4 ms·

FWIW, I will throw in my two cents. This shutdown needs to end immediately. This is absolutely crushing the middle class and the economy. I'd bet that many of

by dmfdmf 7y ago

FWIW, I will throw in my two cents. This shutdown needs to end immediately. This is absolutely crushing the middle class and the economy. I'd bet that many of the small shops and restaurants I used to go to will never reopen. These low-margin businesses cannot cope with a week long closure, let alone four. We are already looking at waves of rent/debt defaults followed by massive layoffs and then a deep recession if not a depression. And if the government's response is unlimited money creation (for the banks or for individuals, it does not matter) then we are looking at a potential monetary or dollar crisis. This decision to shutdown the economy has been made on the misguided assumption that you can save the healthcare system in isolation from the rest of the system of production in which it resides. It is also assuming that saving lives supersedes any other consideration, especially money or economics. We are hearing this now from the media who already pre-attacking Trump for hinting he wants to end the shutdown -- that he is valuing billionaires or dollars over lives. This is shear non-sense and ignores the fact that people are not ghosts, we need to work in order to stay alive and live. I am reading on many forums about people who are about to lose their business that they spent 20 years building or their homes if they cannot get back to work soon. This is not just narrowly about lives lost to the virus but living for everyone. Of course we will do everything reasonable to help the afflicted but shutting down the economy should not be one of them. If you want to still hold to the assumption that only lives matter in this decision then think about this. Think of how many alcoholics will be created or relapse from spending days on end with nothing to do, bored in their home. How many of those will eventually die of alcoholism or kill people with their car? What about anorexics who recover but under quarantine and the anxiety of virus scaremongering relapse and ultimately starve to death? If the economy goes into a recession or depression (a fait accompli in my view) then how many people are going commit suicide which always goes up in bad times? How many people will die in just these three examples 100K, 200K, 1M people? These are not fantasy deaths, it will really happen but they will never be blamed on the shutdown. It is a real hidden cost, as real as those who die from CV19. There are real life-and-death altering consequences beyond just those unfortunate to get this virus.

selimthegrim 7y ago
It's not a question of leftist media. When the Black Death happened, feudalism ended. It's a simple as that. Do you think the virus gives a shit about how highly leveraged our system is?
- dmfdmf 7y ago
  I removed the unnecessary adjective. Thanks.
marcosdumay 7y ago
Will the economy really get completely destroyed after 1 month of public spaces closed? There is not much reason for that. All the same things will be there in 1 month, all the same people will be there too. If the information channel of the economy has such a form that it will kill itself because of a short gap, maybe it's a good time to have a frank conversation about how we replace that imaginary structure.
mindslight 7y ago
> I am reading on many forums about people who are about to lose their business that they spent 20 years building or their homes > We are already looking at waves of rent/debt defaults followed by massive layoffs and then a deep recession if not a depression. And if the government's response is unlimited money creation (for the banks or for individuals, it does not matter) then we are looking at a potential monetary or dollar crisis. We've already been having an ongoing monetary crisis for the past decade, with interest rates being kept artificially low so that The Line will keep going up. Which has continued to shape the economy into a highly leveraged rent treadmill, unable to withstand any interruption. This is going to have to be reckoned with some time. It's suboptimal to do it in a crisis, but the past decade has shown that it certainly won't happen outside of a crisis, so here we are. Direct aid to individuals will be a drop in the bucket compared to the corporate handouts that will inevitably be approved, or to the monetary creation from low interest rates that got us into this jam. And directly compensating for the immediate problem is certainly better than forcing low-negotiating-power workers to expose themselves to a pandemic without so much as a mask, just so they can die on the sidewalk outside of a hospital in a month.
DanBC 7y ago
I don't know much about suicide in the US, but I do know a lot about suicide in the UK. Over here about 6500 people die by suicide each year. This is with the broad definition used in the UK. Let's imagine a massive rise of 20% to give us 7800 deaths next year. It's much harder to get numbers for people who die when eating disorder is the underlying condition. Here's one reliable source. These numbers are likely to be much higher, so let's say the real numbers are ten times what's listed here. That would mean about 200 to 300 people die each year from eating disorder in the UK. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/008099deathsinvolvinganeatingdisorderenglandandwales2001to2016 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... So that's about 8500 per year, if we massive inflate the numbers. The argument goes that covid-19 is about the same as flu. (That's wrong. It kills more people and it hospitalises more people). Flu in the UK kills about 17,000 per year. So, if covid-19 killed half as many people as flu does it overtakes our 8500 deaths to suicide and eating disorder. > but they will never be blamed on the shutdown. I don't know about the US, but in the UK our statisticians are pretty good at pointing to the wider determinants of health. For a while they've been saying that economic downturn in 2007 caused extra death by suicide. > Think of how many alcoholics will be created or relapse from spending days on end with nothing to do, bored in their home. How many of those will eventually die of alcoholism or kill people with their car? What about anorexics who recover but under quarantine and the anxiety of virus scaremongering relapse and ultimately starve to death? Your point here loses direction. You appear to be wanting to count these deaths as shutdown deaths, but definitely not as covid-19 related death. People with substance misused disorders or eating disorder are unable to have face to face meetings because of covid-19.
- totony 7y ago
  I think you are focusing onthe wrong metric. Suicides are generally done by younger people more than they die of flu/covid. The years of life comparison probably is more in favorable to suicide.

