4 ms·

There's no centralized system to do this. Everything relies on thousands of little trading businesses. Those businesses are now closed. It will take at best a c

There's no centralized system to do this. Everything relies on thousands of little trading businesses. Those businesses are now closed. It will take at best a couple of months to get a different system in place. If that system gets rolled out, the US as the country is over because it is an admission that the US is not capable of maintaining it's existing economic system.

vkou 7y ago
All the groceries are currently open. All the farms are currently working, minus migrant labourers, because we would rather have crops rot in the field, than let them into the country. All the truckers are currently hauling. The only part of the distribution system that isn't working very well because of the shutdown is the part that distributes dollars. Any service disruptions right now are not due to the shutdown - they are due to the actual effects of the virus. Look at the MTA. Half of its employees are sick, and the other half have called in sick. Train service has been reduced, and passengers are now packed like sardines in a can on the trains that are still running. Look at the supply chain disruptions - they aren't caused by people being stopped from coming in to work - they are because people can't, or are afraid to come into work. As well they should be, given the state of healthcare in this country. Who is going to pay for their care if they are one of the 20% that need hospitalization after catching it?
- notyourday 7y ago
  > All the groceries are currently open. That's a talking point. Chinatown grocery stores are mostly closed in both Manhattan and Queens. Patels is closed everywhere. Edit: Downvotes don't protect from reality https://www.patelbros.com/coronavirus https://www.patelbros.com/coronavirus
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Enough grocery stores are still open, and grocery delivery services are doing roaring business. We're not remotely (yet?) at risk of people starving from inability to obtain food.
    - notyourday 7y ago
      Non-gigantic grocery stores are going to start closing because contrary to the official positions logistics is broken. Smaller grocery stores have very small margins and operate on COD basis. A friend of mine owns one. His distributors raised prices between 10-50% across the board and removed all the incentives. He does not have enough money to stock up at the new price points so he is slowing the buys, cleaning out inventory and is going to close unless the social distancing goes away by the end of the month. Anecdotally, other small supermarket operators are thinking about doing the same. Effective grocery store prices are 2x - all of the sales have been removed. Eggs in Queens went from $1.69/dozen to $7.99 a dozen. $1200 tax credit for 2020 ( this is what it actually is ) is nothing for people who live and support high cost areas which are the people who allow for the white collar jobs to exist.
      - vkou 7y ago
        Are those logistics broken because the government shut the logistics operators down, or because people running them have fallen ill, or are afraid of falling ill? Every state with shutdown orders considers logistics essential services. Nobody but the virus is preventing the people working in them from going to work. I'll repeat it: Nobody working in food production and distribution is forbidden from going to work. If prices are rising, it has nothing to do with the shutdown, and everything to do with the fact that there's a global pandemic... Which will be made worse if lift the shutdown orders. Are you planning on ordering these people back to work at gunpoint, to lower the price of eggs? Or are you going to instead, consider extending a short-term loan, so that the grocer can absorb the price hike? The number of hens laying eggs hasn't changed over the past four weeks.
        notyourday 7y ago
        You keep repeating talking points from TV. > I'll repeat it: Nobody working in food production and distribution is forbidden from going to work. That is not the message that is being repeated on TV and on the news. The message is "stay home. if you are close to people you are going to be infected and die. stay home". The message is not "Stay home unless you work in list in blah blah blah. Also, unless you have comorbidity such as diabetes, heart disease, compromised lunges you are going to be fine". If you keep repeating that people are going to die, people are going to believe you even though the number of people who are going to die that do not have comorbidity factors have a very low risk. That's how you destroy logistic. Right now Amazon, objectively a logistics company, has an equivalent of the ground hold on all non-essentials. I cannot get a frying pan delivered until April 24th. > I'll repeat it: Nobody working in food production and distribution is forbidden from going to work. We are at 10% of seasonal flu death numbers heading head first into a wall.
- ryanobjc 7y ago
  Yes, the issue is becoming dollars. There are programs in place that seek to do this. Specifically "food stamps" -> the latest bill funds these a lot more. But due to years of people handwringing over abuse, and "economists" encouraging thrift, the process to get food stamps isn't speedy, it's state-by-state, and now it's overwhelmed. Due to the general anthemia among the GOP for welfare type programs, different states are going to see different levels of urgency with boosting the food stamp programs. It's much the same as how some GOP led states refused the medicaid expansion that was part of the ACA. Hopefully this will reveal new information to voters of those states as they slowly starve and as they realize that certain other states are doing better - what's the difference? Competent governance. You can't buy it, but you can vote for it.
mnm1 7y ago
Of course there is. It's called the National Guard. It's called the US Army, Airforce, and Navy. It's called FEMA. I'm sure there are plenty of other centralized systems with tons of funding ready to do this on a moment's notice. What we don't have is leadership, with an idiot leading this country who said the pandemic is a "hoax."
- notyourday 7y ago
  The optics of the National Guard (read: men with guns) delivering food for months in the entire United States would trigger a nearly immediate break down of economic ties both internally in the US and between the US and the rest of the world
  - vkou 7y ago
    What do you think FEMA does after a hurricane?
    - notyourday 7y ago
      Difference is the orders of magnitude

