Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides] • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by dang » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 7:27 AM UTC

barbs wrote: post #197

DoreenMichele wrote: post #150

I can't access the article at the moment. I tried. I'm on my phone. It didn't open for me. I'm not sure I care. The world is suddenly embracing a lot of practices I've pursued for years because of my medical condition. I've spent a lot of years trying to develop alternate mental models and an alternate lifestyle to avoid germs so I can stay off all the drugs doctors think I should take. I run r/GigWorks and r/Clothin…

> I've long been a loser and social outcast. Gee, I wonder why...

This comment breaks the site guidelines and you've done that elsewhere recently too. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here?

Personal attacks are particularly not ok.

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

#332

Post by mistermann » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 7:27 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #311

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…

Where is all the stuff that we use in our day to day lives going to come from while the economy is 'paused'? Who is going to make the food, distribute the food, sell the food, drive the trucks, etc? There are two sides of our society; production and consumption. If we aren't producing, how are we continuing to consume?

Well, there's inventory of various essential goods in a variety of places, and all the essential services you note, as well as power, plumbing, etc.

Instead of going to a restaurant, I make a sandwich, instead of buying a new shirt, etc. GDP has indeed dropped, and some people have no cash flow (fixable), but I'm not seeing physical (excluding the abstraction of the banking system) reasons why this can't be sustained for months if necessary.

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

#333

Post by wwweston » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 7:32 AM UTC

giantDinosaur wrote: post #325

wwweston wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what do you think is going to happen to these people if the economy totally shuts down? I expect the economic impacts to be rough either way. We don’t have a choice for “no economic impact” anymore. Either we do it in a coordinated and somewhat controlled manner now while we still have a handle on cases vs illness, or the impacts hit, roll, and peak along with the cases of illness while well/well-ish people try to…

How can you say the economic impacts will be of similar magnitude when looking at the age distribution in severe cases & death here? How do hospitals being overwhelmed have the same magnitude of effect as a literal shutdown of a country? Or, indeed, the shutdown of multiple? To me it seems likely the difference between a recession (guaranteed) and a real, extremely serious depression which will be fully capable of ex…

First, while I fully expect that the worst effects will hit the advertised danger demographics the hardest, at wide enough infection coverage there are going to be poster children for folks who didn't fit that profile[0]. Not just a few.

Second, I expect that the illness impacts will hit even broader, both in sheer numbers and crossing demographic expectations, resulting in people directly absent from work and consumption for weeks at a time.

Those are the first order effects. The second order effects on psychology among a large number of folks having loved ones dying and acquaintances suffering are going to produce some behavior changes. Some of them would be similar to those we're seeing with lockdown, but as I said, improvised rather than coordinated, probably combining some degree of the same impacts but with less of the benefits.

The recession might be milder if we trade a higher death toll. Might.

But the financial markets sure didn't think we were going to escape one even before US civil measures started ratcheting up.

[0] https://medium.com/@juliael84791135/this-isnt-a-normal-flu-i...

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

#334

Post by mistermann » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 7:33 AM UTC

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #113

zouhair wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It simply isn't possible to shut down the economy and then pay people, businesses to sit idle for an undetermined amount of time. Why not? This is a matter of survival. If the economic system breaks because of one pandemic that will last less than a year maybe that economic system needs to die and be replaced by something more solid and useful for most.

> If the economic system breaks because of one pandemic that will last less than a year maybe that economic system needs to die and be replaced by something more solid and useful for most. Out of curiosity, why do you think it's likely that something more solid and useful to most is likely to come out of an economic collapse? Economic collapses have happened before - are there any instances of a solid and useful syst…

Perhaps it's rare due to man's tendency toward corruption.

Are there reasons you see why a more robust cannot be developed? I suspect HN could easily come up with a substantial list of improvements. Limiting stock buybacks seems like a good place to start.

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

#335

Post by PedroBatista » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 7:34 AM UTC

giantDinosaur wrote: post #290

asdff wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just old people though. Infants. Immunocompromised individuals. People with asthma. People undergoing chemotherapy. The narrative that this disease only affects the economically unproductive is dangerous at best, and inhumane at worst.

Honestly, what do you think is going to happen to these people if the economy totally shuts down? it's going to be easy to have a chronic & serious health condition? The same? My feeling is that I'd rather be chronically sick in a good economy than in a depression. What happens when medicine becomes unavailable due to supply chains being cut off?

So what’s your proposed solution? Let’s get back to work, let the fire burn and who dies, dies?

It’s a solution ( it wouldn’t work the way you think, but it’s an option), but at least admit it clearly and live with it.

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

#336

Post by MikeAmelung » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 7:34 AM UTC

yread wrote: post #330

nostromo wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> total economic shutdown seems to be the only option left That's quite the overreaction. Italy found that among fatalities the median age is over 80 (older than the average lifespan of an Italian man). 99% of fatalities were among people with a prior illness. About 50% of the deaths were people suffering from at least three other illnesses. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-tho... To put it an…

Stop spreading this. Median hospitalization age is 65. 40% of patients on icu are under 50. With the rates of hospitalization in 30-39 year olds no country would have enough icu beds even for them

Gonna need to see some actual data. Median hospitalization age of 65 and then 40% of patients in the ICU being under 50 already doesn't even make any sense.

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

#337

Post by PedroBatista » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 7:53 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #317

pdonis wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> French Revolution? Didn't even last a decade until they got themselves an emperor. > Arguably the Russian Revolution if you accept the USSR as a step up from feudalism. Considering that the USSR killed orders of magnitude more of its own people than feudalism under the Czars ever did, I'm going to vote "no" on this one.

It also brought an unprecedented amount of economic development to what was an incredibly backwards country. Not that it's a model to imitate. Although some folks in this thread sound rather ready to sacrifice millions of people, for the sake of keeping the economy limping along...

> Although some folks in this thread sound rather ready to sacrifice millions of people, for the sake of keeping the economy limping along...

That’s because they believe they are young and would fight off the virus with no problem. Change one of those variables and they will change their tune.

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

#338

Post by lucasverra » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 7:58 AM UTC

cjslep wrote: post #328

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…

> 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 Swiss Federal Council is setting aside billions of CHF (I think the total is currently at 32 billion) for exactly this: some relief for small and medium sized businesses. They've recently announced a process to have 80% of your salary insured up to a certain high cap, between 150k an…

France is having same stategy. “Chomage partiel”

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

#339

Post by digitaltrees » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 8:05 AM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #306

digitaltrees wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No they are not. They reduce the amount of equity and raise the stock price but unless the share holder sells there is no real gain. That’s not to say buy backs don’t convey possible value but it’s not accurate to say they are the distribution of profit any more than if the company bought stock of another company (like yahoo buying alibaba stock) or a piece of equipment. In all cases the company has value reflected on its balance sheet. There is no true net gain.

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

#340

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 8:13 AM UTC

giantDinosaur wrote: post #325

wwweston wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what do you think is going to happen to these people if the economy totally shuts down? I expect the economic impacts to be rough either way. We don’t have a choice for “no economic impact” anymore. Either we do it in a coordinated and somewhat controlled manner now while we still have a handle on cases vs illness, or the impacts hit, roll, and peak along with the cases of illness while well/well-ish people try to…

How can you say the economic impacts will be of similar magnitude when looking at the age distribution in severe cases & death here? How do hospitals being overwhelmed have the same magnitude of effect as a literal shutdown of a country? Or, indeed, the shutdown of multiple? To me it seems likely the difference between a recession (guaranteed) and a real, extremely serious depression which will be fully capable of ex…

[deleted]