KentVillan Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 (edited) 48 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Maybe! And of course no ideology has a monopoly on either virtue or all the right answers. But what I'm trying to get at, is there is a very important difference between problems that we know how to solve, and ones that we don't (or don't know very well), and that we needed, and largely still need, to focus efforts in the short-term on the difficult problems (like 'how not to have a huge number of dead people from coronavirus'), rather than on ones like 'how to reduce the unemployment rate' for which macroeconomic levers are well understood. The block on the former group is that experts are genuinely unsure of the best approaches, whereas the block on the latter group is less 'knowledge' than 'political will', 'interested parties' and 'ideology', which are familiar barriers that public policy people deal with all the time. And of course, to go back to the previous point, someone that is alive but unemployed or depressed can be helped, but someone who is dead cannot. I’m not sure macroeconomics does have the answers to anything like this to be honest. It might do in 30 years when all the books have been written. Where we differ, I think, is that I don’t believe Covid-19 is the only novel, multiplicative threat the world faces at the moment. And I believe some of those threats are being exacerbated by lockdown. However you rebalance you economy, pay universal basic income, etc. there is no avoiding the reality that governments pay for things with tax and borrowing. I am in favour of high public spending, but it’s always more sustainable if that comes from tax receipts. The massive economic shock at the moment means left-wing governments will have to borrow much more, and right-wing governments will cut spending. Neither is ideal. That’s what I mean when I say ideology isn’t really the issue. Countries will be poorer. As I said earlier in the thread, we can’t predict the future, so who knows exactly how it will pan out. But a lot of this economic damage has already happened - we can see it already in the economic data, in the activity data, in businesses going bust, lay offs, etc. That can’t all just be magicked away. Will it cause deaths? Well, it will make all the things that prolong life - good jobs, good hospitals, good education, good housing, well maintained urban spaces, pensions, benefits, leisure facilities, etc - harder to resource. You can play around with how equitably you distribute resources, but to some extent it’s just deck chairs on the Titanic? Edited June 13, 2020 by KentVillan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted June 13, 2020 Moderator Share Posted June 13, 2020 28 minutes ago, Genie said: It seems madness that it’s allowed. MAYBE if the cones were in sleeves so the ice cream man wasn’t touching the food, but they aren’t. Edit: actually it wouldn’t make much different. The one round here does it as pre-paid and delivered to your door in a Pizza box, obviously they aren't doing the Mr Whippy type stuff The opened a facebook page and publich the times they'll be in the area, so our village is like a 2 hour slot on a Sunday. They put the ice cream van sound on to tell you your delivery is there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 The thing about economic pain is that it will be prolonged and deepened by the extent of the transmission of the virus, and so the best solution is to get transmission to zero or near zero. This is because people remain frightened by the virus, and for as long as there are thousands of new infections per day, people will not operate as if in a virus-free economy. Simon Wren-Lewis had a good blog post about this the other day, looking at the role of 'social consumption': 'As I explained in a Guardian article, any recovery will be severely limited if new infections per day remain high. While we often focus on the irresponsible minority, the majority of people are cautious, and do not want to risk catching the virus. They are going to stay away from shops as much as possible, and will certainly not go back to pubs and restaurants, or public transport if they are able to avoid it. [...] [The apparently-increasing effective transmission rate] is important because it means that the number of new infections is declining very slowly, which in turn means that most people will not return to previous patterns of ‘social consumption’. That in turn means that there cannot be a complete recovery. We do not know at what level of daily infections people will be happy to resume social consumption, but it is bound to be well below 17,000. [...] I should resist the temptation to suggest that all this is obvious. When I modeled the economic impact of a pandemic I was surprised at how much of aggregate consumption was social. It isn’t just pubs, restaurants and tourism, but large parts of recreation, culture and transport. These sectors make up over a third of consumption. Even the demand for clothing may decline if there are no parties to go to. The pandemic creates a huge demand shock even without any lockdown measures like school closures. That is why many better-off households have been saving much more during the pandemic. The certain way to get a recovery is to release those savings, by creating the conditions for social consumption to resume. That in turn means getting daily infections down substantially by not relaxing the lockdown too soon.' from: https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2020/06/locking-down-too-late-but-ending.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 Some apparently good news from a country that ended its lockdown with significantly lower numbers of active infections: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted June 13, 2020 Moderator Share Posted June 13, 2020 18 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: The thing about economic pain is that it will be prolonged and deepened by the extent of the transmission of the virus, and so the best solution is to get transmission to zero or near zero. This is absolutely the key thing in addressing the economic argument. Firstly, minimise unavoidable deaths. Secondly, protect people from serious long term illness/injury (resulting from Covi and everything else) Support the economy and protect people's jobs and education and health services Fourth, take the opportunity to re-shape the economy following lessons learnt - this might be more reliance on home grown industry and products, more Health or infrastructure spending, it might be more environmentally and people friendly policies, it might be more working from home, less air travel...etc. You can't get anywhere unless you do the first thing. If the Government is not minimising unavoidable deaths, chaos ensues. They're still not, and we're getting battered as a result. