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Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

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Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Hedge funds didn’t crash the market. There’s just no evidence for that. The market crashed because there’s enormous uncertainty and people would rather be liquid while they wait to see what happens vs losing a huge percentage of their wealth. 2) Businesses exist to make a profit for their shareholders. Yes, they should have some retained earnings as a rainy day fund, but some of these companies are losing 75-100%…

Business does not have to be structured as a Corporation with limited liability. That is a privilege allowed by the sovereign power of the people through an elected government. If companies don’t behave responsibly they should lose that privilege and the owners could be held liable for debt and these kinds of mistakes personally. The fetishized obligation to shareholders and ONLY shareholders is not some holy pronoun…

> It was made up by a professor at University of Chicago and ran contrary to the history of business and limited liability company structures

Who is this guy? Also where can I learn more about this and related topics. I’ve taken an interest to learning about our economic system in my free time and would love it if someone could point me to some good resources/podcasts/whatever.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#202
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can be contagious before symptoms. And that’s also a very different strategy than testing everyone before they go into work each day. You’ll miss the vast majority of people if you just test people with symptoms.

South Korea isn’t testing everyone, every day. Neither is China. So there’s a middle ground here somewhere.

Neither country took the middle ground compared to where the US was when we finally started reacting.

South Korea has been aggressively testing, contact chasing, and quarantining from day 1. Look at their number of tests per capita compared to ours.

China did indeed shut down the entire economy for months for provinces containing 900M people iirc. In barely hit provinces they have teams of thousands of people doing aggressive testing, contact tracing, and quarantine.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot imagine an economic system where the default state of a human being is to become destitute?

People are going to be destitute if nobody is producing goods and services. Money is worthless if there's nothing to buy.

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Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot imagine an economic system where the default state of a human being is to become destitute?

People are going to be destitute if nobody is producing goods and services. Money is worthless if there's nothing to buy.

I think one thing that this pandemic is teaching us is that most people's jobs do jack shit to maintain the basic needs of society, and the ones with important jobs are often paid the least.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more sanguine. I live on a busy Brooklyn street which is normally packed with people shoulder to shoulder during the day, and I will see maybe 5-10 people on the block at what should be the busiest time. I think it's like a 90%-95% reduction which is certainly substantial enough to quench the spread enough to reduce the shock hospitals are receiving. Doing my part (I have asthma), I haven't left the apartment sin…

But for how long? The stricter the quarantine the longer we have to quarantine to reduce spread. That's the problem. Best estimate is we can reduce daily interactions by 70%, for the next 12-18 months.

The alternative is systemic failure of the healthcare infrastructure and millions of deaths.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#206

Instead of hundreds of billions in loans to businesses, which have to be underwritten -- and as discussed on Slides 17/18, the SBA did an abysmal job administrating during Hurricane Sandy, helicopter money might be the better answer. Give everyone money, no criteria. If we do impose income limits, and since viable proposals do -- we ought to discuss it. Give them a check now anyways. We cannot be worried people will…

The origin of the phrase "helicopter money" was from Milton Friedman, when he described the lunacy of the concept. Ironic it's used seriously today.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we make millions of the tests rapidly available? I am still reading about test shortages on both coasts, even under the restricted testing regime we have been in so far. Maybe the no-contact thermometers could be a scalable approach. Go to the bank? Forehead scan to get in. Go to the grocery store? Same. At least until--and maybe even after--we can scale the RNA testing.

> Maybe the no-contact thermometers could be a scalable approach. Go to the bank? Forehead scan to get in. Go to the grocery store? Same. This is the reality in China. Literally every single public place have a remote thermometer they scan on your forehead. supermarket? scanned. subway? scanned. restaurant? scanned. If you have a fever you'll go into quarantine in no time.

People can take ibuprofen prior to going shopping.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? There wasn't enough testing/medical capacity for at least the first month in Wuhan, and the rate wasn't any higher.

Well we can look at Italy for example. Also America has a lot of obese people, which are supposedly at a high risk, so it’s possible we see a higher fatality rate. I personally don’t think so just trying to answer your question

We don't know the total number of infections in Italy so we can't get a meaningful estimate from there.

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#209
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question for OP: does this data change your mind? If not, what would?

That it impacted the kids and 20-30 yo cohort the way it impacts the 70+ yo. Also those co-morbidities like high blood pressure have the all important age distinction missing. So yeah if you’re 70 and have high blood pressure it’s worse. It’s perverse to stop world for some low rate CFR for the elderly. The world is made for the young. We shouldn’t destroy it for the elderly. Also actuarial tables for a 75 year old i…

This is a bit disturbing. We should what, just let the old people die (or at least ~10% of them)?

Re: Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]

#210
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, we pause all fixed financial obligations, which are what’s crushing our economy right now. Right now, we’re in a crunch: people can’t work, and so they can’t make payments on mortgages and rents. Totally agree, it is insane that some families are under the threat of eviction because they live paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford to pay rent now. Same for small businesses who cannot afford to pay rent. I'm…

It isn't about landlords doing the "right thing". Landlords have debt to pay, generally aren't sitting on mountains of free cash, and foreclosure of the property you are renting is functionally similar to eviction.

This is why the article discusses "pausing" these types of payments for everyone from the average person to fortune 500s. If the Landlords are in a similar position (i.e. their "rent" and other debt payments are paused as well), then they have the power to pause rent payments for their residents.
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