#198 — April 16, 2020

You just have to imagine: What does the economy look like when literally everyone you know has a story about a friend who went to a restaurant, or to the mall, or to a movie theater and wound up on a fucking ventilator?

If it were to turn out that... what we've learned from COVID-19 will prepare us for the big one—the one where 60% of people die, and it spreads like wildfire, and is species-threatening—then, as horrible as this is to say, this was a godsend.

The easiest prediction in the world is: We will end the lockdown before we end coronavirus. It'll be a presence, and we'll worry about it, and we'll try to block it; we'll test people; we'll look for people who are immune to it; we'll do all sorts of sensible things. But, if we're honest with ourselves, we will all take some risk.

80,000 people died in I think it was 2017 or 2018 by the flu—that's the worst influenza year in recent memory, and more or less, nobody noticed unless they happened to have had a loved one killed by the flu.

Biden seems like he's in the twilight of some twilight and can barely complete a sentence without advertising the threat of old age, disease, and death to everyone listening.