vkou 7y ago

All the groceries are currently open. All the farms are currently working, minus migrant labourers, because we would rather have crops rot in the field, than let them into the country. All the truckers are currently hauling. The only part of the distribution system that isn't working very well because of the shutdown is the part that distributes dollars. Any service disruptions right now are not due to the shutdown - they are due to the actual effects of the virus. Look at the MTA. Half of its employees are sick, and the other half have called in sick. Train service has been reduced, and passengers are now packed like sardines in a can on the trains that are still running. Look at the supply chain disruptions - they aren't caused by people being stopped from coming in to work - they are because people can't, or are afraid to come into work. As well they should be, given the state of healthcare in this country. Who is going to pay for their care if they are one of the 20% that need hospitalization after catching it?

notyourday 7y ago
> All the groceries are currently open. That's a talking point. Chinatown grocery stores are mostly closed in both Manhattan and Queens. Patels is closed everywhere. Edit: Downvotes don't protect from reality https://www.patelbros.com/coronavirus https://www.patelbros.com/coronavirus
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Enough grocery stores are still open, and grocery delivery services are doing roaring business. We're not remotely (yet?) at risk of people starving from inability to obtain food.
  - notyourday 7y ago
    Non-gigantic grocery stores are going to start closing because contrary to the official positions logistics is broken. Smaller grocery stores have very small margins and operate on COD basis. A friend of mine owns one. His distributors raised prices between 10-50% across the board and removed all the incentives. He does not have enough money to stock up at the new price points so he is slowing the buys, cleaning out inventory and is going to close unless the social distancing goes away by the end of the month. Anecdotally, other small supermarket operators are thinking about doing the same. Effective grocery store prices are 2x - all of the sales have been removed. Eggs in Queens went from $1.69/dozen to $7.99 a dozen. $1200 tax credit for 2020 ( this is what it actually is ) is nothing for people who live and support high cost areas which are the people who allow for the white collar jobs to exist.
    - vkou 7y ago
      Are those logistics broken because the government shut the logistics operators down, or because people running them have fallen ill, or are afraid of falling ill? Every state with shutdown orders considers logistics essential services. Nobody but the virus is preventing the people working in them from going to work. I'll repeat it: Nobody working in food production and distribution is forbidden from going to work. If prices are rising, it has nothing to do with the shutdown, and everything to do with the fact that there's a global pandemic... Which will be made worse if lift the shutdown orders. Are you planning on ordering these people back to work at gunpoint, to lower the price of eggs? Or are you going to instead, consider extending a short-term loan, so that the grocer can absorb the price hike? The number of hens laying eggs hasn't changed over the past four weeks.
      - notyourday 7y ago
        You keep repeating talking points from TV. > I'll repeat it: Nobody working in food production and distribution is forbidden from going to work. That is not the message that is being repeated on TV and on the news. The message is "stay home. if you are close to people you are going to be infected and die. stay home". The message is not "Stay home unless you work in list in blah blah blah. Also, unless you have comorbidity such as diabetes, heart disease, compromised lunges you are going to be fine". If you keep repeating that people are going to die, people are going to believe you even though the number of people who are going to die that do not have comorbidity factors have a very low risk. That's how you destroy logistic. Right now Amazon, objectively a logistics company, has an equivalent of the ground hold on all non-essentials. I cannot get a frying pan delivered until April 24th. > I'll repeat it: Nobody working in food production and distribution is forbidden from going to work. We are at 10% of seasonal flu death numbers heading head first into a wall.
ryanobjc 7y ago
Yes, the issue is becoming dollars. There are programs in place that seek to do this. Specifically "food stamps" -> the latest bill funds these a lot more. But due to years of people handwringing over abuse, and "economists" encouraging thrift, the process to get food stamps isn't speedy, it's state-by-state, and now it's overwhelmed. Due to the general anthemia among the GOP for welfare type programs, different states are going to see different levels of urgency with boosting the food stamp programs. It's much the same as how some GOP led states refused the medicaid expansion that was part of the ACA. Hopefully this will reveal new information to voters of those states as they slowly starve and as they realize that certain other states are doing better - what's the difference? Competent governance. You can't buy it, but you can vote for it.

mnm1 7y ago

Of course there is. It's called the National Guard. It's called the US Army, Airforce, and Navy. It's called FEMA. I'm sure there are plenty of other centralized systems with tons of funding ready to do this on a moment's notice. What we don't have is leadership, with an idiot leading this country who said the pandemic is a "hoax."

notyourday 7y ago
The optics of the National Guard (read: men with guns) delivering food for months in the entire United States would trigger a nearly immediate break down of economic ties both internally in the US and between the US and the rest of the world
- vkou 7y ago
  What do you think FEMA does after a hurricane?
  - notyourday 7y ago
    Difference is the orders of magnitude