14 ms·

Pyrrhic Victory

185 points by oftenwrong 6y ago

penussies 6y ago
I going to commit suicide. I refuse to work at any pace but my own, and I'll die before I let pieces of shit ride me like a mule and blame me for the labyrinth they drop me in.
roenxi 6y ago
Two parts of this short and powerful piece really leapt out at me: > all under the auspices of a hard line Republican administration > Washington under any administration will have no choice but to bail out all the state and local agencies and every insolvent pension scheme wholesale There are underlying problems being forced to the surface by COVID that go deeper than political parties. Somewhere between the 1970s and 2000s American politicians as a class (and possibly a supermajority of voters too) have accepted that running up debt literally does not matter. The economy is brutal. It is a fabricated social concept built on trust right up until the moment it breaks out into the physical world and things that desperately need to happen stop happening because it doesn't make any economic sense. The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term decisions. Sooner or later, nobody will be left who makes good long term decisions. Such people have been exorcised from the financial industry.
- gold_standard 6y ago
  >Somewhere between the 1970s and 2000s I think you'll find it was precisely 1971.
  - AlexanderDhoore 6y ago
    https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
    - ghj 6y ago
      Some of the arrows are so randomly placed it reminds me of: https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kjh2110/the-10-most-bizarre-correlations https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kjh2110/the-10-most-biz...
      - gassius 6y ago
        They all seems to point to 1971, nothing random about that I understand that correlation != causation, but it also seems obvious that getting out of Bretton Woods has some major impact
      - voldacar 6y ago
        Agreed that many of them are spurious (or the cause of other things that probably have no causal link to Bretton-Woods, such as no-fault divorce or the war on drugs) but there are still a lot that do seem to have a sharp discontinuity at 1971, particularly income vs productivity, and CPI, which is actually a more frightening chart in my opinion
    - pjc50 6y ago
      The "oil crisis" was a couple of years later but could be seen in the production figures from 1971. I find it odd that it's not mentioned. Oil was far more important for the US economic miracle than gold!
      - api 6y ago
        I too have mused endlessly about what happened in the early 1970s. It seems like we really, really went off the rails in so many ways at that time. I love that site for its graph collection but I am not convinced of its hypothesis (nor do I completely dismiss it). The end of super-cheap easy domestic oil has long been my go-to hypothesis for what happened around 1971. Monetary systems and policy are social constructs, but energy is physically fundamental. Everything that has happened since then including reckless monetary policy and wage stagnation could be argued to be symptoms of the rising real cost of energy. By real cost of energy I mean physics, EROEI. Wage stagnation happens because without super cheap energy the actual physical cost of providing increasing living standards to a huge number of people become too high. Even if they live lavishly, a smaller number of rich people don't consume nearly as much energy as a huge number of middle class people. As a result the rich are not affected. Reckless financial and monetary policies can be explained by politicians who don't understand physics trying to get the magic unicorns to come back. If either solar/wind + batteries or some form of nuclear power can be made to scale well enough, we may see a return to the post-war era. Otherwise we will not, and returning to the gold standard (or Bitcoin) won't make much difference. I'm pretty optimistic about renewable power. I glance at this every once in a while: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx During the day California often runs on >50% solar/wind. Two decades ago that was a small single digit percentage. It's pretty spectacular. If we can scale storage similarly and then if the costs of both continue to fall for a while due to industrial scaling of production, we could be back to the 50s but with a renewable instead of non-renewable basis. A fusion breakthrough or finally figuring out how to safely and sustainably scale fission would have a similar outcome. BTW: I also wonder if you can explain the Chinese miracle in energy terms. China just decided to chase growth and fuck the environment, so they went wild with cheap coal. The magic was not only using cheap coal but doing so with no scrubbers (which consume a surprising amount of power) and no other energetically costly environmental controls to speak of, maximizing physical EROEI. They lifted vast numbers of people to middle class status and became a superpower at the cost of accelerating climate change and air that burns your eyes.
  - annoyingnoob 6y ago
    I think History has shown that Nixon was a bad president on many levels.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Well yeah I think even I bought into it at some point. The line would go "as long as our debt to GDP ratio stays relatively steady, we'll be ok"...but what happens if another great depression happens and the growth dips 10-15% and flat lines from there? Then your debt will grow faster than your GDP and eventually it will crush the economy. All the uncomfortable conversations about complex trade-offs and budget cuts have got to occur and nobody is wanting to have that convo. I think it started in the 60s with the Vietnam War, the Space program and Johnson's great society programs. And then Nixon took us off the gold peg, and we were free to print as much as we wanted. MMT is pretty scary to me. It's never really been tested long term at scale and mainly exists as a theory. But I know that's the end game for the Fed and that's the trajectory we're on.
  - RobertoG 6y ago
    The public debt is just the accumulate of past deficits. If the Fed is owning the debt you are paying interest to yourself. The only risk is inflation and this is not something to be worried at the moment. MMT is only a description of how the systems work. But if by "test it", you mean that the Central Bank is backing the public debt, Japan have been doing for, at least, twenty years.
  - joejerryronnie 6y ago
    Why do you think we maintain the world’s largest military by orders of magnitude?
- averros 6y ago
  Economy is NOT a social construct, fabricated or not. Economic laws are direct consequences of physical laws (i.e. scarcity is the result of Fermi statistics which makes material things to take space and of the no-cloning theorem which means the material things cannot just pop into existence because somebody wished them), or otherwise rather tautological mathematical statements (for example the first welfare theorem or the law of comparative advantage). Economy doesn't require humanity or consciousness to exist, it's a resource allocation and optimization algorithm. So is political means of acquiring wealth - this is known as intra-species aggression and is common to all social species; this is another, older, and less efficient, algorithm for resource allocation. Basically, every time politicians and their enforcers barge in to "fix" things they break the efficient algorithm (aka "market economy") to replace it with the older one (aka "the biggest ape gets to boss others around"). And, yes, it doesn't make any economic sense. "Bailouts" are nothing more than taking from many people by force and giving to few politically-connected ones. It's just indirect form of force: instead of simply looting, they print more money - but everybody else is prevented by force by doing the same, so they have no choice but to see the value of their money to decline and be transferred to the recipients of new money.
  - crocal 6y ago
    I have to disagree. Economy is the interface between producers and consumers of resources. It’s big time a social construct, and therefore the subject of political action. Importantly, the idea that state intervention is bad for the economy as a universal rule is simply wrong. In the long run, history clearly teaches that mixed economy work (e.g. a la Keynes), while laissez-faire (e.g. a la Friedman) or centralized economies (e.g. a la Communist) don’t. Striking the right mix requires society input in the form of political debate. We desperately need this to happen now in the West. While I have nothing about Jeff Bezos as a person, but billionaires simply should not be allowed to exist. They are the symptom of a « Laissez Faire » system in terminal state.
    - JackFr 6y ago
      Jeff Bezos became a billionaire by making the lives of Amazon’s customers better. Sam Walton did more to improve the lot of poor families than most government programs. (Those guys at least built something. Why does no one complain about America’s grandpa Warren Buffett. He just shuffled around money, plays with warrants and options (while telling others not to) and makes a couple hundred million by going to Congress and talking his book. )
- pjc50 6y ago
