1. Surreal Life, sports return, but no one is there. I checked out the Nascar event for a hot minute, but checked out. It was nice to have some sports, but no fans really is quite surreal. I have been kind of an advocate for opening up things, but I don't think we should have large event gatherings such as concerts, sports in person, etc. Also, I am not a fan of public transport right now. Everyone agrees that Covid aint going away, so to get back to normal, we need herd immunity. In my non medical expert opinion, it would be best to maintain infection rates during the summer that infect as many people as we can without overwhelming the medical system. In the summer, hospitals are at lower usage due to most issues occurring in the winter months, so the best time to keep infections going is in the summer. Yes, people will die, but it will be much lower than infections clusters popping up in the fall and winter. The point of slowing the curve was to not overwhelm the medical system. We have done that. We need to expand the system right now and we still need to use it. The only other option to solve this issue is a vaccine and a lot of people put their faith in that we will have one by end of year or early next year. That is a lot of faith. I understand that Moderna showed very promising results this morning, but Oxford trial failed over the weekend. Moderna had 8 cases and went 8 for 8 producing antibodies. One of the issues will be how long does your body maintain those antibodies. If it is only for a year, then well, we are effed. That's a lot of hope. If we were able to develop herd immunity, we could move beyond this. Now it is going to be impossible to develop herd immunity over the summer, which at best has 120-150 days. To get 66% of people with immunity, you would need 200M or so to get it, that's like 1.3M infections per day. The medical system can't handle that. We need to figure out what they can handle and try to get that accomplished, because the more people who get it this summer, the less we have to get it and transmit it this fall. Im not an expert, but I do know that what we are doing isn't working. I thought Dave Portnoy's rant was pretty spot on.
2. Market. Jerome Powell this weekend on 60 minutes said the Fed can create money out of thin air, but can only loan it out, can't give it out. Of course the fed buys bad debt and eats the losses, which is kind of giving it out too. He said Congress has to approve giving money away. If congress can give money away, print money, why do we pay taxes? Congress is already looking at a $4Tril deficit this year. That's what US makes in tax receivables. Why should we have taxes? Just print money to cover expenses. Moderna came out with positive results this morning on their vaccine trial and the market popped. I am happy to see the Moderna news, that's great. But if stocks are decoupled from value, that means that people are only making money on the thought that they can just sell the stock to someone else or that the fed will continue printing. That's great, then the rich will just get richer. Watch income inequality skyrocket if market continues to go up while the bottom 30% are on unemployment.
3. College. I don't understand any scenario where a bunch of colleges don't go bankrupt. I think there will be massive insolvency in colleges. For example, i would not pay $20K for my kid to stay at home and do online college for a year. I would rather have them do a gap year. That's already happening A LOT. Remember what happened to Mizzou when they had a 20% drop in freshmen enrollment? I saw that South Caroline will have a compressed year in person and finish online. That's probably fine. Schools with massive endowments (Harvard) will be fine, they will have to dip into those though. The point of paying a lot for a college is networking and the name on the degree. That's the majority of the value. With online learning, you have hurt the networking value considerably. I just can't imagine there aren't a bunch of schools going broke. Additionally, schools that rely on international students, GOOD LUCK. On the flip side, there will never be an easier year to get into a phenom college. They want to keep those numbers up. They will let you in for your money.
4. Memorial Day weekend. It is somber. Generally it is the kick off start to summer, which is the place in some cases, not the case in others NYC. It's a time to remember those who fought and lost their lives for the US.
5. POTUS 2020 Polls are pretty steady, Biden by 4-8 points in the general, but states show Biden with leads in some key states. I saw one today that had North Carolina close. What is interesting is the betting odds. They still are heavily towards Trump.
2. Market. Jerome Powell this weekend on 60 minutes said the Fed can create money out of thin air, but can only loan it out, can't give it out. Of course the fed buys bad debt and eats the losses, which is kind of giving it out too. He said Congress has to approve giving money away. If congress can give money away, print money, why do we pay taxes? Congress is already looking at a $4Tril deficit this year. That's what US makes in tax receivables. Why should we have taxes? Just print money to cover expenses. Moderna came out with positive results this morning on their vaccine trial and the market popped. I am happy to see the Moderna news, that's great. But if stocks are decoupled from value, that means that people are only making money on the thought that they can just sell the stock to someone else or that the fed will continue printing. That's great, then the rich will just get richer. Watch income inequality skyrocket if market continues to go up while the bottom 30% are on unemployment.
3. College. I don't understand any scenario where a bunch of colleges don't go bankrupt. I think there will be massive insolvency in colleges. For example, i would not pay $20K for my kid to stay at home and do online college for a year. I would rather have them do a gap year. That's already happening A LOT. Remember what happened to Mizzou when they had a 20% drop in freshmen enrollment? I saw that South Caroline will have a compressed year in person and finish online. That's probably fine. Schools with massive endowments (Harvard) will be fine, they will have to dip into those though. The point of paying a lot for a college is networking and the name on the degree. That's the majority of the value. With online learning, you have hurt the networking value considerably. I just can't imagine there aren't a bunch of schools going broke. Additionally, schools that rely on international students, GOOD LUCK. On the flip side, there will never be an easier year to get into a phenom college. They want to keep those numbers up. They will let you in for your money.
4. Memorial Day weekend. It is somber. Generally it is the kick off start to summer, which is the place in some cases, not the case in others NYC. It's a time to remember those who fought and lost their lives for the US.
5. POTUS 2020 Polls are pretty steady, Biden by 4-8 points in the general, but states show Biden with leads in some key states. I saw one today that had North Carolina close. What is interesting is the betting odds. They still are heavily towards Trump.
