[BostonCard]

With respect, it's not a false choice.  When people work productively, the economy is better than when people don't work productively.  It was true during the Spanish flu, America's economy and GDP kept strong with a minor blip.  And yes, they had no choice, they didn't have the medical advances we do now.  So they worked hard and 675,000 Americans died, and they entered the Roaring 20s and succeeded...until the Great Depression.  And as I've made clear, I don't think we're facing a Great Depression.  I think what we're facing is worse.  China understands it and we don't.  They will come out of this the unquestioned global leader, and will dictate terms economically.  Or did you miss the fact that they floated the idea that if we didn't play ball they would hold back on delivering antibiotics that they manufacture?  At its worst, America would never have done that.  In six months when our economy and Europe's economies are in ruins, the Chinese will dictate terms in ways you can't believe.


I don't understand why some people on this board thinks that there would be the same economic result with people working vs. people not working.  Intuitively that can't possibly be true.

I think it is odd that you mention China, because in many ways their response was even more heavy-handed than ours.  It is only because they were able to get the virus under control that they were able to re-open their economy.  I think that once we get over the worst of it and reduce the number of new infections into the hundreds with effective testing and tracing that we too would re-open much of our economy.

BC

[BostonCard]

With respect, it's not a false choice.  When people work productively, the economy is better than when people don't work productively.  It was true during the Spanish flu, America's economy and GDP kept strong with a minor blip.  And yes, they had no choice, they didn't have the medical advances we do now.  So they worked hard and 675,000 Americans died, and they entered the Roaring 20s and succeeded...until the Great Depression.  And as I've made clear, I don't think we're facing a Great Depression.  I think what we're facing is worse.  China understands it and we don't.  They will come out of this the unquestioned global leader, and will dictate terms economically.  Or did you miss the fact that they floated the idea that if we didn't play ball they would hold back on delivering antibiotics that they manufacture?  At its worst, America would never have done that.  In six months when our economy and Europe's economies are in ruins, the Chinese will dictate terms in ways you can't believe.


I don't understand why some people on this board thinks that there would be the same economic result with people working vs. people not working.  Intuitively that can't possibly be true.

I think it is odd that you mention China, because in many ways their response was even more heavy-handed than ours.  It is only because they were able to get the virus under control that they were able to re-open their economy.  I think that once we get over the worst of it and reduce the number of new infections into the hundreds with effective testing and tracing that we too would re-open much of our economy.

BC