OT: COVID-19 thread #2

[jmajew]

Yup.

It wont happen as easily in practice.

Especially if there is a global forgiveness program.

No one is going to cancel the debt of wealthy nations, especially not of the US. Anyone talking about global debt forgiveness is targeting poor nations whom are just going to default on it anyway. For the US, it won't really matter, again, we'll just print the money and pay it because the debt is denominated in our currency.

Whether that leads to inflation or not? Who knows. Most of the US debt is owed to American investors. You can't just cancel it on them. How would you feel if the government said, you know that 10,000 bond you bought, we're just not going to give you that money back.

I just want to be clear when I said global debt forgiveness I didn't mean debt would actually be forgiven. I meant we could print a whole bunch of money and pay down our debts, much like we are doing now.

In theory that should lead to inflation, however, the decade since the last recession seemed to prove otherwise.

[jmajew]

If a vaccine is developed, and it's effective, why would these changes be permanent?

A lot of companies have long thought that working from home can't be successful and now feel differently. I can tell you that my company is considering going full time remote for a big percentage of staff, moving all staff to shared jump desks, and canceling 2/3rds of its office space to save money. My wife's company was going to open a new office, and now they're also planning on stopping that and just offering work from home full time for a bunch of people with jump desks for when needed.

Fair chance that both my wife and I are full time remote with occasional office visits forever now. Could be that our companies are outliers, but I have no reason to think so.

I do agree that in the short term, commercial real estate is going to suffer greatly. Maybe not so much office buildings, because they probably will come up with solutions to make them relatively safe to work in again, but all the spaces that house small retail shops, or food places, and the like.

I think the safety wont' be a concern for these small spaces as much as the businesses that occupy them will largely be going under. That seems like a weak space already out in the suburbs where those places are just dying all over. I think office real estate will go way down too.

You could see high cost of living areas start to bleed people as well. If remote work ticks up considerably, it's much cheaper to hire quality people from low cost of living areas than from big cities. It will also probably bring an up tick in outsourcing to cheaper countries (though quality, language, culture, and time zone differences are factors there). A big think companies likely learned is that working remotely works really well once you have committed to it at a large scale once and have all your tools in place. The bar will be lower for outsourcing than ever before because of it.

Another big problem is public transport. How will they make that safe again? A lot more people will want to drive now, which will put more stress on the roadways.

They'll probably make people wear masks and it will just be risky. You'll probably see a lot of people opt away from transport like you have predicted. However, I'm not sure it will become that crowded. Lots of big companies like google and facebook already announced full time remote for the rest of the year. Expect to see a ton more companies do the same. The total number of commuters is just going to drop a ton.

That would be great for the environment! Commuting is a major source of pollution and traffic congestion. If we could avoid having to build more roads, bridges, etc, it would save a ton of money.

I wonder about the things people may not think about though- the social value of going into work and being around other people, the connections that form that way, etc. The company culture might suffer quite a bit in terms of loyalty, personal connections, etc., and people might suffer psychologically from not getting out of their homes and being out in the world among other people more.

In all actuality the majority of the pollution does not come from people driving cars or commuting to work. It comes from industry. Trucks transporting goods, trains, airplanes, boats, and manufacturing. If the goal of anything we do is to help the environment the most efficient thing we can do is bring manufacturing back to the US. We are so much more environmentally conscience than developing countries like China, India, Vietnam, etc. We could bring that back and have the government invest trillions in green energy.

The social aspect of working from home is the problem. However, if what we see with teenagers continues with future generations it will definitely become the new normal. Teenagers already drive less and go out less than previous generations. They feel they can connect with their friends via the internet and can still have social relationships. I don't agree with that, I firmly believe that the most important skillset I can teach my kids now is social skills. I think future generations will be sorely lacking that and will those who excel will be the most successful.

[musiqsoulchild]

Yup.

It wont happen as easily in practice.

Especially if there is a global forgiveness program.

