The "virus" What are your thoughts

Blueone said:
When you are a designated distributor for 3M you are 3M.... I don't believe for a second 3M didn't know where their masks have been going for the last 3 months
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Blueone, I am in industrial manufacturing also and sell thru distribution. Although I do know certain key customers, the greater majority of sales, we have no clue where they are.
Also from a legal standpoint we cannot tell a distributor who they can or cannot sell my product to. My transaction is between my company and the distributor. It becomes their property. My only responsibility at that point is standing behind the quality of the product.
 
Steve S said:
Blueone, I am in industrial manufacturing also and sell thru distribution. Although I do know certain key customers, the greater majority of sales, we have no clue where they are.
Also from a legal standpoint we cannot tell a distributor who they can or cannot sell my product to. My transaction is between my company and the distributor. It becomes their property. My only responsibility at that point is standing behind the quality of the product.
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I understand.... but we are in a pandemic...and you have a key piece of PPE. You would think you would step in as management of 3M and see what is going on
 
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Blueone said:
I understand.... but we are in a pandemic...and you have a key piece of PPE. You would think you would step in as management of 3M and see what is going on
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Agreed. Although our business model is strictly thru industrial distribution, we have taken very limited orders direct from government entities. There is no reason 3M couldn't have done that.
 
Great Lakes said:
One question: at what point does the economy and the risk of a deep depression matter?

I’m not trying to be insensitive, just would like to know what people think.
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Great question! I have been wondering that myself - What is the balance point between the virus and putting the global economy completely in the tank? Even when we get the all clear, I do not know that people are simply going to flood back into restaurants, Starbucks etc... I think people will retain the mindset and be leary of personal contact.
 
Steve S said:
Great question! I have been wondering that myself - What is the balance point between the virus and putting the global economy completely in the tank? Even when we get the all clear, I do not know that people are simply going to flood back into restaurants, Starbucks etc... I think people will retain the mindset and be leary of personal contact.
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Here is a long article from a German source. Pardon the translation errors.

If we do not end the total blockade soon, there will be a historic meltdown in the German economy. Politicians should leave radical mode and start intelligent virus control.

Germany is facing the biggest wave of bankruptcies since the Great Depression of 1929. The historically unique shutdown of the entire economy does more damage every day. If the government is not careful, the damage will be irreparable. After just two weeks, 470,000 companies in Germany reported short-time work because of the total blockade . Millions of workers are directly affected and are worried about their economic existence. Unemployment will now skyrocket. In Austria, the shutdown has pushed unemployment to its highest level since 1946 - in just one month.

But this snapshot is only a trifle compared to what threatens to damage the German economy and the country's social fabric if the shutdown were extended far beyond Easter. The historical mega experiment of simply switching off an economy has no example, because even in the world wars the economy continued. However, it does not know its risk.

Politicians must weight two effects more sharply, which will ruin economic activity in a tsunami way. On the one hand, the shutdown very soon causes huge damage with chain reactions. Production networks collapse, supply chains break, tens of thousands of individuals, small businesses and medium-sized companies become insolvent (much faster than is believed in Berlin) - the government's aid measures can only mitigate this, but not prevent it. Every bankruptcy creates a consequential problem for suppliers, creditors and customers, who in turn get problems. Even if the individual company can survive a month or two, the crack in the business network ensures that each month of downtime is multiplied by the damage. It behaves like the meltdown of an atomic reactor. In the end, the fallout ends up with the banks, which are threatened with huge loan losses. So every single day produces billions of dollars in debt radiation. The meltdown can wreak havoc within weeks, and even healthy companies can burn up.

Politicians must not underestimate the density of interaction between economic stability. If this is destroyed - as is now the case during a shutdown - the axis of economic progress will break. Politics, dominated by civil servants and lawyers, clearly tend to view the economy as a large, static authority that can be closed for a while and, if necessary, subsequently helped with money. In reality, however, the economy is like a living organism that simply dies if its cycle does not circulate.

The second underestimated problem is the structural break in a quarantine economy. When thousands of startups die in a shutdown, the arithmetical damage to the economy doesn't seem to weigh much.

In fact, the creative potential of the future is being destroyed. The same applies to research-driven growth companies and to particularly competitive industries that suddenly disappear completely from the market in a structural break. If the typical Swabian-medium-sized world market leader goes bankrupt after months of zero business, then Germany has lost this world market leadership forever. With every company, knowledge and added value for the future also disappear. Even the key German car industry is endangered. The margins of manufacturers and suppliers had already declined sharply before the outbreak of the corona crisis, and electrification and digitization are already attacking the classic business model. Especially now that billions of dollars of investment would be needed breaks the entire core business away. An industry that is juggling a fine line can completely tear down such a crisis.

The strategy of stopping a virus with a radical shutdown was risky from the start. Now, every hour, the risk increases that the enormous rescue packages in turn trigger confidence crises and financial market turmoil. Does the Eurosystem really hold up in such a situation? Are the Italian and Spanish sovereign debt still blindly trusted? Can the ECB actually defend the euro ? So far, the illusion of trust has depended on the fact that states and central banks can guarantee everything. In reality, however, they cannot. Politicians have to be extremely careful not to reveal this.

There is no alternative to the shutdown
April 19 is not just an appointment. It is the weather divide from a possible medical catastrophe that we are trying to avoid, to a socio-economic catastrophe whose beginnings we can already see. The concept of the European states to rely on radical mass quarantines with week-long curfews and no contacts requires an extremely high price - namely that of economic and social breakdown.

