🦠"hoarding" — Whenever I see this word, I read it as: "I think I know better than other people how much of a product they should buy for themselves and their families."
🦠"Blaming China is racist." — I'm sure many of the people who say this are also adamant that you can make a reasoned criticism of the Israeli government's policies or practices, without being anti-Semitic. And of course that's true. It's also true that you can make a reasoned criticism of the way the Chinese government dealt with the latest viral outbreak originating in that country, without having a racial or ethnic bias.
🦠"Well, apparently you only care about your STOCKS!!!!!!!!!" — in response to anyone who suggests we should have some balance between protecting the public from this contagious disease, and not continuing to cripple the economy and keep millions of people out of work for too long. Yes, the virus has killed a lot of people. But so has poverty. And many millions of people staying unemployed for a long time is going to lead to more poverty.
(A sequel to this post.)
Monday, April 20, 2020
More things I'm tired of hearing about the coronavirus
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2 comments:
On "hoarding" that seemed to be an issue for a while. Now that most basics are available in the stores again there are limits on what you can purchase. I have since realized that the supply chain for items like TP is different for retail than for commercial products, Since more people are staying home that is what was causing the apparent shortages. This might have led to an illusion of overpurchasing and hoarding.
"Blaming China is racist" LOL. The Chinese Communist Party lied for weeks or months about human to human transmission of the virus and the WHO parroted their dishonest statements. I don't blame the Chinese people but their government was irresponsible and endangered the whole world.
"You only care about your stocks" OK I do care about my stocks. That is pretty much the only source of wealth that I own aside from my house and my car. When the economy does better stocks will do better as well. The rate of unemployment is shocking and the amount of human suffering due to economic conditions is almost inconceivable, for those who are unable to work from home and do not have any other reliable source of income.
Yes, the virus has killed a lot of people. But so has poverty. And many millions of people staying unemployed for a long time is going to lead to more poverty.
So basically, 20% of those afflicted need hospitalization, and a few percent die. But many more suffer from horrible recovery trajectories. This is not a disease that simply goes away after a while and comes with horrific personal cost.
So that would be 60 million Americans hospitalized, 15 million in intensive care, and a few million dead - if allowed to "run its course." Forgetting the inability of our hospitals to function under those conditions - let alone the numbers of healthcare workers infected and rendered incapable of helping at all, further increasing the death toll - in what way can you numerically compare the quarantines and any poverty resulting from them to those impacts and system shocks? Further, how vibrant an economy are you going to have if you open things up and can't change the fact that many many people will just decide to protect themselves in economically understated ways - no matter how much their governor encourages them to go out to restaurants and shop?
I think Bill Gates has it right. People rightly care more about immediate impacts to their lives and health than they do jumping over piles of bodies to work and consume. We can sketch out the death numbers from the disease under natural conditions and until the money-minded folks can say how many are dying instead as a comparison from not being exposed to that then they're conflating an often ideological hypothetical against a real issue of life and death.
Dead people can't participate in economies. Survival comes before barter and bling.
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