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1. The tradeoffs are mostly US-only, other western societies had the political will to prevent unemployment and evictions. This is not intended to mean "US bad,

1. The tradeoffs are mostly US-only, other western societies had the political will to prevent unemployment and evictions. This is not intended to mean "US bad, others good", just that the tradeoffs are not objectively there, but instead mostly a result of societal decisions (e.g. France had 1% lower unemployment in June 2020 than in June 2019 https://countryeconomy.com/unemployment/france?sc=LAB- https://countryeconomy.com/unemployment/france?sc=LAB- ) 2. Sweden tried this route. They now have the deaths plus the economic fallout (-6% GDP, just like the locked down neighbours Denmark and Norway), mostly due to the international interconnectedness (collapsing supplier chains etc.)

makomk 6y ago
More specifically, other western societies had the political will to prevent all the people who weren't working and were being paid by the government at less than their normal wage from counting towards the unemployment stats - generally some sort of furlough scheme where on paper they were still employed by their original company. Still meant they weren't working, with no guarantee there'd be jobs for them to go back to, but it sure looked better on the stats. (At the cost of arbitrarily screwing over people who for whatever reason couldn't take advantage of furlough and ended up actually-unemployed.) The US tried something a little like this with forgivable loans to pay businesses' paychecks, but the trouble is they did this after rolling out an unemployment boost that left less well-paid people better off than if they were employed, so it was a little difficult to convince business owners who didn't want their employees to try and murder them in their sleep to take it up.
ls612 6y ago
I wouldn't be so quick to proclaim Europe's victory over this virus. With what's happening in Spain, and now France and Germany, this may be a European "Mission Accomplished" moment in another month.

makomk 6y ago

More specifically, other western societies had the political will to prevent all the people who weren't working and were being paid by the government at less than their normal wage from counting towards the unemployment stats - generally some sort of furlough scheme where on paper they were still employed by their original company. Still meant they weren't working, with no guarantee there'd be jobs for them to go back to, but it sure looked better on the stats. (At the cost of arbitrarily screwing over people who for whatever reason couldn't take advantage of furlough and ended up actually-unemployed.) The US tried something a little like this with forgivable loans to pay businesses' paychecks, but the trouble is they did this after rolling out an unemployment boost that left less well-paid people better off than if they were employed, so it was a little difficult to convince business owners who didn't want their employees to try and murder them in their sleep to take it up.

ls612 6y ago

I wouldn't be so quick to proclaim Europe's victory over this virus. With what's happening in Spain, and now France and Germany, this may be a European "Mission Accomplished" moment in another month.