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A staggering number, and unprecedented in the modern era. I'm not in the US or an America, but my (retired), Father is and for the sake of the people around hi

A staggering number, and unprecedented in the modern era. I'm not in the US or an America, but my (retired), Father is and for the sake of the people around him and his family I hope this is the point where the American political system - and Republicans in particular - realise that their ideologies are dead. In the UK we saw an Old-Etonian Tory Prime Minister in the space of a couple of weeks: - Effectively nationalise a huge chunk of private industry by offering to subsidise 80% of all salaries up to £30k/year - Delay tax payments for businesses, and offer up to 15% of GDP in loans and grants to help keep them alive - Renationalise the train industry (privatising it and others was a hallmark of Thatcher's period in power) - Accept that their planned immigration policy post-Brexit is now probably dead in the water because who knew that "low skilled workers" like cleaners and agricultural workers would be useful? - Severely curtail free movement and enterprise by shutting every pub, restaurant, cinema, theatre and cafe across the UK as well as almost every shop that isn't a pharmacy or food shop - Become champion supporters of an NHS they were - until recently - trying to sell bit off of Politics here has changed forever, and likely for the better (assuming the sanctions on free movement and enterprise are temporary and not a back door for more draconian measures). For the sake of the most vulnerable in America, I hope it's the same there too. And maybe - just maybe - it's time everybody took another look at the UBI debate, again.

