# Does anyone else think that the rest of the year won't go as badly as some fear? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 1, 2020, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818 "2020-06-01T00:11:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/81 "2020-06-06T13:47:59Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I do have to admit, I’m a bit worried about the food supply. > > I don’t think we’ll run out, but there will be enough shortages to drive up prices. If it matters: My cousin is plant manager at a meat packing company. He told the family to prepare for _substantial_ price hikes, and recommended we buy and freeze all we can now. Mainly as hedge against prices, not massive shortages. His opinion is that the prices could reduce a lot of demand. Anecdote: I stocked up on briskets at around $1.00/lb. two weeks ago. Checked yesterday (same store) and they were $8.00/lb. Each wrapped brisket in the meat section cost _over $100.00_. An eightfold increase is reason to worry (imo). ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/82 "2020-06-06T18:06:45Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > If it matters: My cousin is plant manager at a meat packing company. He told the family to prepare for _substantial_ price hikes, and recommended we buy and freeze all we can now. Mainly as hedge against prices, not massive shortages. His opinion is that the prices could reduce a lot of demand. > > Anecdote: I stocked up on briskets at around $1.00/lb. two weeks ago. Checked yesterday (same store) and they were $8.00/lb. Each wrapped brisket in the meat section cost _over $100.00_. An eightfold increase is reason to worry (imo). Mr. Middon and I were talking the other day. Whenever I can get beef or pork or chicken for a somewhat reasonable price (or probably even if the price is not that good), I’ll buy several pounds and can it up. When I can a bushel of tomatoes in late summer, I’ll do at least one batch of beefy bolognese sauce. If meat prices go up as I expect them to, we’ll have a few dozen relatively inexpensive meals on my canned goods shelves. If not, well, we’ll still have a nice cache of convenience foods for dinners. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/83 "2020-06-06T19:03:59Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > If it matters: My cousin is plant manager at a meat packing company. He told the family to prepare for _substantial_ price hikes, and recommended we buy and freeze all we can now. Mainly as hedge against prices, not massive shortages. His opinion is that the prices could reduce a lot of demand. > > Anecdote: I stocked up on briskets at around $1.00/lb. two weeks ago. Checked yesterday (same store) and they were $8.00/lb. Each wrapped brisket in the meat section cost _over $100.00_. An eightfold increase is reason to worry (imo). I seriously doubt that we will get to a point when there actually is not enough food for everybody, we could probably lose 75% of our production, and still have enough to go around. Not in the next year or so, anyway. But prices going up as it becomes scarce, that is a very rational concern. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/84 "2020-06-06T19:53:56Z")
$21 a pound for top sirloin at Safeway. Prices are definitely going up. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2020, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/85 "2020-06-08T17:09:28Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I don’t think of the end of America is necessarily a bad thing, I think how it collapses is important; if it can collapse quickly like the Soviet Union, without lashing out, it’s probably in the world’s best interest. Countries end, why should the US be any different? Are you talking about a decrease in global influence or the Balkanization of the United States into some new configuration of our component states? Because I assure you, the latter would not be in ANYONE’S best interest and is unlikely to happen with a of violent “lashing out”. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/86 "2020-06-09T01:26:36Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > 1968 _had_ a [global pandemic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_flu%5B/url). It just seems to have made amazingly little impression on anybody. It didn’t at the time, unless it made someone you knew very sick. I remember 1968 quite well; the Hong Kong flu was on the news (but a relatively minor item, given everything else that happened that year) but nobody reacted to it in a way remotely like how we’re reacting to Covid-19. The schools stayed open (mine sure did), no primaries or political conventions were canceled or postponed (more’s the pity), people kept on going to baseball, football, and basketball games, no businesses shut down. For most people it was just one more thing on the news. I think it may have even gotten a mention in _Peanuts_. