Corona Virus/Dow Jones taking a hit/possible recession
 

So there's a lot coming out now about the Dow Jones taking a bit hit as a result of the Corona Virus and all, and how this may be Trump's Hurricane Katrina and such.

https://www.investors.com/market-tre...e-beyond-meat/

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...-moment-126862

Will quote a post I've seen elsewhere:

The biggest economic problem with Coronavirus is China's quarantines. 50M people are confined to their homes in and around Wuhan, a further 500M cannot travel outside their town/city. All manufacturers were ordered to cease work, bringing exports from China to a standstill. The quarantines are costing China billions of dollars a day and if we believe their stats they have been only mildly successful at containing the spread of Coronavirus "inside China."

China is giving every Hong Kong citizen $10,000USD to try and quell unrest and help mitigate the fiscal hit citizens are about to take.

Canada "will not quarantine" per the Canadian Government. This is because A) Legally quarantines violate our Charter Rights B) With a 27 day incubation period quarantines are in-effective and C) The economy cannot be allowed to collapse so that Food, Water & Medicine must continue to flow unebated or more people will die.

Markets wouldn't be hit nearly this hard if China didn't quarantine.
While quarantines are effective with certain pathogens that have short incubation periods, China made a catastrophic mistake quarantining over Coronavirus.

Iran is completely over run, the Deputy Health Minister is ill, the Vice President is ill. Iran borders China, Afghanistan and Pakistan. China cannot stop Coronavirus, they can't even slow it.

Now to do something unthinkable in November. Trump's trade war with China forced a lot of American companies to stockpile made in China goods. The trade war also caused a lot of companies manufacturing in China to relocate manufacturing plants to India, Malaysia.

Trump's trade war likely lessened the blow the US is feeling right now from China's economic hardships.

What's your take? Personally, I think it's a crazy situation that would effect any President in exactly the same manner. I also don't think it's terribly more fatal than the regular bout of flu. A bit, maybe, but it seems like the media is exacerbating things in the ole spinjob to try and create a panic and nosedive the economy to do what Russia and impeachment did not, if you catch my drift.

I haven't sat and worked out the percentage for chance of death going on the number of cases vs deaths but for this to happen it has got to worse than your average flu death rate.

It is a bit, though I'm only really seeing blanket numbers thrown about. Not about things like, "of the deaths... how many were elderly, or already immuno-compromised," etc..

Things like this, especially now, make my Spidey sense tingle. Kind of like the faked up "statistics" about second hand smoking deaths numbering in the millions every year suddenly being thrown about when there was a sudden push for a certain agenda (that got what it wanted, by the way)... yet no one has actually met anyone that's died of second hand smoke that I've ever known.

And then articles like this come out...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...1FRgLmG77hq7Xk

Oh no, this is not the case at all. You don't need a high death toll for markets to respond negatively in an outbreak situation. Before I explain this, the proof is already there - the market drops have been staggering already.

Consider this - the markets respond to productivity declines. When people are sick, there are fewer people out producing all of the stuff that makes markets move. And this includes physical and intellectual property. You don't need a death toll to a market recession to happen. All you need is something that significantly interrupts productivity.

Right, but the average 70 year-old investor turning on CNN and seeing, "TOTAL CRISIS! Coronavirus coming to your front door probably tomorrow! Riots expected next week!" is probably going to start selling their stocks, or at least seriously considering doing so.

Well yeah I mean that goes hand-in-hand with exactly what I was describing above. I don't understand the "but" part of your example.... That would happen with or without excessive deaths from Coronavirus. It is happening. I don't even want to talk about my last 3 day losses.

There's an old saying that an opportunist thinks: "Never let a good crisis go to waste."

Smart investors will buy when they consider a downturn to be at it's lowest. But I will say that many people have money locked up in 401ks and only in magnitudes of 10's of thousands.

I think it takes a different kind of inner peace during a period of significant loss. To turn around and enforce a buying behavior for people who just lost 40k from 600k especially if they are in a "drawing funds from it" situation, as opposed to something like a 5k loss out of 30k especially if they are in a "I'm in the middle of investing for retirement" situation.

Basically there's economic science versus personal psychology and the personal psychology is strong, man. It's all on the same spectrum as the "buying action figures as a function of addiction without recognizing it's addiction" thing I come back to now and again. Fighting impulse is hard for people, especially when many don't recognize that something is an impulse to begin with.