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted June 13, 2020 Author Share Posted June 13, 2020 1 minute ago, blandy said: This is absolutely the key thing in addressing the economic argument. Firstly, minimise unavoidable deaths. Secondly, protect people from serious long term illness/injury (resulting from Covi and everything else) Support the economy and protect people's jobs and education and health services Fourth, take the opportunity to re-shape the economy following lessons learnt - this might be more reliance on home grown industry and products, more Health or infrastructure spending, it might be more environmentally and people friendly policies, it might be more working from home, less air travel...etc. You can't get anywhere unless you do the first thing. If the Government is not minimising unavoidable deaths, chaos ensues. They're still not, and we're getting battered as a result. The Tories are in charge 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 My hope all along has been the Oxford vaccine. Now I know it's not proven yet - but today they've signed a deal with the EU countries to produce a ton of it. They said previously they'd publish results of first phase trials in June, it must be positive stuff given now how many manufacturers and countries keep signing with them. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted June 14, 2020 Moderator Share Posted June 14, 2020 15 hours ago, villakram said: The Tories are in charge I’m not going to “like” that post! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 20 hours ago, blandy said: This is absolutely the key thing in addressing the economic argument. Firstly, minimise unavoidable deaths. Secondly, protect people from serious long term illness/injury (resulting from Covi and everything else) Support the economy and protect people's jobs and education and health services Fourth, take the opportunity to re-shape the economy following lessons learnt - this might be more reliance on home grown industry and products, more Health or infrastructure spending, it might be more environmentally and people friendly policies, it might be more working from home, less air travel...etc. You can't get anywhere unless you do the first thing. If the Government is not minimising unavoidable deaths, chaos ensues. They're still not, and we're getting battered as a result. You’re still discounting all the death and suffering being caused by lockdown itself. At some point this outweighs the risk of even a second wave of Covid-19. We don’t have the luxury of just pausing life until things get back to normal. My point isn’t that Covid-19 is nothing to worry about - and you’re totally right that fear of a second wave (and indeed a second wave itself) will depress economic activity. But blanket nationwide lockdowns are not sustainable, and do far more damage to health and quality of life than is being acknowledged. Belgium, Denmark and Norway have all said they won’t lock down again in the event of a second wave, for this reason. The only sustainable approach is to have localised restrictions to contain specific outbreaks, while using “soft” guidelines (face masks, hand washing, alert systems, etc) to minimise the spread nationally. It makes no sense to lock down one part of the country because another part of the country has seen a brief spike in cases, but that is currently how we seem to be working it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 I predict that one of these weekend days the government will accidentally report a negative number of deaths. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 2 hours ago, Genie said: I predict that one of these weekend days the government will accidentally report a negative number of deaths. Robert Peston would be pleased. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 41 minutes ago, Davkaus said: Robert Peston would be pleased. He does my **** head in on the daily briefing. Govt: Ok, lets got to Robert Peston for a questions Peston: 10 minute monologue before getting to his question. I think they show remarkable self restraint with the media sometimes. I’d be cutting him short and reminding him people have things to do and to get to the point quicker. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 42 minutes ago, snowychap said: That seems fairly reasonable! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 31 recorded deaths today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted June 14, 2020 Moderator Share Posted June 14, 2020 4 hours ago, KentVillan said: You’re still discounting all the death and suffering being caused by lockdown itself. No I’m not. Read again, please. Quote Firstly, minimise unavoidable deaths. Secondly, protect people from serious long term illness/injury (resulting from Covi and everything else) The first point, unavoidable deaths, not unavoidable deaths from one cause only. The second point, again, the same. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted June 14, 2020 Moderator Share Posted June 14, 2020 4 hours ago, KentVillan said: The only sustainable approach is to have localised restrictions to contain specific outbreaks, while using “soft” guidelines (face masks, hand washing, alert systems, etc) to minimise the spread nationally. It makes no sense to lock down one part of the country because another part of the country has seen a brief spike in cases, but that is currently how we seem to be working it. I agree with this. Said the same thing ages ago. Track and rapid trace, local action. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 26 minutes ago, blandy said: No I’m not. Read again, please. The first point, unavoidable deaths, not unavoidable deaths from one cause only. The second point, again, the same. How does persisting with lockdown minimise deaths caused by lockdown? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 There has been a strangely consistent number of road traffic related deaths in the UK, between 2012 and 2018 the highest recorded number was 1,793 and the lowest recorded number was 1,754 This year, could be interesting, and I guess it’s another stat we’ll need to throw in to the mix. We potentially have hundreds of road deaths that have been prevented this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 There was a big difference in terms of air pollution as well, though perhaps that is now fading somewhat. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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