 100 * 2.50^52, for
which I get:

$49,303,806,576,313,241,698,304

This is also not exact, as I used floating point arithmetic. It's
pretty close to the same as his figure, however.

The base of 2.50 is not right, though, as that would imply a mere 150%
interest rate.

The correct calculation of 100 * 3.50^52 gives:

$1,956,763,353,344,008,803,942,544,703,488

again using floating point. Again, in the ballpark of Mr. Muzi's.

Either number is large enough (shoot! $10 is pretty big, isn't it)
that my life long theory to NEVER borrow money seems vindicated :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 14:17:24 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/26/2020 9:44 PM, John B. wrote:
tOn Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:10:31 -0500, AMuzi
wrote:

On 3/26/2020 7:40 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:09:24 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Radey Shouman wrote:
Ralph Barone writes:

John B. wrote:
On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 19:26:32 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/25/2020 12:43 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:

[snip on-topic bicycle stuff]

On Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 3:18:09 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

I can't figure out what Newsome thinks he's doing saying that a couple
of weeks from now isn't long enough to keep businesses shut down. Its
been two weeks already and in another couple of weeks all of the
restaurants, the largest business sector, will be dead.


If your auntie was Nancy Pelosi, you could try your hand at
being Governor too!

Given that the virus "new case" rate in the U.S. is now the highest in
the world (as of March 26, 2020, 00:12 GMT) the question of whether
the restaurants go out of business because of a shutdown or whether
they go out of business because their customers catch the virus is
probably immaterial.
--
cheers,

John B.

It’s a tough call. Either way people are going to be uncomfortable or die,
but my guesses are with the shutdown being the better choice. Considering
that pandemics are just compound interest with a very high interest rate
and a very short compounding period (take out a loan at 250% interest per
week and tell me how that works out for you), I’m surprised at the lack of
serious response from the guy running things south of 49.

Interesting analogy. Going a bit further, it seems immunity and
bankruptcy are two sides of the same coin, while death works the same
for both compounded debts and pandemic illness. Looks like we elected
an experience-qualified guy after all.


I guess, except his “go-to” move is declaring bankruptcy and letting the
other people deal with the mess.

So, if you’re paying 250% a week interest on a loan, when is a good time to
start selling stuff on Craigslist for a two week repayment program? The
correct answer is As Soon As You Borrowed The Money. The second best answer
is Right ****ing Now!

Perhaps an even better solution is "don't borrow money at 250% a
week". That would be, 1100% over one year :-)
--
cheers,

John B.


Mr Slocumb-
You have many skills but this isn't one of them.
Taking a $100 loan at 250% per week for 52 weeks on a
regular amortization table sums to:

$1 397 688 109 531 440 000 000 000 000 000.00

Compound interest is a powerful thing, underestimated by
borrowers in every era, in every place.

Which demonstrates that, at least for me, my policy of never borrowing
money is the correct one :-)

But are you sure? I just calculated it and I get
$49,303,806,576,313,200,000,000.00 :-)

--
cheers,

John B.


Simple or compounded weekly?

As I said in another post, "don't make no difference" as I don't
borrow money anyway :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 22:40:23 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 12:58:57 -0700, Tom Kunich wrote:


Restaurants make up the largest single segment of the businesses in the
USA at 19%. And they ALL normally operate at or very near the edge of
profitability. This WILL kill a whole lot of them. Others could reopen
but won't because they are tired of being abused by the government. This
isn't good for the economy.

So it will be good for "restaurnts" going forward, as the pollies say,
because many of them will not survive to reopen.

Ill wind; our green grocer reports sales are booming as people are
suddenly having to cook at home again.

The news, this morning, has it that "Global condom shortage looms" and
goes on to explain that " a coronavirus lockdown has shut down
production". Then tells us that "there is already a shortfall of 100
million condoms".

Think of it, "already a 100 million shortfall..." Is this from working
at home and lousy daytime TV? :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

John B. wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 21:39:44 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich wrote:
On Friday, March 27, 2020 at 7:03:18 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Friday, March 27, 2020 at 9:58:50 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/27/2020 8:49 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:07:41 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich wrote:

Turns out that in Italy with 9,134 deaths they only indicate
that 600 of them are due to Covid-19 and the rest of them to
pre-existing health condition which were exacerbated by the
virus and the crummy Italian socialized medical system could
not deal with.

The US now has the supposed highest number of "confirmed
infections". However, they are only testing people over 65 with
certain severe pre-existing health problems so again, the
statistics miss 80% of the infected population. And yet this
still gives us only 1.4% mortality rates.

I finally found a reference to the seasonal flu. It has a 3.83%
mortality rate or 3 times that of Covid-19. Moreover the
seasonal flu kills babies 5 and under and expecting mothers and
mothers who have given birth less than 6 months previous to the
flu. Since there is NO immunity in the entire population to
Covid-19 this is an exceptionally low mortality rate when
compared to the seasonal flu. 80% of the population is
vaccinated yearly for the flu and most of the population have
at least some immunity to it from previous infections.

