nfreeman

No. He looked to me to be completely out of gas.

Dude. Take it down a notch please.

Well, although the suicide rate has increased in the last couple of years, the increase hasn't been dramatic: https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/ Also, I don't see any data anywhere subsequent to 2018, so it's hard to draw conclusions about any relationship or lack thereof with the economy. The dramatic increase in the suicide rate has occurred since 2000. As for drug OD deaths, they actually declined last year for the first time in a generation: https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-01-30/drug-overdose-deaths-fall-in-us-for-first-time-since-1990 Do you not think increased joblessness is related to the bad outcomes I mentioned?

Here's the Washington Post saying the worst case is 1.1MM US deaths: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/19/coronavirus-projections-us/ Here's Yahoo saying that if the mortality rate is 1% -- which is far from established -- the range would be from 700K to 1.5MM deaths: https://news.yahoo.com/more-1-000-us-coronavirus-deaths-near-70-060615886.html I also don't think those projections are able to distinguish virus-caused deaths from deaths caused by other serious health conditions in patients who have the virus. So the likely range is well below 1MM. Of course we want to reduce this terrible loss and should try to do so. My point was simply that we shouldn't ignore that there are huge costs, including life-and-death costs, to continuing the economic shutdown -- and that we shouldn't assume that OSP and others aren't motivated by concerns about those costs, as opposed to merely wanting to be able to bathe Monica Seles in diamonds and rubies without dipping too far into his savings.

First, I don't think there has been any kind of established conclusion that the virus is likely to cause death on that scale. Second, the key question is the loss of life that would result from reopening the economy relative to the loss of life that would result from continuing as we are now. And in calculating the 2nd half of that equation, the increases in mortality from the factors I mentioned that result from joblessness have to be taken into account.

I think the answer here is that the efficacy of programs that are designed to mitigate those destructive consequences is pretty limited, so you're not really going to be able to meaningfully reduce the societal price that would be inflicted by a huge increase in joblessness. In fact I haven't noticed that, although I have noticed that these types of assumptions and insinuations about people's motives and character do tend to surface, regrettably, in these types of conversations. To the immediate point, I don't expect that OSP's comfort is at much if at all threatened by the current economic upheaval -- but I do think that OSP, given his age, is much more vulnerable to the risks presented by the virus to his physical well-being than to the risks to his economic comfort -- and that he's well aware of those relative vulnerabilities.

I don't think it's as black-and-white as this though. When people lose jobs and can't find work, there are significant increases in addiction, family breakups, depression and a host of other destructive consequences that also result in increased mortality. Well, certainly we can consider that possibility. But using that possibility -- especially when there are also many non-billionaires asking these questions -- to shut down a debate over important issues that affect the entire country isn't wise.

That article, and some of the comments upthread, rely on an assumption that isn't supported by anything OSP said: that OSP's comments are motivated by self-interest, not by concern for the population generally. I think it's much more likely that OSP's point was that the country generally -- not the wealthy -- will be better off if people get back to work more quickly, even if there is some loss of life due to the virus that would've been avoided if we all stayed home. It's a valid point to make, and one that many others have been making recently. We shouldn't pretend that this economic shutdown won't result in terrible consequences for millions of people. At the very least it should spur an honest cost-benefit conversation without people immediately assuming that OSP is looking at this like Mr. Burns would.

I'm not much of a Clapton fan, but that is a really good song IMHO.

Good man. Thanks.

There's an assumption here that distresses me...

As someone who telecommutes for a big chunk of each summer, and now potentially for a longer stretch than that, I too greatly prefer working in the office. Do the foundations have donors other than the Pegulas? Separately, I'm curious as to how the $1.2MM figure was determined.

So his nickname is DDP, right?

Better Call Saul has been outstanding this season IMHO.

This is certainly possible. It's also quite possible that their hiring process has been fine and that pure luck of the bad sort has resulted in them striking out with all 3 of their GM choices.

