201–210 of 273 posts
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Sure! First you will have to support your claim that they do so.
Before the current crisis Germany had several years of budget surpluses.
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... I referenced very specifically which part to me is Randian. The sentiment that if we give people free money they will be lazy and sink into a life of dependence.
>... I referenced very specifically which part to me is Randian. The sentiment that if we give people free money they will be lazy and sink into a life of dependence. I'm not GGP who argued against UBI. Nor did I make any argument for or against UBI. And I didn't make any argument even approaching "if we give people free money they will be lazy and sink into a life of dependence." In fact, my argument was that if we…
I was reacting to:
> We'd just see people with no incentives continue down the road of poverty.
Why would you reply to my comment defending your stance as if I had challenged it? Why are you injecting yourself into that conversation if you're not supporting the claim that I explicitly referenced, and making it look like you're replying to the things I'm saying by quoting me directly?
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>The only way they can be different is if you think economic output would be significantly different if people weren't "forced" to work by making wages the only avenue of income. I do think economic output would be significantly different, regardless of how you "spread it around." A broader base of consumers will consume more. A broader base of entrepreneurs will expand economic development. Spreading the money aroun…
... I referenced very specifically which part to me is Randian. The sentiment that if we give people free money they will be lazy and sink into a life of dependence.
>I was reacting to:
>> We'd just see people with no incentives continue down the road of poverty.
>Why would you reply to my comment defending your stance as if I had challenged it?
I can't reply to comment that contains the above, so I'll do so here.
Where did I say anything even remotely approaching "We'd just see people with no incentives continue down the road of poverty."?
I wasn't "defending" anyone or anything. I am not the user who posted the comment[0] you replied to.
And it seems strange that you found my comment adversarial, as it was at worst orthogonal to yours.
Upon reading the your reply to djsumdog's comment, I thought I'd add my own (related, and I thought, relevant) thoughts to the discussion.
Is that not kind of the whole point of this site?
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That's not the only choice. Focusing protection on the vulnerable while allowing the rest of society to function could've spared us both from the worst of the pandemic's destruction and the economic destruction -- "economic" is a bit of a misnomer too. There is a greater cost to lockdowns than just economics. Mental and physical health also suffer. Those that can't get preventative care they need suffer. Depressed pe…
> That's not the only choice. Focusing protection on the vulnerable while allowing the rest of society to function could've spared us both from the worst of the pandemic's destruction and the economic destruction -- That's an unrealistic idea. You can't have unchecked community spread and "focus protection on the vulnerable," without literally imprisoning them in an isolation bubble for a year or more , which is far…
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Given a virus that requires hospitalization at a certain rate, there is a certain point where the hospitals end up overrun for all other activities. In an effort to stave off that danger, local governments enacted lockdowns with the intent of reducing the spread of the virus. The virus, in the United States, has an established death rate of around 1.5% and a hospitalization rate higher than that. It also experiences…
The established death rate in the US is nowhere near 1.5%. Best current population IFR estimate is somewhere in the 0.6% range. That's bad enough, no need to exaggerate. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.11.20209627v...
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... I referenced very specifically which part to me is Randian. The sentiment that if we give people free money they will be lazy and sink into a life of dependence.
>Well that wasn't made clear. >I was reacting to: >> We'd just see people with no incentives continue down the road of poverty. >Why would you reply to my comment defending your stance as if I had challenged it? I can't reply to comment that contains the above, so I'll do so here. Where did I say anything even remotely approaching "We'd just see people with no incentives continue down the road of poverty."? I wasn't…
If you had posted your comment without that header I would not have immediately thought you were part of the conversation, and instead taken the comment as an aside and not a direct reply.
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You appear to be laboring under a misconception. The responsibility to act on public health measures has always been primarily at the state and local levels. Under our federal system, the federal government doesn't even really have legal authority to order lockdown measures. Granted the federal response has been an appalling mix of corruption and incompetence, but the federal role is mostly just advisory anyway. Stat…
> State governments have the power to pay people to stay home. They might have to shift funding from other areas or raise taxes in order to do so. But they don't have the money to do so. Plans like that require deficit spending, which the federal government can do but the states can't. Your alternative suggestions are not serious ideas. Do you really think the states could find the money to pay people to stay home by…
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The blame for the situation lies squarely at the feet of the state and local governments. The federal government didn't force any businesses to close. There is a huge variance between states in pandemic control measures. If businesses are still open in Florida then why should Floridians pay federal income taxes to subsidize closed businesses in California? And states do have options for funding relief at the state le…
> why should Floridians pay federal income taxes to subsidize closed businesses in California? Because Florida benefits immensely from supporting a state which has, if it were a country, the 6th highest GDP in the world. The economy in Florida would be heavily affected if California left the union. Your question is basically like asking "why do federations exist?"
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You are that saying herd immunity would be the only option?
Herd immunity is the end-state (with or without a vaccine) not some policy option to pursue. It is what will eventually happen. The trick is getting to that end-state with the least amount of damage incurred. I would've advocated for something more closely resembling: https://gbdeclaration.org/focused-protection/
https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker...
Scroll to “Hospital Admissions by Age Group” and select total.
So that would involve shielding everyone 45+ to protect hospital capacity in an unrestricted “shield the vulnerable” scenario.
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The established death rate in the US is nowhere near 1.5%. Best current population IFR estimate is somewhere in the 0.6% range. That's bad enough, no need to exaggerate. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.11.20209627v...
I wasn’t. https://covidusa.net/