  > running up debt literally does not matter. The creditors don't seem to mind it either, happily buying hundred-year bonds with near-zero interest rates. Also remember that every "saving" is also a "debt" on the other side of somebody's ledger. Quite a lot of that corporate and government debt is "savings"; $270 billion of it is owed to Apple alone. http://thewire.fiig.com.au/article/2018/04/24/how-apple-invests-its-$270bn-cash-stockpile http://thewire.fiig.com.au/article/2018/04/24/how-apple-inve... > The economy is brutal. It is a fabricated social concept built on trust right up until the moment it breaks out into the physical world and things that desperately need to happen stop happening because it doesn't make any economic sense. This was one of the questions that Keynes explored - how it is possible to have productive capacity idle because there isn't enough credit for people to buy the products. It's also the idea behind a lot of the "green new deal" schemes; do things that need to be done but don't offer a specific return, but benefit society and the planet as a whole. > The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term decisions How, exactly? What "long term decisions" would not have been worse off if the 2008 bailouts hadn't been made and a large chunk of Western retail banking had gone insolvent, tying up accounts until it could have been resolved? There is an important difference between "this business is no longer viable", and "this business is perfectly viable in the future but is experiencing a temporary shock which its cashflow and trade credit cannot cover".
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    There's a difference between the world as we know it cannot exist without banks as we know them,and banks cannot exist without the people who led us into this mess. There must be strict liability against those whose bad decisions lead to incalculable suffering for countless people. Hard stop. We can debate the specific consequences (banned from positions of authority, fines, debt, prison, etc). But we must not allow those with demonstrable bad decision making abilities to continue to play roulette with the lives of others. Likewise, good decisions cannot be allowed to justify or excuse bad ones.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > How, exactly? [0] Uber, an 11 year old company, IPO-ed in 2019, losses were >1/3 of their $14 billion revenue that year. There is a level of crazy afoot there. The shares being worth money to anyone is alarming, and indicative that something is very broken. Large amounts of debt is an obvious answer to 'where did the money to fuel this bonfire ultimately come from' > Also remember that every "saving" is also a "debt" on the other side of somebody's ledger. And if the money on the debt side isn't used prudently, both the debtor and saver end up with nothing at the end of a sad story. The saver loses out more, because they could have been living it up with more resources, rather than directing them to the debtor. What the loan is used for in real terms (useful infrastructure, vanity projects, wasted, etc) matters. I don't mind what the accounting identities do if I get a nice place to live, cheap electricity and lots of food. But the loans at the moment aren't going towards big construction in desirable areas, nuclear power plants and securing food supplies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber
- rbanffy 6y ago
  > all under the auspices of a hard line Republican administration This only means "socialism for the rich, brutal unregulated capitalism for everyone else, because it's their fault they aren't rich anyway".
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  > good long term decisions I'm starting to wonder if good long term decisions aren't things like learning to grow food and stocking up on ammo at this point.
- N1H1L 6y ago
  > The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term decisions. Sooner or later, nobody will be left who makes good long term decisions. Such people have been exorcised from the financial industry. Could be used for the environment too. Unlike money, CO2 and temperature are real things, and rather than worrying about imaginary stuff like money, it would be prudent to be fiscally conservative regarding our carbon budget.
Kednicma 6y ago
One of my parents is a pensioner and their attitude towards money is that "I earned it, and so it's my money," regardless of whether that money is in their accounts or in their monthly check. They really do view all of that money which comes to them as being an entitlement which is already funded, and not part of an ecumenical system of money. > I have very clear memories of the political battles of the 1980s and 90s when my parents’ generation were in their prime working age. They demanded two contradictory things from government. First, they wanted their taxes reduced dramatically. Second, they wanted all the perks and services they were already receiving. I can't put it any better. The government, to my parents and collateral relatives (uncles and aunts), is simultaneously evil for taking Social Security taxes from paychecks, and also good for paying out Social Security to them, but they don't register the cognitive dissonance. > So instead the gap was filled with debt, unrealistic future promises, attrition, and a can that was kicked down the road. Society went way out on the risk curve in search of “growth” that didn’t actually exist anywhere but on paper. Yep. The idea that Social Security is paying it forward (or paying it backward) is just too tough. > The meme will be simple and palatable. These were benefits that were earned from years of hard work. These are the deserving recipients of what is due them. That’s completely different from just handing out fake cash to random slackers and wastrels who squander the money on Netflix and Amazon Prime without contributing to society. I can hear the sarcasm in the author's inflection. And I can also hear its stark effectiveness in my parent's complaints.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Social security taxes were never reduced. Income taxes have been through various taxation schemes but the total Federal tax revenue as percentage of GDP typically always hovers just under 20% regardless of tax legislation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S
  - RhodesianHunter 6y ago
    Because the effective tax rate never really changes that much.
- narag 6y ago
close04 6y ago
A bit off topic but why are all the windows boarded? I haven't seen this practice in other parts of the world despite the fact that most stores are/were also closed long term.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  The BLM protesters and related events smashed, looted and burned a lot of retail locations a couple weeks ago. During/after most retail locations boarded up, even 10 miles from downtown SF. This is not that unusual in the US, and happened in previous years in LA and Oakland. It's not to close long term - it's to survive until the next day or week.
  - hirsin 6y ago
    They were also boarded up a month or two before the protests... At least in Seattle. It's loss prevention - don't leave merchandise visible behind windows if the entire street will be empty for months to come. Edit - E.g. This business which was not out of the ordinary when it boarded up end of March. https://www.instagram.com/p/B-GT1hhgPZS/?igshid=12qp4pjwu2jvn https://www.instagram.com/p/B-GT1hhgPZS/?igshid=12qp4pjwu2jv...
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      Jewelry stores were previously boarded up in SF, but operating grocery stores, Target, and Walgreen's seemed to be a new thing. Stonestown Mall, which is a long way from downtown SF, suddenly boarded up McD and Target during the protests.
- syncsynchalt 6y ago
  Plywood is a lot cheaper (and easy to remove) than hiring a security guard to protect your business from idle vandalism. Why _wouldn't_ the businesses be boarded if they're unattended for a few months? (Note that boarding up businesses predated riots by months, in my experience).
echelon 6y ago
You ought to see Atlanta. We have more people outside now than even live in the city. The yuppie dog parks with membership fees and booze have waiting lines. Consequently, you should also take a look at the Georgia coronavirus case volume. But it's as if nobody gives a damn.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  https://ga-covid19.ondemand.sas.com/ https://ga-covid19.ondemand.sas.com/ looks like case count has been flat for the past couple months and deaths are down.
  - Marazan 6y ago
    Flat? there is literally a second peak on the daily case count chart and a 3rd peak is forming. Deaths have been dropping but are now flattening off and primed to rise.
    - mberning 6y ago
      Deaths have clearly peaked and are going down. Cases could be increasing due to increased and/or improved testing.
      - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
        I keep hearing that, but I don't see any testing numbers there, do you? Aggregates, yes, but not a per day measure.
      - Marazan 6y ago
        The 7 day average for Deaths has been static for about a week now. And given the state of the premliminary death date in the 14 day window it will start rising in a week.
        Marazan 6y ago
        Historical note: I was wrong, whilst positive test results have and continue to sky rocket deaths, after levelling of for a week, continue to fall.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
timwaagh 6y ago
I'm glad i live in the eurozone. A place where something like this couldn't possibly happen.... oh wait.
wazoox 6y ago
The FED is buying out every asset in existence, that means that there aren't any markets, any prices, everything is state-owned and the economy is entirely socialized, and it's now the "USSA". Stock markets are surfing the wave to grab as much as possible before the inevitable crash and collapse. No wonder the IMF head said we need a "Great Reset". This can't end well...
- cinquemb 6y ago
  Yup, it never ends well, and more and more people incentivized to tell one otherwise right up until that moment lol
- nappy-doo 6y ago
  You realize the Fed isn't controlled by the government, right? Some of the leaders are selected, but the decisions CAN (not necessarily are) made without consultation of any of the branches of government. Besides the oversight of the leadership, there is no power granted to the branches of government into the Fed's decisions.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > You realize the Fed isn't controlled by the government, right? Wrong. The Fed is part of the government; it's just a part that's not described anywhere in the Constitution. But we've long since given up on the idea that the government should be limited to what's actually described in the Constitution.
