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We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

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Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#121

Post by mywittyname »

twblalock wrote: post #108
TheCowboy wrote: post #92

The grandstanding against economists is disappointing. Let's say you were driving at night with someone in the country, and because they either knew the road or could see farther ahead they said, "There's a boulder in a road ahead, we're likely going to hit it if you don't slow down and turn to avoid it." And you do slow down and it allows you to turn to avoid a crash. How do you respond? Mock them for always being w…

> There's no credit given to economists for the recessions or depressions avoided. I don't think we have avoided any recessions, ever, based on the advice of economists. They just aren't that good at forecasting. They don't even agree on the policy that is appropriate to fight recessions when we know there is one. The "grandstanding" against economists in this thread is entirely justified.

Also, economies aren't easy to control: We can't even get people to wear masks even though the economic impact of not doing so is obvious and relatively straight-forward to calculate.

An economist could come from the year 2100 with 500TB of economic data and news for the past 100 years, and there's a 0% chance that the public would ever heed their warnings.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#122

Post by bmitc »

makomk wrote: post #88
pm90 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a reasonable comment such as this one is being downvoted just shows how much people want to avoid facing the reality of the situation before us. Long term damage has been done to the economy and society by the combination of a pandemic and the haphazard response (if you can call it that) by a corrupt and inept POTUS.

I know the American press has been pushing hard on the idea that the US is uniquely failing to deal with this and it's all Trump's fault because it's an election year and that's the most effective tool they have, but that doesn't make it true. In particular, things are heading in a really worrying direction throughout Europe right now, with countries that already saw overflowing hospitals and much bigger drops in GDP…

The fact that Europe is also struggling is a distraction from the fact that the U.S. is struggling deeply with the pandemic. It isn't particularly surprising given their previous economic struggles. But in the U.S., it isn't just the pandemic. The U.S. has been dealing with a president who was handed a strong and recovering economy and relatively sane policies on a platter but literally does nothing every day but Tweet and watch T.V., takes on a couple meetings at best, and lets a third generation Jewish immigrant who somehow hates immigrants and is a white supremacist write his policies for him.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#123

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

icedchai wrote: post #93
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. In many areas people are already doing those things.

But how many? Probably not the same percentage is before COVID. There will, of course, be activity. It just won't be the same as before.

I think it'll be close to the same percentage, but I don't really know how to substantiate that either way.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#124

Post by grafs50 »

Guzba wrote: post #11

Economists are as effective as astrologists at predicting the future. For some reason otherwise smart people don't realize this? I think it's something about economists being associated with the university system. I see this assured economic doom repeated so much without being questioned as anything but guaranteed I wonder where this incredible confidence is coming from? We have literally no idea what 2021 holds for…

I have no idea how accurate economists tend to be at predicting the future of the economy. I think its fair to say that economics has done a fair job of coming up with tools to deal with economic issues as the come up, and even preventing a fair amount that we never are even aware of.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#125

Post by _hhkc »

bmitc wrote: post #23

It won’t be just a year or two. This is going to have long term repercussions. Basically everyone from the age of 5 to 22 will have a year or two of missing education. We’re losing tons of immigrants and non-immigrant foreign workers, of the latter many of which are doctors or advanced degree holders. Many Chinese are simply leaving the U.S. on their own accord, even if they aren’t caught up in the travel bans or oth…

If and when Trump gets voted out of office or finishes his second term, we will have another Trump-like candidate. His cult of personality is here to stay for generations to come.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#126

Post by JackFr »

hkai wrote: post #103

I'm inclined to believe the upcoming economic doom simply because anecdotally, I hardly know anyone who is against continuous lockdowns for as long as needed. In fact, people even seem to believe that the dead economy brings positive change: no more pollution from aircraft, no more racist tourism to other countries, and so on.

> I hardly know anyone who is against continuous lockdowns for as long as needed.

I’m sure that comes up a lot in conversation on line at the food bank.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#127

Post by tsimionescu »

pm90 wrote: post #95
makomk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the American press has been pushing hard on the idea that the US is uniquely failing to deal with this and it's all Trump's fault because it's an election year and that's the most effective tool they have, but that doesn't make it true. In particular, things are heading in a really worrying direction throughout Europe right now, with countries that already saw overflowing hospitals and much bigger drops in GDP…

This is false and a garbage perspective. The US is objectively doing far worse than any other nation going by infection numbers and death tolls alone. I can’t imagine how a reasonable person can believe that this is anything but a disaster of epic proportions. Second waves were always a possibility and they will almost certainly happen without a significant testing and tracing infrastructure. Just because EU has not…

Actually, the EU had about 130k deaths itself. If you add the UK to that, you get just as many as the US basically (172k vs 180k). So I don't think the EU really did much better than the US in this regard, overall. There are exceptions in specific countries, especially in some of the more Eastern countries, and Germany to some extent, but overall the EU countries did as badly as the US.

Not to mention that the EU itself did basically nothing to help with the pandemic crisis, especially in the first months - even arranging travel conditions was beyond them.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#128

Post by qppo »

glouwbug wrote: post #28
hbosch wrote: post #19

Are we actually in a recession right now?

Considering the unemployment rate, yes. Considering the stock market, no.

Less than 50% of Americans have any stake in the stock market, which is a good reason we base economic forecasting on the behavior of GDP and not market indices.

Although if we were really smart we'd weigh financial services less, since that tips the scales upward when it isn't building as much value.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#129

Post by nkozyra »

toinetoine wrote: post #100
just-juan-post wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suggest you pay attention to the economic stories and not the human interest stories when it comes to this virus. Did you know that 50% of San Fransisco's stores have closed? Half. HALF. https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Half-of-all-San-Fran... Did you know 250,000 evictions are looming in Las Vegas alone? https://www.ktnv.com/news/coronavirus/las-vegas-could-face-e... These are very real threats - not…

Las Vegas, a town where the majority people are employed in the hospitality/leisure industry (casinos, restaurants, convention prep, etc.) SF where a huge amount of the residents have left the city since a majority of the white collar employees are WFH for the foreseeable future. Not sure how you can take these places and extrapolate for the economic health of the entire country...

You can special case any city or town. I don't think WFH is endemic to SF, for example. And economic effects cascade down.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#130

Post by victorfriedrich »

Guzba wrote: post #41
Afforess wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economists are as effective as astrologists at predicting the future. [citation needed] > I see this assured economic doom repeated so much without being questioned as anything but guaranteed I wonder where this incredible confidence is coming from? All the stock market gains are from big tech. Any other markets are flat or down. ( https://finviz.com/map.ashx?t=sec&st=ytd )

Quick Google search, nearly top result. Committing the sin of just reading the headline but man this is not hard to find evidence: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-28/economist... Or maybe? https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/economists-are-bad-at-p... "All of the gains are from big tech". All of the gains are always from some companies and all of the losses are always from others. This is just how th…

The market cap of the five largest companies as share of the S&P 500 hasn't been higher in more than four decades.[1]

The way the pie is sliced currently isn't really an indicator of stability.

[1]: https://www.isabelnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Market-...

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