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Post by Cornflake on Apr 16, 2020 10:02:04 GMT -5
"I should be amazed, but sadly, I'm not. The ease at which Americans have forfeited their rights for the sake of an ephemeral goal ("ephemeral" is being kind) of flattening a China virus curve is disheartening."
Evan, I guess it looks that way to some, but not everyone's experience is the same. My son worked in restaurant supply at the airport. When people worried about traveling, demand evaporated and he was indefinitely furloughed before we had any stay-home order. He won't work there again until people feel safe traveling. It's a matter of reduced demand, not government action.
One daughter's workplace was closed by the employer, not the government, because there was no practical way to maintain a safe workplace. She is working from home but the work can't really be done that way and her job security looks iffy.
Luckily, my other daughter has a recession-proof job that can just as easily be done at home, and that's what she's doing.
From our discussions, they all think the best way for them to keep their jobs or get them back is to get the virus under reasonable control. That's not everyone's situation. Some people can probably go back to work sooner. Great. We all want people to get back to work as soon as they reasonably can.
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Post by epaul on Apr 16, 2020 10:58:25 GMT -5
I'm not anxious to get back to work.
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Post by fauxmaha on Apr 16, 2020 10:59:22 GMT -5
It's worse than that. The claim of moral superiority evident in those who simply cannot conceive that collapsing the economy may be a greater risk to health and life than the virus -- won't even entertain the thought of a point of view counter to their own while they live in the comfort of their retirement villas with their six and seven figure bank accounts and retirement checks and comfortable lives as long as everyone else accepts making no money at all, loses their businesses, loses their homes, loses their jobs. not. even. the. HINT. of sympathy -- in fact cheering with GLEE at every drop in the stock market because TRUMP will look bad -- that to save all those in the lap of comfort but at health risk, we are being asked to lose our businesses, our homes, our jobs, fall headlong into an economic collapse from which we might not recover in our lifetimes. want to work for a living? How could you BE so selfish?! You bastard! The tune will change quickly when all that money isn't good for anything. We take for granted that we can convert money into the things we want, with nary a thought that the money doesn't create those things. People create those things. And somehow in that confusion and lack of understanding, it doesn't occur that the true cost of hundreds of millions (billions?) of people across the world sitting at home isn't the income they aren't bringing in, it is in the things that are no longer getting done. A bunch of work was happening three months ago, but isn't happening today. There will be a reckoning.
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Post by millring on Apr 16, 2020 11:26:00 GMT -5
It's worse than that. The claim of moral superiority evident in those who simply cannot conceive that collapsing the economy may be a greater risk to health and life than the virus -- won't even entertain the thought of a point of view counter to their own while they live in the comfort of their retirement villas with their six and seven figure bank accounts and retirement checks and comfortable lives as long as everyone else accepts making no money at all, loses their businesses, loses their homes, loses their jobs. not. even. the. HINT. of sympathy -- in fact cheering with GLEE at every drop in the stock market because TRUMP will look bad -- that to save all those in the lap of comfort but at health risk, we are being asked to lose our businesses, our homes, our jobs, fall headlong into an economic collapse from which we might not recover in our lifetimes. want to work for a living? How could you BE so selfish?! You bastard! The tune will change quickly when all that money isn't good for anything. We take for granted that we can convert money into the things we want, with nary a thought that the money doesn't create those things. People create those things. And somehow in that confusion and lack of understanding, it doesn't occur that the true cost of hundreds of millions (billions?) of people across the world sitting at home isn't the income they aren't bringing in, it is in the things that are no longer getting done. A bunch of work was happening three months ago, but isn't happening today. There will be a reckoning. I didn't want to get too deep in the woods with it, but you're exactly right. And when a majority of Americans are under the impression that money is the same thing as productivity, and that economies are merely a central government distributing limited resources fairly, it's going to take some time for reality to catch up.
