There’s a fundamental misunderstanding that central banks can keep economies going. The only thing central banks can do realistically is print money. You cannot eat money. In an economic collapse food will get scarce, like the 1930s, and central bank intervention will drive massive inflation due to the imbalance between supply and demand.
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Indefinitely. 18 months would be well doable if needed, and it likely won’t be anywhere near that. And those economies which have the necessary massive central bank intervention to ensure liquidity and the necessary public health measures to defeat the virus will have far more more confidence than those who follow the failed dogma of the markets.
Market ideology is strictly for slow learners in this scenario.
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What a load of shit. That’s exactly why central banks intervene and should intervene, to prevent economies collapsing.
In this situation, it’s the central bank which provides the liquidity which enables necessary services to continue.
Economies were already collapsing weeks ago before governments intervened. The so called “economic argument” here is laughable. Economies run on confidence. The same people pushing the “save the economy” line are now telling us that economies run on lack of confidence, not confidence.
The only thing the proponents of market ideology can shout is “the 1930s”, a situation which capitalism itself specifically brought about.
The irony is that you’re the guy who was proposing UBI last year, and now, in the exact situation where it has become obvious where exactly this type of measure is needed, you’ve turned against it because posters you don’t like are arguing for it.
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The projected figures for greater Manchester requiring ventilating are 1200 by this time next week. That is a fearful number. We will know within a week whether the omlette has been over-egged.
I have no idea how many ICU beds there actually are, but a quick Google showed 50 at Central Manchester, so likely another 50 at South, maybe 50 across the north east, there’s no major unit in the west.
There is no such thing as over-egging in this scenario. Everybody needs to plan on worst case scenario lines.
The goal is that the response will later be classed as over-reaction. There is no such thing as the perfect reaction to meet changing circumstances because nobody knows what the reality is, we’re dealing with something we’ve never had before.
It’s a simple way of phrasing it mate. Calm down. Anyone who thinks politicians are not reacting in part at least for political optics, I have a bridge for sale.
We aren’t anywhere near any of those metrics yet, unfortunately, for phased relaxing of restrictions.
I think a lot of it will be gauged from ICU capacity alright. If ICU capacity is proven to manage, restrictions can be lifted, but with a strict look at that number and the agility and flexibility to bring back in measures when it gets close again.
Coming out of this too soon would be devastating to the morale and the economy. If restrictions are relaxed and we get a second surge, then morale, the economy and more importantly health care workers and lives will be devastated.
There’s no easy fix here. I personally think one long haul of lockdown is the only logical solution. It saves lives, is risk averse and when it’s done there’ll be more confidence to go out and rebuild.
Pussy footing around with removing and reimposing restrictions will generally lead to a lot of fear and no confidence to go and spend. It would be equally as bad for people’s morale and mental health and more dangerous to vulnerable people.
How much would it cost to start up production, get people back working and then to have to stop again 2 weeks later because we went to soon for example?
this is the most pertinent point in your post. We have. I don’t think it’s been done unnecessarily. When there is almost unilateral consensus across all major governments like this, there most be a serious underlying threat to Public Health. That’s the biggest red flag for me here. Everyone has locked down (pretty much). That wouldn’t be done if they could possibly avoid it.
We’re in a long fight here lads. We hunker down and hope someone can procure a vaccine or a treatment
The same lads who believe the worst case scenarios predicted by a group of discredited researchers at the Imperial College, with absolutely no empirical evidence to back it up, are now claiming they know how the economy will be sustained over the next 2 years with virtually all businesses gone bankrupt and most people unemployed.
Their main problem is they have faith in government that it will save us, when the history of government is the opposite. The private sector are the ones who will solve this crisis, whether it’s putting food on people’s tables, building more ICU facilities, massively ramping up production of medical equipment, developing treatments and ultimately a vaccine.
Governments role is mainly not to fuck things up too badly.
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But if Denmark are, then why not us?
If Denmark jumped off a cliff, would you do do too?
Will they is the question? Denmark have also seen a drop off in the curve, we haven’t yet.
I think once we get past the worst of this wave we have to reopen to some extent. Obviously it cannot be just go back to the way things were, and maybe it never will be. The distancing and hygiene measures are here to stay for the foreseeable future, maybe we have to get used to wearing a mask in public for a while. Wearing a mask is a better outcome than people with no jobs, and no hope.
One thing we don’t know is how much distancing and hygiene measures help contain the spread versus partial lockdowns, as both were introduced close together. Lockdowns like were implemented in China are never going to happen in western countries, unless that’s the kind of society we want to live in and I would hope it is not. The way Sweden pans out here will be interesting as they have taken the most non interventionist route.
Ultimately we have to live with some level of risk, we do that anyway with the flu and other diseases.
those other diseases don’t overwhelm emergency departments like this one can and has.
do you not think it would be extremely damaging to reduce measures too early, get people back out, see a spike, hammer the healthcare system and see more high death rates, only to end up right back where we are now
it needs to be a very careful and calculated relaxation of the measures, confidence will need to be built back slowly.
going too early would be devastating, because the same mistake won’t be made twice and we’ll end up in a longer restricted form of living.
No, but they result in deaths which I think is what most people care about. Not sure of the numbers in Ireland but on average 17,000 people die of the flu each year in the UK. The flu is a contagious respiratory disease, we could potentially reduce those numbers greatly by imposing lockdowns from October to March every year. Why don’t we do that?
I take your point about the health care services being overwhelmed, this is also the time to be increasing capacity including staff as this disease is not going away anytime soon and may be with us for years. However, we don’t know yet how many have been infected, how many have recovered, how close or far we are from herd immunity by country, how well distancing and hygiene measures work, etc. The only way to answer that is mass scale antibody testing and opening back up cautiously.
I think this wave will be the worst, simply because so many people likely got infected in the 6+ week period when no restrictions were in place, and how infectious this is. Given what we know now I don’t know how you could live in a densely packed city like New York for 6 weeks and not get it. The antibody testing is key, anyone who has developed immunity should be back in society being productive.
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Essentially this now a non issue except for in nursing homes. Instead of doing pointless testing of selfish bastards who think they might have it all resources should moved here.
they do results in deaths but not like one’s in Italy and Spain etc where Doctors are choosing who gets to fight and who doesn’t. I don’t want the devastation in Bergamo and Madrid, to come here. It’s as simple as that.
Your second point is right, we don’t know anything. Absolutely. When you don’t know anything you avoid risk until you know more. You don’t add a risk variable to an already chaotic environment.
Yes we have actually.
As deluded posts go, this is an absolute beauty. It’s the exact same rationale that left Russia to rot after the break up of the USSR and led directly to Putin.
The same lad who vilifies the Imperial College team here is the same lad that was quoting them admiringly for weeks. You couldn’t make it up.
have we?
Denmark
Ireland
Looks like they are about a week ahead of us in all likelihood, if not more