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Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

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Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#181

Post by logicchains »

pbourke wrote: post #33
lettergram wrote: post #2

One thing that really horrified me was how quickly people threw away the economy. Unfortunately, this virus is highly contagious (to the point that the vast majority of countries won’t contain it) and fairly lethal. We don’t actually know how lethal, but it appears 1%-3%, but without widespread testing we wouldn’t know. At the moment, we just reduced our GDP by 30%-50% in regions under quarantine. Think about that fo…

> We don’t actually know how lethal, but it appears 1%-3%, but without widespread testing we wouldn’t know. That’s the fatality rate within a functioning medical system. It’s safe to assume that if the virus is uncontrolled the rate will be substantially higher.

Why? There wasn't enough testing/medical capacity for at least the first month in Wuhan, and the rate wasn't any higher.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#182

Post by artursapek »

booleandilemma wrote: post #6
lettergram wrote: post #2

One thing that really horrified me was how quickly people threw away the economy. Unfortunately, this virus is highly contagious (to the point that the vast majority of countries won’t contain it) and fairly lethal. We don’t actually know how lethal, but it appears 1%-3%, but without widespread testing we wouldn’t know. At the moment, we just reduced our GDP by 30%-50% in regions under quarantine. Think about that fo…

New Yorker here. From what I see through my window, my fellow New Yorkers still don’t “get it”. I see clusters of people hanging out and families going for leisurely walks. If this keeps up the number of infections - and deaths - will only increase. Last week my brother suggested instead of working from home I work from a Starbucks. I feel like people don’t understand how serious this is and it’s really bothering me.

You obviously don't have young kids. Leaving your apartment and taking them for a walk is the bare minimum to the whole family not going crazy during something like this. You can't just sit at home and chill like a single adult can.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#183

Post by RotaryTelephone »

smallgovt wrote: post #176
m_ke wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 dead and 3 more in critical condition from a single family: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-shatters-ne... 26 dead at the washington nursing home, 50 tested positive: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-deaths-washingto... Death rates by preexisting condition: https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/2... America has 42% obesity rate and a huge population with diabetes and…

Question for OP: does this data change your mind? If not, what would?

Zombies.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#184

Post by bilbo0s »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #80
609venezia wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we make millions of the tests rapidly available? I am still reading about test shortages on both coasts, even under the restricted testing regime we have been in so far. Maybe the no-contact thermometers could be a scalable approach. Go to the bank? Forehead scan to get in. Go to the grocery store? Same. At least until--and maybe even after--we can scale the RNA testing.

Get IDT or (other nucleotide synthesis company) to start mass producing the detection primers, and ship them to their whole active customer catalog, they all have thermal cyclers. Then figure out the other reagents needed to locally produce tests that trade off false positive rate for the lowest false negative rate you can get. How to get swabs to the closest lab with a thermal cycler, no idea, but we have phones wit…

I really feel like you guys are ignoring a lot of the difficulties in ramping up production to nation scale for this hypothetical test. A "rapid" test no less. These things are not as easy as everyone is making them out to be. Making one? Simple. Scaling that up to 8 figures worth? Not so simple. A lot of us are being a little too Jedi hand-wave-y about this issue.

And think about it, I'm only talking about getting up to 10 mil or so here. We'd need a lot more than that to implement the plans being proposed on this thread. Logistics really does demand that medical personnel, and emergency responders be tested regularly to ensure their continued fitness for purpose under such schemes. Consider, there are right around 12,000 law enforcement officers alone in Washington state. Not counting doctors, nurses, EMT's and firemen. (And lest we forget the most important emergency worker of all right now, the Walmart stock boys.)

Add all that up. Multiply it by 50 states, some much larger than Washington. Under the plans you guys are proposing, we'd need multiple tests as the crisis goes on for each of these workers to make sure they aren't out infecting citizens when they interact with them. (Or when they put food on shelves that a customer picks up 4 hours later.)

Please, try to be reasonable. Maybe the current approach is not tenable, but the ideas being proposed on this thread are problematic as well.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#185

Post by digitaltrees »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #65
codingslave wrote: post #7

The stock market is largely collapsing because: 1.) Hedge funds levered up their capital 5 - 15x to make more money, then got caught with their pants down. So they all panic sold at once, crashing the market. 2.) CEOs of large corporations used cash to buy back their stock, inflating the stock price, and depleting their cash reserves. So now those same companies are on the brink of collapse, causing the credit market…

Why should anyone be punished for failing to plan for a black swan event? Black swan events are unpredictable and outside of what is normally expected.

The nature of a black swan event, what and when, is unpredictable. That one will happen is not. Any prudent leader must prepare to weather a financial downturn, a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a war. The list goes on and preparation for one is likely the same as for all.

The point is, unprepared leaders will see their firms go out of business, but based on the number of firms that seem to never be prepared, it seems the standard incentive isn’t enough. Thus it warrants discussion on how to align leadership incentives to prepare in advance. If we had businesses that could weather 3 months of crisis, whatever the crisis without triggering a depression the entire economy would be better off. Yet here we are.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#186

Post by zaroth »

senordevnyc wrote: post #123
im3w1l wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Test everyone at onset of cold symptoms or a fever. Taking hypochondria into account it should come out to once a month. So 10 million tests per day.

