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In a country with a functioning government and economy, the entire nation would mobilize and respond to the health crisis intelligently and with the advice of h
by csb6 7y ago
In a country with a functioning government and economy, the entire nation would mobilize and respond to the health crisis intelligently and with the advice of health experts. The U.S. government delayed doing so for fear of making the stock market go down, and in fact several U.S. senators used their briefings to reallocate their investments in remote work companies, much like the advice in the article, rather than preparing a response to help their constituents.
Would people not panic buy toilet paper in a functioning economy? They probably still would, but the response wouldn’t be “how can we get the Dow Jones average up” it would be “how can we save people’s lives.” This is the moral and necessary thing a functioning society would try to do.
- duxup 7y ago> The U.S. government delayed doing so for fear of making the stock market go down I suspect it is more that the leadership in the White House is simply incompetent. If they believed the threat was real it doesn't take more than a few days to dump your stocks and then take action, not months. I don't really buy that narrative. As for mobilizing to produce a thing, I'm not sure that's a thing anyone is automatically good at. The history of nations trying to mobilize to do a thing that isn't their core competency is one of high efficiency and costs.
- marcinzm 7y ago>In a country with a functioning government and economy, the entire nation would mobilize and respond to the health crisis intelligently and with the advice of health experts. That's got little to do with government or economy but rather with culture. South Korea and Japan reacted decently well due to a collectivist culture. Countries with more independence driven cultures did less well as everyone went out for themselves.