Japan has escaped Corona virus so far......

[Legs]

I mostly stopped eating out/takeout since the outbreak, but one exception was my local Chinese restaurant if that tells you anything.

I see people lined up at the McDonald's drive through (gag) and wonder if the kid at the window was up all night partying with his buds. Wouldn't consider such under normal circumstances... but we have a new norm.
So, the only "food to go" I have done is a Papa Muphys pizza. Toss the plastic wrap as soon as I get home, wash my hands with caustic acid and love at 425 will take care of any virus.

 

[NCW_Robert]

Snap! Calling it like it is, @tac.

Intel employs a very large number of Chinese nationals.

Intel = fools

Wonder if Intel realizes china will be stealing Intel tech and opening their own factory where they will build the exact same products for 75% less?

 

[clearconscience]

I think all these "positive cases" is total BS.

Most of these places probably aren't even testing people unless they are REALLY bad.

I've heard hospitals around here that will NOT test unless you are high risk or in serious trouble.

So the positive numbers are not total number of cases, it the positive cases out of the really sick people who they happen to test.

 

[CLT65]

And since Intel is an "essential" business and has to keep working. There are thousands of people from all over the world in the Ronler Acres fab / facility every day. Employees, contract workers and construction workers.

I came very close to taking a job at Ronler Acres a year or so ago. It was a very good job that paid significanty more; I had the offer letter in my hand, all I had to do was say yes. I ended up turning it down, for various reasons (mostly the long commute), but I've always second guessed myself as to whether it was the right decision. Considering that my teenage son is immune-compromised and we really don't want this virus in our house, I feel much better about that decision now.

 

[OldBroad44]

Those countries and cultures that accept masks and whose people already had a supply seem to do better fending off or recovering from disease invasion.

 

[Flymph]

I'm Japanese, but I've been skeptical of their case numbers. Japan didn't jump on the travel restrictions with China, and they are in close proximity geographically.

Just until recently they actually planned to start Summer Olympics in Tokyo on schedule & had wondered if it influenced the test numbers. I hope not, but you know, politics.

They would not provide tests last I heard from people living there. Almost impossible to get a test approved by the sound of it.
They also practice a lot more precautions that would help mitigate risk, so there is that.

 

[tac]

Last week this was $2.00.



This morning it was $8.

After all this is over, there are going to be some very upset people around looking for some kind of payback on the ones earning a fortune off our misery.

 

[tac]

Here in UK all our pubs, clubs, restaurants - anywhere where you sit, have been closed for almost two weeks. All McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Starbucks and so on closed for almost THREE WEEKS. Take-outs you shout your order through the door and collect it when its put in the doorway - that will end today.

We are running a jigsaw circle - Great fun, eh?

 

[ma96782]

Those countries and cultures that accept masks and whose people already had a supply seem to do better fending off or recovering from disease invasion.

Maybe the CDC could/should change it's mind about masks?

CDC might ask the general public to start using coronavirus face masks

Aloha, Mark

 

[Martini_Up]

boogaloo goons

Lol!

 

[tac]

Latest here in UK is advice from the Daily Mail - grass up your old folks!!!! If you see an old person outside the house, call the police to arrest them and take them away!

Just like pre-WW2 Germany.....

I tell ya, pretty soon it's going to get Western here.

 

[CoastRange57]

This whole debacle saddens me, as the businesses that are a few million in revenue and smaller are going to take it in the shorts.

That is about where our construction business was in 2008 when that SHTF came down. It had taken us a number of years to get to about 2.5 million in volume, and that was still not what I considered a safe sustainable level for a business to prosper and give some decent wages to employees and ROI to the owners. Pretty much any business around 1.5 million or under is going to have a very hard time surviving this crisis if they have any kind of significant work / cash flow interruption. Of course the Feds answer is to make SBA loans to help business's survive. You still have to pay those loans back out of profits, and maybe a business is already at its loan / borrowing capacity and any additional debt service is going to throw the net profit / cash flow numbers way off.

That leads to an inability to fund reserve cash accounts, buy new equipment when needed, and keep employee wages and benefits competitive. Our business had 6 months worth of expenses in the bank at the end of 2008. We had been fortunate that we had gotten a couple of prevailing wage jobs at the end of the year with no other bidders, so I stood on those jobs margins pretty hard to get the extra cash. We kept employees on doing busy work for about 3 months of that time, then we laid them all off. My wife and I went back to doing the field work and we needed to generate about 180K to cover expenses by June of 2009. We only got to about 130K and it was impossible to meet anymore overhead at that point.

We pulled the plug on the business at that point in time and my wife was fortunate to get a job, I got a part time job as a Sales Director, but my health was declining until I could no longer work. This whole decline took place over close to a year. The current situation we are in now has happened a lot faster catching many companies completely unprepared and with virtually no cash reserves. Having a suitable amount of money in the bank to cover these unexpected situations and is hard to do, and you need to have a good volume of profitable work over a 3 to 5 year period with enough management discipline to fund those reserve amounts.

Those years were a huge lesson to us, and we were in a better place than most business's. We still lost the business, I became ill with a life threatening disease and it has taken years to recover.

If any of you are in such a situation, I am willing to share my thoughts, concerns and ideas with you at no charge of course. These are very fundamental life and business changes that can have a lasting impact on your financial situation, your personal health and relationships.