shripadk 7y ago
> And maybe - just maybe - it's time everybody took another look at the UBI debate, again. Doesn't UBI directly result in inflation and cause currency devaluation? If the money that you hold loses its value (because everyone has at the very least the same amount of money as a basic, consistent income) then it is worth nothing in the end. It is as good as having no money in my humble opinion. Money has to be valuable for it to be useful in trade. Giving away money to everyone devalues the currency.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  You would have to implement it in a way that redistributed wealth, i.e. increase marginal tax rates. The goal is to make sure everyone is housed, fed, and educated. One option is to just give them housing, food, and education. Another is to give people money and let them choose. Yet another is to loan the money and to put them in debt forever.
  - _curious_ 7y ago
    The goal is to make sure everyone is housed, fed, and educated. One option is to just give them housing, food, and education. Another is to give people money and let them choose. Yet another is to loan the money and to put them in debt forever. It's a noble goal. What about exercising the option of personal responsibility and agency of choice? (D) none of the above.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      What about it? From what I can tell, people would rather choose to live in countries where there is some social contract regarding a minimum quality of life rather than Somalia.
- sneeze-slayer 7y ago
  Here is a pretty good article that assumes that you have zero knowledge and talks about how UBI could be implemented without any more inflation than we already have. https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7 https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-...
- wmeredith 7y ago
  You should read Utopia for Realists: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316471917 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316471917 It addresses a lot of concerns about UBI in a very accessible way. UBI isn't a new concept and it has been well studied. (It was almost implemented in the USA as a more streamlined alternative to the byzantine welfare state, but the Democrats sunk it.
- charlesu 7y ago
  UBI redistributes money. The total amount in circulation doesn't change. So the deflation argument really comes down to: if everyone has money, no one has money. I don't think that's the case. Even in the unrealistic case where we all have the same amount of money, we wouldn't spend it on the same things and that fact alone is a moderating force on inflation. Prices reflect people's ability and willingness to pay. In cases where we are forced to buy the same things, like housing, healthcare, and education, prices are out of control anyway.
- mindslight 7y ago
  Yes, but nowhere near the amount of inflation caused by allowing Wall Street and consumer banks to create trillions of new dollars with artificially low interest rates. Plus if we had more price inflation on consumer goods it might actually reign in the Fed, and make them stop ignoring the ongoing rampant price inflation for assets.
mtberatwork 7y ago
I would like to be optimistic and think we all learn valuable lessons from this but realistically most people will just double-down in their convictions and blame some other externality as to why their own political/economic ideologies didn't pan out.
- brobdingnagians 7y ago
  We haven't yet seen the full effects of the current political shift or of the measures being taken. It may be premature to believe we know all of the lessons that are to be learned from this, or even that the ones we believe we are learning are grounded in data. Hindsight will make all of this much more clear.
  - komali2 7y ago
    But politics is nothing if not consistent - who was blamed and who was punished for the 2008 financial crisis? Don't be rational when you answer that question. Remember back to what Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnel were saying, and remember that people believed them.
- chadmeister 7y ago
  Looking like you are right about this. Approval ratings are up somehow: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
  - devmunchies 7y ago
    >somehow because this is seen as an external threat and not an internal blunder. Similar to 9/11. Countrymen tend to band together and support the leader when faced with a crisis, regardless of the leader.
    - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
      What is particularly infuriating is this specific leader made it much worse by doing things like closing the pandemic response team a couple years ago and calling it a big Democratic hoax until recently. TBH, it's very difficult to look at that 538 chart and not come to the conclusion that a large portion of Americans are idiots. And I'm not even talking about whether or not they support Trump, I'm talking about how it is quite clear they are not able to make logical inferences of true cause and effect (e.g. what Trump is possibly responsible for and what he's not), instead they are just like reeds in the wind blowing whichever way their TV sets or friends tell them.
martinald 7y ago
Minor point - Rail industry was privatised by John Major. Thatcher was against or at least indifferent to privatising it.
wmeredith 7y ago
> and Republicans in particular - realise that their ideologies are dead Good luck. Their base doesn't care. I was speaking with my father a couple days ago, who is a US Board-Certified surgeon and ran his own practice for 40 years. He's a smart guy, but firmly lives in the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh bubble. He was saying how he was hoping this crisis would put the final nail in the coffin ... for the corrupt democrats. It's insanity.
- itgoon 7y ago
  They're both right. Neither the Republicans or Democrats will be able to conduct business as usual going forward.
- yks 7y ago
  what is the reasoning (genuinely curious). Are democrats somehow failing America re: COVID-19?
  - verify_sirrah 7y ago
    I believe many are upset over them temporarily blocking the stimulus bill.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    Not Democrats as a whole. Nancy Pelosi and one or two other congress people in particular. As I understand it from various sources spanning the political spectrum, both the Republicans and Democrats that were in Washington DC had productive bipartisan talks over the weekend and had largely hashed out a bill that both sides agreed on. Then Nancy Pelosi flew back from California and injected several additional things into the bill that were highly partisan and permanent fixtures aligned with policy Democrats had been pushing pre-crisis. This act by Pelosi derailed partisan efforts. Liberal media lauded these additions. Conservative media condemned them. Anything that is added that gets opposite reception by partisan media is pretty much the definition of partisan. Any bill that is a response to a crisis should short and specific to the crisis at hand with no permanent changes to how business is conducted long term. Politicians taking advantage of a crisis is how we get disastrous policy like the Patriot Act, no-fly lists and FISA courts. Any long term policy changes should be debated and decided upon months and years after the crisis has been averted.
sago 7y ago
Sadly I think the effect might be the opposite. The massive financial hardship seems poised for a backlash where a group promoting 'economy above all else' will gain the support of millions who feel their financial future has been unfairly taken. I see little threads fraying already. I have heard even normally fairly left-leaning people saying variations of 'this will kill more people from poverty'.
- steveeq1 7y ago
  What if that ends up being true?
  - vharuck 7y ago
    It might be. But I think the takeaway from "we either let people die from the virus or die from slipping in our economy" should be "let's have an economy that's more robust to disasters."
    - steveeq1 7y ago
      That's a straw-man argument that no reasonable would disagree with.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      How do you have an economy that's more robust against disasters? The economy is built on work. If people aren't working then there's no economy. The only way around it is production by robots.
  - sago 7y ago
    I think that's also a worrying possibility. It might be true. Whether or not you think 'left-leaning' is the correct ideology, I would expect more left-leaning people to reject the 'either-or'. But to think that the government should be enacting policies to avoid casualties from both disease and poverty, not choosing one or the other. I.e. distributing the financial damage across everyone in proportion to their existing affluence.
gadders 7y ago
>> - Become champion supporters of an NHS they were - until recently - trying to sell bit off of No evidence for this whatsoever, but is just the usual Labour dog-whistle claim against every Tory govenment.
9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
> Politics here has changed forever Unlikely. I think we'll be back to business as usual (at least on the political side) within a year of the end of the pandemic. I'm also afraid that this is going to be a major setback not just for Europe but globalization in general, which will leave us all worse off in the long run.
- wyclif 7y ago
  On the contrary, setbacks for globalization may very well leave us better off...after all, globalization is one of the main factors why we're experiencing this deadly pandemic now, and have vast swathes of our supply chain for essential pharmaceuticals and medical equipment farmed out to evil, duplicitous regimes like the Chinese state.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    Us = the world/humanity, not the USA. China's economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions from poverty, and it would not have happened without globalization.
    - wyclif 7y ago
      Eh, I was speaking of the world. China lied about the coronavirus right from the beginning, when having two weeks of lead time worldwide could have saved thousands of lives. They arrested, silenced, and probably killed the doctors who blew the whistle on the cover-up. These are facts, not conjecture.
      - danans 7y ago
        > our supply chain for essential pharmaceuticals and medical equipment farmed out to evil, duplicitous regimes like the Chinese state. There's a legitimate discussion to be had about medical equipment supply chains, but describing China this way does a huge disservice to that discussion. > They ... probably killed the doctors who blew the whistle on the cover-up. These are facts, not conjecture. That's literally an example of conjecture.
switch007 7y ago
> - Renationalise the train industry That's not quite what's happening. https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/uk-train-operators-offered-management-contracts-or-nationalisation/56083.article https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/uk-train-operators-offered...
TMWNN 7y ago
>- Become champion supporters of an NHS they were - until recently - trying to sell bit off of Private Eye on "24 Hours to Save the NHS https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/833654730849136641 https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/833654730849136641
string 7y ago
Can you keep the comments like this on Reddit and away from HN, please? For the non-UK users reading this: almost all of the bullet pointed statements are either incorrect or exaggerated.
- PaulRobinson 7y ago
  [citation needed]
  - marvin 7y ago
    Well, now I'm confused. One of you is wrong. Who is it?
  - 7777fps 7y ago
    Here's just one: Thatcher wasn't in power when British Rail was privatised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail It's one of the few industries she didn't privatise.
  - onepointsixC 7y ago
    You're talking about the comment which made claims without citations, right? That is, your own comment.
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    "Citations for thee, but not for me"
j4kp07 7y ago
> Republicans in particular It was the Democrats that held this up for carbon emmission and diversity standards and to game the upcoming elections in November. > I'm not in the US or an American... Of course.
simonswords82 7y ago
Hi Paul, epic post - and so true. I was watching CNN last night with my Canadian wife (I'm English) and I couldn't believe the BS being thrown around when all we really want to see from the USA is concrete action like what many other nations including the UK has achieved. Saw your tweet about boycotting companies btw, you'll like this: http://www.whencovidisover.co.uk/ http://www.whencovidisover.co.uk/

