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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

#191

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

blhack wrote: post #43
andbberger wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US's response could not be described as anything even approaching competent. This is still just getting started. Let's check back in a few months and see how this comment has aged...

What should the US have done that other countries are doing? We closed travel early, we started closing businesses early, and we hold daily press conferences with multiple medical and financial experts that are directly informing the entire population of what measures they should be taking. edit: it seems like the general response to "what should we have done" is "the federal government should have shut down travel/b…

Two things:

1. Tested widely early on, like South Korea did.

2. Shut down public life weeks earlier, once it became clear there was community spread.

The Federal press conferences feature a few informative experts, but they also feature one very prominent source of disinformation: the guy in charge. He downplayed the virus for months, and gives rambling, poorly considered, sometimes damaging statements (e.g., causing a run on a drug needed by Lupus patients, because he likes the idea that this drug is a miracle cure that will allow America to go back to work). His latest performance was a dishonest attack on the WHO, meant to redirect blame for mismanagement of the crisis onto that organization.

Comparing the Federal press conferences to those in other countries is really eye-opening. If you want to see what good, factual, relatively unpolitical press conferences look like, take a look at the daily updates in Singapore or Germany.

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

#192

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

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…

Germany also has a strict Federal structure, but they managed. They called a meeting of all the state governments, together with the Federal government, and agreed on a set of procedures. Each state does things a bit differently, but they're largely on the same page now.

Why wasn't anything like this attempted in the US?

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

#193

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

apatters wrote: post #187
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Losing 1% of humanity and losing 0.5% of humanity are in the same neighborhood of terrible.

Actually I would argue they are not the same when your solution will force some number of people into poverty (plus in the US cause them to lose their health care). No one wants to have to think about these numbers, but if you're responsible for making policy, it's very important to have good estimates of how many lives your policy will save and how many it will ruin. If you don't you're just reacting to the latest p…

> Data matters, facts matter.

You're talking about a difference between a massive number of people dying, and a massive number divided by two dying, and then arguing that a massive number divided by two is not nearly as serious.

Nobody knows what the true numbers will be, but only the rough range they'll be in, so arguing over a factor of two is meaningless. These are terrifying numbers either way.

> If you don't you're just reacting to the latest panic in the news cycle as sadly far too many politicians do.

The "panic" is caused by people finally listening to what epidemiologists have been saying for months. False calm has been far more damaging on this pandemic than panic. If politicians had listened to the panic mongers earlier, the world wouldn't be in this situation.

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

#194

Post by norswap »

lisper wrote: post #46
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…

If you assume a mortality rate of 1% (which is probably in the ballpark) then you can expect 75 million deaths without intervention. So far world-wide we've had about 95,000 deaths. So doing nothing would result in about 700 times as many deaths as have occurred so far. I'd say it's probably to soon to throw in the towel.

The OP specifically said he's not advocating for stopping all measures, but for easing them up a bit.

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

#195

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by nradov »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #193
apatters wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I would argue they are not the same when your solution will force some number of people into poverty (plus in the US cause them to lose their health care). No one wants to have to think about these numbers, but if you're responsible for making policy, it's very important to have good estimates of how many lives your policy will save and how many it will ruin. If you don't you're just reacting to the latest p…

> Data matters, facts matter. You're talking about a difference between a massive number of people dying, and a massive number divided by two dying, and then arguing that a massive number divided by two is not nearly as serious. Nobody knows what the true numbers will be, but only the rough range they'll be in, so arguing over a factor of two is meaningless. These are terrifying numbers either way. > If you don't you…

Poverty kills people, too. That has to be considered when deciding on the appropriate response.

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

#197

Post by jandrewrogers »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #192
jandrewrogers wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Germany also has a strict Federal structure, but they managed. They called a meeting of all the state governments, together with the Federal government, and agreed on a set of procedures. Each state does things a bit differently, but they're largely on the same page now. Why wasn't anything like this attempted in the US?

The US Federal government is similar to the EU; member States have considerable amounts of absolute sovereignty, their own forms of government, and their own legal systems. Importantly, the Federal government cannot operate in a State except with consent of the State, which is withheld in numerous instances. The Federal government works for the States, not the other way around, and the States are free to ignore requests by the Federal government on most matters. Why wasn't the response coordinated across the EU? Same answer applies to the US. It would be like herding cats. The Federal government can ask nicely but no one is required to listen

Externally, the US presents a common negotiating front. Internally, it is 50+ separate countries. Americans interact almost exclusively with their State governments when in the country, not the Federal government. This explains, for example, why there is no "national" ID in the US. Americans are citizens of their States, first and foremost, and each State has their own independent ID systems. What makes the US somewhat unique is that Americans have an absolute right to change their citizenship among the member States at any time. There was a time not that long ago when many Americans more closely identified with their State citizenship than their Federal citizenship.

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

#198

Post by nradov »

chrisco255 wrote: post #86
lisper wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you assume a mortality rate of 1% (which is probably in the ballpark) then you can expect 75 million deaths without intervention. So far world-wide we've had about 95,000 deaths. So doing nothing would result in about 700 times as many deaths as have occurred so far. I'd say it's probably to soon to throw in the towel.

No, because it's unlikely that 100% of the population will get infected. What disease has ever infected 100% of the population? None. Diseases hit an inflection point in spread, before they fall off. At any rate, how many people died in the wake of the Great Depression? World War 2 was indirectly caused by it. We lost 85 million people when the population was only 2 billion. And that's not even counting the people th…

No one is seriously predicting a 100% infection rate. Due to herd immunity effects, epidemiologists expect the maximum to be about 70%.

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

#199

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #197
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany also has a strict Federal structure, but they managed. They called a meeting of all the state governments, together with the Federal government, and agreed on a set of procedures. Each state does things a bit differently, but they're largely on the same page now. Why wasn't anything like this attempted in the US?

The US Federal government is similar to the EU; member States have considerable amounts of absolute sovereignty, their own forms of government, and their own legal systems. Importantly, the Federal government cannot operate in a State except with consent of the State, which is withheld in numerous instances. The Federal government works for the States, not the other way around, and the States are free to ignore reque…

The EU is not at all comparable to the United States. The US is most certainly not composed of 50 sovereign countries, and the US has a powerful central government - something the EU almost entirely lacks.

A much better comparison is the Federal Republic of Germany, which has a strongly federal constitution, much like the United States. The Federal government in Germany has very little formal ability to impose quarantine measures on the states, but it effectively managed to do so. The Federal government called a meeting with all of the state governments, which are individually run by different, competing political parties, and managed to have all the states agree to take a similar set of measures.

The Federal government in the United States could have done the same, but chose not to. The political reason for that inaction is clear. The President's #1 priority is the economy and, specifically, the stock market. He doesn't like the idea of quarantine measures, because of their impact on the economy. He spent two months downplaying the virus, and has now shifted to blaming the WHO for his own government's failure to contain the outbreak.

> There was a time not that long ago when many Americans more closely identified with their State citizenship than their Federal citizenship.

That time was over 150 years ago.

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

#200

Post by nradov »

gruez wrote: post #123
jjnoakes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true, is it? Most mathematical models I've seen definitely have a much lower number of total infected when the curve is flattened significantly.

You're right. Mortality for the virus would significantly increase if emergency rooms are overcrowded. No beds/ventilators = patients that would have survived dying. Last I've heard, around 15% of infected need to be hospitalized.

Availability of hospital beds is certainly important, but about 80% of COVID-19 patients placed on ventilators die. We should deploy more ventilators but even if hospitals run out that will have only a small impact on the total infection fatality rate.
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