People can be contagious before symptoms. And that’s also a very different strategy than testing everyone before they go into work each day. You’ll miss the vast majority of people if you just test people with symptoms.

South Korea isn’t testing everyone, every day. Neither is China.

So there’s a middle ground here somewhere.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#187

Post by kjksf »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #65
codingslave wrote: post #7

The stock market is largely collapsing because: 1.) Hedge funds levered up their capital 5 - 15x to make more money, then got caught with their pants down. So they all panic sold at once, crashing the market. 2.) CEOs of large corporations used cash to buy back their stock, inflating the stock price, and depleting their cash reserves. So now those same companies are on the brink of collapse, causing the credit market…

Why should anyone be punished for failing to plan for a black swan event? Black swan events are unpredictable and outside of what is normally expected.

This particular mutation of a virus is black swan even, as it never happened before.

A recession is not.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...:

1969, 1973, 1981, 1990, 2000, 2007 - a recession of US economy at least every 10 years, like a clockwork.

So, if you're a CEO of an airline and you're giving away 90% of your cash to shareholders instead of saving it to last few months when business declines, then it's an obvious failure of planning.

Or, more accurately, it's yet another case of "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It."

CEO salaries and bonuses are tied to performance of the stock (because they are set by board of directors, who are there to represent shareholders). So they spend the money to buy back the shares which increases the share price and their bonuses.

It's really simple if you know the incentives.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#188

Post by whb07 »

smallgovt wrote: post #176
m_ke wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 dead and 3 more in critical condition from a single family: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-shatters-ne... 26 dead at the washington nursing home, 50 tested positive: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-deaths-washingto... Death rates by preexisting condition: https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/13/2... America has 42% obesity rate and a huge population with diabetes and…

Question for OP: does this data change your mind? If not, what would?

That it impacted the kids and 20-30 yo cohort the way it impacts the 70+ yo.

Also those co-morbidities like high blood pressure have the all important age distinction missing. So yeah if you’re 70 and have high blood pressure it’s worse.

It’s perverse to stop world for some low rate CFR for the elderly. The world is made for the young. We shouldn’t destroy it for the elderly.

Also actuarial tables for a 75 year old is extremely haunting. People magically forget that a sick 75 year old doesn’t have much time left to live in the first place.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#189

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ericd wrote: post #101
toomuchtodo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem will be how long the shelter in place can be maintained; as long as you have folks coming in infected from other states, once the mass quarantine is lifted, outbreaks will flare up. This only ends with a vaccine and enough people recovered after infection we arrive near enough herd immunity. Until then this will have to burn through populations. Regardless, I can appreciate and support Pritzker’s response…

We don’t have a vaccine for the common cold, not for lack of trying. AFAIK we’ve never made a vaccine for a coronavirus. This isn’t the time to be relying on silver bullets.

Common cold is caused by hundreds of different viruses so a single vaccine is not useful

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#190

Post by zaroth »

daenz wrote: post #144
toast0 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the options are have a lockdown vs have a functioning economy and a bunch of sick people. Once hospitals start overflowing with this, you're not going to have a functioning economy anyway. If hospitals can get the supplies they need, and testing and health department capacity is there to do contact tracing, the lockdowns can loosen, and our economy can start back up. Bonus points if the warmer weather i…

>Once hospitals start overflowing with this, you're not going to have a functioning economy anyway. Is this true though? I'm not trying to be insensitive, but according to reports, ~15% of the infected need hospitalization, and the distribution of those people are mostly over 60[0]. Is having these people hospitalized on a large scale more detrimental to the economy than shutting everything down? Serious question. 0.…

The vast majority of people with COVID do not end up at the hospital. So it is absolute fact that we are sacrificing the economy in order to save, relatively speaking, a select few.

If this continues for more than a few weeks - 50% of American business dies. 50% of America is unemployed. Contagion from massive defaults and write-offs spreads throughout the entire economy. Money printing at a rate heretofore unimaginable and probably hyperinflation to follow.

It is no less than committing hari-kari in a moral panic. Hopefully we will wake up from the fever dream before it’s too late.

“Flatten the curve” is a terrible lie. The extent and duration of the measures required would bankrupt 95% of the country.

ICUs being overrun is actually an argument for getting the COVID cases out of the way quickly, not dragging it out over, say, 24 months.

If you can get your head around the scale involved, if 80% of people are going to be infected and 14% of those are going to need serious treatment (doubtful, but the same assumption the “flatten” exercise is based on), there is actually no way to keep COVID cases “at or below” ICU capacity. They will absolutely take 100% of capacity and beyond for more than a year, if you drag it out.

The longer you have COVID cases overwhelming your system, the longer you have non-COVID routine emergencies getting untreated.

Either you can contain it in a few weeks or you have to let it burn through. There is no “slow smolder” scenario I can see that leaves society intact.

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