I’ve bought more stocks in the past few days than at any previous time in my life. In a few years, it’ll be worth it.
I tell you what — I’ve been fucking poor and now I have money. Don’t let them lie to you and say that money doesn’t buy happiness. It might not buy it directly but it sure does let you get close enough to grab it.
Those “worry about the flu, not Covid-19, I’m a huge dumbass” articles are looking remarkably fucking stupid now, aren’t they?
Shows you how Slate-pitch contrarian Yglesias intellectual onanism only gets you so far, and when the real world hits it’s not very goddamn far at all.
It’s only been one week of working from home and I’m already going stir crazy
— Tara Vancil (@taravancil) March 12, 2020
Extroverts are weird. I could work from home for a month before I even noticed, I think.
This is America, fuckos. We know how to deal with this Covid-19 thing:
Growing up in the 1990s did not prepare me psychologically to deal with major historical events or crises. The biggest news of the decade was the OJ trial and the Clinton impeachment 🙄.
— Angie Schmitt 🚶♀️🚴♀️ 🚌 (@schmangee) March 12, 2020
Growing up during the 1980s with the constant menace of nuclear war hanging over everyone all the time, I’m just fine. Walk in the park. Not to minimize what’s occurring, but compared to nuclear annihilation that was the undercurrent of everything Covid-19 is just a blip that will soon enough pass for most people.
Hard to buy stocks when trading is halted. Dammit. Getting to be some good deals out there, comparatively.
Algos stampeding, I’m trying to head the opposite direction.
This thread by Zeynep Tufekci is a good wrap-up of what occurs when a pandemic meets predatory neoliberal capitalism, unrestrained libertarian fantasias, individualist delusions and sheer incompetence.
Covid-19 is the hammerblow that’s striking now, but its impetus and its power were augured long before by our inaction in protecting our own people: “impossible” as the wealthiest nation in the world to have health care for all, with mega-SUVs unleashed in the streets to run down all who stand in their way, and our plutocrats funding wars while allowing millions of homeowners to be foreclosed on and tossed onto the pavement with all their belongings. And of course, the big one: completely ignoring climate change and even “liberals” casting aspersions on those who said we should prioritize it.
These are all symptoms of the same malady, the same societal malfunction, the same civilizational putrescence that is now manifesting in all-too-literal sense with Covid-19. This is the now, and it’s also the future. That future world will look more like now as climate change worsens, as neoliberalism spasms and expires, as all our ideologies crumble and disperse in the wind leaving nothing but disorder and despair over the fact that we could’ve done something and did not.
We have met the enemy and it is a centrist chanting, “Everything is impossible.”
I wish I didn’t have to say this, but about Covid-19 I knew what was going to happen, told you what was going to happen, and it’s happening.
Some systems (even though centrists say they are not) are very easy to predict because of their inflexibility. What would happen in the US with this pandemic was as easy as thinking for 30 seconds. Why can’t more people do this?
And tomorrow I will engage in some disaster capitalism as the market shits itself once again.
The Key to Solving Lower Back Pain Might Be Building a Nice Butt.
Those exercises aren’t bad, but weighlifting works better and gets you there faster with far superior results. A woman in my office had chronic acute lower back pain for years. She started lifting weights and it went away in six months.
We’re talking it was such terrible agony that she often missed work for days at a time, debilitated. Now it’s completely gone.
Get to lifting, people.
people in charge of open source projects will never admit that a decision was maybe wrong. they blame 100% of user complaints on resistance to change.
— Gravis (edited) (@gravislizard) March 10, 2020
I’ve often wondered why this is, but it’s universally true. Easier than realizing that you are in fact the dumbass I guess, and not your users.
Excuse my bitterness, also to media who pooh-poohed those of us who were alarmed in Jan/Feb and lectured us about the seasonal flu. We already knew our government was likely going to fail us but all the other institutions that should have helped us save ourselves failed us, too.
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) March 11, 2020
I’m also still angry about that. But media and people in general have no capability to really think about these things. It’s hard to blame them. You can’t just make people get smarter.
When you hit the ground, would that be a terra flop?
— Marvyn (@MarvynDodgers) March 10, 2020
I don’t know, but if you fell down on Saturn’s largest moon, it would be a titanic flop.
Frankly, I dont even get angry or feel gaslit or whatever when media people pretend Biden is okay. He so clearly is not that it's the kind of lie you cant even get mad at because it's so clearly untrue.
— Xan Jones (@PrettyBadLefty) March 11, 2020
But some two-bit speech pathologist said he was JUST FINE and anything else was dementia-splain’! Surely that’s all the evidence you need. Ignore your lyin’ eyes and ears, that Joe Biden doesn’t seem to know what year it is, where he is, what he’s running for — well, that’s all better left to an EXPERT.
last truly competent politician was actually Bill Clinton. Obama is overrated and did not handle natural disasters well (though better than Trump and Bush, a low bar.)
I despise Clinton, but he could manage a bureaucracy and stay on top of details that mattered.
— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) March 10, 2020
Agreed. I did not agree with Bill Clinton on 80% of issues and he made the country worse, but he was very competent.
Bernie was torpedoed by the DNC for sure, but at least 60-70% of his now-inevitable loss of the nomination was his own fault. Whiny wokesterism doesn’t (and shouldn’t) appeal to many Americans. That put most of the nails in the campaign coffin.
His effort wasn’t as large a travesty as Warren’s but still — complete fail there.