From Bill Barnwell of ESPN: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28871296/2020-nfl-free-agency-trade-grades-bill-barnwell-tracks-every-big-signing-move As I've said previously, the success the Bills are having -- including the improved perception of their franchise around the NFL -- is a big factor in giving me hope for TP's ownership of the Sabres. It's all about getting the right guys in to run the team.

And the bolded is a nice example of why political discussion goes in the politics club. No. Aspects of it -- in particular, opinions as to how the government is handling it -- are inherently political. But that is only a piece of it, and one that doesn't need to pollute the rest of this thread -- which is now at 36 pages, over 90% of which have been non-political. Again: falling back on "everything is political and therefore I can give my political opinions" is just a self-absorbed BS excuse for "I want to blast away with my political opinions regardless of whether this is the right time and place." Your 2nd thread already exists. It's in the politics club.

Moved a few more to the politics club.

Another political post was moved to the politics club. In this regard, starting a post with "not being political" doesn't magically give you a free pass to take partisan shots and make a political post. Keep it in the politics club.

All of the bolded are obnoxious. This is not the way to express disagreement here. As for the first bolded -- that might be flipped around on you to note that you are similarly taking the benefit of not knowing the truth in your assertion that Kane wasn't going to re-sign here. As for teams doing better in acquiring talent -- off the top of my head, I'd say Boston, Philly, Carolina and Vegas. Frankly I think a more realistic question is which teams have done worse? Finally, the assertion that Hutton was good last year is nonsense. Like this year, he had a good start and then fell completely off the table. 1st bolded -- of course we'll never know, but I think there is NFW that JB intended to tank. 2nd bolded -- there is zero reason to think Mitts will be a good NHL player next year. And "joining Dahlin" gives JB too much credit. Of course Dahlin is in the NHL at this point. Anyone here, and certainly anyone running an NHL team, would've drafted Dahlin. 3rd bolded -- the "cap hell" claim has been disproven. It's simply false. Also, the alleged cap genius, by adding overpaid losers like Frolik, has cost the team some of its cap space for next year and, most importantly, has spent close to the cap each year while still delivering bottom-of-the-barrel results. Again, anyone here could've done the same thing. 4th bolded -- no. Other than Cozens there are zero forwards to be excited about. I agree that there are good D prospects. 2 of the 4 aren't locked up -- Reino and Olofsson are unsigned RFAs. I expect both to be re-signed and back in Buffalo next year, but both situations will require savvy GM'ing. I'm far from confident that JB will do it correctly. I agree that Joker is a core piece.

OK, so I was a fan of "Twin Peaks" when it was on TV in the early 1990s (there was also a movie based on the show that was released a few years later). Then, a couple of years ago, Showtime released 18 new episodes of the show, which included many of the original characters and most of which were directed by David Lynch. The new episodes have been critically acclaimed, and I generally find David Lynch's stuff interesting, so I had these in the back of my mind as something I wanted to watch someday. However, I didn't have the time or the inclination to re-watch the original 40-plus episodes, plus the movie. A friend of mine recommended just re-watching the last 5 or 6 episodes of the show, plus the movie. So over the last few months I re-watched those episodes, and over this past weekend I watched the movie, which I don't think I had seen previously. Holy mackerel the movie was borderline unbearable. Almost every scene was like fingernails on chalkboard. Since there are no sports to watch, I'm going to start watching the new episodes, but my enthusiasm has taken a major hit.

Port is too sweet for me. I like a little scotch (or Irish) after dinner. Whoa. Those look awesome.

This post is about GMTM. Where is your response to @dudacek about the specifics as to the good, if any, that JB has done and why he deserves to stay? Again: he took over an undeniably flawed team from GMTM that finished with 78 pts and, after 3 years, delivered a team pacing for...80 pts. To me it's crystal clear that this isn't remotely good enough. What is your specific response as to why it is good enough?

Political posts and related temper tantrums have been moved to the politics club. @rickshaw and @Ducky -- I'm not sure you've been in this thread previously, but please note that this thread is for discussion of the virus -- not for political opinions. That stuff goes in the politics club. Thanks.

That is just lovely.