According to the moronic Great Frankini and his pinhead
supporters actual knowledge doesn't count for anything; fear
and loathing is everything.

Don't worry Frankini - the term, "Up your nose with a rubber
hose" will hold an entirely new meaning for you after this
raging murderous plague has passed.

As usual Tommy has missed the mark. His assertion that only 600
deaths in Italy are due to the virus is somewhat at odds with
what the Italian Government has announced - that (Last updated:
March 28, 2020, 01:23 GMT) there have been 9,134 deaths due to
the virus.

I leave it up to the individual whether he/she/it believes Tom,
or the Government of Italy.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries As for
mortality rate, it is too early to actually calculate but of the
435,949 Currently Infected Patients some 23,519 (5%) are
classified Serious or Critical. Of the 160,400 cases which had
an outcome some 133,057 (83%) were classified as Recovered /
Discharged and 27,343 (17%) died.

Again, I leave it up to the individual whether he/she/it believes
Tom, or a somewhat more authoritative source.

That's funny! Credibility of The Italian Government! Now there's a
low bar.

Yes, I can see why the Italian government might lie just to make Tom
look bad.

- Frank Krygowski

Or you can post lies repeatedly to make anyone else look bad. You're
sort of an equal opportunity jerk. Hey, we can't help it if you don't
have any friends.

"Age, however, doesn’t tell the whole story about who is at risk of
severe disease. In fact, it reveals the underlying vulnerabilities in
the wider population to an illness like Covid-19. Many of these factors
are concentrated among older adults, but younger people with certain
underlying health problems are also at risk. (Sixty percent of
Americans have at least one chronic condition; 40 percent have more
than one.) "

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/211737...lderly-seniors

It's coming to get you - even the Great Frankini.
I find it interesting that above you state that , "Turns out that in
Italy with 9,134 deaths they only indicate that 600 of them are due to
Covid-1" and now after I point out that this is a lie you now change your
tune and sing a wholly different song.

Back to facts:
Italy tests the dead, if positive for the Wuhan virus, a death is
automatically recorded as CAUSED by it. There is no second category 'tested
Wuhan positive, but other, or unknown, cause of death.'
Source: Agnello Borelli, Head of Civil Protection of Italy.

Wash your hands and bikes, shave your stupid beards, and wear your masks, NY
"Corona Courier" messengers!
https://datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1...-mil2-2703.png

On 3/28/2020 3:54 AM, Sepp Ruf wrote:
John B. wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 21:39:44 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich wrote:
On Friday, March 27, 2020 at 7:03:18 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Friday, March 27, 2020 at 9:58:50 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/27/2020 8:49 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 17:07:41 -0700 (PDT), Tom Kunich wrote:

Turns out that in Italy with 9,134 deaths they only indicate
that 600 of them are due to Covid-19 and the rest of them to
pre-existing health condition which were exacerbated by the
virus and the crummy Italian socialized medical system could
not deal with.

The US now has the supposed highest number of "confirmed
infections". However, they are only testing people over 65 with
certain severe pre-existing health problems so again, the
statistics miss 80% of the infected population. And yet this
still gives us only 1.4% mortality rates.

I finally found a reference to the seasonal flu. It has a 3.83%
mortality rate or 3 times that of Covid-19. Moreover the
seasonal flu kills babies 5 and under and expecting mothers and
mothers who have given birth less than 6 months previous to the
flu. Since there is NO immunity in the entire population to
Covid-19 this is an exceptionally low mortality rate when
compared to the seasonal flu. 80% of the population is
vaccinated yearly for the flu and most of the population have
at least some immunity to it from previous infections.

According to the moronic Great Frankini and his pinhead
supporters actual knowledge doesn't count for anything; fear
and loathing is everything.

Don't worry Frankini - the term, "Up your nose with a rubber
hose" will hold an entirely new meaning for you after this
raging murderous plague has passed.

As usual Tommy has missed the mark. His assertion that only 600
deaths in Italy are due to the virus is somewhat at odds with
what the Italian Government has announced - that (Last updated:
March 28, 2020, 01:23 GMT) there have been 9,134 deaths due to
the virus.

I leave it up to the individual whether he/she/it believes Tom,
or the Government of Italy.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries As for
mortality rate, it is too early to actually calculate but of the
435,949 Currently Infected Patients some 23,519 (5%) are
classified Serious or Critical. Of the 160,400 cases which had
an outcome some 133,057 (83%) were classified as Recovered /
Discharged and 27,343 (17%) died.

Again, I leave it up to the individual whether he/she/it believes
Tom, or a somewhat more authoritative source.

That's funny! Credibility of The Italian Government! Now there's a
low bar.

Yes, I can see why the Italian government might lie just to make Tom
look bad.

- Frank Krygowski

Or you can post lies repeatedly to make anyone else look bad. You're
sort of an equal opportunity jerk. Hey, we can't help it if you don't
have any friends.