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Post by Marshall on Apr 16, 2020 12:06:54 GMT -5
The tune will change quickly when all that money isn't good for anything. We take for granted that we can convert money into the things we want, with nary a thought that the money doesn't create those things. People create those things. And somehow in that confusion and lack of understanding, it doesn't occur that the true cost of hundreds of millions (billions?) of people across the world sitting at home isn't the income they aren't bringing in, it is in the things that are no longer getting done. A bunch of work was happening three months ago, but isn't happening today. There will be a reckoning. Yeah that worries me. It's all unfathomable when extrapolated out. Here's hoping we return to some approximation of normalcy soon enough to stabilize things. My son-in-law working for the high-ed food service industry is having a TOUGH time. There's talk that universities won't open for a whole year. - YEOW
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Post by millring on Apr 16, 2020 12:22:19 GMT -5
Clay companies that potters depend on for supplies also depend on schools to remain viable. Schools close, clay suppliers close, potters close.
But still, bastards for wanting to work, right? Still bastards protecting our stock investments, right?
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 16, 2020 12:27:20 GMT -5
Most people will go back to work when they feel safe. Some people can be driven to risk serious sickness because they're one paycheck from actual, operational poverty. Some people feel safe in the face of evidence to the contrary. Some people minimize the dangers of transmitting as well as catching the disease.
Reasons to minimize physical interactions: asymptomatic/presymptomatic shedding; community transmission; rates, modes, and degrees of infection. Evidence for all these mechanisms (all part of standard epidemiology and public-health management) is developing as data-gathering and research into the specifics of the virus's behavior proceeds.
The calculus is this: What is the effect on the economy if enough people get sick enough to cripple productive and distributive systems? What cost in mortality is low enough to just let market forces and individual choice govern the course of the disease through the population?
It seems clear that the early minimizing take--"it's no worse than the flu"--is not accurate. The seasonal flu does not overwhelm the health-care system. You don't see bodies being stored in reefer trucks in NYC, nor do you see front-line health-care workers sickening and dying in any normal flu season. (And the effects of seasonal flu are mitigated by immunization and established treatment regimens.)
On the other hand, despite problems caused by a somewhat under-prepared healthcare system (thin inventories of supplies, just-in-time supply chains), we have analytical and productive capacities that should allow us to deal with Covid in ways that were not possible during the 1918 flu pandemic. But while we are bringing those capabilities to bear, the most effective preventitives are "social"--that is to mimimize contacts. While we test and contact-trace and map the distribution and courses of symptoms, so that we know exactly what we are dealing with from a virological and epidemiological point of view.
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 16, 2020 12:51:12 GMT -5
John, every new term, fall and spring, Cezarija gets some flavor of respiratory infection from her students. It sometimes turns into bronchitis, and last year it turned into pneumomia. This is not some idiosyncratic response of one old woman--it's a fact of life for teachers. (Beware third-graders especially.) And that's just the common-cold/student-crud viruses that we all encounter to some degree everywhere.
Covid is lethal (insert arguments about relative lethality of flu, Norovirus, etc. here), and precisely because early indications are that it can overwhelm healthcare systems and the economic infrastructures of which they are a part, you can choose your economic poison: let the virus cripple productive systems or shut enough machinery down in an attempt to slow its spread--in the hope that some kind of mitigation will allow a return to functionality.
That is the epidemiology half of the response. The other half is government/financial-sector action to minimize immediate economic damage: loans, giveways, debt forgiveness--a worker/consumer-centric version of the half-assed response to the financial meltdown that kicked off the Great Recession.
But while that is going on, somebody has to ride herd on the front-line attack on the virus itself--deploy testing, make sense of the results, determine where and how productive machinery can be kept operational while large-scale solutions get worked out.
Something like this was inevitable--the whole planet is one big petrie dish, and public-policy and -preparedness officials ought to have been aware of it. Actually, some were, but their efforts got pushed aside.
