What is a good about Covid 19 related?

[IDEngineer]

These sorts of threads often devolve into character assassinations, so let me apologize right up front if anyone gets offended.

I'm 58YO, and my parents got married at the start of the Great Depression, so I'm coming at this with quite a bit of history. The Great Depression altered the people who lived through it, and they imbued a sense of what they lived through into their children. I cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't emphasize being self-sufficient and avoided debt like a disease. This while growing up and living in a small house in a large city in California, so it's not like we were farming hundreds of acres somewhere.

The subject of this thread is "What is good about COVID-19?"

1) What I'd LIKE to be good about this incident (but have no illusions it will last for any length of time) is that it snaps humanity back to the understanding that each of us, with our families, cannot rely on "someone else" (read: government) to be our safety net. First of all, that attitude engenders recklessness - if you know you can rely on someone else's deep pockets, you're far more likely to do stupid things that MAKE you reliant on those deep pockets.

One thing that will soon become evident is that, while government "safety nets" might work to help the occasional person/family, no government can save everyone at the same time. The $2T(!) "stimulus" package just passed by the US government is about 10% of the national GDP. Think about that for a moment... the government cavalierly trying to replace 10% of the entire country's GDP. Not to make light of the situation, but from the money's point of view this isn't much different from everyone in the country taking a multi-week vacation and expecting the government to pay for it. Guess what... that money isn't "free". We are literally stealing it from the future. And many inside and outside of the government are screaming that $2T wasn't enough!!! More will be required!

Insurance companies stay solvent only when a small portion of their policies make claims. The fact that the insurance company, in this case, is a government doesn't change that fiscal reality. We can afford to bail out the occasional individual or family, but no government can afford to bail out significant portions of their entire population. We can't tax our way to success, the numbers just aren't there. And governments don't have bottomless "rainy day funds" either. Many have been saying "I've been paying taxes/Social Security/whatever for all these years, now it's time for the government to take care of ME." Sorry, but the taxes you paid got spent (and then some!) in real time. There's no retirement account with your name on it or your money in it.

In times of plenty it is far too easy for the population to demand too much, and even easier for politicians to buy their votes by promising even more. Politicians are smart - they know they will be long out of office and comfortably retired before any of their empty promises are revealed for the scams that they are. The next sucker in office will be left holding the bag.

Hence why I say that I'm hopeful COVID-19 will teach people to be less dependent upon external safety nets, and more self-reliant. They will do not only themselves a favor, but also their fellow humans who are foolish enough to NOT follow that advice - because if there are fewer who truly NEED a government bailout, it's more likely the government will actually have the resources to help them.

2) The other important thing we (as a species) can learn from this is to take steps to reduce the rate of future repeats. By that I specifically mean that if a country (China, we're looking at you) wishes to act like a first-world nation with all of the associated trade and travel and tourism benefits, they must reject certain third-world aspects of their former culture because continuing them risks literally everyone on the planet. This is not a one-time fluke: COVID-19 is the *second* such virus to emerge from China in less than 20 years. Having open food markets where live animals are kept next to freshly slaughtered carcasses might be OK if there's little trade beyond your immediate village, but that's third-world thinking which is incompatible with the first-world.

Some of those cultural traditions go back centuries, and I'm respectful of history, but they have to choose between culture and being a first-world player. I've personally been to China twice in the past 18 months and spent multiple weeks in multiple cities there. I've met wonderful people who are incredibly gracious hosts, who love their families and work hard and seek to improve themselves. I have incredible love and respect for the Chinese people. And they can choose to live as they wish - but one of those options comes with the price of rejecting certain cultural norms because to continue practicing them literally kills people worldwide.

Nobody is saying this out loud because it's "politically incorrect". But it's true no matter how embarrassed some people are to admit it. And if China doesn't accept and act on it, what REALLY scares me is that the world may have to impose it upon them, effectively quarantining China by force. The word for such an action is "war" and if we think COVID-19 is bad, it will pale in comparison to a war involving a nuclear state with 1.3 billion people.

Somehow, some way, the world at large must (probably privately) convince China that certain cultural behaviors must be eradicated permanently. I hope those conversations are already occurring because the downside of them not occurring is worldwide death whether slow (disease) or fast (war).