shripadk 7y ago

> And maybe - just maybe - it's time everybody took another look at the UBI debate, again. Doesn't UBI directly result in inflation and cause currency devaluation? If the money that you hold loses its value (because everyone has at the very least the same amount of money as a basic, consistent income) then it is worth nothing in the end. It is as good as having no money in my humble opinion. Money has to be valuable for it to be useful in trade. Giving away money to everyone devalues the currency.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
You would have to implement it in a way that redistributed wealth, i.e. increase marginal tax rates. The goal is to make sure everyone is housed, fed, and educated. One option is to just give them housing, food, and education. Another is to give people money and let them choose. Yet another is to loan the money and to put them in debt forever.
- _curious_ 7y ago
  The goal is to make sure everyone is housed, fed, and educated. One option is to just give them housing, food, and education. Another is to give people money and let them choose. Yet another is to loan the money and to put them in debt forever. It's a noble goal. What about exercising the option of personal responsibility and agency of choice? (D) none of the above.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    What about it? From what I can tell, people would rather choose to live in countries where there is some social contract regarding a minimum quality of life rather than Somalia.
sneeze-slayer 7y ago
Here is a pretty good article that assumes that you have zero knowledge and talks about how UBI could be implemented without any more inflation than we already have. https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7 https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-...
wmeredith 7y ago
You should read Utopia for Realists: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316471917 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316471917 It addresses a lot of concerns about UBI in a very accessible way. UBI isn't a new concept and it has been well studied. (It was almost implemented in the USA as a more streamlined alternative to the byzantine welfare state, but the Democrats sunk it.
charlesu 7y ago
UBI redistributes money. The total amount in circulation doesn't change. So the deflation argument really comes down to: if everyone has money, no one has money. I don't think that's the case. Even in the unrealistic case where we all have the same amount of money, we wouldn't spend it on the same things and that fact alone is a moderating force on inflation. Prices reflect people's ability and willingness to pay. In cases where we are forced to buy the same things, like housing, healthcare, and education, prices are out of control anyway.
mindslight 7y ago
Yes, but nowhere near the amount of inflation caused by allowing Wall Street and consumer banks to create trillions of new dollars with artificially low interest rates. Plus if we had more price inflation on consumer goods it might actually reign in the Fed, and make them stop ignoring the ongoing rampant price inflation for assets.

