2020 Post Election MEGAthread

[Lune]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Surely we can agree that this is a question of economics and not a simple yes/no? For example, here the WHO talking about how we now have an additional 130 million people undernourished. And contrary to the WHO, this has nothing to do with the actual virus and everything to do with draconian lockdowns.

So yes, I care about Granny. I also care about 130 million people starving to death. Then we have to look at the mental health aspects. According to this random website depression has gone from 10% of the population to 30%. Isn't living longer while being miserable the wrong tradeoff? It's like the old joke about making up negative margins on volume.

I'm not in favor of lockdowns either, in general. I am strongly in favor of wearing masks, which if Americans had participated in universally, we never would have needed any form of lockdown. However, lockdowns in areas where ICU's are full or hospitals are otherwise having issue with capacity are certainly warranted. But again, these could have been avoided with proper mask use and reasonable social distancing precautions.

Many of these businesses in the tourism, hospitality, and entertainment industries are going to suffer whether we lock down or not. Large swathes of the population are wary of traveling or huddling together in bars during a pandemic. The death rate may be low, but I don't blame people for not wanting to roll the dice. Had we heeded the advice of epidemiologists from the beginning we wouldn't be in this mess.

Additionally, some of that $1 trillion in stimulus funding earlier in the year could have been used the way it was in European countries to simply pay wages in distressed businesses until the distress subsided. Instead it was meted out in PPP loans with virtually no oversight, much of it ended up going to businesses that had little to no need for it because Republicans fired the watchdog responsible for committee oversight. Germany's unemployment rate is only 5.9%.