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> Half the country is out of work It is clearly not, otherwise that 4.8% would be a much bigger number. Hyperbole doesn't help here. No one claims things are

> Half the country is out of work It is clearly not, otherwise that 4.8% would be a much bigger number. Hyperbole doesn't help here. No one claims things are good. A global pandemic is a disaster any way you cut it. We're all affected, some much more than others, and we all have to help. But there's no magic wand we can wave where we all go back to work, either. Even "essential" industries are affected. Very few people want to go to a crowded restaurant or theater right now, lockdown rules or no. Almost no one wants to travel on an airplane. That's just not coming back until we get the disease under control, and releasing lockdowns pushes that date farther into the future. Remember the disease is disruptive all by itself. We have something like 25% of the nation's pork butchering capacity off line right now, not due to lockdowns (obviously they were "essential") but due to actual outbreaks. And that's what we should expect everywhere we permit commerce: random, uncontained, very disruptive outbreaks. There's no magic. This sucks. But we have to work together to fix it, and harping about only one side of the problem hurts and doesn't help.

BoiledCabbage 7y ago
> It is clearly not, otherwise that 4.8% would be a much bigger number. Hyperbole doesn't help here. Uh buddy, you know the first quarter is January, Feb, March right? The country was in shutdown mode for maybe half of March at most. Extrapolate that out to the full quarter (ie multiply 5% by 6) and you get a 30% drop. And on top of that, in March many businesses were still trying to partially pay or at least remain in business on paper. That's all done, plus now we start getting secondary effects. The Administration's mismanaging of this situation is one of the single most costly screw ups in our country's history.
throwphoton 7y ago
> But we have to work together to fix it What, concretely, does this mean, especially if creditors are pressuring people to return to work to keep up with their payments, and returning to work is a public and personal health hazard?
kevingadd 7y ago
The Market does not scale directly off unemployment numbers. Depending on how the GDP is being calculated here, it could be over-valuing certain fields and that would bias the shrinkage in one direction or another - for example, the tech industry is more likely to be able to work from home, so those businesses are still mostly operating, and tech is also a high-profit-low-cost industry that isn't as dependent on having supply chain stuff (like factories and warehouses) as other industries are. High unemployment in tech or finance would potentially drop GDP much more than high unemployment in low-income fields would, even though low-income workers are often VERY important - nurses on the front lines right now don't bring in big money, neither do people staffing grocery stores or fulfillment warehouses.

BoiledCabbage 7y ago

> It is clearly not, otherwise that 4.8% would be a much bigger number. Hyperbole doesn't help here. Uh buddy, you know the first quarter is January, Feb, March right? The country was in shutdown mode for maybe half of March at most. Extrapolate that out to the full quarter (ie multiply 5% by 6) and you get a 30% drop. And on top of that, in March many businesses were still trying to partially pay or at least remain in business on paper. That's all done, plus now we start getting secondary effects. The Administration's mismanaging of this situation is one of the single most costly screw ups in our country's history.

throwphoton 7y ago

> But we have to work together to fix it What, concretely, does this mean, especially if creditors are pressuring people to return to work to keep up with their payments, and returning to work is a public and personal health hazard?

kevingadd 7y ago

The Market does not scale directly off unemployment numbers. Depending on how the GDP is being calculated here, it could be over-valuing certain fields and that would bias the shrinkage in one direction or another - for example, the tech industry is more likely to be able to work from home, so those businesses are still mostly operating, and tech is also a high-profit-low-cost industry that isn't as dependent on having supply chain stuff (like factories and warehouses) as other industries are. High unemployment in tech or finance would potentially drop GDP much more than high unemployment in low-income fields would, even though low-income workers are often VERY important - nurses on the front lines right now don't bring in big money, neither do people staffing grocery stores or fulfillment warehouses.