The Narrative Virus
By Mitch Berg
There’s a reason Facebook and Amazon use algorithms to determine people’s reactions. Because people’s reactions are predictable.
There has been a constant drumbeat of Coronavirus fear mongering in the media, so today CVS and Walgreens are reporting a shortage of hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Panic buying.
Next up: allegations of price gouging, attorney general investigations, legislators posturing, and media articles claiming the hardest hit are women, children, minorities, illegal immigrants, and LGBTQ+.
And it will be your fault, you wicked evil, privileged white man.
Can’t wait.
Joe Doakes
He’s not wrong.
March 4th, 2020 at 6:03 am
While I don’t disagree with the point of Mr Doake’s email, after yesterday I think it mostly only applies to city people. My wife went to Costco in Coon Rapids and was
quite surprised, along with the staff, to see people most;y just hoarding tee-pee and bottled water. Lots of bottled water. Embarrassing amounts of bottled water, such that I wondered what sort of epidemic they’re expecting. Like quarantine means shutting off your water?
Up here in rural MN CD-6, the local grocery store had bottled water by the front entrance, but none of the people in the store had any in their carts. Everyone looked hungry it being about 4 and all and wanting to get home and eat. No one wore a “I voted” sticker.
March 4th, 2020 at 6:28 am
The MSM has a vested interest in seeing bat flu racks up a big body count. Drumpf has been actively counter messaging their panicked headlines, and they cannot afford to let him win.
Anyone that still receives the dead tree versions of their local propaganda rag is well advised to wear gloves while handling it, and forgo testing the scratch n sniff samples inside.
March 4th, 2020 at 6:45 am
I have a friend who keeps 150gals of treated (1/4 cup sodium hypochlorite per 50 gal) water in his shed. He got food grade plastic barrels for $15.
He says the last place you want to go during a pandemic is Walmart. I think he may be on to something.
March 4th, 2020 at 6:46 am
Even the Surgeon General has attempted to calm the fears of the masses, triggered by the lame stream. Since he is black, the lame streamers making fun of him, are racists. Remember, you have to be the “proper” black person, in other words, a slave on the Democrat plantation, to be taken seriously.
March 4th, 2020 at 6:51 am
Amazing how the rest of the of the world is in on the hoax.
March 4th, 2020 at 7:25 am
The evening MSM news is brought to you courtesy of the Pharmaceutical industry. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d be suggesting that Big Pharma is behind the pandemic to boost the ratings for their ads.
Does that also mean that Big Pharma is behind war, Brexit, Trump, snow storms in the Northeast, tornados in the Midwest and hurricanes in Florida?
In a way…. yes.
March 4th, 2020 at 8:20 am
Premature panic at the Fed.
Whatever ‘theoretically negative developments’ scared them, the rate cut’s principal effect is to make Donald Trump happy. It won’t lead to more N95 masks, ventilators or hospital beds. And it won’t make a blind bit of difference 6 months, 12 months or 18 months from now when the economy really will need stimulus to restart production and growth that will stall until there is a vaccine.
This is more of a concern, than it is a boost. They must feel there is a serious risk of a recession to cut rates 50 basis points this quickly.
An economy with “healthy underlying fundamentals” doesn’t need an emergency rate cut. Read between the lines.
March 4th, 2020 at 10:01 am
The Democrats are desperately wishing that thousands die in the hopes that it will hurt Trump.
Of course, the highest mortality rates with flu and viruses are in the very elderly – people that are 77, 78 years old, for example.
March 4th, 2020 at 10:08 am
Husband went to Costco yesterday and saw the same thing- carts full of hoarding toilet paper. I understand stocking up on hand sanitizer. I could understand bottled water and canned food. But I don’t understand toilet paper.
I went to Sam’s Club yesterday at about the same time husband was at Costco. It was business as usual there- no carts that were full, no obvious hoarding. Just people buying weekly groceries.
I don’t necessarily know if there are differences in demographics of Costco shoppers versus Sam’s Club shoppers to explain the difference in the two suburban stores, but there seems to be more reports of this happening at Costcos versus most any other stores.
