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This so much. The economy IS lives! People putting food on the table. I feel like it's that train track problem where you have a train barreling at three peopl

This so much. The economy IS lives! People putting food on the table. I feel like it's that train track problem where you have a train barreling at three people and we just pulled the lever and had it kill 40 people instead.

schemy 6y ago
You are far too optimistic with how wrong things can go. The economy running smoothly is what keeps revolutions and wars from happening. The last time the wheels fell off as badly as they did over the last three months we had WWII happen within a decade. We are lucky that it is a sharp shock and it is probably recoverable, but the longer we keep this up the slower the recovery will be. And given how popular extremist ideas were even before a 25% unemployment wall it is not something I want to play with.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  Have had those same exact thoughts that poverty leads to war and other terrible stuff. The people supporting these extreme coronavirus measures have good intentions but don't seem to understand the law of unintended consequences.
  - ghthor 6y ago
    Yeah, it's a mess out there. One thing I've noticed is just how narrow people viewpoints are, if they could just take a step back and look at the whole picture they might start finding some common ground. The government is overstepping its responsibility rig but now, and far too many people are cheering it on, it's dangerous.
bildung 6y ago
Or just help those 40 people with federal funds, which is what every other rich country did, and _which worked_? The problem isn't the lockdown (the US didn't even have a proper lockdown, compared to European countries), the problem is lack of federal help to compensate the losses. The US GDP shrinkage in Q2 2020 was three times larger than that of e.g. Germany and France, despite these countries having harder lockdowns. Now those countries are mostly done with Covid, while the US still has over 1000 deaths a day _plus_ the economical costs of Covid.
- makomk 6y ago
  The US GDP shrinkage in Q2 2020 was smaller than Germany, France and even the average of the entire Eurozone. You've been caught out by the fact that the widely-quoted US quarterly figure is annualized by multiplying the actual change in GDP during that quarter by four, whereas the figures for European countries are how much GDP actually shrunk by in that quarter. (Some widely-trusted organisations which should know better even quoted both figures side-by-side in the same article with no warning explaining they weren't comparable. I'm looking at you, BBC.) If they were actually comparable rather than the US having less of a decrease in GDP, the US figure would be four times the European one rather than three due to that annualization.
  - bildung 6y ago
    I stand corrected, annualized the quarterly shrinkage of US and Germany are about the same. This sadly doesn't change the main point, though: Most of the hardships of employees and small businesses are specific results of the lack of proper relief in the US, without the US economy having gained an advantage out of this.

schemy 6y ago

You are far too optimistic with how wrong things can go. The economy running smoothly is what keeps revolutions and wars from happening. The last time the wheels fell off as badly as they did over the last three months we had WWII happen within a decade. We are lucky that it is a sharp shock and it is probably recoverable, but the longer we keep this up the slower the recovery will be. And given how popular extremist ideas were even before a 25% unemployment wall it is not something I want to play with.

nickthemagicman 6y ago
Have had those same exact thoughts that poverty leads to war and other terrible stuff. The people supporting these extreme coronavirus measures have good intentions but don't seem to understand the law of unintended consequences.
- ghthor 6y ago
  Yeah, it's a mess out there. One thing I've noticed is just how narrow people viewpoints are, if they could just take a step back and look at the whole picture they might start finding some common ground. The government is overstepping its responsibility rig but now, and far too many people are cheering it on, it's dangerous.

bildung 6y ago

Or just help those 40 people with federal funds, which is what every other rich country did, and _which worked_? The problem isn't the lockdown (the US didn't even have a proper lockdown, compared to European countries), the problem is lack of federal help to compensate the losses. The US GDP shrinkage in Q2 2020 was three times larger than that of e.g. Germany and France, despite these countries having harder lockdowns. Now those countries are mostly done with Covid, while the US still has over 1000 deaths a day _plus_ the economical costs of Covid.

makomk 6y ago
The US GDP shrinkage in Q2 2020 was smaller than Germany, France and even the average of the entire Eurozone. You've been caught out by the fact that the widely-quoted US quarterly figure is annualized by multiplying the actual change in GDP during that quarter by four, whereas the figures for European countries are how much GDP actually shrunk by in that quarter. (Some widely-trusted organisations which should know better even quoted both figures side-by-side in the same article with no warning explaining they weren't comparable. I'm looking at you, BBC.) If they were actually comparable rather than the US having less of a decrease in GDP, the US figure would be four times the European one rather than three due to that annualization.
- bildung 6y ago
  I stand corrected, annualized the quarterly shrinkage of US and Germany are about the same. This sadly doesn't change the main point, though: Most of the hardships of employees and small businesses are specific results of the lack of proper relief in the US, without the US economy having gained an advantage out of this.