[ebastler]

I'm 58YO, and my parents got married at the start of the Great Depression

Allow me the observation that it took your parents a loong time to figure out that procreation thing, from 1929 to 1962. 

[Gregg]

Covid 19 may give a few anti-vaxers a dose of reality (but as mentioned earlier, you can’t fix stupid).  Maybe some big governments will spend more on medical research and hopefully less on weapons research.
Hopefully many people will figure out that over populated areas are not really desirable.   
It is nice that we haven’t heard a lot from the flat earthers; they just don’t have an audience.

[Zero999]

A lower overall death rate this year, since the distancing and hand-washing will reduce the overall number of "non-novel" viral infections.

Interesting point, that should indeed have an effect on many other viral infections. Probably even including AIDS, as people currently stopped going out at night in many areas, so probability of meeting someone new and having risky behaviors should also be a lot lower.

There will also be fewer road deaths too.

I hope China continues their ban (the current ban is temporary) on the disgusting inhumane and unhygienic wet markets.

I do hope you are speaking from a position of actual knowledge, and have been to a few Chinese wet markets to see for yourself.

If you think those are bad, what about some of the western operations, like the CAFOs in the US? At least the Chinese don't have to threaten film crews with severe legal repercussions for filming in a wet market, as the US does with CAFOs. The public actually goes there and buys stuff in person.

No, I've not been to a Chinese wet market but know enough about them and if you read the rest of my post you'll find I mentioned swine and bird flu, which are also linked to intensive farming. Many of the animals sold at Chinese wet markets aren't hunted from the wild, but intensively farmed in a similar manner to pigs and chickens are in the US and to some degree other countries.

This isn't the first time a pandemic has been caused by poor treatment of animals. SARS, swine and bird flu pandemics have been linked to intensive animal farming. As long as this practise continues, we risk this happening again and again. Improved animal welfare, hygene and eating less meat are the solutions to this problem. Full disclosure: I'm not vegetarian myself.

My criticism isn't purely aimed at the Chinese, even though they are to blame for this pandemic. The whole world needs to improve animal welfare and hygiene. It won't stop until there's a global ban on these intensive farming practices. So what if the price of meat goes up? People will just have to eat less of it and it won't damage the economy as much as Covid-19.

[IDEngineer]

Allow me the observation that it took your parents a loong time to figure out that procreation thing, from 1929 to 1962.

Indeed! And to top it off, they adopted me at 3DO. Think about that: They were 50YO and took on a newborn first and only child. One thing I've never wondered is if they wanted me or not! 

[IDEngineer]

My criticism isn't purely aimed at the Chinese, even though they are to blame for this pandemic. The whole world needs to improve animal welfare and hygiene. It won't stop until there's a global ban on these intensive farming practices.

Precisely why I said that's what really scares me. The world will have to isolate - by force - those nations that refuse to eradicate this behavior. Imposing your will on another nation doesn't generally end well for either side.

[SiliconWizard]

1) What I'd LIKE to be good about this incident (but have no illusions it will last for any length of time) is that it snaps humanity back to the understanding that each of us, with our families, cannot rely on "someone else" (read: government) to be our safety net.

I would like that too, but I'm unfortunately thinking that it will have the exact opposite effect, as people will tend to focus on the "cure" (the way we are currently handling the catastrophe - and for this, most people are currently relying on their government to provide both directions and care, and admittedly it's too late for anything else right now) rather than on the "preventive" part of things.

All that people will remember in the end (well, most of them) IMO is how bad things suddenly went and how we dealt with this, rather than ponder on how we could have avoided it altogether. And I'm afraid all we will keep from this is how to prepare for the next one, rather than how to avoid the next one.

[BravoV]

One thing that will soon become evident is that, while government "safety nets" might work to help the occasional person/family, no government can save everyone at the same time. The $2T(!) "stimulus" package just passed by the US government is about 10% of the national GDP. Think about that for a moment... the government cavalierly trying to replace 10% of the entire country's GDP. Not to make light of the situation, but from the money's point of view this isn't much different from everyone in the country taking a multi-week vacation and expecting the government to pay for it. Guess what... that money isn't "free". We are literally stealing it from the future. And many inside and outside of the government are screaming that $2T wasn't enough!!! More will be required!

For US adversaries, this is actually a good beginning.