March 4th, 2020 at 10:12 am
Unfortunately for the reprobates, NW, the epicenters of the bat flu in the US are all in leftist populated states (sad). Worse, in addition to the elderly, people with compromised immune systems, or otherwise in poor health are in particularly high danger; that’s a sizeable percentage of their populations.
I think it’s time to ban flights from the West Coast, and quarantine NYC…for the children.
March 4th, 2020 at 10:18 am
My statistical survey is small, mjb, but I know a number of a Costco-only shoppers who look down on Sam’s Club and its clientele. The story is that it apparently just feels better in Costco being surrounded by people like themselves.
March 4th, 2020 at 10:56 am
Who really decided to bring infected people to the United States?
An Obama holdover in an obscure government arm helped cause the country’s Coronavirus crisis.
Odd this wasn’t brought up in between all the Trump bashing.
March 4th, 2020 at 12:00 pm
“Therapies is sort of another word for cure.” ~ Donald J Trump
Well, we’re getting an idea of what the market thinks about presidential incompetence and BS in the face of a real crisis. We need a leader. We have a comic strip character in the WH.🤡
March 4th, 2020 at 1:07 pm
CNBC
Stock market live updates: Dow gains 800, stocks exit correction
Bat flu is waning in China, turns out it doesn’t spread easy with minimal precautions; looks like Sanders is gonna get burned again and Drumpf is on a roll. This has gotta be tuff on the reprobate propaganda mill.
(sad)
March 4th, 2020 at 1:13 pm
Go short, Emery, go short! Show that you have the courage of your convictions!
March 4th, 2020 at 1:24 pm
Let’s not forget in all the Trump Blaming that he got stuck with this through the apathy and incompetence of the so-called elites who approved of and farmed out so much of our manufacturing to an antagonistic, third-world country with illusions of grandeur.
COVID-19 is exposing dangerous flaws in how we make and prescribe drugs.
Some 80 percent of the medically active ingredients in American drugs come from elsewhere. China, the country where COVID-19 originated and still the hardest-hit by the outbreak, is the world’s biggest supplier of pharmaceuticals. Lawmakers and public health officials have worried about this for a while—now, as the US plans for what may become a pandemic, it’s a bigger concern than ever. Patients who depend on medications are right to be thinking about potential shortages—and the fact that they may not even know about the shortages until they become severe.
March 4th, 2020 at 1:26 pm
MP
Please don’t confuse Emery with factual information. He doesn’t have a clue that big left wing aligned Wall Street investors were shorting the market, making millions, all last week. Let him sit in his mom’s basement like a little mushroom.
March 4th, 2020 at 1:46 pm
jdm- that’s what I guessed, in regards to Costco shoppers, especially given who owns Sam’s.
“turns out it doesn’t spread easy with minimal precautions” – basic precautions such as handwashing, goes a long way. That’s been known for a long time. It still amazes and frightens me how many hospital employees and food service workers neglect the step of handwashing.
March 4th, 2020 at 2:08 pm
Don’t believe your lying eyes, Swiftee. Paul Krugman said that can’t happen and he won the Nobel Prize.
So there…
March 4th, 2020 at 2:22 pm
Greg, the fact that there are degenerates out there that still believe Krugman even knows what day it is proves how low IQ the Dunning_Kruger left really is.
They don’t cite him quite as often as they once did, but that’s because he became a magnet for widespread mockery, and being included in mockery, even tangentially, makes them squirt tears in their sugar pops, not because they have any less faith in what he says.
March 4th, 2020 at 2:26 pm
I see a great opporunity to make money off of the TDS people. Somebody was selling those equities I bought cheap in 2017.
March 4th, 2020 at 3:20 pm
DJIA Last Updated: Mar 4, 2020 at 4:17 p.m. EST
Closed
27,090.86
+ 1,173.45 ^4.53%
lmao @U…fuking dimwit
March 4th, 2020 at 3:32 pm
Stocks surged because it’s looking less likely that Bernie Sanders could become president
Obviously, Biden would be a much more business-friendly president than Bernie Sanders would. While I have strong doubts that Sanders could get much of his agenda passed into law, the mere possibility is terrifying. I think markets have to like the prospect of a Biden/Trump matchup.