  - Spellman 6y ago
    Unfortunately not 100% true, especially after the CARES act. Under the CARES Act, there is a huge chunk of money that the Treasury is obligated to back into Fed assets. Specifically "investments in programs or facilities established by" the Fed. So on one hand, the Treasury is obligated to invest (buy) assets from the Fed. The Fed has some leeway in what it sets up, but the bill also states that the Treasury can attach “such terms and conditions . . . as the Secretary determines appropriate.” So, in essence, the Secretary of the Treasury gets final say in what the Fed sets up. Therefore, what is actually going on is the Treasury can say "Fed, go buy up assets X" and then hands them the money from the CARES Act to do so. Or, in other words, now the Fed is acting as a banking institution for the Treasury. https://www.brookings.edu/research/explaining-the-new-fed-treasury-emergency-fund/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/explaining-the-new-fed-tr...
kwhitefoot 6y ago
Looking at those pictures from Norway I'm struck by how different our countries actions have been during this crisis. Here hardly anything is boarded up (even business that have failed or gone online-only just have an A4 notice in the window explaining the situation and apologizing for the lack of service), and even when things were at their worst there were still people in the streets, a lot of shops, offices, and industries were still operating. So now I have to wonder: are those pictures representative of the US as a whole?
- the_pwner224 6y ago
  The boarding up is because of the looting and rioting. Before that they were just closed as they would 'normally' close.
  - kasey_junk 6y ago
    That was true in my neighborhood in Chicago but I’m not sure it was in San Francisco (where these pictures were taken). I remember seeing board ups there very early in the shutdown.
    - andromeduck 6y ago
      It's true in SF as well. There were a few businesses boarded up when SIP started but most of the boarding happened after union square and a few other streets were looted around end of may. In june we went from something like 5-10% boarded up to the 30-60% now depending on district. Even a lot of grocery stores are boarded up now, and quite a number of convenience stores like CVS stopped operating in half their locations and where operating, with reduced hours.
    - i_am_proteus 6y ago
      Bear in mind that San Francisco has very high property crime rates in general. Street wisdom is to leave absolutely nothing of value in a parked car, to do otherwise invites a smash-and-grab. In this context, it's natural that closed business would board up even absent riots.
RobertoG 6y ago
"That policy will work for as long as the rest of the world continues to accept US dollars as something other than pieces of funny green paper…" What a nonsense. Like if the USA is the only one doing it. Everybody is doing it and at the same time. I hope this help some people to dispel this myths about the "public debt" and living to the grandchildren expense. What markets are covering this public debt when everybody is doing it at the same time? If something, this situation show how strong the modern economy is. Think about it, a big part of the economy just stopped and the supermarkets are full and there are not supply problems. People are suffering because they are not payed, not because there is not food available. Compared that to what would happen in other times in history if a relevant percentage of the population stopped working globally.
- tclancy 6y ago
  I think you missed the point. If the current administration, or possibly some other dumb one in the future, undermines US credibility where other countries unpeg from the dollar, we are going to turn into a shithole country pretty quickly.
  - RobertoG 6y ago
    "other countries unpeg from the dollar.." I don't know what that means. In the current international arrangements all the important currencies are floating against each other all the time. The value of the dollar (respect other currencies) comes from being the currency of one of the most valuable economies in the world.
    - fuoqi 6y ago
      I think you severely underestimate the power of positive feedback. Some economists argue that around of third of US GDP can be attributed to the unique position of the dollar. If for some reason foreign investors and governments will lose their faith in dollar (even today gov. bonds already have negative inflation-adjusted profits, imagine if inflation will be 10%-20%), then they will start to dump bonds and assets nominated in $ (and don't forget about even potential targeted economic attacks, e.g. from China). This will mean that not only the third of GDP will effectively disappear, but also that all inflation which was exported into the outer world until now will come back at once. This will launch a crisis an order of magnitude bigger than 08, which can be QEd anymore, because no one outside and probably inside US will buy gov bonds anymore (it's effectively already true today, but for now it's compensated by a low money velocity due to the pandemic). Without cheap money US business will lose a lot of its competitive advantage. And don't forget that capital today is much more mobile compared to the beginning of the 20th century and thus positive feedback forces are that much stronger. This will mean that "one of the most valuable economies in the world" is in a very shaky position. I really-really hope that this scenario will not end in a nuclear war... P.S.: Japan is in a different position, IIRC most of its debt kept inside the country. Plus it's a creditor nation, while US is a massively debtor one.
orbifold 6y ago
It is interesting how different countries and cultures deal with the same challenge. Streets were pretty empty and shops were closed for maybe a month here in Germany. Now (almost) everything is open again, the streets are full. Unemployment rose somewhat but not catastrophically. The images and videos we get from the US feel apocalyptical in contrast.
- pjc50 6y ago
  The "libertarian" states implemented the worst possible solutions: a lockdown that was big enough to damage businesses, but not early enough or thorough enough to actually limit the spread.
  - war1025 6y ago
    > The "libertarian" states Which states are those exactly?
- JPKab 6y ago
  Media in USA is primarily concentrated in New York City. It was hit HARD. The rest of the US wasn't. The numbers demonstrate this. The pictures and essays from New York based journalists say something different. Also, it's an election year, and that politicized decisions on reopening. Here in Colorado, mostly business as usual, but kids are miserable because camps and pools are closed.
- schnable 6y ago
  The pictures look much more apocalyptical than they otherwise might because many of the storefronts are boarded up to prevent looting.
- woeirua 6y ago
  You have to be careful with what you look at in the US. The media here is definitely cherry picking the worst of the worst to show people. Were some places hit really hard? Yes. Absolutely. Does the entire country look like NYC? No. Not even close.
bulgagoo 6y ago
"victory"
Invictus0 6y ago
I have a lot of problems with this post. * Photos of boarded up storefronts are used to imply that these stores are out of business. They're not, the reason they're boarded up is because of BLM rioters. * Photos are not good evidence of real estate availability. No data is used or sought. * I don't accept the handwavy notion that people leaving the city will automatically tank pension funds. The closure of the Chinese restaurant in the city is the opening of the Chinese restaurant in the suburbs. People still want to be near stores and restaurants and they can get that without being in the city. * Even less do I accept the notion that everything we as a society undertake should ultimately benefit pension funds. This is a euphemism to get people to believe that corporate interests are your interests. The average American is not invested in the market and the people that are invested should have been made aware that market returns are not guaranteed. I do agree that we are seeing an emergency in the Fed's debt spending. Future historians will probably look at the Coronavirus meltdown as the Gavrilo Princip moment that exposed the house of cards.
- syncsynchalt 6y ago
  Businesses (at least in Denver) were boarded up months before the riots. It's about the property being unattended, plywood is quick and easy to put up as well as take down when the employees are back. I agree that they shouldn't be used to imply the business is permanently closed. The effect in the photos is still pretty striking.
noetic_techy 6y ago
Sorry but I don't really buy it. The density that was the urban center will likely be dispersed. It will take some time and be painful, but the market will correct and shift. Keep in mind that when level 4-5 self driving vehicles finally do arrive, studies have shown that people will tolerate much longer commutes, especially if they can work, sleep, or just relax in their car. That will push urban sprawl even further out and reduce city population density also.
StillBored 6y ago