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Post by Cornflake on Apr 16, 2020 12:59:16 GMT -5
I'd add a note to your comment, Russell. Even if people feel safe going back to work, or even if they're willing to run some additional risk out of necessity, they can't go back to work for an employer who can't stay in business. I was looking on figures about purchases in the last month. Basically, demand remains high for necessities and it has dropped for everything else. Not very surprising. But if you're selling a good or service that nobody's buying at the moment, you're not going to be doing much hiring.
Our basic problem is that demand for a lot of things went through the floor. Market forces did that and I don't think any government policy can fix it in a hurry. I think it's going to be bad for quite a while no matter what policy we adopt. On my pessimistic days I think we won't begin to emerge from this mess until a vaccine is developed.
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Post by billhammond on Apr 16, 2020 13:00:04 GMT -5
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Post by millring on Apr 16, 2020 13:06:00 GMT -5
Then we're never going to have an economy. If our baseline is that unless everyone lives, nobody should live, then we're going to wait until there is a vaccine for this virus. And if we're lucky we won't be coming up with that vaccine two months into the shutdown for the next virus for which we will wait on a vaccine that will come two months into the shutdown for the next virus for which we will be waiting on a vaccine that will arrive two months into the shutdown for the new virus for which we will have to wait for a vaccine until we can do anything.
It's life vs life. Somewhere, somewhen, somebody is going to have to produce something to care for us all while we wait, huddled in our safehouses tossing vulgar expletives at them for daring to work.
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Post by fauxmaha on Apr 16, 2020 13:28:58 GMT -5
Weird how effortlessly we've gone from "flatten the curve so hospitals aren't overwhelmed" to "no one is going back to work until a vaccine/cure is at hand".
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Post by aquaduct on Apr 16, 2020 13:37:16 GMT -5
Weird how effortlessly we've gone from "flatten the curve so hospitals aren't overwhelmed" to "no one is going back to work until a vaccine/cure is at hand". Weird for you maybe. More like expected for me.
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Post by Cornflake on Apr 16, 2020 13:37:51 GMT -5
"Weird how effortlessly we've gone from 'flatten the curve so hospitals aren't overwhelmed' to 'no one is going back to work until a vaccine/cure is at hand'."
I didn't say that no one is going back to work until a vaccine is at hand, Jeff. I don't know who the "we" is who has made that journey because for all I know I may be the only person in the world to hold the view I articulated. And while I don't hold the second view you identify, what I did say is not inconsistent with wanting to flatten the curve.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 20,337
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Post by Dub on Apr 16, 2020 13:49:28 GMT -5
Some people seem really upset. Reading their signs they’re evidently trying to make America grate.
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 16, 2020 13:49:48 GMT -5
Weird how effortlessly we've gone from "flatten the curve so hospitals aren't overwhelmed" to "no one is going back to work until a vaccine/cure is at hand". I'd admire to see an example of that. And John, "If our baseline is that unless everyone lives, nobody should live" is a prodigious If. And again, an example of someone in a position of authority promoting that "baseline" would be appreciated. (Your If is your only peacemaker; much virtue in If.)
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Post by aquaduct on Apr 16, 2020 14:00:37 GMT -5
Weird how effortlessly we've gone from "flatten the curve so hospitals aren't overwhelmed" to "no one is going back to work until a vaccine/cure is at hand". I'd admire to see an example of that. And John, "If our baseline is that unless everyone lives, nobody should live" is a prodigious If. And again, an example of someone in a position of authority promoting that "baseline" would be appreciated. (Your If is your only peacemaker; much virtue in If.) Start with Governors Whitmer and Northam.
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Post by aquaduct on Apr 16, 2020 14:02:23 GMT -5
Some people seem really upset. Reading their signs they’re evidently trying to make America grate. View AttachmentI think that's Lansing. Mock at your own peril.
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Post by billhammond on Apr 16, 2020 14:10:31 GMT -5
Some people seem really upset. Reading their signs they’re evidently trying to make America grate. View AttachmentI think that's Lansing. You basing that on the apostrophe?
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 20,337
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Post by Dub on Apr 16, 2020 14:11:53 GMT -5
You basing that on the apostrophe? Yup.
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