March 4th, 2020 at 3:38 pm
Bwaaaahahahahaaha! They were surging while you spewed your ignorance all over the floor of this thread. Dance faster, you incredible dimwit!
March 4th, 2020 at 3:50 pm
Holy Hannah, Swiftee, you actually got a response out of the little weasel. Weak tho’ it was, it was on topic. Mostly. Way to go.
March 4th, 2020 at 4:26 pm
The US coronavirus pattern is very similar to the Iranian one so far. In Seattle area, 9 dead from 28 infections.
When the first you know about it is patients dying, you’re likely to have a major problem on your hands.
The virus is crushing supply chains. Its economic effect will be felt long after the threat of the virus itself is eliminated. Because many companies that have used frothy stock markets as a cushion (and have managed to avoid vital deep restructuring and meaningful innovation) will find it very hard to recover from this extraordinary crisis.
The sugar high is over. Now the market will average the effects of the coronavirus and the recessions that will hit China and probably Europe.
The S&P is behaving today as if the only thing that matters is Bernie Sanders not being president. Don’t kid yourselves, the bottom will be tested again.
March 4th, 2020 at 4:35 pm
Go short, Emery! Go short!
Nobody knows nuttin’.
In Friedman’s column today, he blasts Trump for “denouncing the professional ‘deep state’ civil servants whom we need now more than ever to protect our laws.”
This is textbook fascism. The people who protect our laws are the same people from whom the laws arise: the American People. It says so in the constitution, which does not mention the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, or the Department of Justice.
The last people you would ever want to “protect our laws” are professional civil servants. They protect the laws that are in their class interests, and not protect laws that are against their class interests.
Tell me again how well our “professional civil servants” are deporting illegal immigrants? Stopping them from getting here in the first place? Tell me how they reacted to the election by the people of Donald J. Trump?
March 4th, 2020 at 4:56 pm
As a recovering pessimist, I always enjoy reading Woolly. However gloomy I may be, it is cheers me up no end to find that there is someone in the world even more miserable than I am.
Oligarchy Inc sells two brands. Consumers celebrate the ability to have them compete against each other.
I guess people are choosing dementia over socialism given limited alternatives.
BTW: The coronavirus must be shaking in its boots — afraid of all that cheap money which central banks are going to release.
“How many rate cuts would it take for you to book your family onto a cruise holiday now?” ~ Den Norske Bank)
March 4th, 2020 at 4:58 pm
As a recovering pessimist, I always enjoy reading Woolly. However gloomy I may be, it is cheers me up no end to find that there is someone in the world even more miserable than I am.
Oligarchy Inc sells two brands. Consumers celebrate the ability to have them compete against each other.
I guess people are choosing dementia over soci@lism given limited alternatives.
BTW: The coronavirus must be shaking in its boots — afraid of all that cheap money which central banks are going to release.
“How many rate cuts would it take for you to book your family onto a cruise holiday now?” ~ Den Norske Bank
(apologies for the repost moderation purgatory)
March 4th, 2020 at 5:03 pm
Swiftee,
Continuing to cite Paul Krugman is like staying true to the faith of snake handling when half the congregation has died of snake bite.
March 4th, 2020 at 5:03 pm
The virus is crushing supply chains. Its economic effect will be felt long after the threat of the virus itself is eliminated.
More crap that Trump inherited, which would be affecting Obama and Bush exactly the same way.
Because many companies that have used frothy stock markets as a cushion (and have managed to avoid vital deep restructuring and meaningful innovation) will find it very hard to recover from this extraordinary crisis.
Proof? Examples? Links?
March 4th, 2020 at 5:16 pm
As a recovering pessimist
[…]
Den Norske Bank
What complete meaningless babble… oh, wait, Happy Hour’s started.