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/87 "2020-06-09T08:16:30Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > Agree and disagree. I agree that removing Trump from office will be a huge improvement, but the divisiveness that allowed him to be elected has been brewing for 30+ years and won’t go away just because Biden is president. > [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > No, Trump is a symptom, not the disease. Symptoms themselves can be harmful, and Trump is more cytokine storm than runny nose. But removing him from office alone won’t cure the patient. And the divisiveness hasn’t been brewing for 30 years; it’s a crack in the very foundation of this country. Let’s not forget that we are the same country that had Barack Obama as President just four years ago. We are bigger than Donald Trump and we are better than Donald Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/88 "2020-06-11T14:06:24Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > I keep thinking this is one of those times like 1933 that, generations from now, people will look back and say, “How did they not see what was coming? How did they just sit back and let it happen?” > > I don’t know what “it” is – some combination of everything mentioned upstream, or some metastasis that will only be obvious in hindsight – but I can’t escape the feeling that it’s going to be seismically bad. And I’m one of those bubble people whose life so far has remained relatively comfortable and stress-free. Just to update my own vague sense of impending dread … how about if we throw a bank collapse into the mix? > **[The Looming Bank Collapse](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/coronavirus-banks-collapse/612247/?utm_source=pocket-newtab)** > > The U.S. financial system could be on the cusp of calamity. This time, we might not be able to save it. “… in December, the Financial Stability Board estimated that, for the 30 ‘global systemically important banks,’ the average exposure to leveraged loans and CLOs was roughly 60 percent of capital on hand.” I didn’t know this term, but CLO’s are basically the same sort of investment instrument as the CDO’s that triggered the 2008 collapse, except they’re packages of business loans, not residential. Given the impact of COVID-19 quarantines on smaller businesses, it will be no surprise if a lot of these end up worthless. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/89 "2020-06-14T19:08:39Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Optimism is the first step to disappointment. > [@TruCelt](#): > > Just promise me that you are preparing to get through this Winter while you whistle against the storm. Then I won’t feel the need to stomp mercilessly on your optimism in order to save your life. > > :twitch: > [@Leaper](#): > > . . . > . . . I think, you are saying that such a result is very likely or inevitable. Such a belief is often/usually accompanied with apathy and inaction (“why bother fighting? The nation is doomed anyway”), and that you’re encouraging me to do and feel the same. . . . > . . . Which part of " . . .promise me you are preparing to get through this Winter. . ." made you think I was encouraging apathy and fatalism?!? Read for comprehension. > [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > No, Trump is a symptom, not the disease. Symptoms themselves can be harmful, and Trump is more cytokine storm than runny nose. But removing him from office alone won’t cure the patient. And the divisiveness hasn’t been brewing for 30 years; it’s a crack in the very foundation of this country. I agree with this. Ever since I first heard of the Truth and Reconciliation committees in South Africa and Rwanda I’ve been saying that this is what the USA needs. But we also have to acknowledge that it’s human nature to respond to scarcity by trying to reserve what is available for one’s own. We will define our tribe as widely as the available resources allow. But we will continue to have divisions as long as the incredible wealth of our country is allowed to be hoarded by the few, leaving huge numbers in poverty. We need to redefine the American Dream. To be not “Every generation of a successful family will be more successful than the last” but “In every generation of Americans the bottom rung of poverty will be raised up.” When we get to a point like Norway or Germany, where the people on the lowest rung are always well fed, always warm and dry, always clothed and educated, THEN we will have achieved a society to be proud of. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/90 "2020-06-14T19:15:24Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > We need to redefine the American Dream. To be not “Every generation of a successful family will be more successful than the last” but “In every generation of Americans the bottom rung of poverty will be raised up.” I always thought that the American Dream was, or ought to be, “We can have a country in which people of all sorts of religious and other beliefs can live together, as equals, and without trying to kill each other.” ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/91 "2020-06-14T20:18:32Z")
What has happened and the response ought to be chilling. We have demonstrated serious and exploitable flaws to our strategic competitors and sadly we don’t care enough to be aware of them much less to take action to fix them. That said, I’m not sure how the rest of 2020 will go. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818/92 "2020-06-14T20:24:35Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > True enough, but it was far less disruptive, for reasons that should be explored in another thread. > > This year’s pandemic, plus the George Floyd murder, plus the whackjob in the White House and his enablers, all feel to me like successive and recurring tremors shaking the foundations of civilization itself. I know it’s histrionic of me, but it’s like we’re in the “pre-” stage of some movie about a dystopian future. Part of that is modern mass media is a dangerous amplifier. The past was much worse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-think-that-the-rest-of-the-year-wont-go-as-badly-as-some-fear/854818.md?page=4)