Its like a human body that has serious opened wound that keep bleeding out fast, instead of willingly to experience or endure the temporary pain at fixing the wound, like stitching it to stop the bleeding and etc, now the gov. just keep pumping in water to dilute the blood, while confident that its the blood pressure that need to be maintained, a.k.a.  ... just print a lot-lot more money and spread it for free.

Indeed this is an interesting era to watch, to be honest I didn't even expect of watching this in my life time.

[Zero999]

My criticism isn't purely aimed at the Chinese, even though they are to blame for this pandemic. The whole world needs to improve animal welfare and hygiene. It won't stop until there's a global ban on these intensive farming practices.

Precisely why I said that's what really scares me. The world will have to isolate - by force - those nations that refuse to eradicate this behavior. Imposing your will on another nation doesn't generally end well for either side.

What concerns me is countries such as the US will criticise China's wildlife markets, without reassessing their own intensive farming practises.

Regarding the other point you made in your other post about self-sufficiency: no one in a modern society can be truly self-sufficient. We all depend on other people for something. Even if you save enough cash for a rainy day, it doesn't guarantee it will be of any use if it's wiped out by hyperinflation. Some sort of insurance is necessary although I do agree that it can only go so far. If I get sick and lose my job, I can get housing benefit to cover the mortgage, the National Health Service will treat my illness until I'm well enough to work, then I can claim jobseeker's allowance until I find a new job. This is obviously no good if everyone is sick and loses their job at the same time.

[IDEngineer]

...the gov. just keep pumping in water to dilute the blood, while confident that its the blood pressure that need to be maintained, a.k.a.  ... just print a lot-lot more money and spread it for free...

It has to end at some point. The numbers don't lie and cannot be fooled forever. But I think today's politicians are in too deep to stop it with any sort of normal response. The debt is simply too great to repay, no generation will be willing to sacrifice that much for the excesses and bad judgement of earlier politicians.

As an ever-increasing percentage of the budget goes to debt service (read: interest) there will come a time where someone's ox will get gored. There won't be any "good" options. My guess is that the US government will simply declare selective bankruptcy: Debts owed to foreign entities are suddenly null and void, with the US military to make it stick. Impossible? The only alternative would be to turn their backs on US voters upon whom politicians are dependent for their careers. Given those options I fully expect politicians to favor their constituents - and their elected positions - while hiding behind the US military. One would hope that we'd pass a balanced budget amendment as part of this action so that international trust in the USA would have some hope of rebuilding.

Things were bad enough back in 2008-2009 that I thought this might happen then. We can't pull too many more rabbits out of this particular hat.

[IDEngineer]

This is obviously no good if everyone is sick and loses their job at the same time.

THIS is the root issue with relying on government as a safety net. A few "insurance" claims can be tolerated. Massive, double-digit percentages cannot. We are very near the latter.

Your point about savings being worthless if the currency is devalued is 100% accurate. By itself, having hordes of cash isn't self-sufficiency. Remember the irish potato famine stories.

[james_s]

Depending on how bad it gets and how widespread, it might put one or more private health insurance companies out of business which I can only see as a good thing in the long term. Witnessing millions of people being dumped into the street without healthcare during a pandemic might finally catalyze the formation of universal healthcare in the USA, similar to that which every other developed nation in the world has. We already spend twice as much money as the runner up, universal healthcare would be cheaper than what we're doing now and wouldn't result in people losing their healthcare when they need it most or being tied to a job they hate because they need the health insurance. Employer provided health insurance is an enormous job killing tax on corporations that not only encourages them to avoid hiring people but encourages disposing of older employees and replacing them with younger people that are cheaper to insure. It's hard for me to understand why our political right is so dead set against universal care when it would remove what is effectively an enormous tax on corporations removing that dis-incentive on hiring full time employees.

Every system has flaws but if I set out to design one as complicated and inefficient as possible I'd be hard pressed to beat what we have. There are layers and layers of middlemen that add no value whatsoever. I hear people argue that they don't want to pay for someone elses medical care, not realizing that they're already paying for it on top of everything else. Emergency rooms cannot deny treatment, when someone can't pay the cost is padded onto what everyone else pays. The fact that we spend twice as much per capita as any other nation on healthcare yet still have millions without coverage suggests an enormous level of waste and overhead.

