Coronavirus - What Happened?

What? Are you serious? PWI is a liberal echo chamber? What did I miss?

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On the topic of spending and government debt, I will say that neither party offers much that appeals to me. I used to vote GOP and their selling point at the time (15 years ago) was that they at least seemed fiscally conservative. I don’t agree with them on most social issues, and now that they have abandoned the fiscally conservative stance, I don’t have much reason to vote GOP.

I am of the opinion in personal finance and government finance that everything becomes much easier with some momentum behind you. Yeah it sucks saving for a bit, but once you have your money making money for you, things get a lot easier.

About 9% of the federal budget goes towards interest on debt. That is a lot of money that produces nothing for us. Imagine what benefits we could have for citizens if instead of paying 9% of the budget per year in interest, we received 9% of the budget in interest payments. If we let that 9% compound, and create surplus, eventually we could be paying much less taxes, and end up getting more benefits.

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Yeah, which is exactly my point.

Not being able to go dine in at Applebee’s is worth getting up off the couch and protesting state capitols with AR’s strapped to your chest, but a complete betrayal of core values on fiscal sanity and size of government by the party you voted for gets…a yawn.

(Again, not saying you.)

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Is that what they are actually protesting?

My state’s protesters haven’t been armed that I’m aware of, but their concern lies less with dining at Applebees than it does the ongoing destruction of our local economy under reasoning that is inconsistent at best and dubious at worst.

I’ve lived in rural Michigan before and the people I still talk to there have the same set of concerns. Seeds being classified as non-essential was a particular sore point for my old friend. He could go to a store that sold seeds, he just couldn’t buy them. No garden veggies this year, apparently.

I doubt their concerns are much different than protesters anywhere, they’re just showing up with guns to make their points known. That’s not how I’d go about it, but I can appreciate why someone might make a demonstration out of exercising their rights in a time like this.

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I was being cheeky - my point is these folks have a hair trigger on protesting over COVID, which are not justified, but can’t be bothered to protest on something that by their own admission should be justified. Because of that, I question their sincerity.

The protesters aren’t garden variety, generally apolitical citizens fed up with things - they’re highly ideological types looking for street theatre. They’re Occupy Wall Street.

My point is simply where are the protests on a complete betrayal on core values of fiscal sanity and size of government?

This is surprising to me. At least in my area of Kansas I’m not aware of any store that can’t sell something they typically would. I mean maybe minor things like I know gas stations aren’t selling fountain pop. But on the whole hardware stores, Walmart, etc if it’s for sale in the store you can buy it.

That’s a good question. I’ve thought about protesting recently, but I’m not ready to burn up any of my vacation time for it. I just vote instead. I can’t speak for the other conservatives’ thought process here.

That’s why I’m saying there is quite a bit more to the protester’s concerns than superficial complaints about the lockdown response.

Google says that not being able to buy seeds isn’t accurate.

ā€œIn reality, executive order 2020-42, which went into effect April 9, 2020, requires larger stores to block off certain areas of their sales floors as a way of limiting the number of people in those stores. The order does not ban gardening or the sale of any product, including, as we mentioned in a previous fact-check, American flags.ā€œ

Well the video he posted was pretty clear that he couldn’t buy seeds at whatever store he was at. Lowe’s I think. It was literally roped off. I saw it with my own eyes.

Perhaps a smaller seed store was open nearby, but he’s a pretty reasonable and resourceful guy. It seemed like he had a right to be upset, but I’ll forward this politifact article to him.

Maybe it’ll make him feel better.

Correct, it was an attempt to astroturf:

Lol okay. I’ll pass that along to my friend who has been protesting in Augusta. I’m sure he’ll be surprised that he’s ā€œastroturfingā€, and not making his case to operate his business.

From what I’ve read Lowe’s should have moved the seeds to a different location?

Stupid either way no doubt. But not being able to buy seeds in Michigan isn’t true apparently.

Well then, I’ll pass this along and tell my friend to delete the false video he has posted with images of entire sections being roped off in a Michigan store. I’ll let him know he’s got nothing to worry about and his governor is making the right decisions.

This is interesting.

Did you actually think that was the point of my post? You said one couldn’t buy seeds which surprised me so I googled it.

I said I thought it was stupid either way and still feel that way. But to say you can’t buy seeds in Michigan is apparently not true. Maybe your friend couldn’t buy seeds at that store which is dumb to me. But spreading false information doesn’t help anything. A huge difference exists between I wanted to purchase ā€œxā€ at this place and I couldn’t vs it’s illegal to buy ā€œxā€ in the entire state.

I wasn’t defending the governor and I thought my post was quite clear in that.

https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/news/20200501/states-ordered-nursing-homes-to-take-covid-19-residents-thousands-died-how-it-happened

This is a bad look.

Edit: It’s a real bad look. One might even call it a self interested look.

… taken from an interview nine weeks ago being deliberately and dangerously misrepresented as recent advice. Three weeks after that interview, the CDC officially recommended people wearing cloth face coverings.

This is… from 24 hours ago:

Not interested in getting drawn into the thread, I’m dealing with it enough here in Nassau County, NY. Just felt it necessary to call bullshit.

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Get out while you still can! For some of us it is much too late.

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In that video he specifically said people should not be walking around wearing masks in the middle of an outbreak unless you are infected. We’re still in the middle of this outbreak. There are still the risks from the unintended consequences he mentioned. The conditions from when this video was made until now haven’t changed. Feel free to wear your mask though.

Literally the first thing he says is, ā€œmasks are important for someone who’s infected to prevent them from infecting someone else.ā€ In the more-than-two months since that interview, we’ve learned that asymptomatic people are a thing, which means people can be infecting others without realizing it.

He then goes on to say, ā€œRight now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.ā€ When he says ā€œright nowā€, he’s in a world three days before the WHO declared a pandemic and when there was a total of 564 cases in the US.

The conditions of the coronavirus pandemic, not to mention our understanding of it, haven’t changed since March 8th? Are you high?

Aww, shit.

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