I'm in Austin TX, it looked empty like that a month ago. It was nice, not to have to sit around in traffic for once... OTOH, it took about a week before the roads/stores were full again. Around here there are plenty of closed businesses too, but the ones that are open seem about as busy (if not more) so than usual. While the idea of shutting everything down during a pandemic to keep from wiping out 50% of the population/whatever might be a good idea. It was pretty apparent early on that this was low single digit % and overwhelmingly people with existing serious conditions. Telling those people to self quarantine really was the only solution. Its readily apparently that nothing actually changed in the month we stayed at home in TX. No vaccine, no additional personal protective equipment, nothing. So we all just sat at home and destroyed a large part of the economy for nothing. Particularly since to have done it "right" we would all still be sitting at home waiting for a vaccine or whatever. Given the current time-frame it might be another 6+ months. Even the testing hasn't gotten good enough to test everyone in contact, much less even find everyone who has been in contact. Maybe the one thing we now know is just how effective good masks can be. Not that anyone is even wearing masks anymore at some places (home depot for one). So, big waste, nothing gained, and states saying closed until something changes are going to be in a world of hurt. I predict they will be forced open by politics long before either the testing/tracing or vaccine situation changes sufficiently to make a difference.
- willvarfar 6y ago
  Just playing devils advocate, but if only those at risk were supposed to quarantine, would those at risk but not financially secure lie to keep working, and would those at risk lose their jobs? Basically, "you're at risk, so go home and be unemployed and sit there waiting for the world to move on without you and strip you of everything"? I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer, I'm just wondering about how selective quarantining would have worked in practice.
  - StillBored 6y ago
    Well, hopefully some solid unemployment funding would have been sufficient (or at least a good start). Not that I consider the current unemployment checks to be particularly helpful given how at least in austin they are 1/2 of the average wage. You would be talking a few percent of people staying home collecting unemployment (say 2-4%) which is about 1/3 of the current national unemployment. Yes, there probably would be a decline in restaurant/etc business because people were "social distancing" but nothing like stopping everything that wasn't a grocery store. But even then it would not be as bad. Overwhelmingly the older generation is the one at risk, and is already retired and staying home. It was the young 20 somethings working "service industry" that were all sent home. The ones with the lowest health risk, and the largest financial need. AKA, it would be a big recession, but nothing like what we are about to experience.
polycaster 6y ago
This thing with nailing boards to the office front is alienating me. What's underlying this strange behavior? Is the general expectation of damage being done to uninhibited buildings really reasonable?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- schnable 6y ago
  To prevent looting from the recent civil unrest.
- dx87 6y ago
  In cities, it seems reasonable. Bored kids with no supervision will go around breaking things for fun, especially if they think it's unoccupied and nobody will care.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- joncrane 6y ago
  It is when a spate of egregious murders by police of innocent citizens has spurred unrest in the (now under-employed) masses.
- LegitShady 6y ago
  riots and looting occurring have been occurring for weeks. Would people actively doing it for weeks in major cities across the US count as "general expectation"?
ericol 6y ago
(Chrome) crtl+shift+i <<< this opens the dev console. Click on "Console". Enter: jQuery('img[data-attachment-id]').each((i, e) => jQuery(e).remove()) Then enter. Voilà, al images (A lot) are gone.
grandinj 6y ago
We're in the midst of an unprecedented effort to time-shift wealth/money/value. Never before in history have we attempted to store wealth at this scale for things like retirement. In a world that was continually growing at a pretty solid pace (i.e. since WW2) that was sort-of conceivable because the bigger next generation effectively created more space for that. But now people live, and retire, for muuuuuccchhhh longer. And sovereign-wealth funds, retirement funds, insurance funds, etc, are much larger. And population growth is slowing (and with, financial growth). Some very hard things to square coming up.
- joejerryronnie 6y ago
  What does it look like 20-30 years from now when potential advances in the biosciences extend the average lifetime by 20 years?
  - nicbou 6y ago
    Even if people lived no longer than before, the cost of education and healthcare will keep rising, and there's seemingly nothing we can do about it. https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...
augustt 6y ago
Heads up: this page has 200MB of resources.
- acqq 6y ago
  For all of us who don't need 60 png(!) pictures (effectively using 10 times more bandwidth than the equivalent jpgs), the main text is just 6 KB, and can be read without the pictures using this: https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A%2F%2Fgranolashotgun.com%2F2020%2F06%2F16%2Fpyrrhic-victory%2F#content https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A%2F%2...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- syncsynchalt 6y ago
  Thanks, I've been watching the inspector (currently at 110MB downloaded) for the last few minutes wondering when it might finish so I can read. I can probably just skip the blank space and read the text but I assumed the images were meaningful since they are taking so much leading space, that might not be the case though.
  - acqq 6y ago
    Asking everybody: is there some page where one can enter the URL and see minimized pictures from some web page? E.g. I guess these 200 MB in 60 pngs could be reduced to cca 2 MB jpgs all.
doublesCs 6y ago
> I’m 52 and have never had a cavity What? Certainly that can't be true.
- syncsynchalt 6y ago
  There's a big genetic component to oral health, such as the DEFB1 gene. Some people are lucky and never get cavities. Others are unlucky and need constant fillings despite a stringent oral health regimen.
  - doublesCs 6y ago
    I imagined as much. I'm 35 and had a few cavities, and have friends who've had loads of cavities and even teeth removed. But no cavities at 52, I never thought that effect was so extreme. I would like to understand what exactly in your genes is preventing cavities. Because from what I know cavities are largely bacteria attacking your teeth? So some people have better defense afainst those bacteria? How exactly does that work? I mean, microscopically.
WealthVsSurvive 6y ago
Finance, Insurance, Real-Estate: FIRE. It's called FIRE because if you let them freely trade in a market system, they will eventually end up with everyone beholden to them and the price of everything inaccessible save through them. This will set everything on FIRE. It will erode people's incentives to trade, devalue labor to ensure people are beholden to them, and make your country vulnerable to fascism and foreign military occupation as a result of in-fighting, as oligarchs attempt to divide and conquer a country from within and block the state's ability to collect taxes for defense all to avoid their private losses and the loss of their precious wealth! ITS ON FIRE!
davidw 6y ago
He has some good writing (he's a regular contributor to Strong Towns), but I feel he's also a 'doom and gloom' guy. He's correct about cities and their importance, but there's a lot going on with macroeconomics that seems to be 'weaponized' by a lot of people, rather than discussed carefully and critically. I suppose the latter happens in academic journals that don't see much public exposure. Remember the doom and gloom people who predicted runaway inflation during the last financial crisis? I'm no expert, so it's difficult to parse out the legitimate worries from people Pushing An Agenda.
carapace 6y ago
I don't think I understand what this is saying? There are a lot of pictures of boarded up businesses, and the theme seems to be that taxes will suffer so that pensions suffer so the retirees suffer so the federal government will give them money. And that might not work if confidence in the dollar wanes. Is that it? - - - - Empty streets are a good thing because the pandemic is still on. Without hella tests and a vaccine distance and soap are our friends. The metaphor I think of is an invisible fire. Until we have ways to see the fire the best you can do is keep the fuel (you and me) apart. - - - - The economy will reconfigure. "Reboot the economy!" The whole point of markets is that they act as a kind of natural cybernetic governor (in the mechanical, not political, sense of the word.) Those empty buildings and store fronts will come back to life as soon as possible. The physical infrastructure is not getting damaged by the virus. People want to work, start businesses, build homes, go to school, all that. The demand is there. - - - - As an aside, > First, they wanted their taxes reduced dramatically. Second, they wanted all the perks and services they were already receiving. FWIW, you could do that by trimming a tiny bit off the defense budget and improving health care efficiency. (Defense and health care are the two largest parts of the US budget.) - - - - Speaking of which I think people will continue to value the dollar as long as the USA maintains it's military supremacy. We're the 800-lb gorilla still.
war1025 6y ago
I thought the angle he was going at was that our fight against the Coronavirus was going to be a Pyrrihic victory because we cratered our economy in the process. Apparently he was going after some other indirect angle about people ragging on cities doing poorly and those same people being dependent on revenue from cities. The first would have been a far more fitting essay, in my opinion.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
Do we really need all these stores? They all sell useless crap no one needs, after it's been torn out of our beautiful habitat, causing immeasurable environmental, animal, and plant health damage, transported around from place to place dozens of times on diesel, only to be used once or twice and thrown away. I'm glad they are boarded up.

