Robinhood Snacks - 🏡 "Flatten the curve" = containment

"FTC" is becoming a solidarity slogan... Before mandated government shutdowns, American companies and citizens independently took initiatives to "flatten the curve" of the COVID-19 outbreak — aka, reduce the number of infections so that our healthcare capacity can handle them. Most countries are taking the FTC approach:

• Pros: Social distancing and closures mean fewer infections, fewer deaths, and healthcare systems not overwhelmed by a dramatic spike in cases.
• Cons: The economy is devastated by biz slowdowns, the peak of the outbreak happens later (and dies down later), and could repeat if widespread immunity isn't developed.
• Bottom Line: The opposite approach is "herd immunity" — allowing for a large part of the population to be infected — which risks disastrous consequences for the elderly and people with compromised health. So...

The grassroots spirit takes hold... “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens” — Tocqueville said it, and American individuals/companies are still practicing it, decidedly acting to make flattening the curve possible:

• Social Distancing: WFH has become the norm and social media is rife with self-imposed "stay home" content — risk being "social shamed" for posting a story at a bar.
• Corporate Closures: Nike, Lululemon, Apple, Vail Resorts, and other companies closed their businesses from the public before the government mandated them to do so — and Starbucks went takeout-only nationwide before NYC required it.

Like a slasher film... But with interest rates. The Fed's yanked out all the stops in its financial medicine arsenal. On March 3, the nation's central bank doled out the first emergency rate cut since the '08 financial crisis. On Sunday, it cut interest rates to near 0% and announced it's dropping $700B on long-term bonds. Here's what the Fed wants:

• Interest rates to fall: So that you'll spend on stocks/stuff and take out loans rather than hoarding your money in an interest-bearing savings account, bonds, or under mattresses.... So it lowered rates to almost 0%.
• More money to flow: So that banks have enough to give/lend to you (so that you can spend).... So it's dropping $700B to buy Treasury and mortgage-backed securities, which flushes the financial system with more freshly printed cash for banks.
• More cash = less demand for cash = lower interest rates to borrow cash = more loans. That last one could save struggling companies and help kickstart an economic recovery.

But the Fed is fighting a different beast... The COVID-19 pandemic. It's trying to prevent the virus from causing a financial crisis — but investors are looking for medical solutions, not monetary ones.

Wait, he said what?... Alphabet's reaction to Friday's press conference when President Trump talked up Project Baseline, Google's initiative to point people who are COVID-19-worried in the right direction. With the President's public support and the Google parent's huge tech and financial resources, Project Baseline could be big for diagnosing COVID-19:

• The company: Verily is Alphabet's life sciences "Other Bet." It was created in Google's X Lab as a moonshot/save-the-world project. Now, it gets its big moment.
• The goal: Screen people for COVID-19 by asking about symptoms, then pointing them in the right direction. If one user says "I have a belly ache," Project Baseline says it's not COVID-19. If another says "I have a fever and cough," it might suggest a local testing facility.
• The catch: You need to login with a Google account and agree to share your data.
• BTW: This only launched for the Bay Area yesterday — they'll need to increase capacity before expanding (not taking more appointments for now).

In South Korea and China, the authorities have apps tracking infected people... Verily isn't proposing that, but it insists on being able to share your data with authorities. Claaaassic Privacy vs. Security tradeoff. Giving Google your health data may seem scary, but letting COVID-19 spread is scarier.