The Coronavirus Thread

[Cunt]

We've always put a monetary value on human life. Ask any insurance company or personal injury attorney. It's just that we have to do it on a global scale now and it's making people uncomfortable.

People don't think it be like it be, but it do.

I don't think there's an inevitable trade off between saving lives and the economy, it's just one of those traditions that someone has told us is a fact of life.

It doesn't matter how much poverty there is?

Weird theory, but ok...

It is the way your theory looks...

You say you don't think there is a trade off between saving lives and the economy...it sounds VERY naive or just good-old-fashioned lying to back a ludicrous position.

[NineBerry]

The problem is not food production. The problem is a failure of the state to provide citizens with the means to acquire food during the crisis. The food is there anyway. The food workers are there anyway. The citizens are there anyway. If the food has to be disposed because no one can afford it, the problem is not having a shutdown of businesses to bring down virus infections, the problem is the state not organizing means for the food to get to the citizens. The easiest solution would be having social security nets and additional crisis handouts to make sure the citizens have enough money to buy their own food. It cannot be that difficult for a country that spends trillions on military armament.

[Brian Peacock]

@Cunt: No, I don't think there's an inevitable trade off between saving lives and the economy, I think there's a choice.

If it is inevitable however, how many people need to die to save the economy?

[Cunt]

The problem is not food production. The problem is a failure of the state to provide citizens with the means to acquire food during the crisis.

What 'state' has the responsibility to provide citizens with food?

This used to be provided by willing, working food-producers.

The food is there anyway.

It doesn't belong to you.

The food workers are there anyway.

Do they belong to you?

The citizens are there anyway.

They are not allowed to purchase the food in their well-built, complicated way.

The government shut it down.

So all that generated 'wealth' wasn't.

If the food has to be disposed because no one can afford it, the problem is not having a shutdown of businesses to bring down virus infections, the problem is the state not organizing means for the food to get to the citizens.

The 'state' doesn't own food. Are you of the opinion that people should be enslaved, forced to give up the food they produce, because the government is having a shutdown?

The easiest solution would be having social security nets and additional crisis handouts to make sure the citizens have enough money to buy their own food. It cannot be that difficult for a country that spends trillions on military armament.

You keep insisting that this 'food' should be taken by the government, and given to someone hungry.

There is not much motivation in this scenario, to be a food-producer, is there? I'm already not going to farm. The onion guy is likely to quit. Who is going to produce all this food for you? And are they slaves? Indentured? Willing and charging all the traffic will bear?

You aren't making sense, except as a person who fears the virus more than anything, including poverty starvation and it's after effects.

[Cunt]

@Cunt: No, I don't think there's an inevitable trade off between saving lives and the economy, I think there's a choice.

How is that different? If someone chooses to let the virus kill the elders, to save the livelihood of the food producers, that 'choice' is the trade-off you deny.

If it is inevitable however, how many people need to die to save the economy?

It IS inevitable.

Some will die from virus. Some from shutdown effects.

Not taking either number seriously would be stupid.

[Sean Hayden]

@Cunt: No, I don't think there's an inevitable trade off between saving lives and the economy, I think there's a choice.

If it is inevitable however, how many people need to die to save the economy?

Enough to ensure our carriers outclass China's far into the future...give us your grandmas today or your sons tomorrow, or both if we say so!

--//--

I'm still eager to hear how the rich and powerful can be doing more for their country...

[NineBerry]

I am tired of being misrepresented willingly and on purpose.

[Cunt]

I am tired of being misrepresented willingly and on purpose.

If that's at me, it's simple. Talk about the uglier side (to you) and acknowledge the danger of ruining lives with the shutdown, balanced against the ruined lives by virus.

[NineBerry]

If there are lives ruined by a shutdown, then they are ruined because of a shitty government response.

How it works in Germany

This is how acquiring food worked before the shutdown:

1. Farmer farms food, sells it to factory or distributor
2. Factory or distributor sells food to the supermarket.
3. Customer goes to supermarket and buys food with his money.

This is how acquiring food works during the "shutdown":

1. Farmer farms food, sells it to factory or distributor
2. Factory or distributor sells food to the supermarket.
3. Customer goes to supermarket and buys food with his money.

Where do the customers get money to buy food with during the restrictions?

If they are employees and are still working: Receive money from employer as usual.

If they are employees and cannot work or work a reduced time because their employer cannot currently run their business: Receive money as usual from employer, partly getting only up to 30% reduction (based on family size and willingness of employer to pay voluntary bonuses). Employer gets that money from unemployment insurance which has a huge reserve fund for exactly this purpose. If the 30% reduction would mean falling below the poverty line, receive government benefits and maybe housing benefits (State paying your rent).

If they are self-employed or a business owner: Go to their house bank and receive a crisis handout from the government and if requested, a special credit that you don't need your own securities but that is secured by a public bank which was specifically created for these purposes (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau). You can also legally defer paying rents for your business properties during the crisis.

