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For people who are pressed to upgrade, you might see them forced to switch to the lowest end models for affordability. Apple is targeting that on the laptop side with low end configurations of the Macbook Air and iPad Pro + keyboard. So probably some hit on unit sales, but a bigger hit on profit margins and net income. Of course, Apple, could emulate Volkswagen and give people iPhone with no interest and no payments for a year. That'd make people worry less.

Some could even turn to eBay. You could get a new in box iPhone 6S/128GB for around $300 these days.
Or an “SE2” with 3x the RAM, the same camera as the XR and the same A13 as the $1,000 11 Pro—for $399.
 
Not sure what's going on in Italy, but they still have 10,500 deaths from what I see. I mean, 61,000 Americans died of the flu in the 2017-2018 flu season, so there is still quite a distance there. I don't know what Italy's flu deaths were that year, but I'll take your word.

Point is, the flu was bad in that year and there was basically no news on it...and of course, zero economic stoppage.

Italy have had almost 12,000 deaths in about 2-4 weeks.

US have had 3,000 in a matter of 2 weeks with an optimistic forecast of around 200,000 deaths in total.

Here in he UK around 1500 and climbing. Estimates are around 20,000 in a best case scenario.

Spain has had around 9000 and climbing hundreds a day.

India's death toll will be horrendous and the true figures will never be known.

I've just cherrypicked a few nations, but maybe you can see why the economy is going to take a colossal pounding?

It's not just another strain of flu. It's far worse.
 
Italy have had almost 12,000 deaths in about 2-4 weeks.

US have had 3,000 in a matter of 2 weeks with an optimistic forecast of around 200,000 deaths in total.

Here in he UK around 1500 and climbing. Estimates are around 20,000 in a best case scenario.

Spain has had around 9000 and climbing hundreds a day.

India's death toll will be horrendous and the true figures will never be known.

I've just cherrypicked a few nations, but maybe you can see why the economy is going to take a colossal pounding?

It's not just another strain of flu. It's far worse.
You just projected 200,000 deaths in the US...I’ll take the under. We would have to see an explosion in cases and deaths for that to happen in any sort or near term. Flu killed 61,000 Americans in a single year, so that was worse than this...so far. We will see what happens. Social distancing has to start helping at some point and there are promising treatments in the works.

I’m far more optimistic.
 
I wouldn’t call anything optimistic just because we cannot accurately predict the amount of dead people. It’s a tragedy. I think I read this morning that New York has over 1000 dead already with 80000 volunteers helping and stepping up.

Any attempt to talk this down is just not helping anybody right now.
 
I can see with the economic uncertainty people might look for cheaper alternatives....I can see android phones taking a bigger share of the market providing they can make enough to meet demand.
 
20% unemployment is ridiculous and things have to get A LOT worse for that to play out. Piling up bodies? There are a few bad places, but the 80,000 Americans that died from the flu in 2018 still means this has a long way to go. Let's chill for a bit before sounding more alarm bells.

Don't we have enough of that already?

How about we come back April 18 and see where the numbers are.

Well, it's been a month so I'm back to say I told you so.


"In the week ending April 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 4,427,000"
"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 11.0 percent for the week ending April 11"
"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 11 was 15,976,000, an increase of 4,064,000 from the previous week's revised level."

Not all of those new initial claims will have qualified for UI, but if they did, it'd be at 14% insured ... of course there are many more people out of work who don't qualify for UI. Still think 20% unemployment is "ridiculous"? Many of the insured aren't even getting their benefits yet because the states have no way to handle this kind of spike. The economic fallout is still untold.

Total Deaths: 46,379. Funny how fast that happened.

If none of that convinces you that this is way, way, way worse than 2018:
Hey look, it's mortality numbers for Pneumonia, Influenza, and COVID-19. And the graph includes your 2018 flu season. 2018 had about 61k deaths. Look at the graph: how many COVID-19 deaths do you think the US will end up with?

Or, a month later, do you still feel like there are too many alarm bells sounding?
 
I mean, nice speculation, but that isn't playing out at the moment. If anything, people are using a ton of Apple Services, sitting at home.

Phones are the last thing people will give up.

20% unemployment is ridiculous and things have to get A LOT worse for that to play out. Piling up bodies? There are a few bad places, but the 80,000 Americans that died from the flu in 2018 still means this has a long way to go. Let's chill for a bit before sounding more alarm bells.

Don't we have enough of that already?
And the unemployed getting the extra $600 are making more than people working, so if anything, they have more disposable income.
 
Well, it's been a month so I'm back to say I told you so.


"In the week ending April 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 4,427,000"
"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 11.0 percent for the week ending April 11"
"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 11 was 15,976,000, an increase of 4,064,000 from the previous week's revised level."

Not all of those new initial claims will have qualified for UI, but if they did, it'd be at 14% insured ... of course there are many more people out of work who don't qualify for UI. Still think 20% unemployment is "ridiculous"? Many of the insured aren't even getting their benefits yet because the states have no way to handle this kind of spike. The economic fallout is still untold.

Total Deaths: 46,379. Funny how fast that happened.

If none of that convinces you that this is way, way, way worse than 2018:
Hey look, it's mortality numbers for Pneumonia, Influenza, and COVID-19. And the graph includes your 2018 flu season. 2018 had about 61k deaths. Look at the graph: how many COVID-19 deaths do you think the US will end up with?

Or, a month later, do you still feel like there are too many alarm bells sounding?
It’s almost like you’re happy. I don’t think it’s funny how anything happened, so turn down your smugness a notch. I’m still saying take it day by day. Unemployment can be very temporary as you saw it spike quickly. Many of those employees will return to work quickly when and if the economy opens. That pressure is starting to build.

I also never said there wouldn’t be 46,000 deaths....I think the death count is tragic but still must maintain perspective. We will see if this death rate continues.

It’s also being mismanaged at the moment. We should be scaling into a reopen for certain people and cities. The quarantine should be implemented in a more targeted manner versus just telling everyone to stay home. It should also be stronger for the worst areas.

Just as I’ve been saying, this is killing people with underlying conditions, not impacting people under 20 at all, and still extremely unlikely to kill anyone healthy. Even the CDC is running ads saying exactly this. You’re not going to die from COVID-19 unless you’re in a risk group. Sad, but this tells me death rate isn’t going to maintain this momentum.

All I advocated before was calm. Even now, the markets are starting to look forward (unless things get worse). We don’t need more projecting. We have the numbers we have, now let’s manage the situation. We don’t need doom and gloom. In perspective, the impact on life is still relatively small. Sad, nonetheless.
 
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