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>1. What makes you think we _can_ get this under control without herd immunity or a vaccine? I am of the belief that there is a certain level of latent immunity

>1. What makes you think we _can_ get this under control without herd immunity or a vaccine? I am of the belief that there is a certain level of latent immunity via t-cells in a large portion of the population and thus effective herd immunity is around 25-30% infected. But for arguments sake, lets say it is around 70 based solely on Rt. New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, and Germany have done it without herd immunity or a vaccine with a variety of strategies. We should follow their examples and stop using various forms of “American Exceptionalism” as an excuse to not learn from them. >2. Who would pay for the UBI? My state is already running low on money. We are already having to cut programs. Raising taxes doesn't count, that would take a year to pass, a year to implement and collect and probably a few years in court litigating. So how do we pay for it? Print the money. It’s short term and there’s already massive demand and supply shocks that will only get worse if the pandemic isn’t curbed. >3. How do you equitably select a parent to stay home? And how to do reimburse their employer for lost productivity? Do you guarantee their job upon the end of the pandemic? I believe Canada and some countries in Europe are doing this through an employer-based grants, where the government subsidizes wages to keep them on the payroll. Whether this is ultimately desirable is up for debate, but the companies are going to be screwed in terms of productivity (and everything else) if this ravages the US labor force. How to do it equitably? Just let the parents/caregivers decide for themselves.

salmon30salmon 6y ago
> New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, and Germany have done it without herd immunity or a vaccine with a variety of strategies. We should follow their examples and stop using various forms of “American Exceptionalism” as an excuse to not learn from them. Two of those are islands, one might as well be and the other two are Vietnam and Germany. Vietnam is very interesting. There is a strong chance of Vietnam being a prime area to study the cross-reactive T-cells due to the previous experience with SARS. Furthermore, besides dickhead in chief, I don't believe most people made any sort of exceptionalism claim. The USA is a massive nation experiencing several outbreaks at once. The EU just happened to all have their outbreaks around the same time. We can't compare _just_ the results of each nation and rank the response. We need to look at demographics, density, cultural aspects, interconnectedness etc. >Print the money. It’s short term and there’s already massive demand and supply shocks that will only get worse if the pandemic isn’t curved. No. This has never been, and never will be, a sound economic strategy in anything but the most extreme of examples. Also, the pandemic _is_ flattened. Remember we were supposed to have millions dead by now had we done nothing. We did flatten it (too much, probably) and now it is curving up, but still not at the rate that was first feared. But this gets in to a different debate. I have made this point elsewhere in my comment history if you are interested in my opinion. > believe Canada and some countries in Europe are doing this through an employer-based grants, where the government subsidizes wages to keep them on the payroll. Whether this is ultimately desirable is up for debate, but the companies are going to be screwed with in terms of productivity (and everything else) if this ravages the US labor force. How to do it equitably? Just let the parents/caregivers decide for themselves. Most relationships are not like that. This would almost universally fall upon women to put their careers on hold. This has been researched and reported widely. We did a similar thing with PPP and it saved many jobs. It was a terrible implementation and corrupt as fuck. But it did save many jobs. But again, someone has to pay the piper and don't keep swooning over the nonsense that is Modern Monetary Theory.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  National deficit spending is the appropriate and correct tool to finance national emergencies. This is not "Modern Monetary Theory," it is basic government finance. We financed every war in the 20th century this way, as well as the responses to major financial shocks.
  - salmon30salmon 6y ago
    The parent said "print the money" which very much is MMT. Bonds/other debts are a different discussion and we very much are deficit spending right now to combat this.
    - snowwrestler 6y ago
      If you understand how deficit spending works to counter emergencies, then why did you even ask your question #2 above? It seems like you are moving goalposts.
      - salmon30salmon 6y ago
        Because UBI is fundamentally different than most deficit spending. It actively injects cash into circulation as opposed to kick-starting economic activity which leads to increased spending/circulation. UBI has not ever been tested at a large scale, and we have no reason to believe it will work. The last thing we need in this fragile economy is inflation. And UBI without increasing revenue will cause inflation, no way around that.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  I don’t know how to respond to this because a lot of it is simply counter factual. We haven’t flattened the curve, we have several uncontrolled outbreaks raging in the US, no reasonable forecasters were predicting millions dead by this time, instead of speculating about special Vietnamese immune characteristics, we can just do what they did with mask wearing, lockdowns, contract tracing, etc and see if it works. I see also no consideration of Germany. Ideological opposition to MMT is fine, I guess, but that’s not really a rebuttal or explanation of how allowing the disease to ravage the labor force won’t be worse, let alone in anyway moral, given its disproportionate impact on the poor and minorities. There are always tough choices with caring for kids, but even paying a caregiver to stay home would be more equitable than the status quo (where this already happens as largely uncompensated labor).

