Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
asia.nikkei.com
Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
1–10 of 95 posts
Re: Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
#2The 1918 flu pandemic along with the end of World War I, introduced the roaring 20s, a period of economic prosperity, a new cultural idea and in some sense decadence.
Will the idea of big spending government also delivers the same outcome? If yes, how do we manage those so that we will not arrive at the great depression of 1929?
Re: Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
#3The 1918 flu pandemic along with the end of World War I, introduced the roaring 20s, a period of economic prosperity, a new cultural idea and in some sense decadence. Will the idea of big spending government also delivers the same outcome? If yes, how do we manage those so that we will not arrive at the great depression of 1929?
Or, the automobile, the industrial revolution, and a booming population through agriculture and medical improvements led to economic prosperity, despite a deadly plague.
It's a pretty hard case to make that a disease which disproportionately killed health 20-30 year-olds led to mass prosperity.
Given all the advancements which were happening in the early 20th century, I'm inclined to say that prosperity happened in SPITE of WWI and the Spanish Flu. Who knows where we would be, had we avoided two huge human catastrophes.
Re: Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
#4As a side note, South Korea was having fairly good success with it's UBI programs before the pandemic hit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbWv_1NbWyw
Re: Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
#5The 1918 flu pandemic along with the end of World War I, introduced the roaring 20s, a period of economic prosperity, a new cultural idea and in some sense decadence. Will the idea of big spending government also delivers the same outcome? If yes, how do we manage those so that we will not arrive at the great depression of 1929?
What will happen is that people will just get poorer in general, than they would be without all this COVID mess.
Where I live we get 10x the gov. budget deficit than the previous year and the government is reducing and eliminating taxes at the same time. So the "taxes" will come in the form of reduced value of money, or taxes in the future. Level of taxation is pretty much equivalent to the level of government spending. There's, no way around it.
On top of that, general population's savings are being depleted. So yeah, future is bleak. Anyway, I hope the gov spending will get to sane levels soon.
It doesn't help that this is the global phenomenon, so economy/currency is not crashing as much compared to the surrounding countries. But there are still wild swings of ~10% or so compared to USD or EUR.
Re: Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
#6I have bad news for you all. This isn't just a phenomenon occurring in those far-off Asian countries...
Re: Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
#7The 1918 flu pandemic along with the end of World War I, introduced the roaring 20s, a period of economic prosperity, a new cultural idea and in some sense decadence. Will the idea of big spending government also delivers the same outcome? If yes, how do we manage those so that we will not arrive at the great depression of 1929?
Or, the automobile, the industrial revolution, and a booming population through agriculture and medical improvements led to economic prosperity, despite a deadly plague. It's a pretty hard case to make that a disease which disproportionately killed health 20-30 year-olds led to mass prosperity. Given all the advancements which were happening in the early 20th century, I'm inclined to say that prosperity happened in S…
> It's a pretty hard case to make that a disease which disproportionately killed health 20-30 year-olds led to mass prosperity.
That's exactly what happened during the black plague. It lead to the end of feudalism. A shortage of labor will absolutely boost the value of labor.
Re: Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
#8The 1918 flu pandemic along with the end of World War I, introduced the roaring 20s, a period of economic prosperity, a new cultural idea and in some sense decadence. Will the idea of big spending government also delivers the same outcome? If yes, how do we manage those so that we will not arrive at the great depression of 1929?
What will happen is that people will just get poorer in general, than they would be without all this COVID mess. Where I live we get 10x the gov. budget deficit than the previous year and the government is reducing and eliminating taxes at the same time. So the "taxes" will come in the form of reduced value of money, or taxes in the future. Level of taxation is pretty much equivalent to the level of government spendi…
Anyway, I hope the gov spending will get to sane levels soon.
Honest question, what mechanisms do you think will make this happen? Or is it more of a general hope-it-happens?
In my experience, getting anyone to spend less after they are used to spending a lot (be it a government, a company, a business unit, or even just your kids) simply doesn't happen, barring a fundamental change in circumstances whereby the alternate of continuing to spend a lot results in immediate ruin.
Re: Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
#9I don't usually go off on the deep end with conspiracies, and I don't believe COVID-19 was intentionally spread, but I do think the needed response to fully control the spread of a virus creates perverse incentives for governments. Especially governments that would like to disrupt other countries which have cultures that don't like to be told what to do by their own government.
COVID-19 didn't cause such trouble, but I imagine a more deadly virus could, and it could be very hard to trace the source. At the same time, I doubt this would be possible to fully control for the government that spread it, so it seems improbable too.
Re: Covid pushes Asia to embrace big government
#10The idea of a "big government" is a spook. In my country, "big government" is a bad word meaning taxes on corporations, any sort of industry regulation and breaking up monopolies.
When I think of "big government", I imagine a militarized police force, lack of access to medical care, pervasive surveillance, unchecked imperialism, billionaires writing their own rules and to tie a bow on the top: a propaganda wing to manufacture the consent of the governed.
If you think what I wrote about above can only happen in "authoritarian" or, gasp, "communist" countries, you are certainly mistaken.