I think, the major problem here is not a virus itself, but a hysteria surrounding it.

This particular situation it's a little bit of both. This is a more unique situation than most hysteria sell-offs. So let's start by putting the "hysteria" part on lockdown - we agree, we know it's there. the end. Enough said.

There are real time issues right now. China was the epicenter of this. China's productivity has been very diminished by what's going on over there. Many goods and saleable items come from China. And so that impacts markets here not out of hysteria, but out of honest shoring up of resources because there will be, or already is a resource depletion on things that come from China. That's a real time issue.

There are predictive issues right now. Goods and services require mass transportation. The Chicago area is a hinterland for the entire country for example. If people in Chicago get sick then they can't work. They can't forward freight, demurrage piles up, the truck drivers can't transport freight throughout the country. And so that impacts markets not out of hysteria, but out of honest shoring up of resources because if people get sick, then things won't get around throughout the country. That's a valid thing to project as an upcoming issue.

I could go on with more examples. But combine them with the hysteria thing. The hysteria is a function of selloffs to cultivate resources. The hysteria is another factor on top of what happens to a market in a pandemic as I see it, at least. But there are legit concerns outside of hysteria.

It'll pass eventually. I'm not sure the point of even claiming that China's quarantines were a mistake. I mean, what option is there that actually gets an entirely different end result? Either you lose production and affect the stock market because you quarantined people, OR you lose production and affect the stock market because you didn't and it spread a lot more like wildfire, everyone got ill and couldn't work, and in some cases died and will never return to work.

At least if quarantines can help slow it down and eventually contain it the production and stock market will still eventually recover and hopefully sooner than if they had not tried to act.


If this continues on through spring, this probably does have the potential of affecting Trump, yes. Esp if his claim of it magically disappearing in April doesn't come true. (Which is hogwash anyhow and he seems to be the only one who thinks viruses actually just cease to exist.) It's that kind of totally unnecessary stuff that he may stupidly set himself up for taking some heat for it later.

The main thing I'm annoyed at him about where this is concerned is how he shoved Pence to the forefront for this. When do we hardly EVER hear about Pence? Maybe he's doing things that don't get much attention, but by and large it's like the man largely exists in the background where he won't steal any of the spotlight. And NOW when the country needs Trump himself to step up and be a leader who can talk to the people and keep things calm and under control over something that's worrying the entire world (no matter if the extent of worry is unfounded or not)...he chooses to hide behind Pence? It's just a little too obvious that on the (hopefully slim) chance this whole thing turns to hell and does become very bad here, it will be very convenient for Trump to point at Pence and throw him under the bus as the one who was put in charge and failed.

Eh, I don't think anyone on either side of the aisle is looking to Trump for soothing words of comfort in this or really any other matter. He's not that guy. Let Pence try and be that guy.

Yeah, but not only that - I can't help but view a criticism that Trump is hiding behind Pence on this as nothing more than more sour grapes mud flinging.

Oh cmon man, seriously? That's your interpretation of this? The guy is using his personnel (read: personnel not personal) resources and allocating them as contact points. That's called mobilizing. To say anything about it is completely outlandish and to criticize it as a self-centered move is the same opportunism and reality twisting that we've seen from the extreme left now at every turn. Seriously, I wanted to address your interesting talking point about "blowing over" and China, but then you wrote this nonsense.

Not sure about it being "Trump"'s Hurricane Katrina? Outside of the stock market, we got a good hold on it compare to other countries. Only 60 cases so far and zero deaths. That's way better than say the likes of Japan/China or Italy. Over all we are in better shape than other nations, so don't believe the Dems argument of Trump poorly handing the crisis.

Exactly. And we are talking about a virus here - it could and probably will get worse. But opportunists will seize any element they can to criticize this. If you ask me all of this behavior is public domain evidence of what people do in any situation where they just don't like someone for any give reason. In office spaces, on teams, any social environment that can be adapted into a personal sabotage environment.

It's disgusting and I hope the people who employ attack via twisted truth or by inescapable conversation piece rather than by reality find themselves victim to it. By the time the dust clears people who want to be opportunistic will never acknowledge what could have happened as opposed to whatever did. It's the negative information thing I went on about in another thread. A criticism of opportunity will use only the clear information regarding however many people succumb to the virus as opposed to what didn't happen because of our checks and balances. That's all you'll hear about from these people once the dust settles. And it is going to get worse.