185 points by oftenwrong 6y ago

I going to commit suicide. I refuse to work at any pace but my own, and I'll die before I let pieces of shit ride me like a mule and blame me for the labyrinth they drop me in.

roenxi 6y ago

Two parts of this short and powerful piece really leapt out at me: > all under the auspices of a hard line Republican administration > Washington under any administration will have no choice but to bail out all the state and local agencies and every insolvent pension scheme wholesale There are underlying problems being forced to the surface by COVID that go deeper than political parties. Somewhere between the 1970s and 2000s American politicians as a class (and possibly a supermajority of voters too) have accepted that running up debt literally does not matter. The economy is brutal. It is a fabricated social concept built on trust right up until the moment it breaks out into the physical world and things that desperately need to happen stop happening because it doesn't make any economic sense. The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term decisions. Sooner or later, nobody will be left who makes good long term decisions. Such people have been exorcised from the financial industry.

gold_standard 6y ago
>Somewhere between the 1970s and 2000s I think you'll find it was precisely 1971.
- AlexanderDhoore 6y ago
  https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
  - ghj 6y ago
    Some of the arrows are so randomly placed it reminds me of: https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kjh2110/the-10-most-bizarre-correlations https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kjh2110/the-10-most-biz...
    - gassius 6y ago
      They all seems to point to 1971, nothing random about that I understand that correlation != causation, but it also seems obvious that getting out of Bretton Woods has some major impact
    - voldacar 6y ago
      Agreed that many of them are spurious (or the cause of other things that probably have no causal link to Bretton-Woods, such as no-fault divorce or the war on drugs) but there are still a lot that do seem to have a sharp discontinuity at 1971, particularly income vs productivity, and CPI, which is actually a more frightening chart in my opinion
  - pjc50 6y ago
    The "oil crisis" was a couple of years later but could be seen in the production figures from 1971. I find it odd that it's not mentioned. Oil was far more important for the US economic miracle than gold!
    - api 6y ago
      I too have mused endlessly about what happened in the early 1970s. It seems like we really, really went off the rails in so many ways at that time. I love that site for its graph collection but I am not convinced of its hypothesis (nor do I completely dismiss it). The end of super-cheap easy domestic oil has long been my go-to hypothesis for what happened around 1971. Monetary systems and policy are social constructs, but energy is physically fundamental. Everything that has happened since then including reckless monetary policy and wage stagnation could be argued to be symptoms of the rising real cost of energy. By real cost of energy I mean physics, EROEI. Wage stagnation happens because without super cheap energy the actual physical cost of providing increasing living standards to a huge number of people become too high. Even if they live lavishly, a smaller number of rich people don't consume nearly as much energy as a huge number of middle class people. As a result the rich are not affected. Reckless financial and monetary policies can be explained by politicians who don't understand physics trying to get the magic unicorns to come back. If either solar/wind + batteries or some form of nuclear power can be made to scale well enough, we may see a return to the post-war era. Otherwise we will not, and returning to the gold standard (or Bitcoin) won't make much difference. I'm pretty optimistic about renewable power. I glance at this every once in a while: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx During the day California often runs on >50% solar/wind. Two decades ago that was a small single digit percentage. It's pretty spectacular. If we can scale storage similarly and then if the costs of both continue to fall for a while due to industrial scaling of production, we could be back to the 50s but with a renewable instead of non-renewable basis. A fusion breakthrough or finally figuring out how to safely and sustainably scale fission would have a similar outcome. BTW: I also wonder if you can explain the Chinese miracle in energy terms. China just decided to chase growth and fuck the environment, so they went wild with cheap coal. The magic was not only using cheap coal but doing so with no scrubbers (which consume a surprising amount of power) and no other energetically costly environmental controls to speak of, maximizing physical EROEI. They lifted vast numbers of people to middle class status and became a superpower at the cost of accelerating climate change and air that burns your eyes.
- annoyingnoob 6y ago
  I think History has shown that Nixon was a bad president on many levels.
chrisco255 6y ago
Well yeah I think even I bought into it at some point. The line would go "as long as our debt to GDP ratio stays relatively steady, we'll be ok"...but what happens if another great depression happens and the growth dips 10-15% and flat lines from there? Then your debt will grow faster than your GDP and eventually it will crush the economy. All the uncomfortable conversations about complex trade-offs and budget cuts have got to occur and nobody is wanting to have that convo. I think it started in the 60s with the Vietnam War, the Space program and Johnson's great society programs. And then Nixon took us off the gold peg, and we were free to print as much as we wanted. MMT is pretty scary to me. It's never really been tested long term at scale and mainly exists as a theory. But I know that's the end game for the Fed and that's the trajectory we're on.
- RobertoG 6y ago
  The public debt is just the accumulate of past deficits. If the Fed is owning the debt you are paying interest to yourself. The only risk is inflation and this is not something to be worried at the moment. MMT is only a description of how the systems work. But if by "test it", you mean that the Central Bank is backing the public debt, Japan have been doing for, at least, twenty years.
- joejerryronnie 6y ago
  Why do you think we maintain the world’s largest military by orders of magnitude?
averros 6y ago
Economy is NOT a social construct, fabricated or not. Economic laws are direct consequences of physical laws (i.e. scarcity is the result of Fermi statistics which makes material things to take space and of the no-cloning theorem which means the material things cannot just pop into existence because somebody wished them), or otherwise rather tautological mathematical statements (for example the first welfare theorem or the law of comparative advantage). Economy doesn't require humanity or consciousness to exist, it's a resource allocation and optimization algorithm. So is political means of acquiring wealth - this is known as intra-species aggression and is common to all social species; this is another, older, and less efficient, algorithm for resource allocation. Basically, every time politicians and their enforcers barge in to "fix" things they break the efficient algorithm (aka "market economy") to replace it with the older one (aka "the biggest ape gets to boss others around"). And, yes, it doesn't make any economic sense. "Bailouts" are nothing more than taking from many people by force and giving to few politically-connected ones. It's just indirect form of force: instead of simply looting, they print more money - but everybody else is prevented by force by doing the same, so they have no choice but to see the value of their money to decline and be transferred to the recipients of new money.
- crocal 6y ago
  I have to disagree. Economy is the interface between producers and consumers of resources. It’s big time a social construct, and therefore the subject of political action. Importantly, the idea that state intervention is bad for the economy as a universal rule is simply wrong. In the long run, history clearly teaches that mixed economy work (e.g. a la Keynes), while laissez-faire (e.g. a la Friedman) or centralized economies (e.g. a la Communist) don’t. Striking the right mix requires society input in the form of political debate. We desperately need this to happen now in the West. While I have nothing about Jeff Bezos as a person, but billionaires simply should not be allowed to exist. They are the symptom of a « Laissez Faire » system in terminal state.
  - JackFr 6y ago
    Jeff Bezos became a billionaire by making the lives of Amazon’s customers better. Sam Walton did more to improve the lot of poor families than most government programs. (Those guys at least built something. Why does no one complain about America’s grandpa Warren Buffett. He just shuffled around money, plays with warrants and options (while telling others not to) and makes a couple hundred million by going to Congress and talking his book. )
pjc50 6y ago
> running up debt literally does not matter. The creditors don't seem to mind it either, happily buying hundred-year bonds with near-zero interest rates. Also remember that every "saving" is also a "debt" on the other side of somebody's ledger. Quite a lot of that corporate and government debt is "savings"; $270 billion of it is owed to Apple alone. http://thewire.fiig.com.au/article/2018/04/24/how-apple-invests-its-$270bn-cash-stockpile http://thewire.fiig.com.au/article/2018/04/24/how-apple-inve... > The economy is brutal. It is a fabricated social concept built on trust right up until the moment it breaks out into the physical world and things that desperately need to happen stop happening because it doesn't make any economic sense. This was one of the questions that Keynes explored - how it is possible to have productive capacity idle because there isn't enough credit for people to buy the products. It's also the idea behind a lot of the "green new deal" schemes; do things that need to be done but don't offer a specific return, but benefit society and the planet as a whole. > The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term decisions How, exactly? What "long term decisions" would not have been worse off if the 2008 bailouts hadn't been made and a large chunk of Western retail banking had gone insolvent, tying up accounts until it could have been resolved? There is an important difference between "this business is no longer viable", and "this business is perfectly viable in the future but is experiencing a temporary shock which its cashflow and trade credit cannot cover".
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  There's a difference between the world as we know it cannot exist without banks as we know them,and banks cannot exist without the people who led us into this mess. There must be strict liability against those whose bad decisions lead to incalculable suffering for countless people. Hard stop. We can debate the specific consequences (banned from positions of authority, fines, debt, prison, etc). But we must not allow those with demonstrable bad decision making abilities to continue to play roulette with the lives of others. Likewise, good decisions cannot be allowed to justify or excuse bad ones.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > How, exactly? [0] Uber, an 11 year old company, IPO-ed in 2019, losses were >1/3 of their $14 billion revenue that year. There is a level of crazy afoot there. The shares being worth money to anyone is alarming, and indicative that something is very broken. Large amounts of debt is an obvious answer to 'where did the money to fuel this bonfire ultimately come from' > Also remember that every "saving" is also a "debt" on the other side of somebody's ledger. And if the money on the debt side isn't used prudently, both the debtor and saver end up with nothing at the end of a sad story. The saver loses out more, because they could have been living it up with more resources, rather than directing them to the debtor. What the loan is used for in real terms (useful infrastructure, vanity projects, wasted, etc) matters. I don't mind what the accounting identities do if I get a nice place to live, cheap electricity and lots of food. But the loans at the moment aren't going towards big construction in desirable areas, nuclear power plants and securing food supplies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber
rbanffy 6y ago
> all under the auspices of a hard line Republican administration This only means "socialism for the rich, brutal unregulated capitalism for everyone else, because it's their fault they aren't rich anyway".
commandlinefan 6y ago
> good long term decisions I'm starting to wonder if good long term decisions aren't things like learning to grow food and stocking up on ammo at this point.
N1H1L 6y ago
> The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term decisions. Sooner or later, nobody will be left who makes good long term decisions. Such people have been exorcised from the financial industry. Could be used for the environment too. Unlike money, CO2 and temperature are real things, and rather than worrying about imaginary stuff like money, it would be prudent to be fiscally conservative regarding our carbon budget.

