I sit here today and watch a world that is being pressured to reopen. The reason we are in this mess is we refused to understand reality. China refused to admit and treat the release of the Wuhan Virus. It is my belief the Wuhan virus was likely released from the level 4 Wuhan virus factory, through shoddy sterilization practices. Having worked in an OR for 35 years the conditions necessary to sterilize the tools in the autoclaves are severe and those machines break down regularly sometimes daily. The quality control is demanding and if not adhered to would cancel any insurance protection the facility would have, i.e 100% compliance. In other words working with contamination requires pristine commitment. My guess is an autoclave broke down and the test tubes went into the garbage unprocessed. The first recorded tic of some new virus in Wuhan was in late Oct. The senior corona virus researcher at the Wuhan level 4 lab seems to have left for “the country”, likely as ashes spread around some bean fields. The Wuhan facility is about 200 yards from the wet market where all of this transpired. China apparently Magically Thought hiding the reality under the carpet was a solution when in fact aggressive contact tracing was what would have worked at that stage. ANY SECOND YEAR MED STUDENT KNOWS THIS. It is not esoteric knowledge.
The WHO failed to call this a pandemic till March 11 even though it met all of the WHO’s criteria for a month. I guess they Magically Thought by NOT calling a spade a spade it somehow wouldn’t be what it is. Now I read the Magical Thinking that there are way way more infected than we realize. Instead of doing the experiment we make assumptions. I read that though the social distancing has slowed the spread, the Magical Thinking that a slower rate of spread is somehow consistent with no rate of spread as in herd immunity.
I read an article about SF in the Flu pandemic of 1918. The spread was slowed by social distancing and wearing masks. The Magical Thinking was the coast was clear. The mask order was lifted and victory was declared. 6 weeks later the death was back. After the first ban had ended the ability to restore the ban was extremely diminished, and so as any 2nd year med student can tell you. Magical Thinking is simply lying to yourself using a narrative to stop the cognitive dissonance of choosing to believe a lie.
Today the price of OIL went negative for the first time ever. It’s a concept so ridiculous it can’t be believed. What that says is the producer will pay you to take a barrel of oil, yet the QQQ is at levels that are positive for the year. Unemployment is at 22M and fully 1/3 of the companies are likely to be out of business by the end of the year. I talked to someone yesterday who told me they lost their business, nothing Magical about that. Yet we Magically believe in a V shaped recovery. World wide supply chains are not disrupted but destroyed because if you can’t make sell and ship product, well you simply can’t, and the debt will work its Magic. Everything runs on margins. Landlords will discover the Magic of renters who have no jobs, and their debt will have its way. How does an oil industry who’s product is under water stay in business? So what’s it going to be, your money or your life? What chapter in Vicki Robbins book covers this eventuality?
The solution is for the world to move away from the past, and move to a leaner more rational existence, called the future, and a narrative that corresponds with reality. FIRE actually got this more or less correct by right sizing existence. They got it wrong by over leveraging their tiny little nest egg. The beginning of recovery is to understand what you have is not what you had. What you had was extremely low volatility and high return and a narrative based on that. In a world of 22M unemployed what you have is extremely high vol and low to negative return maybe for the rest of your life. Oil at <0 is called the mother of all deflation. Well disciplined children listen to their mother. If you allow the narrative to rule you, you will be ruled and screwed at the same time. Jim Creamer doesn’t get paid by you, he gets paid by them, to sell shit to you.