While the market seems to be reacting to corona virus, which is partly true, this is mostly what we call a correction in finance. The stock market had been on a bull run since Trump got elected without much backing up the price, this happens from time to time and stocks fall and are "corrected" to what their real price should be. Convid19 is indeed responsible since markets are uncertain about what's going to happen and many companies rely on china not just in making the products but also buying them and if similar things happen in other countries it could affect the price.

Stocks try to predict what will happen, but things won't go back to normal after the epidemic ends, there is a correction taking place as well and unless there's some new economic policies things won't change.

Are you saying that your opinion, which you've implied is from within the field of finance, is that you view the current significant DOW drop - as large as it was and amidst the fear of a global pandemic in conjunction with a mass-production country being cripple - a traditional correction?

I mean most professionals and street investors will tell you that the 2018 drop was a true market correction. Market corrections are widely considered to be "normalizing events" amidst over value. On the other hand, this last week would only be recognized as a "correction" in the purely academic use of the term in that the market saw a 10%+ dip. And so, what we saw in 2018 was a true correction from an inflated market - which sucked but, in theory, was a normalizing event. But this week's dip was directly correlated to the confluence of current events: social behavior, and the fear of future supply chain issues, a global health event. That's not what most people would call a "normalizing market event".

I'm very curious to hear more about your theory on this. What economic policy is derelict in this regard?
Also in your last sentence you wrote "stocks try to predict what will happen". What do those words even mean? Stocks don't predict anything - stocks are representative constituent parts of organizational value.
Also please address what you mean by saying that "not much was backing the price" across the bull run. Productivity, excitement in investing, and America first policy brought business to moving markets which backed the price.... what are you talking about with that statement?

Please explain or address these things a bit, because you've got me hooked for curiosities sake.... :)

Maybe he meant stockbrokers? That's the way I read that. *shrug*

I thought that too, but even that wouldn't correct the statement to truth..... I mean he's saying "what we call a correction in finance", implying some ownership of the field, but actually a stockbroker would be the first person - the absolutely first person to tell you that you can't time the market (hence "predict").

I've got a lot of questions about that post in the nature of conversation.

sorry, sometimes I write long posts, realize I'm getting into things that I don't care to explain and delete paragraphs only to sometimes have stuff that no longer makes sense. So yeah, I don't have much time to get into things, I already deleted half of this post :lol:

Short term trading is requires skill, long term trading is a lot easier, so it depends on what you're doing. For the average person, it'll just mean inflation unless you rely on your 401k. As I mentioned corona virus is definitely a factor, especially when countries start reporting lower growth in their quarter reports and other companies do as well. Stocks have been over valued and the bull market has lasted way too long without anything to back it up so yeah people expected them to drop quite a bit, people seem to be taking advantage of this to blame it on convid19. It's also why Bob Iger left Disney for example, timed to do the last damage when the stocks are already getting plummeted. I would expect a bigger drop soonish both because of overvaluation and convid19, Trump's polices aren't good long term so I can't see his bull market lasting a second term but if the pandemic is controlled things could go up again, if say Bernie gets the nomination you can bet the market will react negatively.

But before you decide to buy the dip, remember it's catching a falling knife. Short term trading is difficult, long term is easy since it's cyclical and things will go up eventually, sucks for your 401k but for the average person it'll just mean inflation.

As far as coronavirus, I think people are both exaggerating it and not taking it seriously enough, there has to be a balance. I think for the most part things will be fine, however you can bet I'll be more wary than normal. Better safe than not and having a few extra cans and washing my hands more often is not a bad thing, getting paranoid and doing more extreme things or reading only the news however is just as silly as thinking your invincible and not doing anything.

You don't even know how much respect I have for this sentence. You're talking to a mirror, man. And if you think I post in a lot of the "deep discussion" threads, try to imagine what I've written, then deleted or read and shook my head at and clicked off the page. I understand completely.

Crazy to hear you say this. I actually had similar thoughts about how we see big wigs leave in clusters. The timing, etc.

I have to agree with this. Going out and buying a one year supply of SPAM is ridiculous. But having some extra toilet paper and tylenol and some canned food makes sense. And it's not because the world is ending or supplies will dry up, but rather so that you can remain at home when you otherwise normally wouldn't - in case you get sick or in case staying at home keeps you healthy if you live in an area where an outbreak occurs.

