09-07-2020, 07:20 PM
I think the conversation here has covered things well, and I generally approve of the measures that have been taken (with some reservations about the back to school plan). I think the real test will come during the second wave, and if we are willing to shut down again.
I do feel we have opened back up too soon, the intial lockdown was strong enough to tamp out community transmission (based on estimates of R values). But re-opening bars when doing so threatens the opportunity to return to school, or other things like access to hospitals etc. was foolish in my opinion.
That being said, the idea that we could have stayed open and not suffered economically is also disproven. The US is a great example of why I am glad we have different policies from them. But everyone has suffered economically, no matter how much they lived in denial of the virus, or even how little they were affected by it. We are a world wide economy now, it is impossible for us to not be affected by it. So the choice wasn't "fight the desease or continue economic properity" it was "fight the disease or suffer economic calamity anyway". And even in isolation, the effect of hundreds of thousands or millions sick, and everyone terrified would also have been substantial. Consumer confidence affects the economy...if people aren't confident in their safety, guess what, it's going to hurt the economy...and it's also going to cause shifts which the conservative economic analysis will be consider economic weakness (change is "bad").
That being said, there are interesting economic effects here, many of them, extremely negative in my opinion, even if not reflected in the stock exchange. I fear this pandemic will vastly accelerate the centralization and monopolization of businesses, small businesses have suffered far far more than large conglomerates. Amazon is making more money than ever....these are not good things, even though they push stocks (which mostly represent medium and large businesses) up. Ultimately, this will make more critical the social and economic problems (instability) that the pre-existing trend towards centralization has had on our community/country/world.
I do feel we have opened back up too soon, the intial lockdown was strong enough to tamp out community transmission (based on estimates of R values). But re-opening bars when doing so threatens the opportunity to return to school, or other things like access to hospitals etc. was foolish in my opinion.
That being said, the idea that we could have stayed open and not suffered economically is also disproven. The US is a great example of why I am glad we have different policies from them. But everyone has suffered economically, no matter how much they lived in denial of the virus, or even how little they were affected by it. We are a world wide economy now, it is impossible for us to not be affected by it. So the choice wasn't "fight the desease or continue economic properity" it was "fight the disease or suffer economic calamity anyway". And even in isolation, the effect of hundreds of thousands or millions sick, and everyone terrified would also have been substantial. Consumer confidence affects the economy...if people aren't confident in their safety, guess what, it's going to hurt the economy...and it's also going to cause shifts which the conservative economic analysis will be consider economic weakness (change is "bad").
That being said, there are interesting economic effects here, many of them, extremely negative in my opinion, even if not reflected in the stock exchange. I fear this pandemic will vastly accelerate the centralization and monopolization of businesses, small businesses have suffered far far more than large conglomerates. Amazon is making more money than ever....these are not good things, even though they push stocks (which mostly represent medium and large businesses) up. Ultimately, this will make more critical the social and economic problems (instability) that the pre-existing trend towards centralization has had on our community/country/world.