Notes From All Over -- Late Sunday Afternoon Edition -- May 17, 2020

Bragging rights: NASCAR.

First major professional sport that "comes back" as the US begins to re-open during Wuhan flu outbreak. It is fitting that this "first" race is at Darlington, South Carolina. Pretty amazing.

It will be interesting to see the ratings. The only "live" sports prior to this was the national (?) "cornhole" championship which was held this past week. I can't make this stuff up.

[Later: Kevin Harvick wins. Nice job. Well deserved. It almost appears every race driver was on his best behavior. His 50th Monster Energy Series career win. Wow. Best news: Ryan Newman raced. He finished. And he finished in 15th place, a solid race. I assume his family is much relieved. He says he still has no memory of the Daytona crash.]

Next race: Wednesday, three nights from now, also at Darlington, a night race. What a great country. I guess the professional golfers are still afraid of the virus. LOL. 

Reality. Link here. 

I agree with the "overall" sentiment but I think the top 1% will do very, very well coming out of the Wuhan flu lock down, and the top 10% -- not just the top 1% -- will do "largely" fine.  

My hunch is that the gap between the top 10% and the middle class will widen.

Significantly.

I don't think the "middle class" will be smaller, unless they change the definitions. The middle class includes the lower middle class, the middle middle class, and the upper middle class. I think the middle class will stay about the same size but within the middle class things will shift to the left (left: less well off).

As usual, the investor class should do very, very well, compared to non-investors. In addition to everything else, and all things being equal, my hunch is that the Wuhan flu "lock down" affected the non-investor class a whole lot more than the investor class.

With regard to the "country being horrifically in debt," I think one needs to compare the economic debacle with the Great Depression, the global economy after World War, and the US and global economy after WWII, before using the word "horrifically." 

Paul Krugman is not concerned about the debt, nor are my sub-continent Indian neighbors. 

Amazon is back! Folks might remember that Amazon had to prioritize shipments during the height of the Wuhan flu panic.

Books were very, very low priority; masks were very, very high priority.

Yesterday, I ordered a book for our older daughter in Portland, OR -- yesterday, May 16, 2020. Today, May 17, 2020, less than 24 hours later, I get an e-mail from our daughter that the book has been delivered and she is already reading it. LOL.

Wow. Even if Barnes and Noble had been open I could not have gotten the book to her faster. Not only that, mailing was free (yes, I know --- I pay for Amazon Prime -- so, it's really not free) and get this: cash back from the Amazon credit card has grown to such a huge amount I'm not paying for much at Amazon. This book: $0.00. 

Speaking of "cash back" and loyalty cards: it's just amazing.

I order a fair amount of photograph enlargements from Walgreens. Walgreens always has coupons; sometimes one has to look for them on line but they are there. Generally, the coupons are 40% or 50% off. The prints I get back are spectacular. And then on top of that, I build up "cash" through the loyalty program. It's truly amazing. And, oh by the way, if I want to buy prints for a family member that lives elsewhere, I can have the photos printed at any Walgreens across the country and the family member can pick up photos at their nearby Walgreens.