5 ms·

People are acting as though we're going back to a pre-industrial economy with this. It's not true. The power isn't going out. The water will continue to come ou

People are acting as though we're going back to a pre-industrial economy with this. It's not true. The power isn't going out. The water will continue to come out of the tap. So my suggestion short term is: learn to cook if you don't know how to. Not fancy, haute cuisine, but how to take whatever's in the pantry and make something tasty out of it. Learn how to grow some produce in small spaces, even if it's just herbs. Learn how to not spend money. How to reduce your energy and water usage. How to do basic repairs and projects yourself. What you have to buy in a time of logistical disruption is time. If you can increase the time you can be without income from a month to four months or from six months to two years, that is a remarkable difference in your resilience.

rolph 7y ago
there is disproportionality in the works. senior positions that require many years of experience for entrancy due to the nature of the job may suddenly go vacant with noone to fill them. when older people, {people who understand how to retool and operate a VLSI plant for example, people who are ATCs or surgeons} die and there is only a pool of young inexperience to draw from we will have to make do without some of these things, change laws to allow reduced qualifications, and or accept things like nuclear accidents as a learning curve until we have experienced people ,[after the replacements make time in]
- ethbro 7y ago
  > change laws to allow reduced qualifications Wouldn't be the worst side effect. Nice to occasionally snap things back, then more restrictions can be put in place again if warranted.
spookybones 7y ago
I'm am really trying to determine whether or not this will be the next great depression.
- pbourke 7y ago
  Yes, but perhaps not in the way that you might think. There were a number of structural factors that led to the great depression: gold standard currency and restrictive monetary policy at the Fed, overly restrictive tariff laws, simultaneous drought that destroyed a lot of farmland, rampant financial fraud, lack of deposit insurance at banks causing numerous bank runs and failures. Basically all of the above is different now. The modern Fed is organized around preventing the monetary mistakes made during the depression. We are on purely fiat currency now, not the volatile gold standard. Food security is hugely increased, and restrictive tariffs have not impacted the ag industry of Canada and Mexico, which are key supports of the US's food supply chain. We have the FDIC for deposit insurance and increased post-Great Recession capital controls on systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). We have also learned from the Roosevelt interventions of the 1930's that it requires both a strong monetary and fiscal policy to address a systemic shock to the economy. So it might take some time for stimulus to arrive, but it should be incoming. Finally, we have the internet. Not to oversell it, but it's a significant asset that can ensure a degree of continuity of supplies, services and employment in an event such as this. Yes - it's not perfect and many necessary jobs can not be done over the internet. But it's better than the alternative. So, my feeling is that we are heading into the most significant non-wartime economic event since the great depression, but if cards are played properly we should be able to mitigate the terrible effects to a much better degree than was possible in the 1930's.
  - wayne_skylar 7y ago
    Without knowing as much about the topic I really feel the same way too. This pandemic might take a "long" time but it will end and we will find ourselves with the same knowhow and infrastructure that we had going in. Surely things will get shaken up but there is a strong desire to go back to life as it was before. It's mostly a question of how that happens.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      The biggest consequence will be creating two tracks of people: those who immediately lost their job, and those who could work remotely. 3+ months of earning is non-trivial, and they'll never get them back. Hopefully any stimulus will be aimed at recently un- or under-employed folks. If I, as a working software developer, end up getting a check... the system is seriously unfair.
nickriebe 7y ago
love this, thank you
pbourke 7y ago
I second learning to cook - it’s a skill valuable in good times and bad and really helps you to eat cheaply and healthily if you are mindful of your ingredients. There are tons of helpful videos to get you started. I recommend Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen on YouTube
- ethbro 7y ago
  Also, I've never met a partner who doesn't appreciate it! And in terms of amortizing time spent learning, it's hard to beat getting better at something you do every day. Sometimes multiple times!
  - mars4rp 7y ago
    My partner's cooking is so good that restaurants food taste like paper to me. It has its downsides as well, I am eating much more and gained weight and getting into diet is hard.
ogn3rd 7y ago
learn to grow lettuce/greens (chard, kale, etc), it's super cheap, needs almost no fertilizer and can be done in 6 weeks. You cut it and it comes back in another few weeks. $15.00 worth of seeds from a place like Johnny's will last a year or more.
quickthrower2 7y ago
Lentils. Just boil them in water with a stock cube. Done
- shoo 7y ago
  you can get pretty far by stir frying onion/garlic/chili, then adding in some more diced veg and/or a tin of beans or tuna or tomato or something. add a side of whatever else you've got. rice, pasta, boiled eggs. gourmet cooking it is not, but cheap and easy and often tasty

