Where We Are -- Where We Are Headed -- May 11, 2020

Yesterday (May 11, 2020) I wrote the following and placed it in draft -- I didn't know where to go from here/from there:

Three possible scenarios for the Bakken, from "good" to "bad":

• U-shaped recovery by the end of 2020
• continued fall in activity through end of 2020 and slow but unremarkable "recovery" in 2021
• relatively complete shut-down of the entire Bakken for four years

That was yesterday.  

All of a sudden, the Bakken looks trivial compared to what's going on vis-à-vis the corona virus story. I wish Hunter S Thompson was still around to put this story in perspective. I don't know if folks have seen this story ...

.... break, break ... for some reason this is as good a time as any to be listening to Led Zeppelin ...

.... I was saying ... I don't know if folks have seen this story -- Los Angeles County will be "shut down" for at least the next three months ... through July for sure --- possibly into / through August.

California State University with 23 campuses and 50,000 employees, including 27,000 faculty members, will cancel the fall semester. The ripple effects goes well beyond just those 50,000 employees. The CSU system enrolls around 500,000 students. What percent will go elsewhere? Certainly the incoming freshman class will disappear -- it will be the great diaspora as those incoming frosh will now look for new colleges. Winners and losers.

The northeast from New York to Massachusetts seems to be in a similar situation. How many of the twenty-five colleges and universities in Boston alone will open this next fall? It's hard to believe any will -- except perhaps online. Harvard says it will be open this fall, although it my be "virtually/on line." Tufts University is unsure whether it will re-open.

It looks like we're starting to see the Balkanization of the United States based on how states or regions are dealing with the pandemic.

We have states like Florida and Texas which are looking to re-open.

And, then we have states or regions like the northeast and Los Angeles County whose political leaders appear to have panicked, looking to extend the lock down and perhaps even looking to make/take more draconian measures.

Somewhere in between are the states and regions about which we don't pay much attention when it comes to stories like these.

It appears that by the end of this week the US will be trending toward 40 million unemployed.

Break, break ... google US map ...

Yes, just do that ... google that acronym "US" and add map to it .... this is what you will see ..

Is that not bizarre? Corona virus pervades "everything. Google "US workforce wiki" and what do you get? Same thing. Corona virus.

Corona virus pervades everything.

If this were a "smallpox virus" unleashed by Russia I could understand it, but I can't get my head around how the modern (?) world has responded to a virus that causes flu-like symptoms; is much less serious than "seasonal flu" for which we have a vaccine; and, predominantly affects the elderly.

But again, it's the same modern (?) world that is panicked about a two-degree change in the "global temperature."

Just thinking out loud.

No point yet to the idle rambling.

At some point, all these crises reach a tipping point. I thought we had reached the tipping point for this pandemic some weeks ago. I was clearly, clearly wrong. The question I'm trying to address: how does this play out? What will be the tipping point? Will there be a tipping point between now and when we get a vaccine, assuming we "get" a vaccine?