[james_s]

It has to end at some point. The numbers don't lie and cannot be fooled forever. But I think today's politicians are in too deep to stop it with any sort of normal response. The debt is simply too great to repay, no generation will be willing to sacrifice that much for the excesses and bad judgement of earlier politicians.

I've wondered at times what will eventually happen with that. The debt is so massive that I don't think most can even comprehend the number, it will never be repaid, doing so is impossible even if it stopped increasing today, I've wondered if it might almost make sense to just throw part of it out and start over. To be honest I don't even fully understand who the debt is owed to.

Then there is the stock market, it is supposed to provide capital for companies to expand but in reality most of what it functions as is just a huge casino. I was looking at some stock prices yesterday just for fun and even after the huge slides we have seen quite a few of them are STILL greatly overpriced relative to what they rationally should be. I observed the same thing during the housing bubble crash in 2008 or whenever that was, the value of my house dropped quite a bit but it never dropped anywhere near to what I paid for the place in 2004, at the lowest point it was still overpriced relative to average wages. The whole thing is a house of cards and what we have come to see as "normal" is actually highly inflated. People make vast sums of money pushing stocks around without generating any actual value. It's just a big game where you try to leave someone else holding the bag.

[tooki]

• German folk music concerts got cancelled. (Hint: German folk music is the worst.)

Generally speaking, I agree with you completely. I hate Schlager. But this is glorious:

[Wilksey]

Good things so far:

1. Housing market crashed so new buyers might get a chance.
2. No dog shit and litter everywhere
3. All the people who are bonafide arseholes are coming out so I can shit list them easily.
4. Pollution declined. Air in London is like the countryside now.
5. Bar the first night where one fell through my fence and destroyed it, no drunks fighting in the alley behind my house.
6. The company I work for makes more money out of this due to our automation and self service products and the current financial crash
7. Being an engineer type person I relish days when I'm not disturbed every 3 seconds by shoulder tapping dickheads. That is now not a problem.

Haha, fully with you on point #7!!

I will say that - perhaps not a "good" thing, but you also find out what the company you work for is like, and how far they are willing to go for their employees.
Let's just say not a lot of happy campers.

[Marco]

As an ever-increasing percentage of the budget goes to debt service

It doesn't work that way for countries. There is a truth purposely hidden by mainstream economists, because like good little globalists they are predisposed to hating sovereignty. There is an infinite capacity to debt, the central bank balance sheet. Printing money as a sovereign country does not lead to hyperinflation, hyperinflation is a symptom of an unsustainable economy caused by far more fundamental forces ... trade and current account balances.

Printing money just causes inflation, which is just a form of taxation which additionally allows redistribution from creditors to debtors. A form of taxation which really works well in times of deflationary crises. But the greatest truth of all, the one which scares economists the most is that there is no reason to pay that debt down, in fact a country really shouldn't because that causes deflationary pressure. Once a country has expanded the money supply, it should just leave it expanded as the new normal.

So after crises number one the debt to GDP goes to 100%? Not a problem. After crises number 2 it goes to 200%? Still not a problem. 100000000%? Still not a problem. It's all just paper and the new normal.

Of course it does require a lot of discipline of the government to not abuse this power. Japan has that discipline, other countries might not. Economists would have rather seen Japan's economy burn to the ground in "creative destruction" and then slowly rebuild. Instead they remained a first world country and had some slow decades ... I think they did well not to listen too much to mainstream economists.

[julianhigginson]

it's pointing out some very glaring holes in free market capitalism, that's for sure.
Hopefully enough people are paying attention and will be as rightfully angry with it as they should be, when they come out the other side.

[Psi]

If the economy collapses, or even if it just gets damaged to a severe degree, it may allow for a shift to a simpler economic system (with less loopholes) where less wealth is monopolized by the rich, or by people not contributing to society.

If a large percentage of the lower class don't have enough money to buy food or housing the government may have no choice but to actually fix things.

Note: I'm talking in general, not about a specific country.

[james_s]

Capitalism in general works very well I think, but it needs some controls to keep things in check. A completely free market works ok for non-essentials but goods and services essential to basic living there has to be a greater degree of control against dramatic price fluctuations. Taxation ought to also be progressive, it should be possible for anyone who makes the right choices to become quite well off, but it should be progressively more difficult to become so wealthy that it snowballs and allows someone to use money to keep acquiring more money without generating any actual value. It could be all but impossible to be a billionaire and it would not stop anyone from becoming extremely wealthy. There is this false idea that the wealthy create jobs but it actually works the other way around. People who build successful businesses create jobs and that makes them wealthy along the way.