No one is going to cancel the debt of wealthy nations, especially not of the US. Anyone talking about global debt forgiveness is targeting poor nations whom are just going to default on it anyway. For the US, it won't really matter, again, we'll just print the money and pay it because the debt is denominated in our currency.

Whether that leads to inflation or not? Who knows. Most of the US debt is owed to American investors. You can't just cancel it on them. How would you feel if the government said, you know that 10,000 bond you bought, we're just not going to give you that money back.

I just want to be clear when I said global debt forgiveness I didn't mean debt would actually be forgiven. I meant we could print a whole bunch of money and pay down our debts, much like we are doing now.

In theory that should lead to inflation, however, the decade since the last recession seemed to prove otherwise.

That's sort of my point jmajew.

I think printing more money leads to inflation IF it's done uncontrollably and without any checks and balances.

But if managed correctly, it can spur on the economy and quickly restart the economic engine.

[musiqsoulchild]

Another COVID 19 gem:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/09/us/south-dakota-sioux-tribes/index.html

It's not like Native Americans do not have a violent history of settlers bringing in disease and killing off millions of the original Americans.

[coldfish]

No one is going to cancel the debt of wealthy nations, especially not of the US. Anyone talking about global debt forgiveness is targeting poor nations whom are just going to default on it anyway. For the US, it won't really matter, again, we'll just print the money and pay it because the debt is denominated in our currency.

Whether that leads to inflation or not? Who knows. Most of the US debt is owed to American investors. You can't just cancel it on them. How would you feel if the government said, you know that 10,000 bond you bought, we're just not going to give you that money back.

I just want to be clear when I said global debt forgiveness I didn't mean debt would actually be forgiven. I meant we could print a whole bunch of money and pay down our debts, much like we are doing now.

In theory that should lead to inflation, however, the decade since the last recession seemed to prove otherwise.

That's sort of my point jmajew.

I think printing more money leads to inflation IF it's done uncontrollably and without any checks and balances.

But if managed correctly, it can spur on the economy and quickly restart the economic engine.

On money:

On of the things that turned the severe recession of 1929 into the great depression was money. We were on the gold standard, banks disappeared and people started hoarding cash. Money in circulation went to practically zero. As a result, it kicked off a deflationary cycle where goods went down in price. If you wait, you could buy what you want for less money. As prices dropped, companies had to cut expenses, further harming the economy which fed into the cycle.

Right now, everyone is hoarding cash. Due to fractional reserve banking, as people pay down debts and don't take on new ones, money in circulation literally evaporates. We have kicked off the same cycle that we had in the great depression.

Fortunately, the fed can come in and print money and then buy debt. They are replacing the money that has been pulled out of circulation with new money. That, hopefully, will stave off the deflationary cycle. If the economy turns around, the fed can merely accept the debt payments on the bonds that it purchased and burn the money to keep the money supply stable.

Unfortunately, we have this pandemic going on. People are literally not allowed to make goods and services of value. Prices are fundamentally set by the ratio of goods and services available to currency in circulation. As goods and services become more rare, you could kick off a venezuela style hyperinflation cycle.

We have a REALLY thin line to walk here. We are trying to balance between deflation and hyperinflation, either of which will cause a massive contraction in standard of living.

Overall, I think we are in deep, deep trouble.

[musiqsoulchild]

I just want to be clear when I said global debt forgiveness I didn't mean debt would actually be forgiven. I meant we could print a whole bunch of money and pay down our debts, much like we are doing now.

In theory that should lead to inflation, however, the decade since the last recession seemed to prove otherwise.

That's sort of my point jmajew.

I think printing more money leads to inflation IF it's done uncontrollably and without any checks and balances.

But if managed correctly, it can spur on the economy and quickly restart the economic engine.

On money:

On of the things that turned the severe recession of 1929 into the great depression was money. We were on the gold standard, banks disappeared and people started hoarding cash. Money in circulation went to practically zero. As a result, it kicked off a deflationary cycle where goods went down in price. If you wait, you could buy what you want for less money. As prices dropped, companies had to cut expenses, further harming the economy which fed into the cycle.

