Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's unknown at the moment, but I doubt the bad guys win. Pessimism isn't my style.
Who's the bad guy? Viruses don't have intentions
Some spreading them may.
Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
111–120 of 174 posts
Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> accumulated excess workforce "If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
Being fired is not a death sentence.
For some people it is. It depends on their level in the food chain, and - if they're near the bottom - their willingness to take criminal risks.
Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
#113The Big One is coming. This is just gonna be a recession, no one is going to lose their retirement or social security this time. Still, big banks like American Savings and Chase are going to be buying up lots of property ("seizing" is probably a better word for it). When The Big One comes, we will all have to forfeit our property to the Federal Reserve, and they will start the cycle all over again.
I think the cycles are getting shorter, because of computers and the internet which allows this manipulation of the economy to literally happen at the speed of light.
It is possible to maintain our current standard of living without the work of the Federal Reserve, but such would require drastically cutting military spending and other uneccesary expenses (conversation for another time). One way to cut the military budget, without actually reducing our firepower would be to merge all branches together into one command structure to facilitate interoperability between machines. For example, military contractors will sell the DoD 3 different copies of the same helicopter with slight differences which make it hard for them to interoperate; you would need 3 different mechanics/computer techs, with 3 different sets of parts and tools.
Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
#114We are in uncharted territory. At this point it's just guesses (educated or not).
Either this thing is "The End of the World As We Know It", or it is not. Give it another week or so.
That's a pretty useless dichotomy. You could say that about pretty much any problem of any size, and it would be technically true.
Enough of the dramatization. It accomplishes nothing but stress.
Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
#115Chance of 1929-style Economic Depression: ~60% (Recession chance: >95%) Make sure you have the cash to live properly and satisfy urgent needs if necessary over the next 6-12 months or longer. Only invest the remaining in highly-rated bonds or great stocks with long-term resilience. The world is facing a liquidity crisis, along with both demand & supply shocks that can’t be easily fixed by governments. We are in a war…
> Chance of 1929-style Economic Depression: ~60%
How did you arrive at this probability?
Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
#116Hopefully everyone will keep in mind that bailouts should go to the citizenry at large to resurrect demand, not to large multinationals which need to pay off debt they should have never incurred in the first place (and which was spent on high-risk growth projects or shareholder buybacks). "Take Boeing. The aerospace giant of course wants a $60 billion bailout. Financial problems for this corporation predated the cris…
How can giving money to people resurrect demand if people aren't buying anything right now?
Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
#117I’m an economist and I wish I had some guidance to offer, but unfortunately I have none. I’m struggling to get a grip on this situation. Firstly, though I have not worked there for six months or so, I am Italian (from Milan, in the north, the worst-hit area). The economy there has basically shut down. Consumer spending has collapsed, production has collapsed, and logistics are increasingly untenable. What can we expe…
I am not an economist but by virtue of working in the fintech space for many years, particularly in credit, feel this specific point acutely- "economies and democracies cannot idle with incurring enormous financial costs" This is what worries me about this crisis more than the myriad other issues, like- -the end is unknown bc we dont have an antiviral treatment or vaccine, and we dont know how long immunity lasts -we…
A comparison I would look to here are historical economic recoveries, after near-complete destruction of physical capital, e.g. Germany and Japan in 1946.
Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
#118I've heard economic forecasters predict that the economy will spring back once the crisis is over. Their reasoning is that the crisis is an external issue, not a problem with the economy itself, as with the housing crisis. Once it becomes more contained and controlled, there will be work for people to do, and people available to do that work, and the economy will just start humming along again. I'm more pessimistic.…
Every noncash nonmanufacturing problem can be solved simply by running up debt and sorting it out later.
Remember, debt is imaginary! The real part is doing somproductive work for someone else who owes you back. The worst you lose is what you got by working for someone else instead no yourself, not the essentials of life. Debt doesn't hurt anyone. Only forcibly collecting debt payments hurts people. Debt is the buffer against external shocks. That's why it exists and why it was invented even before money was.
Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
#119What I want to know: With all this god damn quarantine and stay at home, what's to prevent one sick person to go out after the all clear and just reinfect everybody. This stay at home situation is not sustainable. Is this an economic war from China?
Everyone is going to get sick unless we find a vaccine or a cure. That is inevitable. The idea behind isolation is to spread out the cases in time so that supplies/treatment are available for you when you get it. If you get sick right now and need an ICU, you might just flat-out die because there aren't any ICU resources for you. If you get sick 6 months from now, there will be more resources.
Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?
#120Hopefully everyone will keep in mind that bailouts should go to the citizenry at large to resurrect demand, not to large multinationals which need to pay off debt they should have never incurred in the first place (and which was spent on high-risk growth projects or shareholder buybacks). "Take Boeing. The aerospace giant of course wants a $60 billion bailout. Financial problems for this corporation predated the cris…
How can giving money to people resurrect demand if people aren't buying anything right now?
People aren't buying anything because they don't have any money or they are in fear of not having a paycheck sometime down the road.