by dmfdmf 7y ago

selimthegrim 7y ago

It's not a question of leftist media. When the Black Death happened, feudalism ended. It's a simple as that. Do you think the virus gives a shit about how highly leveraged our system is?

dmfdmf 7y ago
I removed the unnecessary adjective. Thanks.

marcosdumay 7y ago

Will the economy really get completely destroyed after 1 month of public spaces closed? There is not much reason for that. All the same things will be there in 1 month, all the same people will be there too. If the information channel of the economy has such a form that it will kill itself because of a short gap, maybe it's a good time to have a frank conversation about how we replace that imaginary structure.

mindslight 7y ago

> I am reading on many forums about people who are about to lose their business that they spent 20 years building or their homes > We are already looking at waves of rent/debt defaults followed by massive layoffs and then a deep recession if not a depression. And if the government's response is unlimited money creation (for the banks or for individuals, it does not matter) then we are looking at a potential monetary or dollar crisis. We've already been having an ongoing monetary crisis for the past decade, with interest rates being kept artificially low so that The Line will keep going up. Which has continued to shape the economy into a highly leveraged rent treadmill, unable to withstand any interruption. This is going to have to be reckoned with some time. It's suboptimal to do it in a crisis, but the past decade has shown that it certainly won't happen outside of a crisis, so here we are. Direct aid to individuals will be a drop in the bucket compared to the corporate handouts that will inevitably be approved, or to the monetary creation from low interest rates that got us into this jam. And directly compensating for the immediate problem is certainly better than forcing low-negotiating-power workers to expose themselves to a pandemic without so much as a mask, just so they can die on the sidewalk outside of a hospital in a month.

DanBC 7y ago

I don't know much about suicide in the US, but I do know a lot about suicide in the UK. Over here about 6500 people die by suicide each year. This is with the broad definition used in the UK. Let's imagine a massive rise of 20% to give us 7800 deaths next year. It's much harder to get numbers for people who die when eating disorder is the underlying condition. Here's one reliable source. These numbers are likely to be much higher, so let's say the real numbers are ten times what's listed here. That would mean about 200 to 300 people die each year from eating disorder in the UK. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/008099deathsinvolvinganeatingdisorderenglandandwales2001to2016 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... So that's about 8500 per year, if we massive inflate the numbers. The argument goes that covid-19 is about the same as flu. (That's wrong. It kills more people and it hospitalises more people). Flu in the UK kills about 17,000 per year. So, if covid-19 killed half as many people as flu does it overtakes our 8500 deaths to suicide and eating disorder. > but they will never be blamed on the shutdown. I don't know about the US, but in the UK our statisticians are pretty good at pointing to the wider determinants of health. For a while they've been saying that economic downturn in 2007 caused extra death by suicide. > Think of how many alcoholics will be created or relapse from spending days on end with nothing to do, bored in their home. How many of those will eventually die of alcoholism or kill people with their car? What about anorexics who recover but under quarantine and the anxiety of virus scaremongering relapse and ultimately starve to death? Your point here loses direction. You appear to be wanting to count these deaths as shutdown deaths, but definitely not as covid-19 related death. People with substance misused disorders or eating disorder are unable to have face to face meetings because of covid-19.

totony 7y ago
I think you are focusing onthe wrong metric. Suicides are generally done by younger people more than they die of flu/covid. The years of life comparison probably is more in favorable to suicide.