12 ms·

Lol. It's not that bad. How can you claim a hiccup could bring down "such a fragile system" when the pandemic caused inconveniences and elevated prices. Sure yo

by fny 5y ago

Lol. It's not that bad. How can you claim a hiccup could bring down "such a fragile system" when the pandemic caused inconveniences and elevated prices. Sure you wouldn't able to buy toilet paper and meat disappeared from the shelves for a few months, but you have to remember we actually shut down the ENTIRE economy, and now we're back with a few things still out of whack. These shortages are also primarily due to behavioral shifts which redundancy will not correct. Demand for suburban housing skyrocketed since no one wanted to live in the city. Services spending shifted to goods. Global travel halted. Everyone wanted to redo their flooring in the same 3 months. Everyone stopped buying cars, and now everyone wants one to get out of the house or for that new home they bought during the pandemic. I mean, you could pay up to hedge against all of these, but I'm pretty sure 40 years of hedging would have not been a wise investment. Now I do agree with creating redundancies for critical goods as a hedge against geopolitical tensions, but that's a different story.

profile53 5y ago
Conversely I think the pandemic showed how robust supply chains are. Supply was able to be rapidly reallocated to different products with nothing more than some mild hiccups. The price of cars went up 20% or so, PS5s are hard to find without paying scalpers, and toilet paper is more expensive, but cars, PlayStations, and toilet paper are still being manufactured. Car production went down but electronic device manufacturing as a whole increased. Clothing manufacturing decreased, but mask and PPE production increased 100 fold, as did medical devices and medications.
- simonh 5y ago
  Also this is a big opportunity for the economy. There's big demand for lots of stuff and companies around the world are scrabbling to adjust. There's also plenty of capital around to invest in them. People are now used to tightening their belts a bit, more picky about their jobs and more willing to embrace change. I think many workers have a good chance to benefit in all this.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
I agree COVID seems like more of a counter-point to the idea that supply chains are incredibly fragile. But who shut down their entire economy? The US laid off maybe a little over 10% of the workforce at its maximum, by the looks, so that's not entirely shut down even at maximum hyperbole.
- learc83 5y ago
  Of course the “entire” economy wasn’t shut down. But the unemployment rate would have been massively higher than it was had the government not stepped in with loans (essentially grants) to encourage companies to keep people on the payroll through the lockdowns. There were also companies that kept workers on the payroll despite being essentially shutdown for weeks even without access to PPP money.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    > Of course the “entire” economy wasn’t shut down. That may seem obvious to you and I. Hence my question. > But the unemployment rate would have been massively higher than it was had the government not stepped in with loans (essentially grants) to encourage companies to keep people on the payroll through the lockdowns. Would it? What models showed that, and how much higher is massively? > There were also many companies that kept workers employee on the payroll despite being essentially shutdown for weeks. There were many companies that that stayed open.
    - learc83 5y ago
      >That may seem obvious to you and I. Hence my question. I think it seems obvious to everyone, and anyone saying the entire economy was shutdown was just being hyperbolic. Everyone who lived through it knows that they were able to buy groceries and that their power and lights stayed on. >Would it? What models showed that, and how much higher is massively? Something like 12 percentage points according to this paper [1]. >There were many companies that that stayed open. Right. But my point is that unemployment rate isn't everything when discussing what percentage of the economy shutdown. Many people were receiving paychecks despite their company being essentially closed for business. 1. https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/226/Job-Preservation-Effects-Paycheck-Protection-Program-Loans.pdf https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/226/Job-Preservation-...
OneTimePetes 5y ago
What alot of observers do not grasp, this is a system, which when it starts oscellating, sings itself apart. Example? A chip shortage will make modern agrarian equipment in poorer countries more expensive, leading to disrepair (Remember the right to repair discussions) aka reduced production, leading to goods shortages, leading to unrest, leading to refugee waves and more strain on the supply chain in seemingly not adjunct sectors like textile.
- GlennS 5y ago
  It's a plausible position, but is there evidence for it?
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Isn't this fundamentally the point of capitalism? That enlightened, distributed self interest is the only system capable of rapidly reacting to changes such as this? To prove an oscillatory effect, you'd have to come up with a system in which the end result negatively impacted the original cause. The strongest case would be in materials pricing, but it seems like that's more demand than labor / supply side.
Dumblydorr 5y ago
We didn't shut down the entire economy. Huge portions of essential workers remained employed throughout, and lockdowns were phased, plus tons of commerce went online. A true economic shutdown would look far worse than this, imagine no hospitals, no grocery stores, no utilities, no stores or services. That is far worse than our partial hiccups here and there. I say this because the virus could've been 5X more lethal and to young people to boot. Then we might have actually truly shut down, and we'd be in a much worse spot now. There's no rule that the pandemic virus doesn't have to be much more lethal next time.
- rakwoelq 5y ago
  A more lethal virus would not spread as quickly and effectively as Covid-19, look at the Ebola virus as an example.
  - jimktrains2 5y ago
    That's not true at all. There's no reason something can't be more lethal and more virulent. Ebola is spread by contact, not in the air, so it's not a good comparison. (Especially because it can spread very quickly even given that it doesn't spread through the air.)
    - rakwoelq 5y ago
      It would be much easier to identity an infected individual for quarantine if a virus had a steep fatality rate, the transmission would be much slower too since dead people don't travel.
      - AlexandrB 5y ago
        Only if the virus makes its presence known quickly. Something can be fatal, yet take months or years to kill you. Worst case would be a highly lethal, airborne virus with a long delay between infection and death.
        5y ago
arglebarglegar 5y ago
exodus from cities seems to be largely a myth in my experience, do you have a source?