Right now, everyone is hoarding cash. Due to fractional reserve banking, as people pay down debts and don't take on new ones, money in circulation literally evaporates. We have kicked off the same cycle that we had in the great depression.

Fortunately, the fed can come in and print money and then buy debt. They are replacing the money that has been pulled out of circulation with new money. That, hopefully, will stave off the deflationary cycle. If the economy turns around, the fed can merely accept the debt payments on the bonds that it purchased and burn the money to keep the money supply stable.

Unfortunately, we have this pandemic going on. People are literally not allowed to make goods and services of value. Prices are fundamentally set by the ratio of goods and services available to currency in circulation. As goods and services become more rare, you could kick off a venezuela style hyperinflation cycle.

We have a REALLY thin line to walk here. We are trying to balance between deflation and hyperinflation, either of which will cause a massive contraction in standard of living.

Overall, I think we are in deep, deep trouble.

This goes back to why UBI may not be a bad idea for a few months.

However, it should be strictly regulated.

So, you can only SPEND that money in that month on certain pre-set activities.

That would actually help the economy.

Activities I can think of are:

1) Child Care
2) Gas
3) Groceries
4) Utility Bill's ( Gas, Electric and Internet only)
5) Principal payments of mortgage

[coldfish]

That's sort of my point jmajew.

I think printing more money leads to inflation IF it's done uncontrollably and without any checks and balances.

But if managed correctly, it can spur on the economy and quickly restart the economic engine.

On money:

On of the things that turned the severe recession of 1929 into the great depression was money. We were on the gold standard, banks disappeared and people started hoarding cash. Money in circulation went to practically zero. As a result, it kicked off a deflationary cycle where goods went down in price. If you wait, you could buy what you want for less money. As prices dropped, companies had to cut expenses, further harming the economy which fed into the cycle.

Right now, everyone is hoarding cash. Due to fractional reserve banking, as people pay down debts and don't take on new ones, money in circulation literally evaporates. We have kicked off the same cycle that we had in the great depression.

Fortunately, the fed can come in and print money and then buy debt. They are replacing the money that has been pulled out of circulation with new money. That, hopefully, will stave off the deflationary cycle. If the economy turns around, the fed can merely accept the debt payments on the bonds that it purchased and burn the money to keep the money supply stable.

Unfortunately, we have this pandemic going on. People are literally not allowed to make goods and services of value. Prices are fundamentally set by the ratio of goods and services available to currency in circulation. As goods and services become more rare, you could kick off a venezuela style hyperinflation cycle.

We have a REALLY thin line to walk here. We are trying to balance between deflation and hyperinflation, either of which will cause a massive contraction in standard of living.

Overall, I think we are in deep, deep trouble.

This goes back to why UBI may not be a bad idea for a few months.

However, it should be strictly regulated.

So, you can only SPEND that money in that month on certain pre-set activities.

That would actually help the economy.

Activities I can think of are:

1) Child Care
2) Gas
3) Groceries
4) Utility Bill's ( Gas, Electric and Internet only)
5) Principal payments of mortgage

As I noted, the price of goods and services is the ratio between the quantity of goods and services available and the amount of money in circulation. If we print money to tell people to stay home, you are putting yourself in a position where hyperinflation takes off. People might get $2000 per month but they will be able to buy a loaf of bread with it.

In the long term, if we somehow get to an economy where robots do the vast majority of the work and create a near infinite supply of goods and services, a UBI might make a lot of sense. In the short term where you are already facing shortages, a UBI may be counter productive as it encourages more people to not produce goods and services exacerbating existing shortages.

Overall, I just can't overstate how bad of a situation we are in. I think in order to maintain some semblance of a country, we need to have people producing things of value. OTOH, doing so is going to cost hundreds of thousands of lives. People really take a lot of things for granted (like the stable value of money) and that's going to be challenged over the next few years.

[dougthonus]

If that were to happen, it might as a by product go a long way towards solving the housing crisis. All those offices could be coverted into living quarters, or at least some fraction of them.

