Wow, what a crazy week/year :)

What a moment to be alive and watch history unfolding. I was present for 08/09 but I didn’t know enough to truly appreciate what was going on. It is weird to watch this unfold being older and knowing so much more about economics than I did 10 years ago.

It is a good thing we have this guy to instill confidence and fight the fear gripping our nation. I hope he starts his nightly fireside chats soon like FDR.

Some random thoughts:

• If one country doesn’t contain this it isn’t contained anywhere. The best you can hope is to delay spread 1 to 2 years while working on a vaccine (and hope it doesn’t mutate). Since it looks like the UK just gave up on containment the rest of us might be fucked unless the world bans the UK from visiting everyone. Now we just need to make sure we don’t sink the economy while slowing exposure (and making sure hospitals can handle the load).
• I’ve been thinking about Putin’s move. It could make a good book that Russia made the move with oil output to trigger a recession in the USA. The cheap oil breaks shale producers, which leads to layoffs, which leads to more layoffs in supporting areas, which leads to lower tax receipts in those countries. Just a small push but enough to get it rolling along with this Black Swan event.
• Normally a recession is a “good” thing and clear all the deadwood. But, the virus and artificial shut down is a weird one. If consumers disappear I am not sure how service workers and people living paycheck to paycheck are going to survive a 60-day lockdown. It is going to take POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND HUMAN LEADERSHIP to get us out of this one. The fed can’t do much from what I see.
• Weeeeeeeee….. and we have an election coming up…

What do I hope comes out of this mess?

• A solid realization that we face global problems and that takes global solutions. Maybe people and governments will realize how bad climate change is looking and start to making very painful changes that we need in order to survive with our economy intact.
• Paid sick leave in the USA. How do we not have this? Even better, paid vacation while you have it. Just add a minimum number of days, even if it is 7 days.
• Unemployment that is scaled to your salary, including tips. It would be great to see if people are laid off they get ~75% of their salary for two months, then it starts tapering down.
• A stronger social safety net, because gov is insurance.
• The realization by republicans that gov is good if you let it be, so stop breaking it and then blaming gov because you broke it. I don’t expect this to happen but it’s been my hope for a long time.

I got a Tout Terrain Outback Xplore 29! I wanted a touring bike that could do a LOT of trail and gravel roads here in Spain/Europe.

I’ve done 3 rides on it so far and the 4-hour ride was amazing. The internal gearing is so quiet and smooth and I am so impressed. The geometry is better than the other touring bikes I’ve ridden and I like being a little more upright.