salmon30salmon 6y ago

> New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, and Germany have done it without herd immunity or a vaccine with a variety of strategies. We should follow their examples and stop using various forms of “American Exceptionalism” as an excuse to not learn from them. Two of those are islands, one might as well be and the other two are Vietnam and Germany. Vietnam is very interesting. There is a strong chance of Vietnam being a prime area to study the cross-reactive T-cells due to the previous experience with SARS. Furthermore, besides dickhead in chief, I don't believe most people made any sort of exceptionalism claim. The USA is a massive nation experiencing several outbreaks at once. The EU just happened to all have their outbreaks around the same time. We can't compare _just_ the results of each nation and rank the response. We need to look at demographics, density, cultural aspects, interconnectedness etc. >Print the money. It’s short term and there’s already massive demand and supply shocks that will only get worse if the pandemic isn’t curved. No. This has never been, and never will be, a sound economic strategy in anything but the most extreme of examples. Also, the pandemic _is_ flattened. Remember we were supposed to have millions dead by now had we done nothing. We did flatten it (too much, probably) and now it is curving up, but still not at the rate that was first feared. But this gets in to a different debate. I have made this point elsewhere in my comment history if you are interested in my opinion. > believe Canada and some countries in Europe are doing this through an employer-based grants, where the government subsidizes wages to keep them on the payroll. Whether this is ultimately desirable is up for debate, but the companies are going to be screwed with in terms of productivity (and everything else) if this ravages the US labor force. How to do it equitably? Just let the parents/caregivers decide for themselves. Most relationships are not like that. This would almost universally fall upon women to put their careers on hold. This has been researched and reported widely. We did a similar thing with PPP and it saved many jobs. It was a terrible implementation and corrupt as fuck. But it did save many jobs. But again, someone has to pay the piper and don't keep swooning over the nonsense that is Modern Monetary Theory.

snowwrestler 6y ago
National deficit spending is the appropriate and correct tool to finance national emergencies. This is not "Modern Monetary Theory," it is basic government finance. We financed every war in the 20th century this way, as well as the responses to major financial shocks.
- salmon30salmon 6y ago
  The parent said "print the money" which very much is MMT. Bonds/other debts are a different discussion and we very much are deficit spending right now to combat this.
  - snowwrestler 6y ago
    If you understand how deficit spending works to counter emergencies, then why did you even ask your question #2 above? It seems like you are moving goalposts.
    - salmon30salmon 6y ago
      Because UBI is fundamentally different than most deficit spending. It actively injects cash into circulation as opposed to kick-starting economic activity which leads to increased spending/circulation. UBI has not ever been tested at a large scale, and we have no reason to believe it will work. The last thing we need in this fragile economy is inflation. And UBI without increasing revenue will cause inflation, no way around that.
claudeganon 6y ago
I don’t know how to respond to this because a lot of it is simply counter factual. We haven’t flattened the curve, we have several uncontrolled outbreaks raging in the US, no reasonable forecasters were predicting millions dead by this time, instead of speculating about special Vietnamese immune characteristics, we can just do what they did with mask wearing, lockdowns, contract tracing, etc and see if it works. I see also no consideration of Germany. Ideological opposition to MMT is fine, I guess, but that’s not really a rebuttal or explanation of how allowing the disease to ravage the labor force won’t be worse, let alone in anyway moral, given its disproportionate impact on the poor and minorities. There are always tough choices with caring for kids, but even paying a caregiver to stay home would be more equitable than the status quo (where this already happens as largely uncompensated labor).