rolph 7y ago

there is disproportionality in the works. senior positions that require many years of experience for entrancy due to the nature of the job may suddenly go vacant with noone to fill them. when older people, {people who understand how to retool and operate a VLSI plant for example, people who are ATCs or surgeons} die and there is only a pool of young inexperience to draw from we will have to make do without some of these things, change laws to allow reduced qualifications, and or accept things like nuclear accidents as a learning curve until we have experienced people ,[after the replacements make time in]

ethbro 7y ago
> change laws to allow reduced qualifications Wouldn't be the worst side effect. Nice to occasionally snap things back, then more restrictions can be put in place again if warranted.

spookybones 7y ago

I'm am really trying to determine whether or not this will be the next great depression.

pbourke 7y ago
Yes, but perhaps not in the way that you might think. There were a number of structural factors that led to the great depression: gold standard currency and restrictive monetary policy at the Fed, overly restrictive tariff laws, simultaneous drought that destroyed a lot of farmland, rampant financial fraud, lack of deposit insurance at banks causing numerous bank runs and failures. Basically all of the above is different now. The modern Fed is organized around preventing the monetary mistakes made during the depression. We are on purely fiat currency now, not the volatile gold standard. Food security is hugely increased, and restrictive tariffs have not impacted the ag industry of Canada and Mexico, which are key supports of the US's food supply chain. We have the FDIC for deposit insurance and increased post-Great Recession capital controls on systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). We have also learned from the Roosevelt interventions of the 1930's that it requires both a strong monetary and fiscal policy to address a systemic shock to the economy. So it might take some time for stimulus to arrive, but it should be incoming. Finally, we have the internet. Not to oversell it, but it's a significant asset that can ensure a degree of continuity of supplies, services and employment in an event such as this. Yes - it's not perfect and many necessary jobs can not be done over the internet. But it's better than the alternative. So, my feeling is that we are heading into the most significant non-wartime economic event since the great depression, but if cards are played properly we should be able to mitigate the terrible effects to a much better degree than was possible in the 1930's.
- wayne_skylar 7y ago
  Without knowing as much about the topic I really feel the same way too. This pandemic might take a "long" time but it will end and we will find ourselves with the same knowhow and infrastructure that we had going in. Surely things will get shaken up but there is a strong desire to go back to life as it was before. It's mostly a question of how that happens.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    The biggest consequence will be creating two tracks of people: those who immediately lost their job, and those who could work remotely. 3+ months of earning is non-trivial, and they'll never get them back. Hopefully any stimulus will be aimed at recently un- or under-employed folks. If I, as a working software developer, end up getting a check... the system is seriously unfair.

nickriebe 7y ago

love this, thank you

pbourke 7y ago

I second learning to cook - it’s a skill valuable in good times and bad and really helps you to eat cheaply and healthily if you are mindful of your ingredients. There are tons of helpful videos to get you started. I recommend Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen on YouTube

ethbro 7y ago
Also, I've never met a partner who doesn't appreciate it! And in terms of amortizing time spent learning, it's hard to beat getting better at something you do every day. Sometimes multiple times!
- mars4rp 7y ago
  My partner's cooking is so good that restaurants food taste like paper to me. It has its downsides as well, I am eating much more and gained weight and getting into diet is hard.

ogn3rd 7y ago

learn to grow lettuce/greens (chard, kale, etc), it's super cheap, needs almost no fertilizer and can be done in 6 weeks. You cut it and it comes back in another few weeks. $15.00 worth of seeds from a place like Johnny's will last a year or more.

quickthrower2 7y ago

Lentils. Just boil them in water with a stock cube. Done

shoo 7y ago
you can get pretty far by stir frying onion/garlic/chili, then adding in some more diced veg and/or a tin of beans or tuna or tomato or something. add a side of whatever else you've got. rice, pasta, boiled eggs. gourmet cooking it is not, but cheap and easy and often tasty