mtberatwork 7y ago

I would like to be optimistic and think we all learn valuable lessons from this but realistically most people will just double-down in their convictions and blame some other externality as to why their own political/economic ideologies didn't pan out.

brobdingnagians 7y ago
We haven't yet seen the full effects of the current political shift or of the measures being taken. It may be premature to believe we know all of the lessons that are to be learned from this, or even that the ones we believe we are learning are grounded in data. Hindsight will make all of this much more clear.
- komali2 7y ago
  But politics is nothing if not consistent - who was blamed and who was punished for the 2008 financial crisis? Don't be rational when you answer that question. Remember back to what Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnel were saying, and remember that people believed them.
chadmeister 7y ago
Looking like you are right about this. Approval ratings are up somehow: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
- devmunchies 7y ago
  >somehow because this is seen as an external threat and not an internal blunder. Similar to 9/11. Countrymen tend to band together and support the leader when faced with a crisis, regardless of the leader.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    What is particularly infuriating is this specific leader made it much worse by doing things like closing the pandemic response team a couple years ago and calling it a big Democratic hoax until recently. TBH, it's very difficult to look at that 538 chart and not come to the conclusion that a large portion of Americans are idiots. And I'm not even talking about whether or not they support Trump, I'm talking about how it is quite clear they are not able to make logical inferences of true cause and effect (e.g. what Trump is possibly responsible for and what he's not), instead they are just like reeds in the wind blowing whichever way their TV sets or friends tell them.

martinald 7y ago

Minor point - Rail industry was privatised by John Major. Thatcher was against or at least indifferent to privatising it.

wmeredith 7y ago

> and Republicans in particular - realise that their ideologies are dead Good luck. Their base doesn't care. I was speaking with my father a couple days ago, who is a US Board-Certified surgeon and ran his own practice for 40 years. He's a smart guy, but firmly lives in the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh bubble. He was saying how he was hoping this crisis would put the final nail in the coffin ... for the corrupt democrats. It's insanity.

itgoon 7y ago
They're both right. Neither the Republicans or Democrats will be able to conduct business as usual going forward.
yks 7y ago
what is the reasoning (genuinely curious). Are democrats somehow failing America re: COVID-19?
- verify_sirrah 7y ago
  I believe many are upset over them temporarily blocking the stimulus bill.
- malandrew 7y ago
  Not Democrats as a whole. Nancy Pelosi and one or two other congress people in particular. As I understand it from various sources spanning the political spectrum, both the Republicans and Democrats that were in Washington DC had productive bipartisan talks over the weekend and had largely hashed out a bill that both sides agreed on. Then Nancy Pelosi flew back from California and injected several additional things into the bill that were highly partisan and permanent fixtures aligned with policy Democrats had been pushing pre-crisis. This act by Pelosi derailed partisan efforts. Liberal media lauded these additions. Conservative media condemned them. Anything that is added that gets opposite reception by partisan media is pretty much the definition of partisan. Any bill that is a response to a crisis should short and specific to the crisis at hand with no permanent changes to how business is conducted long term. Politicians taking advantage of a crisis is how we get disastrous policy like the Patriot Act, no-fly lists and FISA courts. Any long term policy changes should be debated and decided upon months and years after the crisis has been averted.