I'm not sure if there is a housing crisis in the US, there certainly isn't one relative to space, just proximity to desirable areas to live. Work from home might solve that in a different way than you suggest because desirable areas to live would tick way up. I think the cost to convert a Chicago office building is probably higher htan the cost to build housing further out from the city which might now be more desirable than in the past.

As for public transportation, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of PPE "travel suit" developed, that you would put on before you took public transport, then removed when you got off. And some sort of sanitizing machine that would be put in like ATM's in say, the lobbies of big office buildings, etc. Like something out of the Jetsons. Get Elon Musk working on this.

Makes sense, but would need to solve any cost complaints for people whom rely on public transit and have low earnings.

[dougthonus]

So while we have the Fed printing money like it's nothing, we will have all these other factors creating downward pressure on prices. The reduction in demand for oil also goes down in this scenario of jobs lost and more people working from home. This is why it's more complicated than "printing money will cause hyper inflation". Eventually, it has to, but with downward pressure on things like the housing market and price of oil, we could have this inflation kept more in check.... for a while anyway.

Fed now owns a huge percentage of residential mortgages, so they may make mortgage breaks to counter this. It's interesting because in the end, in 2008, the fed made money on all the "bad debt" it bought and bailed out.

[dougthonus]

In all actuality the majority of the pollution does not come from people driving cars or commuting to work. It comes from industry. Trucks transporting goods, trains, airplanes, boats, and manufacturing. If the goal of anything we do is to help the environment the most efficient thing we can do is bring manufacturing back to the US. We are so much more environmentally conscience than developing countries like China, India, Vietnam, etc. We could bring that back and have the government invest trillions in green energy.

Depending what kind of environmentalism problem you are trying to solve, the best way we could help the environment is to quit eating beef as a world.

The social aspect of working from home is the problem. However, if what we see with teenagers continues with future generations it will definitely become the new normal. Teenagers already drive less and go out less than previous generations. They feel they can connect with their friends via the internet and can still have social relationships. I don't agree with that, I firmly believe that the most important skillset I can teach my kids now is social skills. I think future generations will be sorely lacking that and will those who excel will be the most successful.

Online social skills and in person social skills are absolutely different. It may be the case that online social skills trump the importance of in person ones in the not so distant future.

Parents over the last 100 years have often failed their children by teaching them what is most important for their success and not what is most important for their children's success due to the rapid change of pace in society (which really didn't exist the previous 1000 years where the skills from generation to generation were largely the same or shifted slowly enough that it was irrelevant). Of course, it's not always to predict the second of those things.

A great example is people born in the 80s/90s who had parents that said just get any college degree, it doesn't matter which one. The parents lived in a generation where just graduating college was such a feat people were handing you bags of money regardless of what you graduated in and the cost to graduate was almost nothing. Fast forward, and now those kids got lots of useless degrees with massive debt only to have the same people whom advised them to just get any degree complain that they didn't do something useful.

The situation just changed, and then people look at it in hindsight and say "oh well of course that was stupid" even though the majority of these 18 year olds were just getting outdated advice.

[Dresden]

A lot of companies have long thought that working from home can't be successful and now feel differently. I can tell you that my company is considering going full time remote for a big percentage of staff, moving all staff to shared jump desks, and canceling 2/3rds of its office space to save money. My wife's company was going to open a new office, and now they're also planning on stopping that and just offering work from home full time for a bunch of people with jump desks for when needed.

Fair chance that both my wife and I are full time remote with occasional office visits forever now. Could be that our companies are outliers, but I have no reason to think so.



I think the safety wont' be a concern for these small spaces as much as the businesses that occupy them will largely be going under. That seems like a weak space already out in the suburbs where those places are just dying all over. I think office real estate will go way down too.

You could see high cost of living areas start to bleed people as well. If remote work ticks up considerably, it's much cheaper to hire quality people from low cost of living areas than from big cities. It will also probably bring an up tick in outsourcing to cheaper countries (though quality, language, culture, and time zone differences are factors there). A big think companies likely learned is that working remotely works really well once you have committed to it at a large scale once and have all your tools in place. The bar will be lower for outsourcing than ever before because of it.



