Even in areas where they are opening up, people aren’t in any hurry to travel unnecessarily, be in crowds, go to restaurants, etc. Covid’s effect on the economy is going to be devastating no matter what the official policy is.
Interesting that you have changed the topic. This is indicative of a broad problem that I am observing: nobody wants to discuss economic consequences and even mentioning this will result in either very heavy down-voting or outright deplatforming[1].
My question is rather specific to how long the economy can last while held in lockdown and whether the Times has ever reported such concerns.
The economy does things like bring us food and pay for the health care that is supposed to save us from the virus. Without the economy, we don't have food and we don't have health care.
If some percentage of the population is actively blocked from having jobs while having no income, no government subsidies, and no savings, then "civil unrest" becomes reality. This is historically true.
[1] If you think that discussion of the economy is somehow a hidden message about 5G, anti-vaxx, NWO, etc., then you really need to take some time to learn economics, and I would also suggest some critical thinking, philosophy, and reading comprehension review.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/business/economy/coronavi...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/business/coronavirus-econ...
are two examples.
I also don't see any mention of the myriad studies published demonstrating how mortality rates increase in many different ways during periods of economic decline.
I suspect that's exactly the mechanism, which someone described very well here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23081538
This is a false and a simple google search would have proved it (as another poster did). It sounds like you have a predetermined bias. Maybe take your own advice on some of the suggestions you have for other people?
Mentioning how the economy provides healthcare and food kind of undermines your point as those things were never shut down.
This perfectly demonstrates my point.
Those things cannot make up the entire economy because people end up starving to death. Thus, at some point there is no other option but to reopen.
It is notable how you reinterpret my comment:
> The economy does things like bring us food and pay for the health care that is supposed to save us from the virus. Without the economy, we don't have food and we don't have health care.
You also seem to ignore other parts:
> If some percentage of the population is actively blocked from having jobs while having no income, no government subsidies, and no savings, then "civil unrest" becomes reality. This is historically true.
There are essential parts of the economy and non-essential parts of the economy and they can certainly exist without each other. In fact, they did when society’s first formed. Then, they focused on a different level of the hierarchy of needs but it was still an economy. Food was produced and houses were built before cars, cell phones, and video streaming ever existed.
I skipped the last part because while it is true that those things lead to “civil unrest”, you haven’t proved that we meet your own conditionals. What is “some percentage”? What is “actively blocked”?
For example, I see government subsidies all over the place. To the tune of $2 trillion so far with almost certainly more to come.
> There are essential parts of the economy and non-essential parts of the economy and they can certainly exist without each other. In fact, they did when society’s first formed. Then, they focused on a different level of the hierarchy of needs but it was still an economy. Food was produced and houses were built before cars, cell phones, and video streaming ever existed.
> I skipped the last part because while it is true that those things lead to “civil unrest”, you haven’t proved that we meet your own conditionals. What is “some percentage”? What is “actively blocked”?
> For example, I see government subsidies all over the place. To the tune of $2 trillion so far with almost certainly more to come.
You have demonstrated a very poor understanding of economics. Chiefly, you appear to believe you understand everything in the economy since you feel some parts of the economy may be declared as essential or non-essential. This differentiation is impossible, best demonstrated in the I, Pencil[1] essay by Leonard Reed. The economy is more complex than anyone can comprehend.
As far as ancient man, you can, at this moment, give up all the luxuries of modern life and live in the mountains, but if everyone did that there would not be enough food.
The people currently forced out of work were producing things that increased our standard living and contributed to the wealth of civilization. This wealth makes its way, through various and complex ways, to nearly every corner of the economy. You will not be able to be certain there is enough food production or adequate health care without these people taking a part in the productive economy. The longer we go with parts the economy locked down, the more likely that very serious problems arise, such as empty grocery store shelves and hospital closures.