sago 7y ago

Sadly I think the effect might be the opposite. The massive financial hardship seems poised for a backlash where a group promoting 'economy above all else' will gain the support of millions who feel their financial future has been unfairly taken. I see little threads fraying already. I have heard even normally fairly left-leaning people saying variations of 'this will kill more people from poverty'.

steveeq1 7y ago
What if that ends up being true?
- vharuck 7y ago
  It might be. But I think the takeaway from "we either let people die from the virus or die from slipping in our economy" should be "let's have an economy that's more robust to disasters."
  - steveeq1 7y ago
    That's a straw-man argument that no reasonable would disagree with.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    How do you have an economy that's more robust against disasters? The economy is built on work. If people aren't working then there's no economy. The only way around it is production by robots.
- sago 7y ago
  I think that's also a worrying possibility. It might be true. Whether or not you think 'left-leaning' is the correct ideology, I would expect more left-leaning people to reject the 'either-or'. But to think that the government should be enacting policies to avoid casualties from both disease and poverty, not choosing one or the other. I.e. distributing the financial damage across everyone in proportion to their existing affluence.

gadders 7y ago

>> - Become champion supporters of an NHS they were - until recently - trying to sell bit off of No evidence for this whatsoever, but is just the usual Labour dog-whistle claim against every Tory govenment.

9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago

> Politics here has changed forever Unlikely. I think we'll be back to business as usual (at least on the political side) within a year of the end of the pandemic. I'm also afraid that this is going to be a major setback not just for Europe but globalization in general, which will leave us all worse off in the long run.

wyclif 7y ago
On the contrary, setbacks for globalization may very well leave us better off...after all, globalization is one of the main factors why we're experiencing this deadly pandemic now, and have vast swathes of our supply chain for essential pharmaceuticals and medical equipment farmed out to evil, duplicitous regimes like the Chinese state.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Us = the world/humanity, not the USA. China's economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions from poverty, and it would not have happened without globalization.
  - wyclif 7y ago
    Eh, I was speaking of the world. China lied about the coronavirus right from the beginning, when having two weeks of lead time worldwide could have saved thousands of lives. They arrested, silenced, and probably killed the doctors who blew the whistle on the cover-up. These are facts, not conjecture.
    - danans 7y ago
      > our supply chain for essential pharmaceuticals and medical equipment farmed out to evil, duplicitous regimes like the Chinese state. There's a legitimate discussion to be had about medical equipment supply chains, but describing China this way does a huge disservice to that discussion. > They ... probably killed the doctors who blew the whistle on the cover-up. These are facts, not conjecture. That's literally an example of conjecture.

switch007 7y ago

> - Renationalise the train industry That's not quite what's happening. https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/uk-train-operators-offered-management-contracts-or-nationalisation/56083.article https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/uk-train-operators-offered...

TMWNN 7y ago

>- Become champion supporters of an NHS they were - until recently - trying to sell bit off of Private Eye on "24 Hours to Save the NHS https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/833654730849136641 https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/833654730849136641

string 7y ago

Can you keep the comments like this on Reddit and away from HN, please? For the non-UK users reading this: almost all of the bullet pointed statements are either incorrect or exaggerated.

PaulRobinson 7y ago
[citation needed]
- marvin 7y ago
  Well, now I'm confused. One of you is wrong. Who is it?
- 7777fps 7y ago
  Here's just one: Thatcher wasn't in power when British Rail was privatised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail It's one of the few industries she didn't privatise.
- onepointsixC 7y ago
  You're talking about the comment which made claims without citations, right? That is, your own comment.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  "Citations for thee, but not for me"

j4kp07 7y ago

> Republicans in particular It was the Democrats that held this up for carbon emmission and diversity standards and to game the upcoming elections in November. > I'm not in the US or an American... Of course.

simonswords82 7y ago

Hi Paul, epic post - and so true. I was watching CNN last night with my Canadian wife (I'm English) and I couldn't believe the BS being thrown around when all we really want to see from the USA is concrete action like what many other nations including the UK has achieved. Saw your tweet about boycotting companies btw, you'll like this: http://www.whencovidisover.co.uk/ http://www.whencovidisover.co.uk/