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Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#171

Post by icelancer »

DennisP wrote: post #88
icelancer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of people sold off in a panic, a lot of volatility hit, people like Buffett bought at the bottom (and publicly advised others to do so), so who knows. Unemployment is artificially high for now. Companies are incentivized through PPP to lay people off, especially with UI bonuses.

From what I've seen, Buffett hasn't started buying yet. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/investors-wondering-where-war... https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-warren-buffett-ignoring-c... He did however sell some airline stock. https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/06/warren-buffett-sel...

Ah, that's interesting. I read an article that said he was bullish on US stocks in February/March, but I must have been misremembering.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#172

Post by knrz »

topspin wrote: post #90
noway421 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm paraphrasing from memory a conversation I had. The gist is that volatility goes away with the time because market learns to anticipate and smooth out the crises, even if it's an unexpected out-of-blue event, since over sufficient enough time it would have happened at least once. Maybe this still holds true, but the time frame for that must be massive.

I see. Effectively no one then. You just put some stuff in quotes for authority.

I only tend to treat double quotes with authority.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#173

Post by seanmcdirmid »

peteretep wrote: post #31
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is always lots of volatility at a bottom. The stock market thought that the Great Depression was over quickly also. At the end of the day, either the market is right or wrong.

How can the market be wrong?! The market is the market.

The market is based on information known by people playing it. That information can be wrong, or at least very inaccurate, meaning the market will be in an incorrect position that will have to be corrected when better information is available.

Of course, our information is always imperfect, especially about the future but even about the present, so it is constantly being corrected. So maybe being right or wrong is the wrong way to put it.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#174

Post by blhack »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #157
three_seagrass wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal government should have enacted stay at home measures. By leaving it up to the states, it's been bungled and the covid outbreak is lasting longer and killing more people. This leads to stay at home needing extensions and a further drain on the economy.

The Federal government does not have the authority, it is expressly prohibited. What you think “should” have happened is literally impossible without dissolution of the US government. This is not remotely controversial, the Supreme Court has visited this many times. States are sovereign and autonomous entities for this purpose, same as for most things. A surprisingly small number of Americans have any understanding o…

It's a failure of our eduction system, but it's also a complete failure of traditional media.

My guess is that it is because most major traditional media outlets are national entities. It's easier for those national media entities to talk about a government that appears relevant to their entire audience (the federal government), instead of 50+ articles each scoped at the state level.

This damages peoples' ability to do correct sensemaking because they overweighting entertainment sources as if they were data sources.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#175

Post by javagram »

pmorici wrote: post #103
NomDePlum wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to speculate on this? All evidence is strongly against what you are proposing. It would without doubt lead to more deaths. Why would anyone even consider the course of action you are proposing? I've already had people close to me die. You should think some more and be able to provide a reasoned argument or be quiet until you can on this.

Universal mask wearing is part of the approach they have taken in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore and it seems to have largely worked in those places. The whole "masks don't work" line being pushed by the US government and the media seems to be about keeping people from buying masks that are needed in the hospitals. In the process they are sort of lying to people about the effectiveness of mask wearing as a piece…

> The whole "masks don't work" line being pushed by the US government and the media seems to be about keeping people from buying masks that are needed in the hospitals

I actually don’t think this is correct, it’s a reasonable assumption but actually the “masks don’t work” has been accepted Western medical dogma for decades. They were giving the same advice years ago even in times of no mask shortage - to only wear a mask when you know you are sick or if you are a care provider. See, for instance, a roundup of research and previous advice here. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t...

I think the main thing that made CDC turn around now was that the number of asymptomatic or very-mild symptomatic patients with COVID-19 who are spreading the disease during the initial infection when they don’t know they are symptomatic really makes the advice to not wear a mask unless you are sick not make sense since you don’t know when you are sick until it’s too late...