They'll probably make people wear masks and it will just be risky. You'll probably see a lot of people opt away from transport like you have predicted. However, I'm not sure it will become that crowded. Lots of big companies like google and facebook already announced full time remote for the rest of the year. Expect to see a ton more companies do the same. The total number of commuters is just going to drop a ton.

That would be great for the environment! Commuting is a major source of pollution and traffic congestion. If we could avoid having to build more roads, bridges, etc, it would save a ton of money.

I wonder about the things people may not think about though- the social value of going into work and being around other people, the connections that form that way, etc. The company culture might suffer quite a bit in terms of loyalty, personal connections, etc., and people might suffer psychologically from not getting out of their homes and being out in the world among other people more.

In all actuality the majority of the pollution does not come from people driving cars or commuting to work. It comes from industry. Trucks transporting goods, trains, airplanes, boats, and manufacturing. If the goal of anything we do is to help the environment the most efficient thing we can do is bring manufacturing back to the US. We are so much more environmentally conscience than developing countries like China, India, Vietnam, etc. We could bring that back and have the government invest trillions in green energy.

The social aspect of working from home is the problem. However, if what we see with teenagers continues with future generations it will definitely become the new normal. Teenagers already drive less and go out less than previous generations. They feel they can connect with their friends via the internet and can still have social relationships. I don't agree with that, I firmly believe that the most important skillset I can teach my kids now is social skills. I think future generations will be sorely lacking that and will those who excel will be the most successful.

I beg to differ on the pollution point. They say that air pollution in San Francisco is something like 35% less during the lockdown. There's not a lot of manufacturing or factories in San Francisco. The vast majority of that reduction is due to people not driving as much.

[Dresden]

If that were to happen, it might as a by product go a long way towards solving the housing crisis. All those offices could be coverted into living quarters, or at least some fraction of them.

I'm not sure if there is a housing crisis in the US, there certainly isn't one relative to space, just proximity to desirable areas to live. Work from home might solve that in a different way than you suggest because desirable areas to live would tick way up. I think the cost to convert a Chicago office building is probably higher htan the cost to build housing further out from the city which might now be more desirable than in the past.

As for public transportation, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of PPE "travel suit" developed, that you would put on before you took public transport, then removed when you got off. And some sort of sanitizing machine that would be put in like ATM's in say, the lobbies of big office buildings, etc. Like something out of the Jetsons. Get Elon Musk working on this.

Makes sense, but would need to solve any cost complaints for people whom rely on public transit and have low earnings.

There certainly is a housing crisis in many big cities. Where I live (San Francisco) housing is unbelievably expensive, mainly because it's such a desirable place to live and its surrounded by water on 3 sides so space is limited. People being able to work remotely is not going to solve the problem. People prefer living in the city, as opposed to 50 miles outside of it, where it takes an hour to an hour and a half to get into the city to eat at a restaurant or see a concert, etc. And all the people who work at service jobs in the city (that aren't going to go away) need housing too.

Loft spaces were a big craze in the 80's and 90's, as people found you could easily adapt old warehouses into living quarters. Converting an office building into housing wouldn't be that much different. It would be much cheaper than tearing down a 15 story structure, and starting from scratch. And much of it is in very desirable locations, right downtown in the heart of the city.

[johnnyvann840]

In all actuality the majority of the pollution does not come from people driving cars or commuting to work. It comes from industry.

and cows

[Chi town]

Coldfish “ Overall, I think we are in deep, deep trouble.”

If we are, everyone is.

I’d agree with you if we hit another shutdown this fall in flu season. I’m hoping by then we will have widespread antibody testing and learn that 50-60% of us will have had it and we have herd immunity.

[Dresden]

Hard (and kind of silly) to compare Denmark and their labor force and social policies to the USA or any other major country that suffers from population issues. Chicago and it's suburban area alone has twice as many people as Denmark- in about half the space. CA is like 8 Denmarks in population. The more people, the more problems.