Just some basic, simple stuff. What always makes me laugh are those guys who buy "beans" and whatnot. It's a fine strategy, but actually ask those guys how they'd eat them and many either couldn't tell you or they'd simply imply that they would just sit there and eat boiled beans. That's it. Just eat the boiled beans. HAHAHAHAAHA my God. And then if you pressed them, but never mentioned "making soup" or "beef broth" or something like that, they'd fill the void with something like "well put seasoning on them!". Seasoning and boiled beans. Bring on the end, baby!

Over here? Lots of MREs, canned goods (not just beans), lots of bottled water, a good amount of firepower... yeah, bring it on. :)

8)
Now I'm secretly hoping that you secretly have your own Webley....
-I just confused everyone not in the PM circle-

I do not. :(

So the leader of country is not expected to lead? This isn't a problem for anyone?

Are you getting money from this guy? Has he done ANYTHING you disapprove of? For someone who's supposed to be making America great, he sure does hand the ball off a lot.

Here you go dude, Webley need fulfilled!

Well the U.S. has our first death from it. So far so good that's only one, but sad nonetheless. :ohwell: Not finding anything yet on age or prior health, only that it was a man.

Lead doesn"t mean "soothing words of comfort." Is that something you require on the day to day, or something? Odd, if so.

Is that all he's capable of doing? Soothing words?

First, words are powerful. And what he says matters. Obviously, his words didn't do much to assuage fears.

Second, this is what happens when everything is tied to one person.

For some reason, people seem to think that POTUS has some a great deal of influence over the economy. I don't believe this is inherently true, since the president isn't at the helm when it comes to spending. Congress is.

You yourself gave him credit for making the economy boom and helping your 401k. Now the economy is dropping and suddenly he's not only not responsible for the drop, but also not responsible for fixing it.

You don't present defined or consistent expectations for this guy. The economy is doing great, must be Trump. The economy isnt doing well, don't bother Trump!

I'll say this: I wouldn't pin the drop on Trump. Markets respond to panic like this all the time. And as far as another disaster for Trump, I wouldn't worry either. You consistently forgive and exonerate the man for things that no one should be. He'll escape this without a scratch as well.

I don't like to carry a banner for political parties or candidates for this reason. It's what happened to Obama groupies. And it's going to happen here. People are going to end up looking like fools for hero worship.

And you may say that you don't worship Trump. Or that you don't support him. But this brings it back to the original point: perception is a big factor. If people perceive you as something, it doesn't matter if you are that thing. They'll respond to you as though you are. Trump may not be a great business man, but people perceive him to be. And so people respect him as one. Trump is perceived to be a racist. May not be true, but the perception is important.

Trump didn't offer any soothing words. People perceive this as the problem being bigger than it is. Maybe it isn't. But that's not how people are going to act.

Trump does have a responsibility to at least dispel fears here. If people are still panicked, then he still has some work to do.

At the same time, if the last 5 outbreaks of some world ending plague didn't kill us, I suspect this one will blow over too.

What next on the list of things Trump should do?
Feed elderly from the spoon? Wipe children asses?

The whole post above could be summed as: "I need another reason to hate Trump and I am gonna fabricate it out of thin air!"

And then Voltron is surprised why people think of him like this. :roll::lol:

Thhhhaaattts right.... delete, cancel, remove what you don't like. Just like any loser that can't compute new information. Just make it go away.

Side rant, kinda, but I've always noticed that a big reason people hate on Republicans and overly-gush over Democrats, is simply that the Blue side puts on a pretense of being "Nice People" while the Red side simply does not.

Like whenever anyone gushes over Obama to this day, for example, it's mostly about what a Nice Guy he was. And he probably is. Nice Guys don't generally make for good leaders, though; as my boss reminds me on the regular, "nice" doesn't get anyone very far in any sort of leadership position, and anyone with an overabundance of compassion isn't fit to lead in the first place because they're too easily swayed by emotion. But anyway. Obama was a Nice Guy; he pretty much only got the Nobel Peace Prize because he was a "Nice Guy" (since he had literally no accomplishments to speak of which would have earned him such a lofty accolade, aside from getting elected in the first place; so did he get it for giving dramatic speeches, or what? :lol:). And he had his share of scandals and kerfluffles during his eight years, but nobody talked about them then, and they never bring them up now, because he's a Nice Guy. Nobody wants that image to be tainted by the other baggage.

