I'm not a Wall Street guy, or a prepper, or a Senator with Special access. Just a fellow pede from the last cycle. But I went to cash in my 401k in late January because of what I saw in China coming off of WeChat. It was terrifying. We all saw the stories... The death rates, buildings supposedly welded shut, mega apartments infected. Like a movie.

After that, I put together a month of food for my family, sold some stock in my brokerage account and... hoped for the best. Heck, I was even ahead of Bill Ackman (https://youtu.be/FItEjc6VtuU - from CNBC this week, worth checking out. No one likes you when you're that guy talking about the sky falling). Every week that passed, I worried as it hit Korea, Italy, and then started coming here.

That brings us to the present.

I've done a ton of research on Kung Flu. I know pretty much everything that's public knowledge about it. But here's the thing... It doesnt add up.

It's either something somewhat worse than the normal flu, or it's an end of days plague. I don't know how it can be both. I read some good analysis today (https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894) which basically says our population adjusted death rate is something like South Korea (the good news). And if that's the case, it's time to buy stock. Yeah, well have the surge that's hitting hospitals in New York, and California this week. It's inevitable, and good people will die (sadly). But President Trump's actions have probably "flattened the curve" (hate that phrase), and in a couple weeks things will be ok. Maybe not great. But better than Italy today. And the new treatments will be ramping up, and we will at least be on the right trajectory.

What am I missing? It doesn't answer why we shutdown a trillion dollar economy. Even if the death rate was 2x Italy, I just don't see America shutting down, unless China really had 8 million dead o stead of 80k infected. Laying off tens of thousands. Sitting in our houses and waitingt? Hoping the virus burns itself out, something like what President Trump said initially?

Was this an economic first strike by the ChiComs via a propaganda campaign to become a super power and destroy US markets and the economy? Fake plague flu that spreads fast but really doesn't kill more than flu? Or is it a plague that's going to kill us all?

Because I can't see how our unprecedented actions with an unimaginable economic impact could be taken unless we've been duped, or unless things are much much worse than we've been lead to believe.