Kednicma 6y ago

One of my parents is a pensioner and their attitude towards money is that "I earned it, and so it's my money," regardless of whether that money is in their accounts or in their monthly check. They really do view all of that money which comes to them as being an entitlement which is already funded, and not part of an ecumenical system of money. > I have very clear memories of the political battles of the 1980s and 90s when my parents’ generation were in their prime working age. They demanded two contradictory things from government. First, they wanted their taxes reduced dramatically. Second, they wanted all the perks and services they were already receiving. I can't put it any better. The government, to my parents and collateral relatives (uncles and aunts), is simultaneously evil for taking Social Security taxes from paychecks, and also good for paying out Social Security to them, but they don't register the cognitive dissonance. > So instead the gap was filled with debt, unrealistic future promises, attrition, and a can that was kicked down the road. Society went way out on the risk curve in search of “growth” that didn’t actually exist anywhere but on paper. Yep. The idea that Social Security is paying it forward (or paying it backward) is just too tough. > The meme will be simple and palatable. These were benefits that were earned from years of hard work. These are the deserving recipients of what is due them. That’s completely different from just handing out fake cash to random slackers and wastrels who squander the money on Netflix and Amazon Prime without contributing to society. I can hear the sarcasm in the author's inflection. And I can also hear its stark effectiveness in my parent's complaints.

chrisco255 6y ago
Social security taxes were never reduced. Income taxes have been through various taxation schemes but the total Federal tax revenue as percentage of GDP typically always hovers just under 20% regardless of tax legislation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S
- RhodesianHunter 6y ago
  Because the effective tax rate never really changes that much.
narag 6y ago

close04 6y ago

A bit off topic but why are all the windows boarded? I haven't seen this practice in other parts of the world despite the fact that most stores are/were also closed long term.

redis_mlc 6y ago
The BLM protesters and related events smashed, looted and burned a lot of retail locations a couple weeks ago. During/after most retail locations boarded up, even 10 miles from downtown SF. This is not that unusual in the US, and happened in previous years in LA and Oakland. It's not to close long term - it's to survive until the next day or week.
- hirsin 6y ago
  They were also boarded up a month or two before the protests... At least in Seattle. It's loss prevention - don't leave merchandise visible behind windows if the entire street will be empty for months to come. Edit - E.g. This business which was not out of the ordinary when it boarded up end of March. https://www.instagram.com/p/B-GT1hhgPZS/?igshid=12qp4pjwu2jvn https://www.instagram.com/p/B-GT1hhgPZS/?igshid=12qp4pjwu2jv...
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    Jewelry stores were previously boarded up in SF, but operating grocery stores, Target, and Walgreen's seemed to be a new thing. Stonestown Mall, which is a long way from downtown SF, suddenly boarded up McD and Target during the protests.
syncsynchalt 6y ago
Plywood is a lot cheaper (and easy to remove) than hiring a security guard to protect your business from idle vandalism. Why _wouldn't_ the businesses be boarded if they're unattended for a few months? (Note that boarding up businesses predated riots by months, in my experience).

echelon 6y ago

You ought to see Atlanta. We have more people outside now than even live in the city. The yuppie dog parks with membership fees and booze have waiting lines. Consequently, you should also take a look at the Georgia coronavirus case volume. But it's as if nobody gives a damn.

chrisco255 6y ago
https://ga-covid19.ondemand.sas.com/ https://ga-covid19.ondemand.sas.com/ looks like case count has been flat for the past couple months and deaths are down.
- Marazan 6y ago
  Flat? there is literally a second peak on the daily case count chart and a 3rd peak is forming. Deaths have been dropping but are now flattening off and primed to rise.
  - mberning 6y ago
    Deaths have clearly peaked and are going down. Cases could be increasing due to increased and/or improved testing.
    - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
      I keep hearing that, but I don't see any testing numbers there, do you? Aggregates, yes, but not a per day measure.
    - Marazan 6y ago
      The 7 day average for Deaths has been static for about a week now. And given the state of the premliminary death date in the 14 day window it will start rising in a week.
      - Marazan 6y ago
        Historical note: I was wrong, whilst positive test results have and continue to sky rocket deaths, after levelling of for a week, continue to fall.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

timwaagh 6y ago

I'm glad i live in the eurozone. A place where something like this couldn't possibly happen.... oh wait.

wazoox 6y ago

The FED is buying out every asset in existence, that means that there aren't any markets, any prices, everything is state-owned and the economy is entirely socialized, and it's now the "USSA". Stock markets are surfing the wave to grab as much as possible before the inevitable crash and collapse. No wonder the IMF head said we need a "Great Reset". This can't end well...