W. Bush, on the contrary, wasn't seen as much of a nice guy. He never seemed like all THAT bad of a guy to me, personally, but he definitely wasn't the smooth operator as Obama comes off as, for example. To this day, though, when Ellen DeGeneres sits next to him at a football game, she gets buried with hate mail for "supporting a war criminal". :roll: And out of office, Bush DOES actually seem like a really cool guy, he just had a really hard job and had to make a lot of controversial decisions, most of which weren't popular. BUT, he made those decisions and in some cases doubled-down on them; He wasn't easily swayed by popular opinion and never presented himself as "one of the people", and thus, "Not A Nice Guy."

Warren tries hard (TOO hard) to come off as "A Nice Guy/Person", right down to that cringe-worthy "Have myself a beer" scenario. :lol: Bernie paints himself as "A regular dude who just wants to help out the little guy" even though that image has absolutely nothing to do with the reality of his life or his actual status (He's a .00001%-er! You'd all hate this guy if he wasn't promising you free sh*t! :lol:). Across the aisle, Trump has no interest at all in being "The Nice Guy"; if anything, he goes out of his way to be as abrasive as possible. Yet this only endears him more and more to people who support him.

I find all of this very interesting. Given how far people like Warren and Trump will often go to play into either extreme, I have to believe that even the players themselves know that "Democrats are Nice and Republicans are Big Meanies" is just part of the script and they perform it as such. What surprises me, though, is how often the average person will buy into it as if these personas we see on TV are actually how the human beings themselves really behave when the cameras are off, which I assure you is not the case. They're all just playing a character on a TV show. What they do and what actions they take behind closed doors is another matter entirely, but in speaking to the actual faces they present to the world on TV and in the media, well, all of that is fabricated for the entertainment of the viewer. A story is no fun without Good Guys and Bad Guys, after all.

It partly makes me wonder why anyone would go into politics under the Republican banner, since it means anyone who isn't nuts is going to hate you, but then I remember that it's simply more fun sometimes to play the villain.

You guys said he was a great hype man, not me. You said he was great for the economy, not me.

What a perfect time to shine. And what a perfect time for some consistency.


And in a thread about Trump and the coronavirus, forgive me for

A: talking about Trump

and

B: not having the same high opinion of him as you do.

What the hell are you talking about? He was billed as "someone they could have a beer with". He was constantly held up as a sensitive, church going "every-man". Here's a link discussing that point.

Meanwhile, the other side of politics went bat-**** insane when Obama wore a tan suit or saluted a marine while holding a cup of coffee. Here's another where that selfish bastard had the gall to ask marines to hold umbrellas for him. NOT NICE.

There is literally NOTHING one side did that the other hasn't. You can't offer up a complaint without first acknowledging that everyone did it. Just to set your mind at ease, it's not hard to find examples of ANY political figure doing SOMETHING people weren't happy with.

Because his administration was accused of war crimes.

And out of office, Bush DOES actually seem like a really cool guy,

Really? If you're going to make that excuse for him, then why not all presidents?


He lead us into an endless war. I'd imagine most sane people would find that less than stellar decision making.

Governing is like jazz. If you've sold the entire country on war using false information and ended up killing thousands of your own soldiers for no reason, then you back down. You don't apologize. The wise thing to do is to keep the war going so your friends can make more money on a war no one likes!

Again, that was his whole persona. Here's another link discussing that.

Hamberders.

.

First, it's good to know that. He's recently risen to that level. His first bid for the presidency is apparently what vaulted him there. I looked it up and he did indeed release his tax returns, something that the most transparent president in history has yet to do.


No, I wouldn't. He's joined protests and picket lines for workers. He's been arrested for protesting at civil rights.

I'm not picky. I'm aware of the general Republican platform and not opposed to it. Smaller government, lower taxes. . . who wouldn't be happier with that? But that's not what's executed. And anyone looking would see that they're just as keen on big government and welfare as any Democrat is.

Hating the Democrats is pointless virtue signaling if you aren't willing to go just as hard on the GOP. They're the opposite sides of the same coin. Which is and has been my stance all along. Neither of them are going to come through for any of us, and it's in our best interest to work towards shutting down a part of the system that hasn't served us.

When Andrew rants about needing soothing words, or Leo talks about being nice. . . that's kind of their job. They're supposed to project security and reassurance to us. That's what leadership is. And a sourpuss asshole isn't going to win people over, especially when they find out he's being a sourpuss to them.

Take FDR's inaugural address. 100% taking the helm and leading us into and through a very certain darkness. Because that's his job.

