No shows

Re: No shows

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Good! That'll leave more stuff to buy next year!!!

[and more people to buy it]

Re: No shows

johannaj

I wish there would be one within reasonable driving distance (200 miles). I would love to go to one.

Re: No shows

Michael van pelt

Mark this is how I make my living as well as many others. The Woodworking Show people are kind of family. Unfortunately I do not believe that the show can survive this.

Re: Shows

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Michael,

I fully understand your dilemma. Millions of people are either out of work or have suffered loss of their small businesses because of the Covid virus, not to mention defaults on mortgages and other loans. We've not seen lines for food assistance like the current situation since the bread lines and soup kitchens of the Great Depression. It is not your fault, but even with great care, group gatherings such as the wood shows become super-spreader events of the disease that has and will take so many innocent lives in such a short time, and the numbers are skyrocketing.

Seems like a very long time ago that my Dad told me "Get a law degree and you'll always have a job." Well, my business is off by more than 90%. My son and daughter, both single parents with kids, are facing the prospect of unemployment as the companies they work for are near closure and bankruptcy. I am truly thankful that what I've put away over the years allows me to soften the impact on them even though I'm not allowed to see, let alone hug, my grandkids other than by facetime.

Better with a warm hand than a cold one.

We can but pray that the vaccines get to us in time and that we can begin to rebuild our lives and those near us in need.

Shows

Tom Colligan

Amen, Mark, and well said.

Re: Shows

Michael van pelt

The hard part Is that the ones controlling and manipulating my life, aka politicians, have not missed a check!

Tough all Over

John Foster

I am the president of my local agricultural society , our annual fair is our biggest event and biggest fundraiser, there are other small events in the community throughout the year. We had no fair last year and it looks grim for 2021. We are getting slowly bled on insurance, property upkeep, utilities etc. . We still have some reserves, I know that some other fairs are on the verge of collapse, many who are well into their second century of community service. I met with the directors of our local Kinsmen/Kinette/Kin club ( a Canadian Service club ) last night, we work with them on some community activities. They said some of their clubs are barely hanging on.

A lot of fairs, craft shows, Christmas markets are venues for craftspeople to show or sell their wares, and very few are happening. My deceased mother was an accomplished quilter, the way she sold was basically to enter shows and hopefully get a few ribbons, and then wait for the phone to ring for to either get a custom request or make a deal on the shown item. I am sure a lot of people here depend on events like these.

Local sports leagues, historical societies, seniors groups are also hurting badly. I am a heathen amongst the sheep spiritually in my community, but I see all the good that the local congregations normally do and it hurts to see them suffer. My biggest hope is that when this current COVID-19 situation is under control that people will emerge from under their rocks and go to the fair, go to church, join a club, take up a team sport again etc. etc. etc.

Depends on where you live

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Here in E TN you would hardly know there was a pandemic. Our unemployment rate is approximately normal, and help wanted signs are common. Highschool football games are in the playoff stage with attendance, cheerleaders and bands. Restaurant parking lots full Friday night. Construction is booming. School schedules, however, are chaos. Our largely hands-off government is advertising safe behavior on TV but letting people decide how to respond. Needless to say, response varies.

The price we are paying is a higher infection rate than close by Virginia where there are more restrictions. The reality is that restrictions delay the day when enough people have been infected to reach herd immunity, but not the number required. Absent the intervention of a vaccine the pandemic only ends when most everyone is exposed, one way, or time, or another.

S Shows

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Michael,

I would truly love to respond, but politics (and religion) are, for very good reason, not allowed here on WoodCentral.

Do your best to keep yourself and those you know safe.

I know this, too, will pass. Do what you can to have it pass you by.

Re: Depends?

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

You've lost more than 5,000 of your fellow Tennesseans, Bill.

Don't make the mistake of thinking you're safe. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

The greatest Generation

John Foster

I thought it was ironic that on Remembrance Day ( USA: Veteran's Day) we recognized the last of the Greatest Generation and called them national treasures; the next day the debate resumed about the damage to the economy that was happening and how most of the victims of COVID-19 were "going to die in the next few years anyway"

Sorry if That Was Political

Re: Depends?

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

If you read what I actually wrote you will see that we are all equivalently unsafe, absent a vaccine. We have less restrictions and our infection rate is higher than places that have more restrictions. However, places with restrictions delay the inevitable, unless you get vaccinated. It is way beyond my pay scale to tell someone how to balance risk and the reward of a near normal life. I can control my choices.

I may in fact be safe. I am one of the volunteers that got a vaccine proven in record time. Some of the record time was a result of the large number of people in the trail that resulted in the ability to determine efficacy and safety in a short time. I was vaccinated with Pfizer placebo or vaccine in September with the hope I would draw a winning number. But, I don't know which group I am in, yet. Expect to next week.

