5 ms·

The sheer hubris of your post is the problem I'm talking about. Banning cars saves lives. Forcing everyone to wear a helmet when walking saves lives. Banning su

by schemy 6y ago

The sheer hubris of your post is the problem I'm talking about. Banning cars saves lives. Forcing everyone to wear a helmet when walking saves lives. Banning sugar saves lives. The issue is how many lives and at what cost? I'll wait to see how many millions end up homeless before I say that the lock downs saved lives anywhere where they were implemented.

nickthemagicman 6y ago
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.
gfxgirl 6y ago
your post has just as much hubris. you seem to be suggesting the no lockdowns would have no impact on the economy. There are plenty of knowledgable people that believe the impact on the economy would be even worse without lockdowns. I'm not saying they are right, just pointing out you seem to be implying there's only 2 possibilities 1. we lockdown and the economy goes to bad which kills people because of lack of income 2. we don't lockdown and the economy magically stays strong. There's other possibilities. 3. we don't lockdown, the pandemic kills millions, the economy goes down more than if we had locked down. 4. ??
- schemy 6y ago
  >you seem to be suggesting the no lockdowns would have no impact on the economy. No. I'm suggesting that acknowledging the cost of lockdowns is something that is not allowed to be discussed in liberal circles. 4: World war 3 caused by the economic collapse and radicalization of the population. You know, like the last time there was mass sustained unemployment.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    You are currently discussing the cost of lockdowns in fairly liberal circles.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      And getting downvoted to death, so he does have some point...
      - schemy 6y ago
        It's kind of funny honestly. Ah well, the mob wants it pound of flesh. Who are we to deny them?
  - ghthor 6y ago
    You're not alone, it's hard to have these conversations mostly because they devolve into libel attacks that people opposed to lockdowns or wearing masks dont care about other people.
GavinMcG 6y ago
The difference is that a lockdown can predictably drop r0 below 1 over a relatively finite amount of time. It doesn't need to be ongoing, as in your examples. Also, the U.S. did not conduct a lockdown. By all means, look to the countries that did, and see how many new homeless that created.
- schemy 6y ago
  Australia is looking at up to 40% of all households with mortgages to be foreclosed on within the next 3 years: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-04/covid-recession-mortgage-stress-default-home-loans-jobkeeper/12318274 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-04/covid-recession-mortg...
  - lkrubner 6y ago
    The Australian government does not have the power to bring the dead to life but it does have the power to bail-out home owners, and everyone else badly effected by the economic crisis. Given that the economic problems can be offset with enough economic stimulus, but dead people can not be brought back to life, it seems obvious which course should be taken.
  - morsch 6y ago
    I guess you are referring to the "mortgage stress" number from the article (37.5%). That sounds high, but it was 32.7% already in December 2019[1]. And you are throwing statistics out there without bothering to make an argument. Being in mortgage stress certainly isn't the same as being homeless now or in the future. https://www.savings.com.au/home-loans/1-1-million-households-now-under-mortgage-stress https://www.savings.com.au/home-loans/1-1-million-households...
  - doctor_eval 6y ago
    Also, after the first Victorian attempt to control CV19 through lockdown succeeded and lockdown was raised, there was a significant quarantine breach, after which infections ran out of control. This evidence completely invalidates the premise of your first point regarding r0. Had people actually observed the restrictions, the Victorian economy would be fully open, like New Zealand is now.
zuminator 6y ago
Let's assume for now that you are correct, economy-first is best. Then, has the Federal government pursued the optimal course of action to make economy-first practical and successful? If not, then why not? And also, if not, then is it possible that given the lack of a solid comprehensive plan from the Feds, the r-flattening strategy has been left as unfortunately the most reasonable course of action? On the other hand, if the Federal government has properly laid out the optimal pro economy-first course of action, or close enough to it, then how is it that we are not implementing it, at least in parts of the country? The US has 50 states, many which are dominated by conservatives who like the President, are not broadly in favor of lockdowns. Why haven't those states insisted upon going full steam ahead with economy first, and proving the efficacy of that choice? Why do even conservative, business-friendly, Trump-loyal states keep backtracking and implementing partial lockdowns if they are such a ruinously counterproductive idea? My own opinion is that the Feds have failed at every level, leaving the states with no choice but to flounder through this pandemic with only bad options. Had we taken comprehensive nationwide steps to stop the spread of the virus, especially at the early stages, shutdowns may have been unnecessary or greatly lessened in severity. And had we taken more wholehearted steps to mitigate the economic effects of the shutdowns, we would be in a much healthier position overall to ride out temporary drops of economic activity without the irreversible effects we are currently facing. But I'm curious as to what you think the best economy- and lifesaving strategy would've been.

