The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution • Hacker News Board

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#101

Post by naeemtee » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 5:25 AM UTC

clairity wrote: post #73

twblalock wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the early 1900s most American households spent 80% of their income on food, clothing, and housing -- and the food was by far the largest expense, more than housing. The picture for American families today is much better. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-ame...

that article makes the point that basically all the savings from food from 1900 went to housing and transportation in 2003. ~75% of 2003 household budgets went to food, housing, transportation, clothing and healthcare ("essentials"). among non-essentials, only ~5% to entertainment. those are aggregate numbers, so you'd still expect more than 50% of american households to be spending 80-90% of their budgets on the ess…

Yes, except we’ve replaced beans and rags with Big Macs and Nikes

“Essentials” is flawed in your argument. Americans in 1919 actually had to struggle to survive.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#102

Post by kortilla » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #77

kortilla wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shootings in Chicago are not randomly spread across the population though. Most is gang violence and is relatively easy to avoid. The DC shooter was different because it was arbitrary across the population. It was no longer about “avoiding the bad neighborhoods” or “not crossing a drug dealer”. Covid is a little similar in that it’s a new class of risk (different group dying than do from heart disease and all of the…

Sure.. Easy for you to say. You're likely white so statistically 'avoiding' it for most people on hacker news is simply existing as a white person. Try growing up in a poor minority neighborhood in Chicago... Not so easy.

I did grow up in a shitty neighborhood, I’m speaking from experience. Moving when I was in middle school changed my environment from seeing police responding to violence multiple times a month and watching friends getting pulled into gangs to seeing no violence at all without the city level stats changing. Being white does not help when you’re that poor.

Anyway, you’ve missed my entire point. Even when you’re in the shitty parts of a city, you learn how to keep your head low and can reasonably avoid violence. Despite all of the murders in Chicago, people still live there, even in the South. The odds of getting murdered if you aren’t in the game just aren’t that high.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#103

Post by _fq4v » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 6:02 AM UTC

awinder wrote: post #83

tathougies wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall... The vast majority of the states have done really well. The us average is thrown off by a few states -- not even the largest states. I'm not sure where people get this idea the us has done poorly. New York and surrounds did terribly mainly due to not following issued guidance. But even with them pulling up the average, the us has done fine. If new York had closed down when told and then followed federal gui…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-s... you’re gonna have to nav down and play with some toggles but I’ve enjoyed using their data. Also you’re gonna need to tune your radar towards Texas, Florida, Arizona and others, the New York line is only going to have a couple more weeks of legs.

So Texas and Florida have 7-day moving average daily death rates lower than New York. Texas's has been stable for a few weeks now. Texas and Florida have fewer exposures, so less herd immunity than New York.

But really all of this is a distraction. The point of the shutdowns we were told was to prevent cases from growing out of control so as not to overwhelm hospitals. No region of the United States, including New York had overwhelmed hospitals that required patients to be triaged out of the ICU. In other words, no one who needed an ICU bed in the US was denied one. That was the point of the lockdowns. It is still the point. That Texas and Florida's rate is rising is not an indication that they are mismanaging their states. Even with the rising cases they have hospital capacity. In fact, before cases were rising they were at a very low historical hospital capacity. While the numbers seem scary (one hospital in TX is at 97% utilization), they also have plans to add a lot more ICU beds. Thus, they have been successful in accomplishing the initially stated goal -- not to overwhelm hospitals.

Unless a vaccine is found -- and this is still a big if -- at some point every geography is going to have to come to terms with the fact that you have to either choose between never opening up to anything resembling freedom of movement or letting the disease take its course -- hopefully controllably. The US -- and most countries -- have currently chosen to let the disease take its course in a controlled manner. For the most part, that goal is being achieved, it would seem.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#104

Post by OkGoDoIt » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 6:05 AM UTC

lefrenchy wrote: post #51

jackcosgrove wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply chains were already starting to fray. There's a diner near me with a sign up front apologizing for raising their prices because of a beef shortage. Borrowing money to fund consumption now won't result in long-term inflation if we consume less in the future to account for the pulled-forward demand. I doubt that will happen.

Fair enough. Isn’t that just a result of supply chains being hurt as a result of COVID? Those prices aren’t raising as a result of stimulus or wage growth, and should normalize as we return toward some sense of normalcy.

When was the last time you ever saw a restaurant lower their prices, regardless of the reason? Price increases have a tendency to stick.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#105

Post by PeterisP » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 6:36 AM UTC

jackcosgrove wrote: post #21

lefrenchy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we (assuming you mean the US) have to pay for this with our taxes, who do we owe the money to? The US issues it’s own currency and we printed money to keep the economy afloat. We don’t owe that debt to anyone? The only reason extra taxes would be needed is to curb inflation.

Inflation caused by currency debasement is a flat tax, which is comparatively regressive. It raises the prices of all items faster than wages, and everyone has to buy food, buy electricity, etc. Someone will have to pay.