by fny 5y ago

profile53 5y ago

Conversely I think the pandemic showed how robust supply chains are. Supply was able to be rapidly reallocated to different products with nothing more than some mild hiccups. The price of cars went up 20% or so, PS5s are hard to find without paying scalpers, and toilet paper is more expensive, but cars, PlayStations, and toilet paper are still being manufactured. Car production went down but electronic device manufacturing as a whole increased. Clothing manufacturing decreased, but mask and PPE production increased 100 fold, as did medical devices and medications.

simonh 5y ago
Also this is a big opportunity for the economy. There's big demand for lots of stuff and companies around the world are scrabbling to adjust. There's also plenty of capital around to invest in them. People are now used to tightening their belts a bit, more picky about their jobs and more willing to embrace change. I think many workers have a good chance to benefit in all this.

throwawaylinux 5y ago

I agree COVID seems like more of a counter-point to the idea that supply chains are incredibly fragile. But who shut down their entire economy? The US laid off maybe a little over 10% of the workforce at its maximum, by the looks, so that's not entirely shut down even at maximum hyperbole.

learc83 5y ago
Of course the “entire” economy wasn’t shut down. But the unemployment rate would have been massively higher than it was had the government not stepped in with loans (essentially grants) to encourage companies to keep people on the payroll through the lockdowns. There were also companies that kept workers on the payroll despite being essentially shutdown for weeks even without access to PPP money.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  > Of course the “entire” economy wasn’t shut down. That may seem obvious to you and I. Hence my question. > But the unemployment rate would have been massively higher than it was had the government not stepped in with loans (essentially grants) to encourage companies to keep people on the payroll through the lockdowns. Would it? What models showed that, and how much higher is massively? > There were also many companies that kept workers employee on the payroll despite being essentially shutdown for weeks. There were many companies that that stayed open.
  - learc83 5y ago
    >That may seem obvious to you and I. Hence my question. I think it seems obvious to everyone, and anyone saying the entire economy was shutdown was just being hyperbolic. Everyone who lived through it knows that they were able to buy groceries and that their power and lights stayed on. >Would it? What models showed that, and how much higher is massively? Something like 12 percentage points according to this paper [1]. >There were many companies that that stayed open. Right. But my point is that unemployment rate isn't everything when discussing what percentage of the economy shutdown. Many people were receiving paychecks despite their company being essentially closed for business. 1. https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/226/Job-Preservation-Effects-Paycheck-Protection-Program-Loans.pdf https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/226/Job-Preservation-...

OneTimePetes 5y ago

What alot of observers do not grasp, this is a system, which when it starts oscellating, sings itself apart. Example? A chip shortage will make modern agrarian equipment in poorer countries more expensive, leading to disrepair (Remember the right to repair discussions) aka reduced production, leading to goods shortages, leading to unrest, leading to refugee waves and more strain on the supply chain in seemingly not adjunct sectors like textile.

GlennS 5y ago
It's a plausible position, but is there evidence for it?
ethbr0 5y ago
Isn't this fundamentally the point of capitalism? That enlightened, distributed self interest is the only system capable of rapidly reacting to changes such as this? To prove an oscillatory effect, you'd have to come up with a system in which the end result negatively impacted the original cause. The strongest case would be in materials pricing, but it seems like that's more demand than labor / supply side.

Dumblydorr 5y ago

We didn't shut down the entire economy. Huge portions of essential workers remained employed throughout, and lockdowns were phased, plus tons of commerce went online. A true economic shutdown would look far worse than this, imagine no hospitals, no grocery stores, no utilities, no stores or services. That is far worse than our partial hiccups here and there. I say this because the virus could've been 5X more lethal and to young people to boot. Then we might have actually truly shut down, and we'd be in a much worse spot now. There's no rule that the pandemic virus doesn't have to be much more lethal next time.

rakwoelq 5y ago
A more lethal virus would not spread as quickly and effectively as Covid-19, look at the Ebola virus as an example.
- jimktrains2 5y ago
  That's not true at all. There's no reason something can't be more lethal and more virulent. Ebola is spread by contact, not in the air, so it's not a good comparison. (Especially because it can spread very quickly even given that it doesn't spread through the air.)
  - rakwoelq 5y ago
    It would be much easier to identity an infected individual for quarantine if a virus had a steep fatality rate, the transmission would be much slower too since dead people don't travel.
    - AlexandrB 5y ago
      Only if the virus makes its presence known quickly. Something can be fatal, yet take months or years to kill you. Worst case would be a highly lethal, airborne virus with a long delay between infection and death.
      - 5y ago

arglebarglegar 5y ago

exodus from cities seems to be largely a myth in my experience, do you have a source?