Fifth Avenue Forum

They do cover the press briefings when the grown ups are talking.

CNN has consistently cut away when Trump leaves over the past couple of weeks.

Are you watching CNN?

This is insane.

Agreed. Not a fan of that schmuck.

Saw that. Fellow millennial media mogul Nate silver told him he’s being dumb.

I think Hayes is smart, you would think by now he would know that trump just says whatever most of the time, looking for hidden meaning is a fools errand

Curious about the libertarians of the board’s opinions on the forced closures of many businesses across the country.

Curious about the libertarians of the board’s opinions on the forced closures of many businesses across the country.

This is one of those situations where the rubber meets the road, isn't it...?

This is where you get to divide into factions, from the theoretical perfectionist: "The government has no right to interfere with legal contracts...curtailing a business's ability to operate and curtailing an individual's civil liberties to pursue their lives freely is an abhorrent abuse of power...if our freedoms can be instantly washed away in such a fashion, would it be more fair to say that all of the purported civil liberties, right on through the Bill of Rights, etc. amount to nothing more than a temporary permit that is subject to not being honored - to the point of complete revocation? - at a moment's notice? That's a deeply disturbing, government dystopia that...blah blah blah..."

The preceding probably ropes in whatever Constitutionalist factions that exist out there...as cursory readings of Constitutional interpretation render the "general welfare" clause as nothing but Hamiltonian financial riffraff...

To the..."pragmatic" libertarian...

I'd like to believe I fall under the pragmatic libertarian viewpoint most of the time...one could reason that there's enough data out there that suggests a carrier (known or unknown...likely the latter) being out and about negatively impacts the freedom of another because of how contagious this thing is. That's a big sticking point for me. I really believe people should be free to do whatever they want...unless it causes tangible harm to another. I know beyond any reasonable doubt because of the things I do and the friends I keep that I have been exposed to this virus ten times over. No doubt. Therefore, I am liable to fall into the "unwilling actor" category in terms of "harshing another person's vibe, maaaannnnnn" for lack of a better term. So I have to take some degree of reasonable responsibility for that.

Similarly, a business has to take on some of that responsibility as well. I make it a point to mention here that a business ought to have no interest in harming its own customers. It makes no sense. What is the upside to a pharmaceutical company poisoning its clientele? What is the upside to Chipotle (Qdoba?) poisoning its? Or a drug dealer poisoning its? You can't reasonably account for evil at any level of society, so why give it unnecessary power? That's neither here nor there though...

Ultimately, Should businesses have the right to remain open during this time? Yeah, they probably should have that right. I think they should be provided with a bevy of information and options to make a forthright decision for their customer base and employees. But ultimately, I don't strongly believe that the state has a right to close down a functional business in this manner...with an asterisk.

The asterisk being...does this fall under one of the government's potentially very, very limited responsibilities? Providing security to its citizenry. There's a claim to be made there. There's a claim to be made about any number of amendment violations too (both business and individual).

I think my current answer lives in paragraph five ("Ultimately...") but it's a great point of discussion and that's why I opted to expound upon it in such a verbose way...full well expecting it to get snowed under with the normal intestinal purging that gets completed in this thread hourly...

Brevity is your friend.

Re: Intestinal purging. It's a fine bill of regularity that n! keeps at his somewhat advanced age. I see you keeping up on that fiber, sir.

So that report about November? Not true.

Well, I bet it's the most important thing ever...it's got the ol' T word in it...

Time for bed...

Looked unlikely, removed until bigger source picks it up.

Be interested to see if anyone is writing on how many are permanent, and how many are temporary.

https://www.newsweek.com/bill-barr-hydr ... am-1497021

Send them to Guantanamo!

I'm curious how much different our lives will look after this. I think a lot of offices might be realizing that the stereotypical 40hour workweek from the office might not actually be the best avenue.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/08/five-mi ... anent.html

So every company they mention is furloughing employees, but are just assuming that the next round will start being more permanent? Seems like a stretch with all the corporate and small business loans going out. I know several small businesses that got the loan and they will be able to cover all their employees salaries for the next 3 months from the loans.

https://www.newsweek.com/bill-barr-hydr ... am-1497021

Send them to Guantanamo!

I read that as bill burr at first and was like wtf haha.

Pushing negative after negative story can also cause a self-fulling prophecy.

I'm curious how much different our lives will look after this. I think a lot of offices might be realizing that the stereotypical 40hour workweek from the office might not actually be the best avenue.

As in lowering the hours/week or hours in the office/week? Because I don't see the former happening

Yeah, I bet we will see office size shrinking and some companies just going to having a conference room and a small office while most employees work remotely. I've heard from a friend of mine who is high up at a local utility in IT and they have noticed participation and productivity actually increase the last few weeks.

I had several large projects that I’d been working on off and on for a few months, never able to give 100% attention to because of the physical presence part of my job (taking a shift on our circulation desk, getting called out of my office to answer questions etc.) Constant, often moronic interactions throughout the day. I cleared most of the big project the first 5-6 days of work from home. I’ve also done some other backburnery type things the last few days. I’ve been 100% more productive from home.

Yeah, I bet we will see office size shrinking and some companies just going to having a conference room and a small office while most employees work remotely. I've heard from a friend of mine who is high up at a local utility in IT and they have noticed participation and productivity actually increase the last few weeks.

I was just talking about this with my boss. I feel my team has been far more productive from the comfort of their homes. And because we were allowed to bring home our monitors, etc, we have all the tools needed unlike other wfh opportunites in the past where people mainly just had their laptop.

I still like have physical connections, because I feel that grows relationships, but to me, it could be like 2 or 3 meetings in the office a month or something.

And I think the leaders who were scared to do work from home in the past because they feared change or loss in productivity are seeing it can actually work for certain functions.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/08/five-mi ... anent.html

So every company they mention is furloughing employees, but are just assuming that the next round will start being more permanent? Seems like a stretch with all the corporate and small business loans going out. I know several small businesses that got the loan and they will be able to cover all their employees salaries for the next 3 months from the loans.

I mean, this article is pontificating on the impact. FR asked if anyone was writing about temporary vs permanent layoffs, and I had just looked at that piece and shared.

I think it is pretty easy to differentiate between the noise and the impact. The massive claims numbers are noise right now because we know a lot of these moves are temporary and the rules put in place have been expanded to allow way more people to be eligible for unemployment benefits.

The stock market moves are also noise because they are still only responding to daily news bites.

The ripple effects are yet to be determined and won't be felt for months really. Obviously can't really account for all the changes, but one to think about are state and local governments. They are already furloughing workers, but they are all going to get decimated by the lost sales tax revenues, and unlike the feds, they have to balance the budget, so when annual budget time comes around, you'll see lots of cuts.

The other lagging impact will be the corporate downsizing. I don't think anyone has been able to fully respond to the global decrease in economic activity.

I'm curious how much different our lives will look after this. I think a lot of offices might be realizing that the stereotypical 40hour workweek from the office might not actually be the best avenue.

Which will decimate the commercial real estate market.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-next-c ... 1584627925

Ultimately I think this is where the biggest risk lies and this is why they had to rush to bolster the credit market. I think the question will be whether those measures could do more than prevent immediate disaster. It's a pretty simple equation, will these companies holding massive debt be able to withstand 10-20% drops in revenue.

the Fed is in a plant/grow situation re: corporate debt

rates were too low for too long, and that just gave businesses the incentive to borrow. i know people have been beating up on companies for buying back stock. but why issue stock when debt is much cheaper?