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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

#191

Post by david_w »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #143
david_w wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But ArialMinaei there's not that much more they could have done. It still would have had 20x the mortality rate of the usual flu strain and it still would have had an RO of 3 or 4. Once something that fits those parameters is loosed on the world, the rest is a fait accompli- we're going into social distancing, lockdown, whatever it's being called. Yes respirators and masks, I know, but the previous administration had…

c.f. South Korea. c.f. Germany c.f. Canada even ... c.f. California. These are all jurisdictions that took early, effective, widespread action that have resulted in dramatically lower rates of cases and deaths.

Yeah those three nations are not that different from each other relative to the spread that exists between them and other nations.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-daily-cases-traject...

If you look at who has the LEAST per million (absolute number of cases are worse than useless and what most statisitic sites are showing) it's not nations usually associated with good governance, ahem...

So what's going on.

It's traffic. Flights into a nation, and especially flights from China. The nations with the best per capita numbers are low-air-traffic nations, per capita, so Belize, South Africa, Thailand, Andorra places like that.

So mystery solved. The difference between the US and Germany, the best of the "developed" nations, is not that big at all. For a long time, weeks and weeks, it's been mid 700s for BOTH nations. I am not sure where the very latest data is getting we're at 100 per million now, but still they're comparable in the larger scheme of things.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#192

Post by vkou »

harimau777 wrote: post #189
alistairSH wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was done through cooking the unemployment books ... That's patently false. BLS reports 6 different "unemployment rates" (1). The media has historically reported U-3. You can argue that U-6 is more meaningful in light of recent economic trends. But, no books have been cooked. 1 - https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

For sake of argument: If U-3 is the one that everyone pays attention to does it really matter that much if the others exist?

To respond to your argument - it may not matter that the others exist, but allegations that the books have been cooked are unfounded. The books are there, plain as day, and there are no shenanigans with them.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#193

Post by danbolt »

ipnon wrote: post #94
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...

I’m not an expert, but I’d imagine that’s related to seniors voting much more reliably than the youth.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#194

Post by david_w »

amiga_500 wrote: post #64
meddlepal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heck even a crowded bar or restaurant is going to give people pause.

Pause? There is no way I'm taking my family to a crowded restaurant until either full scale frequent testing (with intra-region travel quarantine) proves it's gone or an effective vaccine is deployed at scale, or lastly if some medicine which means you get mild symptoms and no after-effects is developed.

A treatment will be the first through the gate. Then a vaccine. But a treat will be enough to get people out again. That and the discovery through testing that people are immune.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#195

Post by trhway »

_curious_ wrote: post #123
throwaway_USD wrote: post #84

It seems people don't realize how much $6T is and the effects of that kind of money being injected into the economy. Consider the 2008 housing bubble and financial crisis which was ultimately corrected with two stimulus packages totaling less than $2T...that money turned the economy around, put the economy into the longest bull market in history, resulting in a record stock market and corporate profits. Now its not t…

Having lived through, intimately observed, and now in reflecting on the 2008 situation - Id's say your assessment is fair. That same effect/outcome multiplied this time around, seems to be inline. While the recovery may miraculously end up more evenly distributed (with Sanders out I don't see enough pressure/leverage) under current administration and potentially four more years, nothing is off limits and this one may…

we're about to witness another, and probably the greatest to date, round of wealth redistribution. There is going to be a lot of distressed assets at the bottom while the well connected top will have unlimited (my mind needs some time to make distinction between unlimited and $6T :) access to money. From the heights of the Pareto of 5-10 years down the road the today's Pareto will look indistinguishable from a uniform distribution.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#196

Post by lostapathy »

nabnob wrote: post #92

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.

Maybe we shouldn't start calling it a depression before it actually is one? If that becomes the media narrative, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#197

Post by benmccann »

xyzzyz wrote: post #164
ska wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "For example, good amount of growth of employment rate in recent years is a result of many people, who previously drew disability benefits to compensate them for their inability to work, actually going to work, once the work became better option than government check." I've heard this before but have not seen good data on it, do you have cites?

I saw a good graph a while ago that matched growth in new workers with disability terminations, but this is pretty apparent when you look at the disability statistics themselves: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/dibStat.html Number of people drawing disability benefits was rapidly growing at around 5% YoY up till 2011, then its growth slowed significantly, and around 2014 it started to slowly fall.

Here's one chart I found showing the relationship between disability and unemployment statistics: http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/trimta...

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#198

Post by BubRoss »

throwaway_USD wrote: post #84

It seems people don't realize how much $6T is and the effects of that kind of money being injected into the economy. Consider the 2008 housing bubble and financial crisis which was ultimately corrected with two stimulus packages totaling less than $2T...that money turned the economy around, put the economy into the longest bull market in history, resulting in a record stock market and corporate profits. Now its not t…

6 trillion USD is about $30,000 per US tax payer. People should think about where that is going as they get their $1000 checks in the mail.

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#199

Post by [deleted] »

BubRoss wrote: post #198
throwaway_USD wrote: post #84

It seems people don't realize how much $6T is and the effects of that kind of money being injected into the economy. Consider the 2008 housing bubble and financial crisis which was ultimately corrected with two stimulus packages totaling less than $2T...that money turned the economy around, put the economy into the longest bull market in history, resulting in a record stock market and corporate profits. Now its not t…

6 trillion USD is about $30,000 per US tax payer. People should think about where that is going as they get their $1000 checks in the mail.

[deleted]

Re: A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

#200

Post by PKop »

throwaway_USD wrote: post #84

It seems people don't realize how much $6T is and the effects of that kind of money being injected into the economy. Consider the 2008 housing bubble and financial crisis which was ultimately corrected with two stimulus packages totaling less than $2T...that money turned the economy around, put the economy into the longest bull market in history, resulting in a record stock market and corporate profits. Now its not t…

>don't realize how much $6T is

This would be more relevant is we tallied how much actual credit "money" is getting into the hands of average people. Divide 6 trillion per every person and if that was the extent of the calculation and legislation, we'd be better off. But it's not, the same financial beneficiaries in good times are the ones getting the bailout money in bad times.

>being injected into the economy

Except the crux of the problem is this money, arguably, doesn't "get into the economy", certainly not in any uniform sense.

Big chunks go to bail out large corporate stockholders, bonds, financial assets. Some are funneled through the banks via loans that are hard to come by for some. What is sorta kinda direct payments to people amount to 1 time events, and too small at that. And given no commerce & fixed obligations for many small businesses, what good does debt & "loans" do for them?

The biggest lie in all of this is that the money is actually getting to people that need it. It's not, yet.. and calling it helicopter money doesn't change the fact that many aren't anywhere near the helicopters to get it.

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