March 4th, 2020 at 6:09 pm
The way to be truly miserable is to believe that you can control things that you can not control. But if I see people acting irrationally, I feel no guilt about taking advantage of the situation (and that is no sin).
i certainly cannot be accused of hyping the dire economic effects of the coronavirus.
March 4th, 2020 at 6:13 pm
The rationalist in me points out that the media is heavily vested in the idea that all bad things are Trump’s fault, and all good things are due to the actions of people like them — elitists.
So they preach that the decline of the stock market was due to Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus, and the markets recovery today was due to the wisdom of the Democrats (the elitist party) in rejecting Sanders in favor of Biden.
Seems kind of fishy.
Nobody knows nuttin’.
March 4th, 2020 at 6:27 pm
Jdm: The economic situation was drastically different under Obama.
Having used up interest rate cuts to artificially goose the market, what is the Fed going to do when a real financial crisis occurs? We are using the few financial arrows in our quiver for short term political expediency. This may prove fatefully wrong. People often do not see a catastrophe, even when it is upon them. Eat, drink and be merry, we will think about it tomorrow, doesn’t always work out so well. Increase your reserves and reduce your exposure; no one at a federal level is looking out for the economy.
Economists don’t see how a rate cut will help interrupted supply chains. And the investors weren’t buying it either,
March 4th, 2020 at 8:11 pm
Beware of economic forecasters who never get there predictions about the future correct, but always have a detailed explanation, in retrospect, of why things occurred the way that they did.
I’ll say it again: nobody knows nuttin’.
March 4th, 2020 at 10:01 pm
Obviously, Biden would be a much more business-friendly president than Bernie Sanders would.
Especially if you put his son on your Board.
March 4th, 2020 at 10:38 pm
Correctly predicting future events requires both luck and skill.
Explaining past events is just building a narrative.
Beware of economists who couch their predictions in so many qualifications and so much jargon it is never an outright prediction that event A will cause event B.
Joseph Stiglitz (Hillary’s chief economist) is an expert at making such “predictions,” and at narrative building when explaining past events. Like Krugman, Stiglitz is beloved by our elites and has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.
March 5th, 2020 at 6:08 am
jfc…he kept right on going last night, didn’t he? Like he’s just one of the guys shooting the breeze…
LMAO!
The Chinese supply chain keeps Walmart in crap cheap enough to sell to our low IQ citizens; flat screen TV’s to sit their fat asses in front of, sweat pants to cover their fat asses during trips to Walmart and scooters to haul those fat asses down Walmart isles.
No wonder Dinning_Kruger is panicked.
March 5th, 2020 at 6:36 am
US 10-year yield falls below 1% for first time. The ten year rate did not go this low when the worlds banking system looked like it was about to implode in 2008.
My genuine enquiry is this. Just how much worse are things now than they were then and how do we measure it?
March 5th, 2020 at 7:08 am
It’s bad, D_K. Real bad. KYS before it gets worse.
March 5th, 2020 at 5:24 pm
Another bloodbath in Trump’s stock market again today.
Even before the coronavirus hit, stocks were very expensive and economic growth had slowed sharply (to zero or negative in many countries). Now we are seeing companies warn on sales and profits thanks to the virus. Even if it is temporary and relatively short term, we are probably still going to see full year earnings fall again this year, after they were flat or lower last year.
US stocks are only back where they were in December despite the huge deterioration in the outlook since then. Very little potential negativity is priced in. There could be a lot more downside from here unless investors are prepared to pay even more for stocks this year than last. At what point does expensive become too expensive?
Reminds me of a cartoon from the ’87 crash. Two stockbrokers standing on a window ledge;
“They say the panic is coming under control”
“Good, let’s only jump halfway”.
March 5th, 2020 at 5:47 pm
“Bloodbath”
The DJIA is still 350 above where it was 2 days ago. Of course you’d have to have been smart enough to change the default single day graph to 5 days to know that….find the menu, choose “5days”; very complicated.
Lol
You’re a blithering, low IQ joke, D_K.