Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars • Hacker News Board

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#461

Post by whatshisface » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:20 PM UTC

gshubert17 wrote: post #451

grumple wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the money has to go to the bottom so it can bubble up. All debts get paid off along the way. Government bails out the small business, the small business pays the distributor, they pay their creditor, etc. Investors still make money at the top. If bubble up economics becomes a thing I want full credit.

Yes, I hope that would work. If the 700 billion dollars for quantitative easing went to 200 million U.S. adults, that'd be $3,500 apiece. If spent at the rate of $700 a week, that'd be five weeks' worth.

QE was a combination of asset purchases and loans. It couldn't have gone to individual people.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#462

Post by hirundo » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #414

All: the debate about economic effects vs. health effects is turning nasty in places and could get a lot worse. Let's not go there. Please find ways to make your substantive points that don't nudge HN threads in that direction. If you comment, make sure you're up to date the site guidelines. Note this one: " Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier…

> All: the debate about economic effects vs. health effects is turning nasty in places and could get a lot worse. Let's not go there.

I disagree. I don't think the fact that a subject is a launchpad for abuse in some threads is sufficient grounds for suppressing it elsewhere. Those are frequently the subjects that need the most, and most non-nasty discussion. Yes, very much, please, head the advice to steel-man your debate opponents relentlessly. That's the proper response, not banning the whole conversation. dang, I love you man, but your tendency to preemptively kill stories on controversial topics, not so much. I can see that it makes moderation easier, but the cost is high.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#463

Post by sershe » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

This may get downvoted, but I think the following judgement-free statement is true: this is starting to look scary/serious /solely/ because of the measures the governments are taking, and the media circus around it. Otherwise (while it would have almost certainly "started to look serious" eventually, probably for a short time), at this point, you would not have even noticed given the actual numbers.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#464

Post by bavell » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

grumple wrote: post #435

mc3 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about solvency, and the knock on effect to creditors. They can't pay the booze supplier and they go out of business etc. This could go on for months. Most businesses don't make those sweet SaaS margins. Same for airlines.

This is why the money has to go to the bottom so it can bubble up. All debts get paid off along the way. Government bails out the small business, the small business pays the distributor, they pay their creditor, etc. Investors still make money at the top. If bubble up economics becomes a thing I want full credit.

Andrew Yang has been pushing for this kind of "trickle-up" economics for awhile now with his UBI platform.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#465

Post by kqr » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #396

woofie11 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One consumer? No. All consumers, it definitely will.

How big of an area do you need to see this effect? I've never heard of this kind of pricing difference on a city, county, or state basis. And the stock market varies wildly on a daily and monthly basis without affecting the prices of almost anything. It seems clear to me that money is not even close to affected by consumer confidence the way the stock market is.

The difference in this case is that the stock market is a highly efficient process, where feedback paths are short, information is shared widely, and there is potential to make a lot of money on other's misjudgements, automatically correcting the price in the process. This means changes in confidence are almost immediately reflected in the price.

T-shirts, on the other hand, much more slowly change to match confidence, for the same reasons. If you think people collectively over- or undervalue T-shirts, it is rather hard to make money off of that mistake. In part because it implies moving physical stock, but also because they are a relatively refined product. Markets for natural resources see some of the same fluctuations as stock markets, although not to the same degree.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#466

Post by dang » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #462

dang wrote: post #414

All: the debate about economic effects vs. health effects is turning nasty in places and could get a lot worse. Let's not go there. Please find ways to make your substantive points that don't nudge HN threads in that direction. If you comment, make sure you're up to date the site guidelines. Note this one: " Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier…

> All: the debate about economic effects vs. health effects is turning nasty in places and could get a lot worse. Let's not go there. I disagree. I don't think the fact that a subject is a launchpad for abuse in some threads is sufficient grounds for suppressing it elsewhere. Those are frequently the subjects that need the most, and most non-nasty discussion. Yes, very much, please, head the advice to steel-man your…

Ah, I see I could have been clearer. By "go there" I mean let's not go further into nastiness. I don't mean let's not debate—quite the opposite. Nobody's killing the story or the discussion. The point is to discuss it in a way that doesn't destroy the container, which is our ability to keep discussing things in the future.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#467

Post by CPLX » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

cavisne wrote: post #101

eyegor wrote: post #42

This is going to be an economic catastrophe unless there's somehow a nationwide bailout to literally all brick and mortar businesses. I know of several local bar/restaurants that are considering shutting down for good, and a colleague near Melbourne told me of 4 that already have (I'm eastern US). Even if this all blows over in 3 months, we'll have a huge surge in homelessness and folks needing social assistance acro…

Such a bailout is feasible. During the financial crisis houses were physically built and purchased without enough people with the income to cover the loan. The difference here is that there is no underlying financial issue. People will still want to go to restaurants and bars after this is over, and it will end.

> there is no underlying financial issue

As someone with an economics degree I can assure you that a complete and utter collapse of aggregate demand is an underlying financial issue.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#468

Post by naiveprogrammer » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

topkai22 wrote: post #144

When talking about economic damage it is also worth thinking about what we are trying to avoid in the US- if SARS-Cov2 gets to 60% of the population, then at a 2% case fatality rate we are looking at 4 million excess deaths. Most importantly, that is a humanitarian tragedy that we must avoid. However, having numbers also let’s us put an economic value out there for what we are trying to save. A 1% reduction in the ca…

When it is all said and done, we will find out that the mortality rate is very close to regular flu (around 0.1%). Italy, China and other countries with high mortality rate are not a great model because they were caught unprepared and their health system cannot sustain a moderate peak in hospitalizations. Also keep in mind that a large segment of the infected people go untested in most places which affects the denominator. I see many epidemiologists estimating that the number of true infected is 5 or even 10 fold of what we are seeing being reported. If that is the case, then we can assume the mortality rate certainly drops to less than 1% and most likely ranges in the 0.5% to 0.1%.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#469

Post by naiveprogrammer » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

foota wrote: post #366

briandear wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the US 12 days behind? Where does that number come from? The first Italian case was a month after the first US case.

Iirc the first us case was isolated, what really matters is the first community spread. The 12 days comes from lining up the curves. Our current # of cases is where Italy was 12 days ago.

Seems like cherry-picking to me.

Italy has an older population to start with. I don't think the US will remotely reach the chaos we are seeing in Italy.

Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

#470

Post by hirundo » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #466

hirundo wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All: the debate about economic effects vs. health effects is turning nasty in places and could get a lot worse. Let's not go there. I disagree. I don't think the fact that a subject is a launchpad for abuse in some threads is sufficient grounds for suppressing it elsewhere. Those are frequently the subjects that need the most, and most non-nasty discussion. Yes, very much, please, head the advice to steel-man your…

Ah, I see I could have been clearer. By "go there" I mean let's not go further into nastiness. I don't mean let's not debate—quite the opposite. Nobody's killing the story or the discussion. The point is to discuss it in a way that doesn't destroy the container, which is our ability to keep discussing things in the future.

Thanks for the clarification. I do see the strategy of preempting debate used elsewhere on HN, e.g. re social justice or ideological diversity. I'm glad that's not what you're signalling here.