"Age, however, doesn’t tell the whole story about who is at risk of
severe disease. In fact, it reveals the underlying vulnerabilities in
the wider population to an illness like Covid-19. Many of these factors
are concentrated among older adults, but younger people with certain
underlying health problems are also at risk. (Sixty percent of
Americans have at least one chronic condition; 40 percent have more
than one.) "

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/211737...lderly-seniors

It's coming to get you - even the Great Frankini.
I find it interesting that above you state that , "Turns out that in
Italy with 9,134 deaths they only indicate that 600 of them are due to
Covid-1" and now after I point out that this is a lie you now change your
tune and sing a wholly different song.

Back to facts:
Italy tests the dead, if positive for the Wuhan virus, a death is
automatically recorded as CAUSED by it. There is no second category 'tested
Wuhan positive, but other, or unknown, cause of death.'
Source: Agnello Borelli, Head of Civil Protection of Italy.

Wash your hands and bikes, shave your stupid beards, and wear your masks, NY
"Corona Courier" messengers!
https://datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1...-mil2-2703.png



Excellent graphic Thank you

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

John B. wrote:
On Fri, 27 Mar 2020 16:01:43 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

AMuzi writes:

On 3/26/2020 9:44 PM, John B. wrote:
tOn Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:10:31 -0500, AMuzi
wrote:

On 3/26/2020 7:40 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:09:24 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Radey Shouman wrote:
Ralph Barone writes:

John B. wrote:
On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 19:26:32 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/25/2020 12:43 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:

[snip on-topic bicycle stuff]

On Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 3:18:09 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

I can't figure out what Newsome thinks he's doing saying that a couple
of weeks from now isn't long enough to keep businesses shut down. Its
been two weeks already and in another couple of weeks all of the
restaurants, the largest business sector, will be dead.


If your auntie was Nancy Pelosi, you could try your hand at
being Governor too!

Given that the virus "new case" rate in the U.S. is now the highest in
the world (as of March 26, 2020, 00:12 GMT) the question of whether
the restaurants go out of business because of a shutdown or whether
they go out of business because their customers catch the virus is
probably immaterial.
--
cheers,

John B.

ItÂ’s a tough call. Either way people are going to be
uncomfortable or die,
but my guesses are with the shutdown being the better choice. Considering
that pandemics are just compound interest with a very high interest rate
and a very short compounding period (take out a loan at 250% interest per
week and tell me how that works out for you), IÂ’m surprised at
the lack of
serious response from the guy running things south of 49.

Interesting analogy. Going a bit further, it seems immunity and
bankruptcy are two sides of the same coin, while death works the same
for both compounded debts and pandemic illness. Looks like we elected
an experience-qualified guy after all.


I guess, except his “go-to” move is declaring bankruptcy and letting the
other people deal with the mess.

So, if youÂ’re paying 250% a week interest on a loan, when is a good time to
start selling stuff on Craigslist for a two week repayment program? The
correct answer is As Soon As You Borrowed The Money. The second best answer
is Right ****ing Now!

Perhaps an even better solution is "don't borrow money at 250% a
week". That would be, 1100% over one year :-)
--
cheers,

John B.


Mr Slocumb-
You have many skills but this isn't one of them.
Taking a $100 loan at 250% per week for 52 weeks on a
regular amortization table sums to:

$1 397 688 109 531 440 000 000 000 000 000.00

Compound interest is a powerful thing, underestimated by
borrowers in every era, in every place.

Which demonstrates that, at least for me, my policy of never borrowing
money is the correct one :-)

But are you sure? I just calculated it and I get
$49,303,806,576,313,200,000,000.00 :-)

--
cheers,

John B.


Simple or compounded weekly?

For compounded weekly I get:

$1,956,991,596,955,520,295,245,474,499,646

after 52 weeks. This value is not exact, I rounded to the nearest
dollar every week.

This is of the same order of magnitude as Mr. Muzi's figure, but not up
to accounting standards.

I suspect that Mr. Slocomb computed 100 * 2.50^52, for
which I get:

$49,303,806,576,313,241,698,304

This is also not exact, as I used floating point arithmetic. It's
pretty close to the same as his figure, however.

The base of 2.50 is not right, though, as that would imply a mere 150%
interest rate.

The correct calculation of 100 * 3.50^52 gives:

$1,956,763,353,344,008,803,942,544,703,488

again using floating point. Again, in the ballpark of Mr. Muzi's.

Either number is large enough (shoot! $10 is pretty big, isn't it)
that my life long theory to NEVER borrow money seems vindicated :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

If you can get away with never borrowing money, that’s great. However, for
certain things like housing, you’re mostly stuck doing it and you just need
to do it wisely. If your mortgage payments are in the same as what your
rent would have been, and you have sufficient monetary buffer room,
borrowing can be a good move.

But I digress. Note that the original point of my analogy was not to make
people conclude that borrowing money is bad. It was to show that the same
exponential functions describe compound interest and the first part of a
pandemic, and that in both cases, if the growth rate is high enough, you
need to act decisively in the early stages, or things spiral out of control
very quickly.