Shoes/clothing Nope.. that was a Crazy ivan...and "GIZMOS"...EHHHHHH...Wrongo Guess again...

Long ago I said chaos and fragmentation of which Nationalism is a hallmark of that fragmentation...everybody is out to protect themsleves...and their own...so much for the New World Order....of the Global economy.

Looks like Disneyworld shuts down on the 15th.

Jared Diamond’s books “Guns, Germs, and steel” and the other one “Collapse” come to mind. The more complex a society gets, the more interdependent it gets, and then you remove one thing and it crashes like Jenga. Quickly.
The china-dependence comes to mind but for once I don’t blame “the government” for that one. Thousands of businesses have independently sourced from there for either a competitive edge or to maintain parity with those already doing so. Some of the talking heads moaning about national security regarding China need to realize private citizens can and have built these relationships that, in the end, have something of a national security angle to them.

Already started doing that in 2019. Sold one building and 1031 exchanged that into five other properties located across the country (Washington state, Phoenix, Charlotte).

-Wayne

So, it will be interesting to see what happens this time with stimulus, etc. In 2009, the administration kept a lot of companies that were in poor condition alive, and created a somewhat lukewarm and anemic recovery. In general, it's typically best to let the poor performers go out of business and to let new companies either take over the old operations, or form new enterprises that are stronger.

We'll have to see how this plays out.

-Wayne

Well this post is a real cut above..and cudos for being nuanced enough to understand the intricacies. However you had to read the insight rather than be able discerm it on your own.

The problem is not a matter of complexity and being intertwined economically. It is a matter of scale, being intertwined and dependent there are no other sources or redundency as a back up in the system. Which would be available if systems were more or less still stand alone. So when the tsuami hits it wipes everything clean..there are no safe havens as refuge or to rely upon for stability and or aid.

Hey Wayne,

Welcome to Charlotte. Bring some parts next time you come visit. 🤣😁🤣

Ohh boy another politically driven policy failure as causation.. "poor condition companies kep alive"...why if we only allowed natural selection to do its thing everything would be swell. That is a rather prosaic myopia.

The failure is far simpler the fatted calf American consumer does not have the same high paying jobs, has no savings and is in debt to the eyeballs. All of this leads to lessor demand in an economy that needs to grow exponentially. To pick up the slack since the shyte hit the fan in 08...the US govt subsumed the role of tbe consumer while the FED facilitated said policy. Since that policy couldnt rectify the underlying situation it was only a matter of time before the finite resources of govt and monetary policy would be exhausted.

Welcome to 2020...the world is saturated with debt and debased currencies. The FED has been picking up the slack and has been buying the Treasuries that are not being sold. All to keep the low interest rate regime intact which makes debt levels servicable. To do that the FED creates money out of whole cloth. Which debases currencies.

Americans in particular have grown accustomed if not enamoured of their entitlement of grazing three squares a day. Since they sense and have misgivings that something aint right they simplistically have to assign blame each picking their own flavor as to what is wrong and the remedying solution. This in effect is a denial of reality that they can no longer afford their entitled three squares a day.

TIMES UP...the envelope please...and the answer is SPOONS> and what they eat..Friend went on down to a local shop a couple times this past week and it was a feeding frenzy of people buyin stuff up...

Random sampling.............
 

I took a random sample list of stock funds and looked up their current per share price and compared that with their prices pre fall and was surprised to find that investments in those particular funds had only fallen about 5%! Compared to the 20+% that the overall market has fallen that's actually pretty good. The fund managers must be working their ass off to keep the damage that low! My thoughts on the subject of recovery are:
1) When the total number of new cases starts dropping there will start to be a financial recovery.
2) When a vaccine is released there will be an uptick.
3) In a few months when the general public realizes that they probably are not going to die then there will start to be a recovery. Right now, the world is in a panic mode which will wear off eventually.

Meanwhile, avoid the scalpers, buy lots of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Maybe their stock will go up! Seriously, good old soap and water will do just as good as the hard to find right now sanitizers! SmileWavy

The only stimulus needed is common sense. When people stop panicking things will turn around almost as fast as they went South.

I tuned out when almost every news outlet started selling fear with sensational headlines designed to incite fear. I'm watching the market because I'm positioned to capitalize. Outside of that, I'm just letting the phone and the cash register ring.

The next currency..
 

I agree with Tabs to a degree. If things got rough enough, the person with spare ammo will have the best trading stock available gold and silver won't even be close. Maybe guns also, but they tend to last a lot longer than their ammo! On the other hand, I went to the grocery store yesterday and it really was not crowded nor were the shoppers "stocking up" on any particular item. I'm just glad that I live in a small community far away from any big cities!

And How! I went into the local grocery store to stock up on critical need items (read Sam Adams) and while I didn't walk down the isles where tp or hand sanitizer are, the shelves looked full and the three people working the registers looked relatively bored. When I walked up to the register I told the girl working that I was grabbing coronavirus supplies. She laughed and said "I can tell"

Sometimes small town USA is the perfect place to be.

+1!!!
I was shocked to learn we don't even make penicillin in the US anymore.

Meh... I'm allergic so I can do without that one. :D

Things will turn around but I don't see a 29000+ Dow for a long, long time. I suspect there are a lot of boomers like me who got out during this downturn and do to our age aren't getting back into the stock market.

I see the smiley face, but it worries me.

"Much of the contents of your medicine cabinet can be traced back to Chinese ingredients processed into pills in India. Thanks to the coronavirus, much of Chinese industry remains shut down. The potential ramifications of that for pharmaceuticals are now becoming clear."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-coronavirus-stricken-china-cant-export-medicine-the-world-is-in-trouble-11583372431

If you look at the economic news that has come out in the last 10 days, damn hard to find if you're not looking by the way, things aren't as bleak as they appear. Granted things will adjust as the travel/hospitality industry take a big hit, but things aren't as bleak as they appear right now. I personally think we'll be back up to 27 maybe 28 by fall. The market can go up just as fast as it went down. There are some really good buys out there and people will take advantage of them as things normalize.

I was telling my son the other week something about fear and not allowing it to paralyze him. He was afraid something was going to happen and was really upset. I told him, "You can't let fear paralyze you. You have to learn how to make fear motivate you in a positive way, to drive you rather than stop you" Maybe I'm just lucky. I've always tended to be a head down and moving forward type of person.

That's what I meant in my first post. It worries me that we've become WAY too reliant on China for WAY too many things. It's time for an awakening in this country. I wish the news would spend more time telling more people just how reliant we've become on China for so many different critical things. I think most would be shocked and demand change if they had any clue.