by schemy 6y ago

nickthemagicman 6y ago

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.

gfxgirl 6y ago

your post has just as much hubris. you seem to be suggesting the no lockdowns would have no impact on the economy. There are plenty of knowledgable people that believe the impact on the economy would be even worse without lockdowns. I'm not saying they are right, just pointing out you seem to be implying there's only 2 possibilities 1. we lockdown and the economy goes to bad which kills people because of lack of income 2. we don't lockdown and the economy magically stays strong. There's other possibilities. 3. we don't lockdown, the pandemic kills millions, the economy goes down more than if we had locked down. 4. ??

schemy 6y ago
>you seem to be suggesting the no lockdowns would have no impact on the economy. No. I'm suggesting that acknowledging the cost of lockdowns is something that is not allowed to be discussed in liberal circles. 4: World war 3 caused by the economic collapse and radicalization of the population. You know, like the last time there was mass sustained unemployment.
- adrianN 6y ago
  You are currently discussing the cost of lockdowns in fairly liberal circles.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    And getting downvoted to death, so he does have some point...
    - schemy 6y ago
      It's kind of funny honestly. Ah well, the mob wants it pound of flesh. Who are we to deny them?
- ghthor 6y ago
  You're not alone, it's hard to have these conversations mostly because they devolve into libel attacks that people opposed to lockdowns or wearing masks dont care about other people.

GavinMcG 6y ago

The difference is that a lockdown can predictably drop r0 below 1 over a relatively finite amount of time. It doesn't need to be ongoing, as in your examples. Also, the U.S. did not conduct a lockdown. By all means, look to the countries that did, and see how many new homeless that created.

schemy 6y ago
Australia is looking at up to 40% of all households with mortgages to be foreclosed on within the next 3 years: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-04/covid-recession-mortgage-stress-default-home-loans-jobkeeper/12318274 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-04/covid-recession-mortg...
- lkrubner 6y ago
  The Australian government does not have the power to bring the dead to life but it does have the power to bail-out home owners, and everyone else badly effected by the economic crisis. Given that the economic problems can be offset with enough economic stimulus, but dead people can not be brought back to life, it seems obvious which course should be taken.
- morsch 6y ago
  I guess you are referring to the "mortgage stress" number from the article (37.5%). That sounds high, but it was 32.7% already in December 2019[1]. And you are throwing statistics out there without bothering to make an argument. Being in mortgage stress certainly isn't the same as being homeless now or in the future. https://www.savings.com.au/home-loans/1-1-million-households-now-under-mortgage-stress https://www.savings.com.au/home-loans/1-1-million-households...
- doctor_eval 6y ago
  Also, after the first Victorian attempt to control CV19 through lockdown succeeded and lockdown was raised, there was a significant quarantine breach, after which infections ran out of control. This evidence completely invalidates the premise of your first point regarding r0. Had people actually observed the restrictions, the Victorian economy would be fully open, like New Zealand is now.

zuminator 6y ago

Let's assume for now that you are correct, economy-first is best. Then, has the Federal government pursued the optimal course of action to make economy-first practical and successful? If not, then why not? And also, if not, then is it possible that given the lack of a solid comprehensive plan from the Feds, the r-flattening strategy has been left as unfortunately the most reasonable course of action? On the other hand, if the Federal government has properly laid out the optimal pro economy-first course of action, or close enough to it, then how is it that we are not implementing it, at least in parts of the country? The US has 50 states, many which are dominated by conservatives who like the President, are not broadly in favor of lockdowns. Why haven't those states insisted upon going full steam ahead with economy first, and proving the efficacy of that choice? Why do even conservative, business-friendly, Trump-loyal states keep backtracking and implementing partial lockdowns if they are such a ruinously counterproductive idea? My own opinion is that the Feds have failed at every level, leaving the states with no choice but to flounder through this pandemic with only bad options. Had we taken comprehensive nationwide steps to stop the spread of the virus, especially at the early stages, shutdowns may have been unnecessary or greatly lessened in severity. And had we taken more wholehearted steps to mitigate the economic effects of the shutdowns, we would be in a much healthier position overall to ride out temporary drops of economic activity without the irreversible effects we are currently facing. But I'm curious as to what you think the best economy- and lifesaving strategy would've been.