The economic devastation of the pandemic could kill more people than the virus

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-05-11/more-than-a-billion-people-escaped-poverty-in-the-last-20-years-the-coronavirus-could-erase-those-gains

by Reedx • 6 years ago

66 50 6 years ago

latimes.com

rumanator• 6 years ago

The hypothetic "economic devastation" has a very simple political solution.

An epidemic raging throughout the country doesn't.

The economic problem is only a problem if the political leadership decides to do nothing at all.

kelchm• 6 years ago

The economic devastation is hardly hypothetical at this point. It’s happening and clearly observable even here in the US.

Claiming that there is a simple political solution to the current global economic situation is beyond disingenuous.

mrgreenfur• 6 years ago

I think he's alluding to the option of giving money to people instead of to companies; this will alleviate personal devastation.

clawedjird7• 6 years ago

Well, we can't exactly prevent people from dying of a virus that's largely outside of our control.

We can enact policies to prevent people from dying due to a lack of basic resources, however.

Unfortunately, contrary to what many seem to believe, this isn't a case of choosing between two evils. It's not as if we can avoid economic consequences by simply ignoring the virus. Business as usual won't exist, with or without mandated lockdowns, until the threat of the virus has passed. Neither can we simply defeat the virus by shutting down all economic activity, even if that were possible. The solution to this crisis will likely require a combination of luck, technological progress, and well-executed policy.

That said, I'll reiterate that keeping people from dying due to "economic devastation" is very much within our present capabilities and doesn't depend on global economic recovery. Of course, that doesn't mean that we'll (well, those in a position to choose, anyway) make the choice to do so.

casefields2• 6 years ago

Those that say the answer is simple, really do think making the money printer go brrrrrr is the answer. Modern Monetary Theory is helping them along, but it remains to be seen what will actually happen.

ars• 6 years ago

You can't eat money.

If you give everyone money, but people aren't working, aren't producing anything, then your country is just as poor as before.

The economic backbone of a country is not money, it's work. So giving money in bulk does not replace work. (You can do it targeted, for small sections of the population, but you can't do it for everyone.)

somewhereoutth• 6 years ago

Indeed. However, if it is necessary to reduce output in order to control the virus, it surely must be fair to distribute that loss evenly.

Hence the point of helicopter money is exactly that - to ensure that those who are unable to work (and have no other source of income) do not carry a disproportionate burden through this situation.

EDIT: Furthermore - if you give someone who is broke $1200, they will likely go out and spend it on food and essentials - hence significant (for them) resources are allocated towards them. If you gave the same to a multi-millionaire, the chances are that it would have zero effect on their consumption. Likely it would end up in their bank account (if they could be bothered to cash it) - where it would contribute to the slight erosion of the value of money.

casefields2• 6 years ago

But you can feed the stove for warmth!

https://library.randolphschool.net/c.php?g=237930&p=1581974

fragmede2• 6 years ago

I did some research, and if it is correct, the money is to be used to buy food. Further research leads to believe that, with some additional work, food can be eaten.

The backbone of a country is its people. If everyone starves to death, there is no more country. Giving money in bulk is to paper over the cracks in the system. For most of us on here, we're lucky enough to have transitioned to working remotely, and have enough savings to live off of for some time so as to not worry about rent or mortgage payment. Food insecurity isn't a thing to contend with, outside of fraught trips to the supermarket.

Others have no such luck, and missing even a single paycheck, or single digit hours out of one, upsets the delicate balance that is the payday loan repayment house of cards. Except that four out of five Americans live paycheck to paycheck[0], so it's most Americans that have no such luck.

Those Americans will go broke, hungry, and would be borderline homeless. Giving money is to alleviate those conditions. People aren't working because we're telling them not to. Ergo, giving money in bulk. Not to replace work, but to supplant it when it isn't an option.

There are those that want to replace work with bulk money transfers, but you don't have to buy into the idea of UBI to recognize that giving people money so they don't starve is better than the alternative.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/01/11/live-pa...

gautamcgoel• 6 years ago

Keep getting a paywall... Any way to get around it?

clawedjird7• 6 years ago

Try a browser extension like "Bypass Paywalls" on Firefox and Chrome.

Link: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox

1cvmask• 6 years ago

perhaps outlier could work

gnusty_gnurc• 6 years ago

People act like government adding a zero to everyone's bank account will help us weather the storm. News: it won't. The pandemic makes blindingly clear what people only loosely have to countenance during prosperous times: any of the things we enjoy are made. No magic! If people can't produce things (government prohibition on work) - we won't have things!

nelaboras• 6 years ago

For western countries there's no shortage of anything important. The argument that the economic effects will kill more might count for the US with its absurd policies (like link between healthcare and employment) or countries like China and India with less developed social support systrms, but does not make much sense in Western Europe. You will see a slight increase in suicides from.unemployment, but health etc will not be impacted.

And there will be some other positive effects: decreased traffic means decreased pollution (a key cause of heart and lung disease), less traffic accidents, less stress linked to long commutes, etc. Not to mention lower spread of other diseases like the common flu due to social distancing.

I don't mean to paint it all rosy, but the issue is not as black and white as is suggested in articles like this.

thawaway1837• 6 years ago

Not having a lockdown would not have avoided economic devastation.

As pretty much every data point shows, in the US, the drastic drop off of economic activity happened well before the actual lockdowns. States saw drops in economic activity in the days leading to lockdowns that was 80-90% as much as the drop that happened during the lockdown.

So the trade off wasn’t COVID deaths and a better economy, vs fewer COVID deaths and a worse economy. The trade off was a lot of COVID deaths, potentially triggering devastating cliffs, and a terrible economy, or fewer COVID deaths, and a slightly more terrible economy.

s1artibartfast2• 6 years ago

Do you have any sources for your numbers? The only values even close that that that I have seen were specific to the restruant industry.

ikeyany• 6 years ago

My understanding is that those "days leading to the lockdowns" were the days after the first lockdown was announced in the US.

aaomidi• 6 years ago

Okay maybe our economic system sucks?

ncmncm• 6 years ago

"The economic devastation of the pandemic could kill more people than the virus"?

Only if we are very, very lucky.

On a typical year in the US, something of the order of five million people die. (Could be more, couldn't be much less.) A very large fraction of that is accounted for by aging and age-related illnesses.

This year many of those who would die anyway will be taken by the virus. Another notable number will be taken but might otherwise have lived one or a few years longer.

But let us ignore that and look at the numbers. Suppose it takes 200,000, which we all hope is on the high side. That's 4% of five million. Death from virus is terrible. Death from economic ills is terrible. But regular death is way, way worse than both combined.

A lot of US death happens for very preventable reasons, but Americans have chosen, or have had chosen on their behalf, to tolerate overwhelmingly more unnecessary (meaning unnecessarily early) deaths every year than the combined sum of both of those.

What are the chances that people will come out of this crisis committed to preventing all those other unnecessary deaths?

The economic devastation of the pandemic could kill more people than the virus

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