Take the Gettysburg Address. Solemn yet soaring words from a man presiding over what may have been the death of the United States.

Take the Dr. King's I Have a Dream. That's going to echo through the ages.

And then here we have a man who has the best words failing to give anything close to a semblance of leadership on an issue that's worried quite a few people. You think the least he could do is his job.

He's abrasive to people you dislike. Something tells me another leader using that style of "leadership" targeting you would be less welcomed.

Except the mean ol' DemonRATS are coming for your guns and freedom. They were accused of starting death panels over Obamacare. Hell, one talking point that keeps popping up is that Democrats started the KKK and supported slavery during the Civil War.

Hell, did anyone think Hillary Clinton was nice? "What a nasty woman!"

Or, in this case, completely miss the whole media portrayal by a mile.

As do I. But for different reasons.

So Trump having admitted to breaking the law AND it being proven and through mounds of evidence is worse than the rest of them. Thanks for conceding the point.

. . . Which almost invariably get out. Is anyone waiting on some huge conspiracy from the past? Any day now we're going to find out LBJ really DID call the hit on Kennedy? That it really WAS a magic bullet that did +5 against Irish sex machines?

Yes. If I didn't have a soul I'd be right there getting rich off you rubes with the rest of them.

In the meantime, you'll have to content yourself with the SECRET MESSAGE I put in this very post. It's aimed directly at a certain member. First person to find it gets a prize! Good luck!

Also, I'd like to thank you all for being so flippant and panicky all the time. It sends me on Google dives for information pertaining to whatever political trend you're selling that day. I've ended up learning WAY more than I ever imagined. I'm still not totally unconvinced that Andrew just does this so I'd help him with his current events homework.

Your whole post here basically discusses the generations old observations about liberalism and conservatism. The feels-for-good as opposed to logic-for-good. It's an honest balance in theory as well as archetype because people need a structure that encompasses the whole gamut. That span of people ranging from knee-jerk responders to extreme calculators.

But the fact is that the spectrum is a representative model. In some ways it unfortunately legitimizes the left yet the model only functions successfully in real life beginning immediately left of center and then all the way to the far right. Of course the far right is pretty ridiculous as well, but the irony is that things on the far right can still function whereas the far left is chaos and would tear itself apart.

Point me at any administration of any big country which couldn't be accused of war crimes at some point. Obama can be considered war criminal too, Clinton as well.

Hilarity is a two-faced chameleon. She had built herself such reputation that no amount of white-washing and blue checkmarks were able to scrub it away.

You should stop doing drugs in my honest opinion. Or should do more drugs. Because, it sounds not too far off from the rants certain member recently did about cartoon animals: meaningless and awkward to process.

[QUOTE=Sumac;1838037]It's almost like you didn't read my post. . .

Thank you for agreeing with me. I'll add another W on my board.


FYI: I take all ad hominems as an apology and admission of defeat. Especially when they're void of any counterpoints or evidence of my being wrong. I forgive you, and thank you for conceding.

That's two W's. I'm on fire today.

Well in my own defense, during the Bush Years I wasn't on the internet much and the only feedback I ever saw about him was in the newspapers, little of which was positive. :lol: *I* always thought he seemed like a chill dude but I didn't see that in too many other places.

That's all I can speak to at the moment because I'm at work. Shhhh. :trazz:

You can rip me in half later. No worries.

On topic: I'm sitting next to ground zero of coronavirus and there's not a whole lot going on. The general attitude is precautionary measures. Schools are shut down, but everything else is running smoothly. I wouldn't start praying or moving into a bunker just yet.

Surgical masks are completely sold out, though.

A couple friends of mine are much closer to one of the "pandemic" regions. They're actually missing out on work. So. . . I guess it's different depending on where someone is.

If nothing else, the virus is at least profitable for the companies who make the masks and hand sanitizer...

Had a guy in Walgreens asking me about the hand sanitizer today (had to tell him I'm vendor and don't work for the store) and told me places are selling out of it. Kind of grateful that I'd gotten a couple little bottles of it back before this thing hit the news since I'm always using it post-work store visits.

Wouldn't mind finding the N95 masks if they actually manage to restock. If nothing else, they're still useful around the house, so why not. (But push come to shove I still have an old one from my previous job when we were cleaning up/out the place after it closed down.)

I can't make counterpoints to random nonsense.
So you can take one W from your list.

Also, you are the last who should blame others for acting "panicky".