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#176

Post by dingaling »

pmorici wrote: post #89
swsieber wrote: post #32

At what point does fallout from trying to avoid covid-19 deaths cause more deaths than covid-19. We're talking domestic violence, starvation abroad (due to local hoarding, which has begun), and actual crop failure (due to a shortage of transient labor). There's also suicide, depression, etc. I'm not even saying let up on all the social distancing measures. I think social distancing measures are good, but perhaps over…

No one I've seen make this argument seems to have any numbers to back up the "the cure is worse than the disease" argument. The do nothing case is pretty clear 1-2% of the Global population dies. Probably more because once the healthcare system is overwhelmed that percentage goes up.

> The do nothing case is pretty clear 1-2% of the Global population dies.

And the population of the Earth could handle that without a blip, particularly as it is concentrated in the groups with the least economic contribution.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#177

Post by javagram »

logicchains wrote: post #150
threeseed wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Consensus from almost all countries is that you need to quarantine and shut down the economy in order to beat this. Those that believed that they could get around this with herd immunity are either paying a huge price (UK) or about to (Sweden). And those politicians that took hard measures actually have been rewarded (Australia) and those that didn't punished (UK, US).

You conveniently ignore Korea and Taiwan, where the curve has been flattened without shutting down the economy or closing "non-essential" businesses.

Taiwan effectively stopped the virus at the border. They have only 380 cases and 5 deaths recorded total from the coronavirus.

It’s too late now for countries that have allowed the coronavirus to run wild for months and spread throughout their society to emulate that.

Vietnam is another success story as well I think - 255 cases, 0 deaths.

This is definitely the ideal model to follow which is to prevent the disease from rooting itself within your borders, allowing the economy and society to continue as normal.

Once you have wide-spread community transmission as Western countries do, emulating this approach becomes difficult... I believe the lockdowns are an attempt to effectively reset the state back to a lower number of active cases so that a South Korea style containment of the disease could be attempted.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#178

Post by pmoriarty »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #104
pmoriarty wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What we fundamentally got wrong is that ventilators don't work in 66% - 90% of cases, so "flattening the curve" was largely pointless and distracted leaders from low-tech solutions like quarantine centers and palliative care." It's far from pointless. Flattening the curve means a lot fewer people get sick all at once. That buys time for treatments and vaccines to be developed. It's also not nearly as overwhelming to…

Flattening the curve is justified to not overwhelm medical facilities, but the new coronavirus is so infectious I doubt we'll develop a vaccine before we achieve herd immunity. A lockdown until we develop a vaccine is economically impossible, as it's estimated to take at least a year. A vaccine will be useful for next year's coronavirus. Thankfully the actual death rate is lower than what the models projected. Antibo…

At the very least, you're going to be buying people months, possibly years of life for millions of people by having a lockdown.

If we were to end the lockdown now there would be way more infections and deaths in the short-term then there would be otherwise.

Some deaths may happen anyway due to economic hardship, or social unrest, but the deaths from infections in the short-term are going to be greatly reduced, and even in the long term, the longer the lockdown can be sustained the fewer deaths from infection there are going to be.

In the meantime, the government really has to step up to the plate and come up with solutions to the economic problems, which (unlike the pandemic) are under human control.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#179

Post by genofon »

dingaling wrote: post #176
pmorici wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one I've seen make this argument seems to have any numbers to back up the "the cure is worse than the disease" argument. The do nothing case is pretty clear 1-2% of the Global population dies. Probably more because once the healthcare system is overwhelmed that percentage goes up.

> The do nothing case is pretty clear 1-2% of the Global population dies. And the population of the Earth could handle that without a blip, particularly as it is concentrated in the groups with the least economic contribution.

life is much more than just an economic contribution. Society is made by people that have relationships far beyond economics (family, friends..). Money plays a big part of course but people were also happy when there was less money around. Loosing one (or more) dear one is much more devastating that an economic crisis.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#180

Post by baby »

dannyw wrote: post #77
baby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The increase we’ve seen in the last two weeks make zero sense to me. It’s almost making me lose trust in the market as I feel like it’s rigged. We’re in a complete state of unknown, nobody knows when this will be over, unemployment raises like crazy, the US now realizes that coronavirus is hitting them the hardest...

Markets are up because the Fed has injected about 12 trillion to capital markets. These dollars need to find a place to sit.

which can lead to hyper inflation as well
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