In any case, the shutdown concept of corona crisis management is not without alternative. So the countries of East Asia trust a completely different strategy. From Japan to Singapore, from Hong Kong to Taiwan to South Korea, the economy continues, there is no shutdown of society, schools and shops remain open. Even if the societies of East Asia function differently and the East Asians have a different understanding of the state and cohabitation: they seem to get through the crisis much better than the Europeans. Her recipe: masks for everyone, tight controlling and digital tracking of the sick. Keep your distance (especially for the elderly) and pay attention to hygiene anyway. The success is amazing, the infection seems to be better controlled in East Asia than in the mask-free shutdown Europe.

Sweden , too , even if it adjusts the strategy against Corona here and there, takes a different path than Germany. Many other countries are thus showing that pandemic control can work much more smoothly with modern, intelligent, digital methods. If the majority of the population - such as those under the age of 50 - are hardly affected by this disease, why should they be locked away and their economic existence? Is it perhaps an option to specifically protect those in need of protection? The total blockade of a shutdown may protect a patient from a virus, but the patient then dies in economic circulatory failure - that cannot be wise. Germany's compulsory coma must end on April 19!

Source: ntv.de
 
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Steve S said:
Here is a long article from a German source. Pardon the translation errors.

Source: ntv.de
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Fascinating post, Steve. The approaches of the east and west are so different. We in WA state are under orders for another month of stay at home (through May 4th). I would have preferred an immediate switch to masks (when away from your home circle of trust) and would have wanted an evaluation in two weeks instead of four. But what do I know.

Until there is an inoculation, we in the west may need to embrace a new normal of masks. Or face decimation of our economy while the east's economy moves along.
 
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Thanks Steve ...very well written and thought provoking article. I've also been wondering this myself ...at what point is the price that all of us will pay as a society through economic collapse and ruin, greater than that of the toll the virus itself will take? How many people will lose everything? How many will die as a result of that? How many will have complete mental breakdowns? How many will turn to crime in an effort to just eat? I think the toll on society that a complete economic collapse will take, is immeasurable. I don't think anyone can foresee or even imagine any of the long term effects of this, but none of it is good. I believe we can and must be smarter than this, though I don't know the answer. I know we MUST protect those most vulnerable (My dad falls into this category with his diabetes and heart issues) and I love my dad very much ...so believe me, the health aspect is at the forefront of my mind. But surely there is a better way? Surely we can protect our most vulnerable while not destroying our economies (and entire societies) in the process.
 
There are many papers written on the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic and the economy. Some were just written comparing Covid-19 to 1918 but I find the ones written before this out break to be the most enlightening. All the papers that I have read say the areas that took precautions and isolated people with the flu had the quickest economy recovery. The 1918 Flu saw .66 of the total population die and recover did not happen till 1923. How this progresses is just a guess at this point as we gather more data a more accurate guess can be made but it's going to take time.
 
M Prod said:
...at what point is the price that all of us will pay as a society through economic collapse and ruin, greater than that of the toll the virus itself will take? How many people will lose everything? How many will die as a result of that? How many will have complete mental breakdowns? How many will turn to crime in an effort to just eat? I think the toll on society that a complete economic collapse will take, is immeasurable.
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Hey, that's what the POTUS has said, that we can't let the cure become worse than the disease. There's hope for you MProd, put on that MAGA hat and step outta the closet.:D
 
Woody said:
Hey, that's what the POTUS has said, that we can't let the cure become worse than the disease. There's hope for you MProd, put on that MAGA hat and step outta the closet.:D
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Yup, he tweeted it about 15 minutes after it was discussed on Fox News. Regardless, it's not a question unique to Trump or Fox. But jokes aside, this isn't about politics. I'm scared just like everyone. And I think this is a perfect example of how we are all in this together.
 
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Woody said:
Hey, that's what the POTUS has said, that we can't let the cure become worse than the disease. There's hope for you MProd, put on that MAGA hat and step outta the closet.:D
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Woody, Send me a MAGA hat...…..So I can chit in it when I run out of TP...….:D
 
My wife and I are in our mid 60s, she has bad upper respiratory problems. In our talks even though we are afraid, we worry more about destroying the country and nothing being left for our grandchildren. Something will have to give I hope.
Washing boat tomorrow, can’t wait.
 
Flu will kill and it can happen to anyone no matter how careful they are

My Grandfather on my fathers side was a doctor (Colonel) in WWI and fought the Spanish Flu after the war and survived. In 1947 there was another flu and he doctored people in that. According to a relative that knew him he went home one night after treating people and died. He was 68.
We got out of Panama 2 days before they closed all airports. That country is on a lockdown we got this from a friend there
We are on 24hr lockdown. We can go to the grocery store for 2 hours per day based on the last digit of passport, haven’t been out yet. The condo is like a ghost town, hardly ever see anybody, all social areas are closed. $50-$100k fine if caught outside your allowed time to be out.
 
So Trump has whacked 3M for continuing to send supplies to regular customers outside of the US, Canada included. While I understand that he was elected on an "America first" mandate, its very disappointing. Many (most?) of masks are made in China. If China takes that same view, they would stop 3M and any other mask/ventilator maker from shipping anything out of their country. Its sad that the world has come to this, but not surprising.
 
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