I've never understood that argument of scale. People use it to say that universal health care won't work in the USA, too. Why not say that "sure unfettered capitalism might work great in a small country, but it would never work in a big country like the USA, it would create too much wealth inequality and societal problems""?

It seems to be a fallback position when all other arguments are exhausted. Maybe the reason the USA has so many more problems than a country like Denmark is because of our social policies. Maybe we wouldn't need to put so many people in prison if we had a better safety net, and put more resources into childcare and education. Maybe we wouldn't have so many homeless if there was a better mental health system, a more fair way to distribute housing, and a better welfare system. Maybe there wouldn't be so many poor if there wasn't such a fantastic level of wealth inequality in this country.

I don't think it's a matter of scale at all, it's just a matter of political will. Europe as a whole has about the same population as the US, and while not every country is as progressive as Denmark, taken as a whole, they still manage to do a much better job of providing everyone with health care, housing, and a good education that we do. The wealthiest classes in Europe by and large realize that paying higher taxes, while hurting their personal wealth, is a good thing for society as a whole. We have been brainwashed into thinking it's every man for himself, and with enough pluck, everyone can become a millionaire.

[Dresden]

In all actuality the majority of the pollution does not come from people driving cars or commuting to work. It comes from industry. Trucks transporting goods, trains, airplanes, boats, and manufacturing. If the goal of anything we do is to help the environment the most efficient thing we can do is bring manufacturing back to the US. We are so much more environmentally conscience than developing countries like China, India, Vietnam, etc. We could bring that back and have the government invest trillions in green energy.

Depending what kind of environmentalism problem you are trying to solve, the best way we could help the environment is to quit eating beef as a world.

The social aspect of working from home is the problem. However, if what we see with teenagers continues with future generations it will definitely become the new normal. Teenagers already drive less and go out less than previous generations. They feel they can connect with their friends via the internet and can still have social relationships. I don't agree with that, I firmly believe that the most important skillset I can teach my kids now is social skills. I think future generations will be sorely lacking that and will those who excel will be the most successful.

Online social skills and in person social skills are absolutely different. It may be the case that online social skills trump the importance of in person ones in the not so distant future.

Parents over the last 100 years have often failed their children by teaching them what is most important for their success and not what is most important for their children's success due to the rapid change of pace in society (which really didn't exist the previous 1000 years where the skills from generation to generation were largely the same or shifted slowly enough that it was irrelevant). Of course, it's not always to predict the second of those things.

A great example is people born in the 80s/90s who had parents that said just get any college degree, it doesn't matter which one. The parents lived in a generation where just graduating college was such a feat people were handing you bags of money regardless of what you graduated in and the cost to graduate was almost nothing. Fast forward, and now those kids got lots of useless degrees with massive debt only to have the same people whom advised them to just get any degree complain that they didn't do something useful.

The situation just changed, and then people look at it in hindsight and say "oh well of course that was stupid" even though the majority of these 18 year olds were just getting outdated advice.

I wouldn't blame the parents advice on this. the problem is the cost of higher education has gone through the roof. That is something that should have been corrected a long time ago. When I went to college in the late 70's, a small, liberal arts college in the midwest ran about 25K for 4 years, including tuition and room and board. That same college I went to now charges 10x that.

It's not that the degrees are useless. It's that no matter how much money you earn, it's very, very hard to overcome that much debt. Going to college is still a very good thing, and prepares you not only to have a good career, but also a good life, in many ways that you can't quantify.

I don't know why the cost of college shot up so much- there are probably a lot of reasons. I suspect that the availability of almost unlimited financial aid was part of the problem. Colleges thought they could charge whatever they wanted to, because students could just take out larger loans to pay for it. So they used that extra money to make the experience more and more luxurious as they competed with other colleges for students. They build fancier and fancier buildings, athletic facilities, auditoriums, hired more staff, etc.

The increasing technological nature of our society has no doubt made it more expensive as well, esp. in the sciences.