cinquemb 6y ago
Yup, it never ends well, and more and more people incentivized to tell one otherwise right up until that moment lol
nappy-doo 6y ago
You realize the Fed isn't controlled by the government, right? Some of the leaders are selected, but the decisions CAN (not necessarily are) made without consultation of any of the branches of government. Besides the oversight of the leadership, there is no power granted to the branches of government into the Fed's decisions.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > You realize the Fed isn't controlled by the government, right? Wrong. The Fed is part of the government; it's just a part that's not described anywhere in the Constitution. But we've long since given up on the idea that the government should be limited to what's actually described in the Constitution.
- Spellman 6y ago
  Unfortunately not 100% true, especially after the CARES act. Under the CARES Act, there is a huge chunk of money that the Treasury is obligated to back into Fed assets. Specifically "investments in programs or facilities established by" the Fed. So on one hand, the Treasury is obligated to invest (buy) assets from the Fed. The Fed has some leeway in what it sets up, but the bill also states that the Treasury can attach “such terms and conditions . . . as the Secretary determines appropriate.” So, in essence, the Secretary of the Treasury gets final say in what the Fed sets up. Therefore, what is actually going on is the Treasury can say "Fed, go buy up assets X" and then hands them the money from the CARES Act to do so. Or, in other words, now the Fed is acting as a banking institution for the Treasury. https://www.brookings.edu/research/explaining-the-new-fed-treasury-emergency-fund/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/explaining-the-new-fed-tr...

kwhitefoot 6y ago

Looking at those pictures from Norway I'm struck by how different our countries actions have been during this crisis. Here hardly anything is boarded up (even business that have failed or gone online-only just have an A4 notice in the window explaining the situation and apologizing for the lack of service), and even when things were at their worst there were still people in the streets, a lot of shops, offices, and industries were still operating. So now I have to wonder: are those pictures representative of the US as a whole?

the_pwner224 6y ago
The boarding up is because of the looting and rioting. Before that they were just closed as they would 'normally' close.
- kasey_junk 6y ago
  That was true in my neighborhood in Chicago but I’m not sure it was in San Francisco (where these pictures were taken). I remember seeing board ups there very early in the shutdown.
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    It's true in SF as well. There were a few businesses boarded up when SIP started but most of the boarding happened after union square and a few other streets were looted around end of may. In june we went from something like 5-10% boarded up to the 30-60% now depending on district. Even a lot of grocery stores are boarded up now, and quite a number of convenience stores like CVS stopped operating in half their locations and where operating, with reduced hours.
  - i_am_proteus 6y ago
    Bear in mind that San Francisco has very high property crime rates in general. Street wisdom is to leave absolutely nothing of value in a parked car, to do otherwise invites a smash-and-grab. In this context, it's natural that closed business would board up even absent riots.

RobertoG 6y ago

"That policy will work for as long as the rest of the world continues to accept US dollars as something other than pieces of funny green paper…" What a nonsense. Like if the USA is the only one doing it. Everybody is doing it and at the same time. I hope this help some people to dispel this myths about the "public debt" and living to the grandchildren expense. What markets are covering this public debt when everybody is doing it at the same time? If something, this situation show how strong the modern economy is. Think about it, a big part of the economy just stopped and the supermarkets are full and there are not supply problems. People are suffering because they are not payed, not because there is not food available. Compared that to what would happen in other times in history if a relevant percentage of the population stopped working globally.

tclancy 6y ago
I think you missed the point. If the current administration, or possibly some other dumb one in the future, undermines US credibility where other countries unpeg from the dollar, we are going to turn into a shithole country pretty quickly.
- RobertoG 6y ago
  "other countries unpeg from the dollar.." I don't know what that means. In the current international arrangements all the important currencies are floating against each other all the time. The value of the dollar (respect other currencies) comes from being the currency of one of the most valuable economies in the world.
  - fuoqi 6y ago
    I think you severely underestimate the power of positive feedback. Some economists argue that around of third of US GDP can be attributed to the unique position of the dollar. If for some reason foreign investors and governments will lose their faith in dollar (even today gov. bonds already have negative inflation-adjusted profits, imagine if inflation will be 10%-20%), then they will start to dump bonds and assets nominated in $ (and don't forget about even potential targeted economic attacks, e.g. from China). This will mean that not only the third of GDP will effectively disappear, but also that all inflation which was exported into the outer world until now will come back at once. This will launch a crisis an order of magnitude bigger than 08, which can be QEd anymore, because no one outside and probably inside US will buy gov bonds anymore (it's effectively already true today, but for now it's compensated by a low money velocity due to the pandemic). Without cheap money US business will lose a lot of its competitive advantage. And don't forget that capital today is much more mobile compared to the beginning of the 20th century and thus positive feedback forces are that much stronger. This will mean that "one of the most valuable economies in the world" is in a very shaky position. I really-really hope that this scenario will not end in a nuclear war... P.S.: Japan is in a different position, IIRC most of its debt kept inside the country. Plus it's a creditor nation, while US is a massively debtor one.

orbifold 6y ago

It is interesting how different countries and cultures deal with the same challenge. Streets were pretty empty and shops were closed for maybe a month here in Germany. Now (almost) everything is open again, the streets are full. Unemployment rose somewhat but not catastrophically. The images and videos we get from the US feel apocalyptical in contrast.

pjc50 6y ago
The "libertarian" states implemented the worst possible solutions: a lockdown that was big enough to damage businesses, but not early enough or thorough enough to actually limit the spread.
- war1025 6y ago
  > The "libertarian" states Which states are those exactly?
JPKab 6y ago
Media in USA is primarily concentrated in New York City. It was hit HARD. The rest of the US wasn't. The numbers demonstrate this. The pictures and essays from New York based journalists say something different. Also, it's an election year, and that politicized decisions on reopening. Here in Colorado, mostly business as usual, but kids are miserable because camps and pools are closed.
schnable 6y ago
The pictures look much more apocalyptical than they otherwise might because many of the storefronts are boarded up to prevent looting.
woeirua 6y ago
You have to be careful with what you look at in the US. The media here is definitely cherry picking the worst of the worst to show people. Were some places hit really hard? Yes. Absolutely. Does the entire country look like NYC? No. Not even close.

bulgagoo 6y ago

"victory"

Invictus0 6y ago

I have a lot of problems with this post. * Photos of boarded up storefronts are used to imply that these stores are out of business. They're not, the reason they're boarded up is because of BLM rioters. * Photos are not good evidence of real estate availability. No data is used or sought. * I don't accept the handwavy notion that people leaving the city will automatically tank pension funds. The closure of the Chinese restaurant in the city is the opening of the Chinese restaurant in the suburbs. People still want to be near stores and restaurants and they can get that without being in the city. * Even less do I accept the notion that everything we as a society undertake should ultimately benefit pension funds. This is a euphemism to get people to believe that corporate interests are your interests. The average American is not invested in the market and the people that are invested should have been made aware that market returns are not guaranteed. I do agree that we are seeing an emergency in the Fed's debt spending. Future historians will probably look at the Coronavirus meltdown as the Gavrilo Princip moment that exposed the house of cards.

syncsynchalt 6y ago
Businesses (at least in Denver) were boarded up months before the riots. It's about the property being unattended, plywood is quick and easy to put up as well as take down when the employees are back. I agree that they shouldn't be used to imply the business is permanently closed. The effect in the photos is still pretty striking.

noetic_techy 6y ago

Sorry but I don't really buy it. The density that was the urban center will likely be dispersed. It will take some time and be painful, but the market will correct and shift. Keep in mind that when level 4-5 self driving vehicles finally do arrive, studies have shown that people will tolerate much longer commutes, especially if they can work, sleep, or just relax in their car. That will push urban sprawl even further out and reduce city population density also.

