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A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

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Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#91

Post by Invictus0 »

briandear wrote: post #75
Invictus0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been discussed many times, but the united states previously had a highly qualified pandemic response team which could have taken action as early as January based on the intelligence coming out of China. The reality is that thousands of deaths could have been prevented without building extra beds and buildings, but no action was taken because our elected officials do not understand exponential growth.

> could have taken action as early as January At the exact same time China and the WHO were lying that this wasn't person-to-person transmissible? December 30: Dr. Li Wenliang sent a message to a group of other doctors warning them about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), urging them to take protective measures against infection. December 31: The Wuhan Municipal…

The US government doesn't rely on Chinese state news. US Intelligence independently tracked the virus and briefed the President on it on January 3rd [0]. It's plausible to assume that there was not even a single case of coronavirus in the United States at that time: and yet the administration waited until the 31st of January to suspend travel from China. Compare this to the previous administration's work on Ebola [1].

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/politics/intel-agencies-covid...

[1] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ebola-response

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#92

Post by nabnob »

I think it's incorrect to blame the current depression entirely on Covid-19. Economists have been predicting a depression by the end of 2020 or 2021 for a while - on HN I remember lots of discussions around the inverted yield curve. There's been a tech bubble for the past couple of years, and covid was just a catalyst for this bubble popping.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#93

Post by pm90 »

rapind wrote: post #65
toomuchtodo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC had a pandemic team, they were let go. California had a reserve of ventilators, which were liquidated due to “budget reasons”. The problem isn’t risk experts; the problem is that government representatives elected have no domain expertise nor leadership fortitude to put domain experts into the driver’s seat when the situation dictates. China, for all its failings, gets this right. Their leadership is more STE…

There's a populist war on expertise. Arguably justified when fake expertise is available for hire. Think big tobacco paying for studies (expertise) to say smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. When this becomes rampant, eventually there's a public trust issue.

Experts should not be expected to side either way on morality. Much like technology, expertise is neither good nor bad, it’s just what it is.

Furthermore, I seriously doubt that there is anything close to a “populist” war on expertise. The US public has had a somewhat adversarial relationship with Science throughout its history (possibly because College is not considered mandatory, but that’s me speculating). The lack of education and the unrelenting advertisement infrastructure around climate denial is probably what has painted scientists especially in a bad light.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#94

Post by ipnon »

SimeVidas wrote: post #44

My stupid country just went back to pre-2008 levels, and now this. My entire adult life is basically one long period of stagnation.

The US spends $7 for seniors for every $1 they spend on minors.[0]

[0] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/1_how_m...

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#95

Post by maxerickson »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #41
sremani wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Global Pandemic is NOT A BLACK SWAN. As matter of FACT, it was predicted by Taleb and according to him it is a WHITE SWAN. The true problem here is the so called Risk "experts" do not understand Risk, and that is the core problem.

The CDC had a pandemic team, they were let go. California had a reserve of ventilators, which were liquidated due to “budget reasons”. The problem isn’t risk experts; the problem is that government representatives elected have no domain expertise nor leadership fortitude to put domain experts into the driver’s seat when the situation dictates. China, for all its failings, gets this right. Their leadership is more STE…

China spent 3-4 weeks covering up evidence of human to human transmission of the virus (Singapore started screening travelers Jan 3 due to a pneumonia cluster in Wuhan; China started acting Jan 22...).

That's not getting it right, it's a different type of shit show.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#96

Post by bwb »

sremani wrote: post #21
bwb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also point out that planning for "high risk" events like this is not something small to medium size businesses should be doing. Government yes, but I don't expect my mexican restaurant to have a plan in case of a global pandemic :). Just like I don't expect them to hedge pork futures so my pork tamales don't go up 8 cents. Gov is insurance and I want them to be building resilience into the system. That is done wi…

A Global Pandemic is NOT A BLACK SWAN. As matter of FACT, it was predicted by Taleb and according to him it is a WHITE SWAN. The true problem here is the so called Risk "experts" do not understand Risk, and that is the core problem.

my fault, updated to say high risk event.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#97

Post by david_w »

tarr11 wrote: post #26
david_w wrote: post #19

From the article: "The first is that it overlooks the negative impacts on consumer sentiment and spending, which are likely to persist for many months, if not years. " Yeah, right. Citation needed. My to-buy list of pent-up demands grows longer by the hour.