They should cut out all the fluff of going to college, and focus instead of getting good professors who are good teachers, and giving students a strong education. And then finding ways to cut the cost back to 1970's levels (adjusted for inflation).

[coldfish]

Hard (and kind of silly) to compare Denmark and their labor force and social policies to the USA or any other major country that suffers from population issues. Chicago and it's suburban area alone has twice as many people as Denmark- in about half the space. CA is like 8 Denmarks in population. The more people, the more problems.

I've never understood that argument of scale. People use it to say that universal health care won't work in the USA, too. Why not say that "sure unfettered capitalism might work great in a small country, but it would never work in a big country like the USA, it would create too much wealth inequality and societal problems""?

It seems to be a fallback position when all other arguments are exhausted. Maybe the reason the USA has so many more problems than a country like Denmark is because of our social policies. Maybe we wouldn't need to put so many people in prison if we had a better safety net, and put more resources into childcare and education. Maybe we wouldn't have so many homeless if there was a better mental health system, a more fair way to distribute housing, and a better welfare system. Maybe there wouldn't be so many poor if there wasn't such a fantastic level of wealth inequality in this country.

I don't think it's a matter of scale at all, it's just a matter of political will. Europe as a whole has about the same population as the US, and while not every country is as progressive as Denmark, taken as a whole, they still manage to do a much better job of providing everyone with health care, housing, and a good education that we do. The wealthiest classes in Europe by and large realize that paying higher taxes, while hurting their personal wealth, is a good thing for society as a whole. We have been brainwashed into thinking it's every man for himself, and with enough pluck, everyone can become a millionaire.

As of a few months ago, the median household in the US:
- Has healthcare
- Has access to whatever goods they want at a cheap price
- Makes $43,000 per year
- Is free to move, change jobs, etc. as they see fit

UK: $31,000
Germany: $33,000
France: $31,000
Italy: $23,000
Spain: $22,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gross_median_household_income_by_country

That's not even getting into the fact that they pay more for goods and services.

The half truth of these socialist societies is that they for the large part take care of lower income people by crushing their middle class. No one ever says this when talking about it. By pointing out the benefits of these systems for lower income people while not pointing out just how much the middle will sacrifice is rather disingenuous. I don't blame Dresden or any other individual because I read it so much its a mantra but its not the full story.

The real challenge is trying to figure out a system where we can have our cake and eat it too. Help lower income earners while not asking the middle class to take a 25% reduction in standard of living. I think its possible but it would be difficult and involves a lot of things that neither democrats nor republicans like.

[coldfish]

Coldfish “ Overall, I think we are in deep, deep trouble.”

If we are, everyone is.

I’d agree with you if we hit another shutdown this fall in flu season. I’m hoping by then we will have widespread antibody testing and learn that 50-60% of us will have had it and we have herd immunity.

I think that everyone is in deep, deep trouble. Europe, Asia, North America, 3rd world countries, etc.

That isn't just the virus. Its the virus + the economy.

Specifically on the economy, I don't see us just popping back up. As others have noted, the energy sector is dead, the commercial real estate industry is dead, car manufacturing is dead, entertainment is dead, the airlines are dead. A lot of this isn't just turning around. The airline's business model was based around jamming people into uncomfortably small spaces next to strangers. That isn't going to fly (pardon the pun) again.

[Dresden]

Hard (and kind of silly) to compare Denmark and their labor force and social policies to the USA or any other major country that suffers from population issues. Chicago and it's suburban area alone has twice as many people as Denmark- in about half the space. CA is like 8 Denmarks in population. The more people, the more problems.

I've never understood that argument of scale. People use it to say that universal health care won't work in the USA, too. Why not say that "sure unfettered capitalism might work great in a small country, but it would never work in a big country like the USA, it would create too much wealth inequality and societal problems""?

It seems to be a fallback position when all other arguments are exhausted. Maybe the reason the USA has so many more problems than a country like Denmark is because of our social policies. Maybe we wouldn't need to put so many people in prison if we had a better safety net, and put more resources into childcare and education. Maybe we wouldn't have so many homeless if there was a better mental health system, a more fair way to distribute housing, and a better welfare system. Maybe there wouldn't be so many poor if there wasn't such a fantastic level of wealth inequality in this country.

