Official LRC President Donald J Trump Thread

*700* points

the economy wrote:

Sally, deer: What is the profit you made from investing $100k a week ago. Care to share that?

I am a buy-and-hold guy. I am not a week-ago type of guy. I will buy the market at recent lows and in 10 years that will have paid off quite handsomely.

Here is one of my biggest funds:

VGHCX - Vanguard Health Care. Since 1984, it has an annualized return of 16% - that is in spite of the recent fall. Expense ratio very low of 0.34%. At 16% a year your portfolio will double almost every 4.5 years. That is quite impressive. For the newbies - to calculate how quickly your porfolio will double - take 72 and divide the annual return in to it. So if your portfolio is earning 10% - your portfolio will double every 7.2 years.

You failed to answer the question.

Based on your reply, you lied when you cried out that you invested $100k a week ago.

If you are not an epidemiologist you are speculating about issues you know little about. If you want to contribute anything meaningful about the medical nature of the virus you are better to refer to the views of those whose specialty are these diseases. By all means discuss the social and political implications of the disease but do it from a position of knowledge, which is the information about the disease provided to us by the experts. Once you start venturing into the medical.area you reveal your ignorance and are doing little more than indulging in the equivalent of Trump's "hunches".

Trump’s strategy is the same as he & Bush Jr had for the hurricanes. Delay info, pretend people died of something else. Coronavirus just builds, though.

Can this giant piece of shite president just tell the truth for once? He and Pussence are giant piles of crap, just lying there.

Thanks for the questions. Always appreciated.

(1) Outside of the hotspots Italy, Iran and Spain the death count is still in 1-5 people per day range, which is very, very low.

This is good news, yes? Why would we think that is not good news?

Low death counts are always good news.

The problem is that people in general have a difficult time internalizing the significance of exponential growth. It is the same in the investment world. When you say that $1,000 today could be $1,100 dollars a year from now the natural reaction is "Big whoop dee doo!". But 40 years from now that $1,000 will be $45,000! That gets people's attention. People (non-mathematicians) are just not wired to really"get" the implications of exponential growth.

In this case, that $1,000 will be $1,170 TOMORROW! Really, those 1,000 cases today will be 1,170 cases tomorrow. And in less than 6 weeks (40 days) those 1,000 cases will be 45,000 cases.

So, let's take some death totals from countries not named Italy, Iran or Spain. Let's say France (61), USA (41) and the UK (10). In two months what death totals are reasonable to expect at 17% daily growth rate? The answers are 750,000 for France, 500,000 for the US and 125,000 for the UK. Significant enough for you now?

The whole point is that the difference between a seemingly tiny number and an Italy situation is only a matter of time (and time meaning only a few weeks) unless that exponential growth gets interrupted. And interrupting that exponential growth is hard from a financial and societal perspective

(2)You seem reluctant to cite actual numbers of dead people and rely on percents instead. Is that because 1-5 deaths per day this late in the pandemic (except for the hotspots) goes against your thesis?

Fair question. But no, I am not reluctant at all to cite actual numbers of deaths. I focus on rates of increase because that is what really matters. As explained above, the difference between a small number and a big number is only a matter of time - and not a whole lot of time at 17% daily growth rates.

Here, total deaths worldwide (excluding China) as of March 12 is 1,801. I have no interest in hiding that number. Now, do you know how long it takes for 1,801 to reach 1 Million at 17% daily growth? About 6 weeks. We will be talking about deaths in the Millions by the end of April UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT QUICKLY.

Oh, and the notion of "hot spots" - please drop that from your vocabulary. It is a way that we have of deceiving ourselves that something "different" is happening "over there". It's not. Hot spots are simply places that have not yet done something differently. They are us. The US is one gigantic hot spot right now. Give it a few weeks without MAJOR changes to activities and . . .

(3)In a best case, when could we start thinking that this will be more like swine flu than Spanish Flu? Noting that a billion people had swine flu 10 years ago. Not clear how many people died, but maybe 200k.

The numbers you cite for the swine flu show a fatality rate of about 0.02%. This is much less than even the ordinary seasonal flu of about 0.1%. The Spanish flu by contrast had a fatality rate of somewhere between 3% and 10%. This COVID-19 virus currently has a fatality rate of 3.4%. There are reasons to think that this number should actually be lower because many cases are not diagnosed. As I explained in an earlier post, there is also a non-trivial push in the opposite direction for any early stage, rapidly spreading pandemic. Given the numbers to date, it is difficult to see this one as being more similar to the swine flu than the Spanish flu.

I think that it is important to note that we as individuals, and through corporate and government actions can dramatically impact the rate of increase (the 17%). It is almost impossible for the vast majority of us to impact the fatality rate - it is what it is for now.

(4)Not a question but a statement - Do you agree? the big question is how many people have the virus. If 100 million people have the virus, then we'll be ok. If 200,000 people have the virus, then we might be in big trouble

Very good point. If 100 million people have the virus today then, assuming that it is unlikely that more than say, 4 Billion people will get it, then we can expect total growth from here of only 40x at max. That would mean 200k deaths worldwide (even including China this time).

BUT 100 million people with the virus today means there are nearly 1,000 cases in total for every one case diagnosed. No matter how little faith you have in the US testing regime or in the Russian or Chinese reporting, it is very difficult to imagine that there are actually 1000x more cases out there than have been reported. 2x? Sure. 5x? Maybe. 1000x? I'll leave it to the reader as to whether that is in any way believable.