They are not talking about electronics or haircuts. For example, many people have vowed never to step on a cruise ship after this and attending large scale events in person will probably give a lot of people anxiety for some time.

But that is OK because that money goes elsewhere in the economy. No?

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#98

Post by bwb »

samsonradu wrote: post #90
rietta wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. For most small businesses, going the Dave Ramsey way is best. Be debt free, build a cash cushion, and as you say grow slow and methodically with cash not cash you think you might have next month.

While it sounds doable in theory, it’s hardly doable in today‘s (well, yesterday’s) market conditions. Low interest rates and an abundance of cheap money looking for yield distort the environment. Your debt-free, slow growth company will be wiped out by some bilion $ valued cash-burning startup.

esp if your primary cost is payroll... i ran a business and if we had to shut down even with super high savings rate of 20%, our payroll would have knocked that out in a couple months.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#99

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #95
toomuchtodo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC had a pandemic team, they were let go. California had a reserve of ventilators, which were liquidated due to “budget reasons”. The problem isn’t risk experts; the problem is that government representatives elected have no domain expertise nor leadership fortitude to put domain experts into the driver’s seat when the situation dictates. China, for all its failings, gets this right. Their leadership is more STE…

China spent 3-4 weeks covering up evidence of human to human transmission of the virus (Singapore started screening travelers Jan 3 due to a pneumonia cluster in Wuhan; China started acting Jan 22...). That's not getting it right, it's a different type of shit show.

[deleted]

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#100

Post by TMWNN »

kens wrote: post #71
briandear wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CDC has a pandemic team, they were let go. Can we please stop parroting that distortion of the facts? https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/dems-misconstrue-trump-bud... > China, for all its failings, gets this right. Their leadership is more STEM and less lawyers and politicians. You don't know anything about China's leadership. They're all politicians. Not a decision gets made without it being vetted ideologicall…

>> The CDC has a pandemic team, they were let go. >Can we please stop parroting that distortion of the facts? I'm not a fan of fact-checker battles but Snopes says "Claim: The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs. True." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

briandear is right and toomuchtodo is wrong. (He's even wrong in the way he was wrong.)

One would think reading only the Snopes article, or the Twitter thread (!) the piece is based on, that to save money (or because the Trump administration hates science, or something) the entire "US Pandemic Response Team" agency was eliminated and everyone in a large DC office building was fired.

Actually reading the contemporary NBC News https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tom-bossert-t... and Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0... articles the Snopes piece cites in the body, they seem to have been a handful of people in one team in the National Security Council (not CDC, contrary to what toomuchtodo claims) hierarchy, that the new National Security Advisor reassigned to related agencies, as part of a desire to have his own hierarchical structure. Ziemer resigned because he wanted to keep his team the way it was.

COVID19 was not a surprise; that is, it was known to exist in China some time before the first cases appeared in the US. It is not unreasonable for a government to assemble a team to respond to something like a pandemic as needed, as opposed to having people dedicated solely to the purpose and nothing else. And that's exactly what the US did, implementing the ban on non-American travelers who'd been to China in late January, among other things.

You may or may not agree with this. But please don't claim that this is somehow prima facie proof of the Trump administration's malfeasance/evilness.

PS - No, Trump did not "cut the CDC budget" either. https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104

PPS - Trump was not acquitted in the Senate until February 5. Thought experiment: What do you think would have happened if he had implemented the only thing that would have 100% kept COVID19 out of the US, completely shut down all borders (including with Canada) before January 15, the day "patient zero" entered Seattle from Wuhan? (The WHO was still stating that person-to-person contact for COVID19 did not seem to be occurring.)

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