HoosierFaithful

I love a good gamble. I'm in for $5k of AMC.

And there’s a lot more to say on that topic but in an effort to stay within the rules I often ask others to follow, I will stop there vbg.

Local government often barely has the resources to do what they’re currently attempting. Throwing all of this vaccine rollout on top while at the same time their budgets (and in some cases staff sizes) are shrinking by 20-30% was always a recipe for disaster unless they got significant federal help. Funding to state and local governments has been a key sticking point in relief negotiation in congress.

Nobody wants to ban anybody - we try to find every reason to not punish members. You're speaking of unfairness, and that may be true. In truth: we're just some dudes. We're about 30-60 years old, we have very different viewpoints, and we're all at different points in our lives. By nature of being fundamentally different people, we may approach situations differently. The small action of attaching "moderator" to our profile doesn't make us any smarter, more wise, or less prone to making mistakes than any one of you here. By the same token, we try not to act like enlightened pricks. We discuss issues related to the guidelines for the community deeply and try to approach situations dispassionately, evenly, and with precedent. But at the end of the day, we're just hall monitors and we're just human. So if you want to take a stand of principle, that's certainly fine. My humble request, though, is to let this pitch pass you by - if unfairness exists, it's because we're human and not because we're trying to perpetuate an unfair system. In fact, we try our very hardest to do the opposite.

just once in my life I want to think of a snappy comeback like that in the moment, not three days later in the shower.

Let’s change course and move on from this topic folks.

For a wide variety of mostly tax-related reasons, the federal government is the only entity with the true capability to respond to a crisis like this. to their credit, they have apportioned money (albeit sometimes wildly too late - in this instance, $8b in vaccination distribution funds... only days ago), but this ignores the fact that once getting this money, the local entities using it have to build their organizational capacity during the middle of a trained worker shortage and a pandemic ravaging their own ranks. crying out for national leadership IMO.

Interview with incoming COVID czar: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/04/how-biden-will-try-fix-our-vaccine-rollout-mess/%3foutputType=amp

The real failure is leaving this up to understaffed local entities - this needs to be much more of a top-down effort. That seems to be a key area where the two administrations differ in their plans for the immediate future.

avoiding this thread as ignorance is bliss. see ya, geezers.

I've got a pretty basic 5.1 setup - but it certainly does the job! I'll try to take photos some time soon.

This is a great discussion. We appreciate you all self moderating. We all know when it’s gone too far - and if you’re unsure, just err on the side of keeping that particular thought to yourself.

Total agreement there. It’s a crappy way of budgeting that our leaders have gotten used to and it also definitely isn’t enough.

This isn't really correct. This was a $920b stimulus package paired with a ~$1.4t government funding bill ("omnibus"). The $920b break down is here. $600b+ of it is more PPP, more UI, and stimulus. The rest have pretty clear links to helping those who are hurting (nutrition assistance/etc): https://www.crfb.org/blogs/whats-final-covid-relief-deal-2020 The government funding bill has a summary here: https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/democrats.appropriations.house.gov/files/Summary of H.R. 133 Appropriations Provisions.pdf $671b is in defense funding. 23% of defense spending is direct pay and benefits to soldiers. You can skim through the expenses that make up the $656b that is non-defense spending, but it certainly has plenty of line items that people find great use in. Section K of the second attachment, which encompasses all State Department and USAID funding, is a total of $55b.

Danger Will Robinson to some of the posts I've seen here recently. This is a general warning that if you think something in your post might be against the rules, it probably is.

That was one of the softest double technicals I have ever seen.

I know there has been a lot of discussion of school closures here - I thought this was interesting, showing it is very effective at reducing COVID transmission. Also interesting: stay at home orders, on its own, not that important. What's more important is masks/small gatherings/etc.

Interesting. I don’t know much either, I was mostly postulating.

Forgive my ignorance but on an IPO, purely mechanically, doesn't the price shoot up... almost immediately? Wouldn't purchasing at the entry price be almost impossible? Said another way: isn't it likely big hedge funds and/or big time investors who get access to those IPO prices ($68 here for AirBNB, particularly) and when regular investors try to get in, it's already up to the peaks? Not implying malfeasance or anything either, just that these professional traders probably have algorithms and platforms that we don't.

I kick myself for not investing the $20-30k I had sitting around in March. I did, however, build a beautiful pool. An investment into seeing my fiance in a swimsuit is still an investment.

This fella has it right. Pick some individual stocks if you enjoy it and think you've got a good read on the market, but I would encourage the vast majority of any investment into index funds.

welcome to HSN!

Hey Air Ball - I noticed your email to our support. I should have emailed you back to let you know, but I went ahead and verified your account. You should be good to go.

Sorry it took a bit - will poke around. Glad it’s working now!

This really is as simple as "wear a mask". https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/23/pandemic-data-chart-masks/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2c4b72b%2F5f92fd6e9d2fda0efb521285%2F596ca0859bbc0f20866154f1%2F8%2F71%2Fde34774e5c532fa052a25c09fec42c2e