Final point - it is probably best as a society to act as if we are in big trouble and then avoid big trouble than to assume we are not and then . . . I suppose that is only an opinion.

Armstronglivs wrote:

By all means discuss the social and political implications of the disease but do it from a position of knowledge, which is the information about the disease provided to us by the experts.

Here is one for you. China and Iran resulted in mass burial sites of the victim. The UK is setting up such sites.

Trump is not even thinking about this situation. Others are doing it and making plans.

the economy wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

By all means discuss the social and political implications of the disease but do it from a position of knowledge, which is the information about the disease provided to us by the experts.

Here is one for you. China and Iran resulted in mass burial sites of the victim. The UK is setting up such sites.

Trump is not even thinking about this situation. Others are doing it and making plans.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1248032/Coronavirus-latest-updates-news-coronavirus-outbreak-uk-government-contingency-planning

Since there are mass burial sites but only one victim - will they cut up the victim in pieces and then bury him in the mass burial sites?

Rigged for Hillary wrote:

If Dementia Joe was president, the China travel restrictions would not have happened in January. More people would be dead and he would have called Wuhan a soup.

You are nuts, any other sane potus would have taken the advice of his experts and have put in place stricter measures EARLIER than trump did, on top of immediately bracing for the virus to arrive. Trump has been total dead weight on this issue - not even close to displaying competence or care.

agip wrote:

Sally Vix wrote:

If deaths count - then 37 death of the Coronaviru so far this year in the US. Last year - 80,000 deaths from the flu. I am outrageously stupid but isn't 80,000 bigger than 37?

sally if you are a math guy you understand how quickly numbers grow when geometric growth starts. double a number every day for just a dozen days and it gets enormous.

But that's my question...that except for the three hotspots, deaths are *not* growing geometrically. They are falling in every country but two I think. I don't understand how important a fact that is. Is there a delay here? Will we have a surge in deaths as the disease works its way through the population and hospitals fill?

Greater awareness of the corona results in faster and better medical treatment for sick patients. Hence the numbers infected grows but not death rates. There is another reason too. With greater knowledge, the most vulnerable populations are taking more steps to avoid infection.

Sally Vix wrote:

Trollminator wrote:

It's going to be quite the embarrassment if he leaves the office with a worse off market. He is completely out of his depth in this job. He was ranked the worst president recently by political scientists for a good reason.

Please don't ever again use "worse off market" without hyphenating the first two worlds. A compound adjective NEEDS to be hyphenated. Lesson Numero 1 para usted.

You might want to learn to spell a simple word like "words" correctly before you try to give anyone grammar lessons.

Sally Vix wrote:

agip wrote:

sally stop talking about case counts. There is almost no testing going on so case counts don't mean anything.

But seems to me that death counts should, because you can't hide a death....and death counts did not rise today anywhere but Spain and Iran.

If deaths count - then 37 death of the Coronaviru so far this year in the US. Last year - 80,000 deaths from the flu. I am outrageously stupid but isn't 80,000 bigger than 37?

All - this last post from Sally should do it for you if nothing else has... the only two warranted responses to this level of stupidity is to ignore or just call him an idiot and leave it that. You can't fix such "thinkers".

Armstronglivs wrote:

Sally Vix wrote:

I don't "claim" to be smart. I am a very, very smart person. just a fact.

Another "stable genius". I bet you are orange, too.

Just inside his mouth and behind ;)

Sally and rigged were afraid to say trump was dead wrong in dismissing the danger of the corona virus. They couldn't do it. Instead Sally came up with the brilliant observation that cult is not spelled colt. It's so obvious how wrong he was yet these two just can't admit it. And neither can see how terribly weird that is.

the economy wrote:

You failed to answer the question.

Based on your reply, you lied when you cried out that you invested $100k a week ago.

But we already know the answer... he didn't invest and never has.. and if he did he'd be down bigly right now. The only thing he's ever bought and held is a dunce cap.

Truth b told2 wrote:

It's so obvious how wrong he was yet these two just can't admit it. And neither can see how terribly weird that is.

It's definitely a dumber and dumber situation, but there is a slight difference in their approaches and motivations.

Trigged is simply an agent orange mouthpiece. The only things he's capable of posting are copied directly from trump and sometimes FOX. The motivation is he's a typical anxiety riddled male who thinks trump cares deeply about his confidence issues, so he goes to bat for him daily. As expected, the typical trump tantrums make him feel good. It's the bully mentality, always feeling entitled in bringing others down. But criticize his hero and he will lash out immediately in his defense.

Sally is simply inflicted with chronic stupidity and bigotry. That is the link with trump, they both share those traits but one of them has money and is popular. The motivation for Sally is a mix of him being an overconfident simpleton and his desire to one-up intelligent liberals. So when trump does his thing Sally is always impressed. Sally doesn't seem to the have the anxiety issue like Trigged though, and that is only because he isn't even aware that he's inferior.

Both have an incurable case of the moronavirus. Both are outrageously stupid. Hard to tell which of the two ranks lower.

What is wrong with this guy?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1238288908431036423?s=20

How does everyone feel on this thread arguing back and forth?

You either support DJT or you don't. Why keep arguing about it? This has been going on for years.