If you have not had an income before, nothing changes. You still receive government benefits and housing benefits as before.

There's no reason for anyone over here not having enough money to buy foods.

By the way, all of this worked without anyone needing to stand in queues before some government offices. It all worked on the phone or by filling out online forms. Employees don't need to do anything because it's all handled by employers.

[laklak]

Why shouldn't we, The Great State of Florida, open our economy back up? We're doing as well or better than pretty much any EU country including Germany. We've had under 1700 deaths. 1700 in a population of nearly 23 million, we've flattened the curve, our numbers of cases are decreasing daily, we've got massive ICU space. Not a mass grave to be seen. We're going to destroy our entire economy and way of life for that? Bullshit. Somebody has to take the chance or we're fucking toast. Do any of you honestly think teh gummint can feed ALL of us for the next, what, six months? Year? I've heard TWO years from some idiots. What fucking planet to you live on? These people can't organize a fucking piss up in a brewery, EVERY single thing they touch turns to shit. More to the point, what fucking planet do you want to live on? One where some faceless bureaucrat makes every decision for you? One where you're just one small happy little citizen cog in the Great Collective? One where you get a ration card for a bag of root vegetables, 30 grams of chocolate, and a half a chicken a week? Maybe a fifth of oily Victory Gin if you know somebody. Is life really worth that much to you?

Fuck that shit for a game of soldiers. I am not, nor will I ever be, a happy little socialist drone being told by my betters how to live my life because some bureaucratic apparatchik decided what constitutes the "good of the many". I'm old enough and ugly enough to make my own decisions, thanks anyway. Maybe y'all (or some of y'all) are good with that, but I sure as hell ain't. i'll take the chance it croaks me, fuck it. No one is stopping anyone from continuing to self isolate, no body is being forced to go to restaurants. Take care of your own damn self, and I'll take care of me.

[Animavore]

[laklak]

Hey, I'm not telling you how to live, am I? Am I constantly ragging on Ireland or the UK or EU for how you decide to do things? Why do you feel it necessary to try to tell me how I should be living?

Judge away, mate, I don't honestly give a shit.

[NineBerry]

It's not socialism to have insurance systems in place to make sure everyone is cared for in the case of a catastrophe.

[NineBerry]

Hey, I'm not telling you how to live, am I? Am I constantly ragging on Ireland or the UK or EU for how you decide to do things? Why do you feel it necessary to try to tell me how I should be living?

Judge away, mate, I don't honestly give a shit.

We live on the same planet and what one country does heavily affects other countries. Especially if the one country is armed with nuclear weapons and is a major driver of climate change.

[Brian Peacock]

@Cunt: No, I don't think there's an inevitable trade off between saving lives and the economy, I think there's a choice.

How is that different? If someone chooses to let the virus kill the elders, to save the livelihood of the food producers, that 'choice' is the trade-off you deny.

If it is inevitable however, how many people need to die to save the economy?

It IS inevitable.

Some will die from virus. Some from shutdown effects.

Not taking either number seriously would be stupid.

Nope, the choice is between saving lives and maintaining the share price of blue chip companies. The FED for example has underwritten c.$5tn of financial sector and corporate debt in the last two months, far more and more quickly than during the 2007/8 crash. These debt-issuing companies have then used the sudden influx of cash to facilitate stock buy backs at an unprecedented rate and by an unprecedented amount.

With the renumeration of board rooms and CEOs heavily weighted towards share packages, the people who get to decide how to use that cash have chosen to do things like lay offs while massively boosting their incomes at the same time. This at a time when unemployment in the US has jumped to levels higher than during the inter-war depression. If the fed can fabricate $5tn in cash in a few months to maintain financial and corporate profits it can also fabricate cash to save lives - if it chooses to. The issue is that central banks exist to serve and facilitate the activities of the financial and banking sector not society.

There exists at the moment a two-tier economy, an economy of financial assets and the so-called 'real economy' where most of us live, where people are employed, spend wages on stuff, and governments build things, provide services and contract out etc. When the time comes for the FED, the creditor of last resort, to call in the debts it now holds it cannot expect to realise a return that matches what it has laid out. And the money it paid finance and corporations has effectively disappeared into privately held assets - which is to say it's been taken out of the real economy. Who does that loss then fall on?

On present form the difference, the losses will be passed onto the government who will then borrow and cut spending, and so, one way or another, the taxpayer covers the cost. This has a terrible effect on the real economy and more people lose their jobs, can't buy as much stuff or make rent or mortgage payments, can't get access to essential services etc. This is called Austerity, and although those who have directly benefited from shorting the taxpayer say that Austerity is necessary, along with lower business and personal taxes while you're at it, to 'save the economy', it's actually a system to transfer wealth from the poor to the wealthy - to socialise profits and nationalise losses. So yeah, there's a choice to be made, it's just not the one you think it is.