StillBored 6y ago

I'm in Austin TX, it looked empty like that a month ago. It was nice, not to have to sit around in traffic for once... OTOH, it took about a week before the roads/stores were full again. Around here there are plenty of closed businesses too, but the ones that are open seem about as busy (if not more) so than usual. While the idea of shutting everything down during a pandemic to keep from wiping out 50% of the population/whatever might be a good idea. It was pretty apparent early on that this was low single digit % and overwhelmingly people with existing serious conditions. Telling those people to self quarantine really was the only solution. Its readily apparently that nothing actually changed in the month we stayed at home in TX. No vaccine, no additional personal protective equipment, nothing. So we all just sat at home and destroyed a large part of the economy for nothing. Particularly since to have done it "right" we would all still be sitting at home waiting for a vaccine or whatever. Given the current time-frame it might be another 6+ months. Even the testing hasn't gotten good enough to test everyone in contact, much less even find everyone who has been in contact. Maybe the one thing we now know is just how effective good masks can be. Not that anyone is even wearing masks anymore at some places (home depot for one). So, big waste, nothing gained, and states saying closed until something changes are going to be in a world of hurt. I predict they will be forced open by politics long before either the testing/tracing or vaccine situation changes sufficiently to make a difference.

willvarfar 6y ago
Just playing devils advocate, but if only those at risk were supposed to quarantine, would those at risk but not financially secure lie to keep working, and would those at risk lose their jobs? Basically, "you're at risk, so go home and be unemployed and sit there waiting for the world to move on without you and strip you of everything"? I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer, I'm just wondering about how selective quarantining would have worked in practice.
- StillBored 6y ago
  Well, hopefully some solid unemployment funding would have been sufficient (or at least a good start). Not that I consider the current unemployment checks to be particularly helpful given how at least in austin they are 1/2 of the average wage. You would be talking a few percent of people staying home collecting unemployment (say 2-4%) which is about 1/3 of the current national unemployment. Yes, there probably would be a decline in restaurant/etc business because people were "social distancing" but nothing like stopping everything that wasn't a grocery store. But even then it would not be as bad. Overwhelmingly the older generation is the one at risk, and is already retired and staying home. It was the young 20 somethings working "service industry" that were all sent home. The ones with the lowest health risk, and the largest financial need. AKA, it would be a big recession, but nothing like what we are about to experience.

polycaster 6y ago

This thing with nailing boards to the office front is alienating me. What's underlying this strange behavior? Is the general expectation of damage being done to uninhibited buildings really reasonable?

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schnable 6y ago
To prevent looting from the recent civil unrest.
dx87 6y ago
In cities, it seems reasonable. Bored kids with no supervision will go around breaking things for fun, especially if they think it's unoccupied and nobody will care.
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joncrane 6y ago
It is when a spate of egregious murders by police of innocent citizens has spurred unrest in the (now under-employed) masses.
LegitShady 6y ago
riots and looting occurring have been occurring for weeks. Would people actively doing it for weeks in major cities across the US count as "general expectation"?

ericol 6y ago

(Chrome) crtl+shift+i <<< this opens the dev console. Click on "Console". Enter: jQuery('img[data-attachment-id]').each((i, e) => jQuery(e).remove()) Then enter. Voilà, al images (A lot) are gone.

grandinj 6y ago

We're in the midst of an unprecedented effort to time-shift wealth/money/value. Never before in history have we attempted to store wealth at this scale for things like retirement. In a world that was continually growing at a pretty solid pace (i.e. since WW2) that was sort-of conceivable because the bigger next generation effectively created more space for that. But now people live, and retire, for muuuuuccchhhh longer. And sovereign-wealth funds, retirement funds, insurance funds, etc, are much larger. And population growth is slowing (and with, financial growth). Some very hard things to square coming up.

joejerryronnie 6y ago
What does it look like 20-30 years from now when potential advances in the biosciences extend the average lifetime by 20 years?
- nicbou 6y ago
  Even if people lived no longer than before, the cost of education and healthcare will keep rising, and there's seemingly nothing we can do about it. https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...

augustt 6y ago

Heads up: this page has 200MB of resources.

acqq 6y ago
For all of us who don't need 60 png(!) pictures (effectively using 10 times more bandwidth than the equivalent jpgs), the main text is just 6 KB, and can be read without the pictures using this: https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A%2F%2Fgranolashotgun.com%2F2020%2F06%2F16%2Fpyrrhic-victory%2F#content https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A%2F%2...
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syncsynchalt 6y ago
Thanks, I've been watching the inspector (currently at 110MB downloaded) for the last few minutes wondering when it might finish so I can read. I can probably just skip the blank space and read the text but I assumed the images were meaningful since they are taking so much leading space, that might not be the case though.
- acqq 6y ago
  Asking everybody: is there some page where one can enter the URL and see minimized pictures from some web page? E.g. I guess these 200 MB in 60 pngs could be reduced to cca 2 MB jpgs all.

doublesCs 6y ago

> I’m 52 and have never had a cavity What? Certainly that can't be true.

syncsynchalt 6y ago
There's a big genetic component to oral health, such as the DEFB1 gene. Some people are lucky and never get cavities. Others are unlucky and need constant fillings despite a stringent oral health regimen.
- doublesCs 6y ago
  I imagined as much. I'm 35 and had a few cavities, and have friends who've had loads of cavities and even teeth removed. But no cavities at 52, I never thought that effect was so extreme. I would like to understand what exactly in your genes is preventing cavities. Because from what I know cavities are largely bacteria attacking your teeth? So some people have better defense afainst those bacteria? How exactly does that work? I mean, microscopically.

WealthVsSurvive 6y ago

Finance, Insurance, Real-Estate: FIRE. It's called FIRE because if you let them freely trade in a market system, they will eventually end up with everyone beholden to them and the price of everything inaccessible save through them. This will set everything on FIRE. It will erode people's incentives to trade, devalue labor to ensure people are beholden to them, and make your country vulnerable to fascism and foreign military occupation as a result of in-fighting, as oligarchs attempt to divide and conquer a country from within and block the state's ability to collect taxes for defense all to avoid their private losses and the loss of their precious wealth! ITS ON FIRE!

davidw 6y ago

He has some good writing (he's a regular contributor to Strong Towns), but I feel he's also a 'doom and gloom' guy. He's correct about cities and their importance, but there's a lot going on with macroeconomics that seems to be 'weaponized' by a lot of people, rather than discussed carefully and critically. I suppose the latter happens in academic journals that don't see much public exposure. Remember the doom and gloom people who predicted runaway inflation during the last financial crisis? I'm no expert, so it's difficult to parse out the legitimate worries from people Pushing An Agenda.

carapace 6y ago

I don't think I understand what this is saying? There are a lot of pictures of boarded up businesses, and the theme seems to be that taxes will suffer so that pensions suffer so the retirees suffer so the federal government will give them money. And that might not work if confidence in the dollar wanes. Is that it? - - - - Empty streets are a good thing because the pandemic is still on. Without hella tests and a vaccine distance and soap are our friends. The metaphor I think of is an invisible fire. Until we have ways to see the fire the best you can do is keep the fuel (you and me) apart. - - - - The economy will reconfigure. "Reboot the economy!" The whole point of markets is that they act as a kind of natural cybernetic governor (in the mechanical, not political, sense of the word.) Those empty buildings and store fronts will come back to life as soon as possible. The physical infrastructure is not getting damaged by the virus. People want to work, start businesses, build homes, go to school, all that. The demand is there. - - - - As an aside, > First, they wanted their taxes reduced dramatically. Second, they wanted all the perks and services they were already receiving. FWIW, you could do that by trimming a tiny bit off the defense budget and improving health care efficiency. (Defense and health care are the two largest parts of the US budget.) - - - - Speaking of which I think people will continue to value the dollar as long as the USA maintains it's military supremacy. We're the 800-lb gorilla still.

war1025 6y ago

I thought the angle he was going at was that our fight against the Coronavirus was going to be a Pyrrihic victory because we cratered our economy in the process. Apparently he was going after some other indirect angle about people ragging on cities doing poorly and those same people being dependent on revenue from cities. The first would have been a far more fitting essay, in my opinion.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

Do we really need all these stores? They all sell useless crap no one needs, after it's been torn out of our beautiful habitat, causing immeasurable environmental, animal, and plant health damage, transported around from place to place dozens of times on diesel, only to be used once or twice and thrown away. I'm glad they are boarded up.