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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]

#301

Post by asdff »

gnicholas wrote: post #295
asdff wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But again, follow the money. Where is that exact dollar that would have gone to that business had there not been any coronavirus? The economy is a circular river system. If it stops one day, there is going to be areas of drought in places, as well as huge reservoirs protected by dams. Money does not disappear, it only moves. You lose money on stocks, someone else on the other side of the world made money with their s…

If the business is providing no services or products, then it cannot afford to pay its employees. This is because the economy is built around mutually beneficial exchange, which only happens when people can work. Example: I go to a clothing store and give them an amount of money that I value less than the clothes they give me in exchange. We are both better off because we have made that mutually-beneficial exchange.…

What I'm saying is there is still money even if it's not currently circulating. In your example, you go to the store and it's closed, the money remains in your pocket; it still exists.

My solution would be to tax you redistribute that money from your pocket to the people who need food and shelter, the same people who stimulate consumer spending, because you are unable to currently do that yourself due to shelter in place orders and/or perceptions of the state of the economy.

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

#302

Post by asdff »

giantDinosaur wrote: post #297
asdff wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate purpose of the shutdown is to not overwhelm healthcare providers, so people who need treatment actually receive it rather than die waiting in an overcrowded ER. So yes, they would fare better in a shutdown with lessened spread of the virus and fewer people putting strain on healthcare.

Why didn't you respond to the actual point? What do you think is going to happen to people with chronic health conditions in a depression, or when supply chains stop functioning? What happens when (random example) e.g. anti-HIV medicine shipments can't be made and we start to get new mutations in those diseases? Do you just assume we'll treat chronic health issues as a priority in a depression? I'd like to think we d…

People with chronic health conditions outside of the coronavirus aren't going to get much care in a crammed ER run on triage and therefore serving acute cases rather than chronic if we don't attempt to limit the spread. The staff shortage is worse than any supply shortage. In a healthy economy free of pandemic, CA is short on doctors and nurses.

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

#303

Post by airstrike »

megous wrote: post #252
danharaj wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is systemic failure of the healthcare infrastructure and millions of deaths.

We don't know all the alternatives yet.

I'm not sure we want to find out

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

#304

Post by artursapek »

booleandilemma wrote: post #242
artursapek wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not without a Wuhan-Style lockdown, apparently.

Quality of life in China is not all it's cracked up to be.

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

#305

Post by airstrike »

digitaltrees wrote: post #130
senordevnyc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t say it was the only reason, and you ignored my question. Would dividends be OK?

Dividends that leave the business effectively insolvent in an emergency or financial downturn are irresponsible and should be disallowed. It should be remembered that direct stock by backs were illegal until recently as they were seen as a violation of insider trading and presented conflicts of interest. Further stock based compensation for executives is also relatively new. So we now have a situation that the incent…

By and large most publicly traded companies are not insolvent right now and don't look to be in the near future. For the most part, all that's happened is their stock price is down, some are double-checking if they have sufficient liquidity to weather the pandemic and how long they have, some have drawn on their revolvers, started hiring advisors to rethink capital structure, and some very few are thinking about restructuring.

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

#306

Post by airstrike »

digitaltrees wrote: post #152
senordevnyc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should dividends be banned? Would you be equally upset if these companies paid out their profits in dividends? Or maybe you’re suggesting we should have liquidity requirements for all businesses like we do for banks? That’s actually not the worst idea in a world where we’re going to be bailing companies out. If you want a bailout, you have to have a rainy day fund to make it less likely you’ll need one.

Dividends are fundamentally different than stock buy backs. They are the distribution of profit to owners of a business. No nonpublic information involved. No misaligned incentives. Yes, liquidity requirements and add personal liability for executives if their firm goes through bankruptcy, or restructuring. Goldman Sachs was a partnership until the 90s with each banker personally liable for the firms debts. They took…

> They are the distribution of profit to owners of a business.

So are buybacks

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

#307

Post by astuary »

asdff wrote: post #291
gnicholas wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? An idle business can only distribute cash for so long before it runs out.

But again, follow the money. Where is that exact dollar that would have gone to that business had there not been any coronavirus? The economy is a circular river system. If it stops one day, there is going to be areas of drought in places, as well as huge reservoirs protected by dams. Money does not disappear, it only moves. You lose money on stocks, someone else on the other side of the world made money with their s…

> The economy is a circular river system.

The economy is the collective action of people producing the goods and services that you and I consume - food, haircuts, medicine, video games. Money is a claim on some portion of that stuff that has been or will be produced. Redistributing money is not going to suddenly make us productive again when most people are only leaving their house once a week to stock up on groceries.

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

#308

Post by airstrike »

testfoobar wrote: post #38

The virus is terrible. But our solution could turn into an economic catastrophe. It simply isn't possible to shut down the economy and then pay people, businesses to sit idle for an undetermined amount of time. The solution is aggressive, continuous testing so that people can feel safe going back out. 1. Make hundreds and millions of the rapid tests available. 2. Deploy them to every business, every institution. 3. T…

Leave it to HN to come up with an oversimplifying app-on-your-phone-solution to any of the world's problems.

By the time you're done developing the app, deploying "thousands of mobile test stations", figuring out a way to get test results in 15 minutes (!!!) and implementing security checkpoints at each establishment from gyms to workplaces, we'll all be infected.

> Want to get into a theme park?

Nobody cares about theme parks right now. We care about getting infected at the supermarket, or bringing infected bags home. You're missing the forest for the trees.

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

#309

Post by chrisco255 »

ivalm wrote: post #273
chrisco255 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's at least two therapeutic candidates: chloroquine and remdesivir. See: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/20/wuhan-coronavirus-the...

I already answered this in a sister comment. There are at least 3 candidates (Chloroquine , Remdesivir, Favipiravir ) and they are all unlikely to work.

Follow the article and read the summary, remdesivir was already trialed on a patient in Seattle: "The patient had visited Wuhan, returned to Seattle, began displaying symptoms, and was hospitalized on symptom day 3. By symptom day 8 X-ray showed clear lower respiratory tract viral pneumonia (diagnostic ‘ground glass’) and supplemental oxygen was started. Patient worsened, and intravenous antibiotics were started day 9. Patient worsened (proving viral pneumonia), so attending physicians consulted with FDA then had Gilead rush the experimental drug by air, with intravenous treatment starting day 10. Patient improved in 24 hours, was saved, and has since been discharged"

Importantly, "It did, however, show efficacy against SARS and MERS in vitro" So the drug is promising. Not saying it's a silver bullet but definitely promising.

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