Cal State Online Fall 2020

[LongRoad]

I think this will cause a depression that will take decades to recover from.

Other than the death, THIS is the worst outcome from COVID. Regular non-financial folks thinking that the virus was the CAUSE of the financial meltdown that will occur. That was already baked into the cake. Business cycles occur in a capitalist system, no matter how much central banks and governments try to eliminate them and turn capital markets into a political utility. Covid only hastens the end of the cycle. So when it all goes down instead of blaming central banks for causing incredible bubbles and encouraging liquidity to flow into the least economically feasible parts of the economy leading to an incredibly damaging end to what could have been a tame end of the business cycle. Instead people just blame the virus. And so we can't point fingers at the true cause of the bubbles, and they'll just PAPER it over do it all over again. Oh well, I have the road map to trade that outcome, as it's what they just did and have been doing for 30 years. Sadly, most people are gonna get smoked.

Obviously there are cycles.  But Covid was something that changed the economy overnight.  We've never gone from 3% unemployment to 20% (or whatever it is) in 2 months before.  It's total insanity.  Covid caused that.

You know what else didn't help?  Listening only to doctors/epidemiologists w/o taking other things into account.  We should have had a well-rounded group of folks advising the President, instead of just doctors who will always err on the side of caution.  No one was talking about the other damage that might occur as a result of shutting down our country.  But, as usual, government is all about not looking at the unintended consequences of their actions (hence people who won't go back to work because they're getting more in unemployment than they would get if they worked - now who would have seen that coming? Oh yeah, EVERYONE except the dopes who thought of it.).

If the President only listened to doctors/epidemiologists without taking other things into account, that's his mistake. As our president was very focused on the economy, I have to say he was actually a bit late out of the gate listening to doctors/epidemiologists. That played a big part with the situation today. In addition, I do not believe he is a good manager. His management style is autocratic, and he doesn't listen to what he doesn't want to hear.

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Cali has been a failed state for a while.

California has the largest economy in the United States & 5th largest on earth (larger than the UK).. I don't think that constitutes a failed state.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/putting-a...countries/

Yes they do have the 5th largest economy but it is not due to high taxation, the welfare state, nor is it regulation.  California is blessed by having large access to trade from the Pacific Ocean. It is not a business friendly state and its policies encourage those who have a mobile business to leave the state.

I recently had a debate with someone who arrogantly was telling me how poor people are in 3rd world states such as West Virginia and Alabama and how they are so much poorer than those living in CA. So we looked at the average wage in WV and CA. Almost $15 an hour in WV and almost $20 an hour in CA before tax.  We then looked at the average home price in each state. CA 578k WV 107k.  We then divided both states housing cost by the avg hourly wage. The person living in CA has to work 28,900 hours to pay off their house while the WV resident only has to work 7,133. In fact using the same amount of hours that person residing in WV could own 4 homes before CA could own 1.  Conclusion, people who live in those poor red states actually accumulate wealth 4 times faster than people living in blue high tax, high welfare, high regulatory states.  


Sent from my typewriter.

I have a family member that lived in SF and she paid over $1k a month for a single room apartment in the worst part of town and that was considered a bargain. She said you could be making six figures in SF and still be considered poor because everything is so expense.

This might be off-topic, but I find the real estate kind of interesting as far as price across the country go. I know someone from Nebraska and they paid less than 100k for a nice 4 bedroom house, nothing wrong with it. I couldn't believe a house that nice would cost so little. Meanwhile, some of my family is in real estate and Cali and 100k would buy you a cardboard box. That same 4 bedroom house might be a million dollars in LA. But the middle of nowhere Nebraska vs middle of Los Angeles. You know what they say when it comes to real estate ... location, location, location.

It's all about demand. Many people want to live in areas where the population is more heterogeneous, there are museums, more opportunities etc. The demand is less for, say, living in the state with the only museum on the fur trading industry.