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U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

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Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#771

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

apazzolini wrote: post #681
BetaDeltaAlpha wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could move to Oregon... ...In all seriousness, the parent comment was probably referring to the Federal Income Tax.

Yes, I'm aware that's what he was referring to, but it's not the entirety of the tax burden in the US, and even people who pay nothing in income tax still pay taxes. This is precisely why a flat tax disproportionally impacts lower income people.

Unless it’s a flat tax on capital assets.

I think it would be interesting to try out a model where _only_ capital assets are taxed. No sales tax, no income tax, no capital gains tax.

It should dampen the effect of the rich getting richer only from rent collecting, while still making sure the market allocates capital to where it provides the most economic value (I.e can be turned into enough revenue to pay the tax in question)

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#772

Post by esoterica »

forgot_my_pwd wrote: post #465
nimbius wrote: post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

And all that because of a virus that has a fatality rate about between .2 and .5% which mainly targets people who are already on the verge of death to begin with. We need to begin opening our country back up and implementing more targeted lockdowns and isolations for the most vulnerable. Not only will this bring us to herd immunity faster, we will have a huge pool of recovered people available to donate plasma antibo…

Current estimate is that you need around 70% of the population infected to get herd immunity. 0.5% fatality rate * 70% of the population is >1 million deaths in the US alone.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#773

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #714
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the 1970s. We had 14% inflation. That came from somewhere.

It came from oil prices which had surge in pieces

Not from trying to pay for both the Great Society and the Vietnam War, and so inflating the money supply?

You're mighty free with making blanket statements about what did and didn't cause inflation. Some actual data would make your statements much more persuasive. So far, you have given us no reason to think that you actually know anything about the causes of inflation.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#774

Post by ryandrake »

stcredzero wrote: post #764
ryandrake wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be much harder to "look down" on the protestors if their protests were backed by sanity. For every sign saying "I need to work to feed my family," you see 20 saying: * Coronavirus is a hoax! * Fake nurses! * 5G cellphones cause coronavirus! * Impeach Bill Gates! * Vaccines are poison! * Social Distancing is Communism! * Freedom!! There are reasonable arguments against the temporary shutdown, but the proteste…

For every sign saying "I need to work to feed my family," you see 20 saying... Ask yourself this: Why is the media playing up those fringer crazies, and not covering the very poignant, socially relevant, and human angle of "I need to work to feed my family"? Then go and look up Manufacturing Consent . Here's how propaganda often happens in the West: Emotional manipulation is better than outright ham-handed Pravda-esq…

Complaints of media manipulation and conspiracy are also a longstanding, standard element of the fringe's message. When your message is strong and supportable, you want a camera and microphone pointed at you. When your message doesn't make any sense, then media attention is always painted as mean and biased.

"Freedom"

Every protest in the USA, no matter where it sits on the moral or political spectrums, tries to hitch its wagon to "Freedom" in some way. It's become a word you just paint on a sign when you can't think of something to actually be complaining about.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#775

Post by esoterica »

xxpor wrote: post #359
lottin wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be pumping cash but it doesn't seem that this is resulting in more consumer demand, which is what would lead to price inflation.

This is a good point. CPI is very good at missing the classes of products that have seen massive price increases: housing, education, and other large assets. For everyone who will respond "oh but CPI has a housing component": https://slate.com/business/2014/02/housing-inflation-the-cpi...

Using rents and imputed rents and not home values is the correct way to include housing prices. When you buy a house you are not only paying for a place to live, you are also speculating on a financial asset. The CPI doesn't measure investment prices (eg. it doesn't include stock values) so to isolate the true cost of housing as a separate metric from the speculative value of the investment, it looks at imputed rent instead.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#776

Post by _iyig »

jessaustin wrote: post #765
_iyig wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Venezuela's government is taking better care of its citizens than our government is taking of us, in this current health emergency. I've seen nothing to corroborate this. >Don't believe the war media; I recommend The Grayzone. Here's a video from last year of Grayzone founder Max Blumenthal cheerfully receiving honors from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled that country by violence and decree since 2…

Venezuela is the watched pot: it should have boiled by now! Venezuelans haven't violently overthrown Maduro because they mostly consent to the results of two somewhat-democratic elections. He lets his supposed "rival" Juan Guaido prance about the country unmolested so all Venezuelans can laugh at the impotence of CIA. With continued sanctions and the price of oil at long-time lows, "natural" pressure on Maduro should…

>Venezuela is the watched pot: it should have boiled by now!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_refugee_crisis

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#777

Post by loftyal »

iffybookmark wrote: post #299
jb775 wrote: post #270

Is it outrageous to say we need to end this quarantine right now? At this point, the cure is worse than the disease.

Isn't covid-19 the #1 cause of death in NYC right now? And not, like, starvation? Saying the cure is worse than the disease shows a frightening lack of both empathy and objective reasoning. I don't want to construct a strawman, but I worry that what "reopen" people are really saying is "I don't care if X% of the US population dies - as long as I'm not one of them - if it means I can try to go back to normal." And try…

The economic collapse also brings death. The 2009 recession saw a huge spike in suicides, and this does not account for the deaths of the poorer parts of the world whose citizens are one paycheck away from starvation.

The death rate is actually far lower than we initially thought, we can see this from all the antibody tests coming out. 1/5 of NYC is now estimated to have already contacted the disease.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#778

Post by JKCalhoun »

lmm wrote: post #124
xienze wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the market is looking to, what, 2025 or something? Well, another point not mentioned is, where else are you going to park your money? Interest rates globally are basically <= 0, real estate may be a dicey proposition for many years to come, bond yields are garbage, so... stock market. And considering so many companies are selling at a discount (regardless of whether or not you think that’s the case), dumping mon…

You can't even just spend it on crack and hookers. I wonder how many people's net worth is actually going up during the lockdown just because of reduced expenditure.

You're getting downvoted, but I agree — I have at least stopped eating out as much as I had before.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#779

Post by JKCalhoun »

pravda wrote: post #146
JKCalhoun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stock market is going up because it's going up. Wait 'til the music starts and there's a scramble for seats.

>Wait 'til the music starts and there's a scramble for seats. You meant 'stops'.

Yes. :-)

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#780

Post by mrb »

klmadfejno wrote: post #696
mrb wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« kills 20% of all people is stupid. You just made that number up » I did not claim that. I just took this percentage from the hypothetical situation you used to build an argument ( you yourself said if 10-20% die then it wouldn't mean much to the economy.) « 4% of a population dying also does not mean the economy contracts by 4%. » Yes it does. Basic economics. With everything being equal, the size of an economy is…

You sound like Dennis from Always Sunny talking about how girls need to sleep with him if they're alone on a boat because of the implication of what would happen if they refuse, but denying that he actually said anything threatening. > "I don't need to explain what a 10-20% death rate would do to society, however." Yes, you didn't claim anything. But the implication is clear. When I responded I assumed you meant 20%…

Note that you are confusing me with another user (Filligree) who started the thread and initially threw these "10-20%" figures. Personally I do not believe 10-20% of the world population will die.

«I don't know what else I can say other than this is a dumb statement»

Not dumb. It's a good approximation, especially because post-pandemic times (after people have regained their jobs, which might take months/years) will be identical to pre-pandemic times with the ONLY difference being that a certain percentage of Americans will have died prematurely. That percentage will directly translate to an economic loss.

Look, the fact your post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23019875) was severely downvoted indicates most HN users disagree with you. I tried to take the time to explain to you why. You don't get it. I don't have any more energy to spend on this discussion.

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