The government subsidies to retail consumers will result in increased consumer price inflation. This was last experienced in the U.S. in the 70s as a result of the "guns and butter" policies of the 60s, which the butter being what lead to the consumer price inflation. The same inflation has not arrived now because the increase in the money supply has been in financial instruments, which causes other problems but hasn't appreciably increased consumer price inflation.
Once higher rates (say, >10%) of consumer price inflation get going, it becomes extremely difficult to arrest. The usual way this is managed is either by increasing interest through Federal Reserve policies, which peaked at around 20% to take care of the inflation of the 70s, or through hyperinflation followed by the issuance of a new currency, which occurs after the value of every single asset has been completely wiped out, with examples if you want to know more being Weimar Republic Germany or Revolutionary War Continental Dollar. Note that interest rates held at less than 3% are still yielding percent of national budget in service to debt at I believe 5%, so if we have the problem of consumer price inflation hitting higher interest rates, the percentage in service to the debt is going to go up very quickly, though not instantly because the bonds have to expire.
Also of note is that a lot of people are complaining that the checks from the government are not arriving, as was popularly demonstrated in a recent clip of New York Governor Cuomo attempting to respond to a reporter asking him about what people who have not received their checks should do. New York is not the only state where there are reports of this problem.
You'll find plenty of discussion of economic issues on right of center forums, with the same sort of downvoting for concerns about opening up resulting in too many cases for healthcare systems to handle. Ditto that it may be wise to limit the total number of people who get it prior to our finding out if we can develop a vaccine for it.
Wat? https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=tr... No shortage of threads centered around lockdown economy. Not to mention guerrilla subthreads.
Great. I can see why any comment of a person asking to discuss this should be met with so many downvotes they'll get throttled, while everybody else demonstrates their ongoing inability to discuss it, pointing at non-discussions as proof it's been discussed so extensively.
9 days ago, "71 Percent of jobless Americans did not recieve their March unemployment benefit" received 24 comments. Twentyfour! Oh well, I guess the meat is in all those "guerilla subthreads" then.
* U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession
* Coronavirus-afflicted global economy is almost certainly in recession
* Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy
* Covid-19: Impact on business sectors and the economy
* Germany's Covid-19 expert: 'For many, I'm the evil guy crippling the economy'
* US factory orders plunge 14.4% as economy grinds to halt
* US GDP shrank 4.8% in Q1 as the coronavirus dragged the economy into recession
* JPMorgan-economy contracting by 40% in second quarter, unemployment reaching 20%
* Coronavirus Ravages China’s Economy–and It’s Just Getting Started
* Trump faces 'biggest decision' on re-opening economy
* Ray Dalio: What coronavirus means for the global economy
* To save the US economy, policymakers need to understand small business 101
Three things:
1. What you find interesting might not interest others; if you want to force a discussion on someone, call a hotline;
2. The comment wouldn’t have been heavily downvoted if it weren’t written in this “I’m woke and you sheeple aren’t” tone. (I didn’t even downvote that one for the record.)
3. Vote swings are a thing.
Also, just for your info, “so many downvotes...” a comment can be downvoted five times before it’s dead, so any non-dead comment hasn’t attracted a lot of downvotes. “They’ll get throttled” that’s nonsense, throttling is based on thread depth and comment frequency, not votes.
"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."
Downvoting without argument is the equivalent of calling names, so the answer is no.
> if you want to force a discussion on someone, call a hotline;
Who wants to "force a discussion"? Why do people who don't want to discuss something get to punish those who do? And how is what I quoted not blatant violation of the guidelines?
> The comment wouldn’t have been heavily downvoted if it weren’t written in this “I’m woke and you sheeple aren’t” tone.
The tone is in your reading. Also, you don't know why people downvote, you're simply claiming it. So after you say I shouldn't "break the guidelines by talking about downvotes", you then proceed to talk about downvotes, while claiming things you have no basis for, something I didn't do nor would do, because I don't need to.