[Psi]

Universal basic income is a difficult thing to get right because it has to take into account a lot of factors. The cost of living is not the same everywhere.
But that sort of system would be able to deal with lockdowns much better.

[Psi]

it should be possible for anyone who makes the right choices to become quite well off, but it should be progressively more difficult to become so wealthy that it snowballs and allows someone to use money to keep acquiring more money without generating any actual value.

Agreed.

[IDEngineer]

There is an infinite capacity to debt, the central bank balance sheet... there is no reason to pay that debt down

This is a convenient fiction that many people repeat despite its being incorrect. My wife, who has a BA Finance Magna cum Laude, often has to correct people on this fallacy, along with its usual companion "Debt is just interest that we owe ourselves, so it's not real/doesn't matter/other excuse".

The easiest retort to this error is to ask the following question: "If the debt doesn't matter, why do we bother paying interest on it?" The first followup question is: "If paying interest doesn't matter, why is interest an increasing percentage of the federal budget?" And the next: "So there are zero downsides to simply ceasing payment of interest on the debt?" And the next: "What happens when the interest continues to increase, until it starts squeezing out mandatory and discretionary spending?"

The usual knee-jerk response to that last question is "Easy, we just issue fresh debt to pay the interest on the old debt." That's also known as being on the wrong side of compound interest, and that curve is anything but linear... once you cross that threshold it's just a matter of time until the whole things collapses.

[BravoV]

No can fix bullshit journalism.

+1

From CNN -> Desperate to go home, Indian migrant workers face tough choice amid world's largest lockdown

Just ignore the video, read the article and take note on the CNN's reporter speech commenting the video, it is totally very neutral tone. 

Now, imagine this video is a leaked Chinese police doing that to civilian exactly like that during the lock down in Wuhan.

Can you guess what will be the reporter's tone and the writing by CNN ?

You don't need to be genius to guess that. 

[IDEngineer]

it's pointing out some very glaring holes in free market capitalism, that's for sure.

Which are (or should be) balanced by proper regulation and oversight. Antitrust, for one. Separation of church and state in the banking industry for another, as we USED to have in the USA thanks to Glass-Stegal until President Clinton signed it away, which is a direct proximate cause of the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Capitalism is not safe without some regulation and oversight, but it's much better than all of the other financial systems that have ever been tried. The fact that it needs (constant) minor tweaking doesn't mean we should wholesale throw it out.

[IDEngineer]

Universal basic income is a difficult thing to get right because it has to take into account a lot of factors.

UBI is a completely stupid idea that cannot and will not work. Why not? The reasons are endless, and some require a little background in finance to dig into, but the easy answers include the following:

1) Every landlord knows their tenants are suddenly receiving an extra $1K per month. What do you suppose will happen to rents?

2) Every employer knows their employees are suddenly receiving an extra $1K per month. "You don't need a raise, you just got a $12K/year raise."

In other words, the market will swiftly price that $1K per person into every transaction. There might be a short time where the increase appears to be a net positive, but very quickly the net result on the other side will be no different than before. Then what? Increase UBI to $2K? Same result, until you run out of commas and zeroes to describe dollar amounts and they devalue the dollar to keep numbers managable. Or maybe you want rent, price, and wage controls throughout the economy? Better consult history for how well that has worked in other economies... and say goodbye to any last vestige of "free markets" when the government controls how much you can earn and how much you can spend.

EDIT: There's another reason UBI is a fatally flawed concept, one that Engineers especially should appreciate. It's totally open loop. UBI creates a situation where decades of cash obligation can be placed upon the government by any couple who doesn't practice birth control, with absolutely no negative feedback or backpressure of any kind. A wild night by any random couple can burden the taxpayers with $1K per month for 70-90 years. Multiply by the number of people actively seeking casual sex, who aren't careful, who don't care, etc. And the more dependents we get that way, the more dependents THEY create in the same fashion, lather rinse repeat. It's a perfect example of a runaway system.

UBI is literally one of the least intelligent concepts to be proposed in a very long time. But it sure sounds good to anyone who loves (what appears to be) a free handout and doesn't think beyond that.