Since the start I have stayed abreast of what is known about transmission and live my life accordingly. Because I don't know what group I am in I have had only limited contact with anyone indoors and never without a genuine 3M N95 mask. Anything less is somewhere between risky and useless. Others have made different risk reward choices and in cases had the choices made for them.

Herd immunity

Jack Dover

... is a complicated matter though. A prominent example is Sweden. It didn't lock down, so by certain assumptions they would be either at full or pretty close to herd immunity, right? In fact they're having it almost as bad as we are.

The nature of this disease is complex, there isn't even a consensus among scientists as to what it does to a carrier and whether there's any sort of sustained immunity from it. There's a growing evidence that even an asymptomatic case inflicts a heavy and long term damage to a body and its systems. With this little knowledge any action that's not directed toward avoidance is really playing a lottery. I personally don't want to play this lottery, 'cos prizes are really stupid.

side comment

David Weaver

I could never be a lawyer - my math and verbal skills are so lopsided that I literally couldn't even do the routine work and appreciate the attorneys that I work with on a day to day basis as they're sometimes both math and verbal and if not, we fit together like puzzle pieces.

What strikes me is that just about everything that's "great to get into" now is more competitive and the field is loaded with new graduates. When I first started working, the attorneys that I knew kind of had an unspoken deal. They would get out of school and work at a large lawfirm, give up quite some time, but build toward one of two options:

1) gain experience, progress, work toward partner

2) gain experience, progress, and then leave for a smaller practice and give up some of the revenue in exchange for a more predictable lifestyle (I guess if you're a partner at a law firm, your lifestyle is pretty predictable. Work. Develop business. Work. Develop business).

About a decade ago I read an article that more or less said "for the first time, new law graduates are taking lower starting salaries and sometimes going without a job offer".

(by that, they were talking about law graduates from prestigious schools) .

As you say, the only thing you can really do is live at a level where you can put some aside rather than being overconfident and assuming the revenue stream will only go up.

I heard this rationale for mortgages years ago. "the average mortgage 60 years ago was 2x annual earnings, and it has crept to 7-11", and the advice given along with that was "since your earnings will be rising, then some pressure at the beginning of the mortgage is not that big of a deal - the payment will become relatively less"

(and don't forget to put two cars on loan and maybe run a little credit card debt until you get your bonus...don't worry, your earnings will be going up. And pay off your student loans as slow as possible, because the rate is low and you can write off the interest).

Where that goes wrong (I've been fortunate so far, too) is folks who get out of school with a lot of debt and the earnings start low and don't materialize. I feel for those folks in this economy - especially people who have taken risks to start a business and provide jobs for others. )

I'd guess that a lot of these businesses are going to default, but the demand will be there when things return. The businesses meeting it just may not be the same ones.

I believe they and everyone else...

David Weaver

..were really betting long term that there would be no viable vaccine or strategy that worked, and gradually they'd get herd immunity.

It takes a long time to get there, though, when you can't have more than a couple of % of the population infected without overwhelming ICUs.

I've never felt like their strategy was unreasonable, it's a bet they were willing to take on. If the vaccines do pretty much create herd immunity, it will look like it was a bad strategy. If they don't, it'll look like maybe it wasn't. The odds look more and more against them every day.

Re: Shows

Mark Nowicki

There are sectors of the economy that are doing well in my next in the woods.

Got a call from my local City Hall employee (salary, pension plan heavily invested in my pocket, etc.) My dog license has expired and CDN$25 was overdue.

Our city Recreation Director has collected her full salary and pension points without any recreating going on, unless you count a "Stay Home" message on an electronic

bulletin board as working.

Airlines, hotels, restaurants, gyms; that is another story.

Last I Read

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

For the US to get close to "HI" 80% of the population would need to get infected. With the mortality rate of Covid at 2% that translates to 6,000,000 DEAD.

So let's go folks, who's gonna take it for the good of the country?

Mark...

John in NM

No one here is advocating that.

This is becoming exceedingly tiresome.

The missing calculus...

Jim Matthews

In the projected loss of 6 million - how many are nurses, doctors, firefighters and farmers?

I expect the approach to this changed when serious people finally explained it wasn't just killing off Veterans. When it dawned on leadership that it takes 16 years to produce a physician, 8-12 to produce a competent Nurse, and there won't be a harvest to feed the Firefighters - they noticed the risk of having a National house fire.

****

I would not take seriously any lessons from small Nations that have homogenous populations - nor would I bet against Americans.

Agreed. But

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

"Tired" is not a luxury we can still afford.

heh..

John in NM

You mistake me. I was not referring to the pandemic or any of the efforts made to minimize it's effects, or even the reasonable discussion of the merits and flaws of those various efforts.

Understood

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

But there's so very much misleading "misinformation" circulating, I think we all need to make an effort wherever and whenever it pops up. No telling how many people that idiot Atlas killed with his BS.

Nope, I don't think you understood at all....

John in NM

But enough is enough.

I see nothing at all wrong with the discussion. Not my business though, I'll simply try to do a bit better at minding my business in the future.