Inflation caused by currency debasement is very much not a flat tax - the major effect of it is not on the prices (though some inertia and 'stickiness' of e.g. wages definitely applies as you note) but on all cash-denominated assets and contracts, especially lending.

In particular, it's a tax on all savings in cash and bonds (but not on investments in stocks), and it's a boon to all debt. For example, the total housing mortgage volume is huge - so if currency debasement causes any significant, rapid, unexpected inflation (expected inflation is priced in the interest rates) then it's a significant shift of wealth from the lenders (and, correspondingly, to all people and businesses holding money in banks) to the mortagage borrowers.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#106

Post by ornornor » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 7:45 AM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #13

carapace wrote: post #4

The "Economic Revolution" of the title is fascinating and exciting: > About 35 percent of food expenditures—more than $2.5 trillion globally—is up for grabs as consumers shift to dining at home and experimenting with new buying channels. This could be the end of cruel factory farms and the resurgence of smaller, healthier and more humane farming. Check out "SPIN farming": it stands for "Small-Parcel INtensive", a kin…

> This could be the end of cruel factory farms and the resurgence of smaller, healthier and more humane farming. It could also cement their lead, as there's less signalling to be had when eating at home - so fewer reasons to buy "high-status" food - and easier to compare prices and see what that status costs you. The true believers will continue, but will it be easier or harder for that belief to spread?

But... not eating meat is an order of magnitude cheaper (most vegetable or tofu don’t cost 20+$/€ per kg) so both incentives are still there: status and much lower cost.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#107

Post by CraigJPerry » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 8:05 AM UTC

ptero wrote: post #65

CraigJPerry wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lost ability to rationally think about small additional chances of dying I’m not thinking I’ll die if i catch it but if i do catch it, how many people will i pass it on to, and how many will they infect. How many deaths would be attributable to me catching it? It’s pretty heavy when you think about it. I suppose someone has to be the 1 in 500 at my age. That would suck but like most people, i just assume it wouldn’…

> I’m not thinking I’ll die if i catch it but if i do catch it, how many people will i pass it on to, and how many will they infect. How many deaths would be attributable to me catching it? It’s pretty heavy when you think about it. That is fair point, but its consideration should not be limited to COVID. I definitely not claim you do this, but in the USA I see people sending sick (with colds and flu) kids to school…

Yeah the going to the office thing when not well is bad. I’m a bit ashamed to say i it’s only really in the past 3 years or so I’ve taken a stand against that and give anyone who turns up not well a bit of grief for potentially putting others of work for a few days.

I never considered the death side of flu though.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#108

Post by 082349872349872 » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 9:04 AM UTC

redis_mlc wrote: post #66

carapace wrote: post #4

The "Economic Revolution" of the title is fascinating and exciting: > About 35 percent of food expenditures—more than $2.5 trillion globally—is up for grabs as consumers shift to dining at home and experimenting with new buying channels. This could be the end of cruel factory farms and the resurgence of smaller, healthier and more humane farming. Check out "SPIN farming": it stands for "Small-Parcel INtensive", a kin…

I come from a farming area. When I read the drivel on HN about urban farming, my response is, "Talk is cheap" and "What are the details?" - 1/4 acre in SV starts at $1 million - farming is a job. My family's small garden (30'x30') was like a part-time job in itself. - when there's an immigrant farm labor shortage and unemployed locals are recruited for farm work, they don't make it to lunch on the first day - it's ba…

Our farms were doing fine with underemployed locals. One article I've read indicates they simply used twice as much field labour as they had with guest workers, so the work was only half as back-breaking.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#109

Post by naavis » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 9:36 AM UTC

ornornor wrote: post #106

DuskStar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This could be the end of cruel factory farms and the resurgence of smaller, healthier and more humane farming. It could also cement their lead, as there's less signalling to be had when eating at home - so fewer reasons to buy "high-status" food - and easier to compare prices and see what that status costs you. The true believers will continue, but will it be easier or harder for that belief to spread?

But... not eating meat is an order of magnitude cheaper (most vegetable or tofu don’t cost 20+$/€ per kg) so both incentives are still there: status and much lower cost.

A lot of meat doesn't cost that much either. The cheapest minced meat here in Finland (which is a relatively expensive country) is less than 5€/kg.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#110

Post by awinder » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

_fq4v wrote: post #103

awinder wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-s... you’re gonna have to nav down and play with some toggles but I’ve enjoyed using their data. Also you’re gonna need to tune your radar towards Texas, Florida, Arizona and others, the New York line is only going to have a couple more weeks of legs.

So Texas and Florida have 7-day moving average daily death rates lower than New York. Texas's has been stable for a few weeks now. Texas and Florida have fewer exposures, so less herd immunity than New York. But really all of this is a distraction . The point of the shutdowns we were told was to prevent cases from growing out of control so as not to overwhelm hospitals. No region of the United States, including New Y…

Deaths trail cases, Texas and Florida currently have 10x the new cases as New York not adjusted for population. You’re making very basic mistakes with numbers, presumably to coach them towards the point you want to make.