I don't think it's a matter of scale at all, it's just a matter of political will. Europe as a whole has about the same population as the US, and while not every country is as progressive as Denmark, taken as a whole, they still manage to do a much better job of providing everyone with health care, housing, and a good education that we do. The wealthiest classes in Europe by and large realize that paying higher taxes, while hurting their personal wealth, is a good thing for society as a whole. We have been brainwashed into thinking it's every man for himself, and with enough pluck, everyone can become a millionaire.

As of a few months ago, the median household in the US:
- Has healthcare
- Has access to whatever goods they want at a cheap price
- Makes $43,000 per year
- Is free to move, change jobs, etc. as they see fit

UK: $31,000
Germany: $33,000
France: $31,000
Italy: $23,000
Spain: $22,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gross_median_household_income_by_country

That's not even getting into the fact that they pay more for goods and services.

The half truth of these socialist societies is that they for the large part take care of lower income people by crushing their middle class. No one ever says this when talking about it. By pointing out the benefits of these systems for lower income people while not pointing out just how much the middle will sacrifice is rather disingenuous. I don't blame Dresden or any other individual because I read it so much its a mantra but its not the full story.

The real challenge is trying to figure out a system where we can have our cake and eat it too. Help lower income earners while not asking the middle class to take a 25% reduction in standard of living. I think its possible but it would be difficult and involves a lot of things that neither democrats nor republicans like.

As that article pointed out, these societies aren't "socialist", which generally implies state owned industry and little if any private property. That term gets used a lot to describe countries like Denmark because people are loath to admit that there may be a different way of "doing capitalism" than the US model.

As that article also pointed out, even though McDonalds employees make $22/hr (adding in benefits), a Big Mac there only costs about 27 cents more than it does here.

It also points out that Danes earn about the same as Americans after taxes, but that they have to work 22% fewer hours to make that income. Think about that for a moment. Not to mention 6 weeks paid vacation. Free education through college. Free health care for life, for everyone.

There are a few other things you failed to mention that were mentioned:

Danes are happier than people in the US. So despite their "crippling" taxes, as they are characterized, Danes are happier! They aren't being crushed by their responsibilities to their fellow Danes. They also have a much higher approval rating of their government.

And they live longer! On average two years longer.

And if you think things are working so well for people in the US, we have a poverty rate 6 times that of Denmark. 6 times! And "Finnish children are only one-third as likely to die by the age of 5, and that Finnish women are one-fifth as likely to die in childbirth."

Your argument seems to be that Denmarks system works better for the poor, but for everyone else, Americans are better off. I just don't think that's a valid argument based on some of the facts I listed above. Denmark scores 7.6 compared to the USA's 6.9 on the OECD scale of life satisfaction. If things were are bad for the middle class as you claim, that they are overburdened by taxes and can't afford to buy what they want, why would they claim to be happier?

These sorts of indices are of course subjective, but along with the other measurements- working fewer hours, better access to health care and education, longer life expectancies, less poverty- it's pretty hard to find an argument that Denmark's success is nothing but "one of the biggest lies in the world".

[coldfish]

I've never understood that argument of scale. People use it to say that universal health care won't work in the USA, too. Why not say that "sure unfettered capitalism might work great in a small country, but it would never work in a big country like the USA, it would create too much wealth inequality and societal problems""?

It seems to be a fallback position when all other arguments are exhausted. Maybe the reason the USA has so many more problems than a country like Denmark is because of our social policies. Maybe we wouldn't need to put so many people in prison if we had a better safety net, and put more resources into childcare and education. Maybe we wouldn't have so many homeless if there was a better mental health system, a more fair way to distribute housing, and a better welfare system. Maybe there wouldn't be so many poor if there wasn't such a fantastic level of wealth inequality in this country.

I don't think it's a matter of scale at all, it's just a matter of political will. Europe as a whole has about the same population as the US, and while not every country is as progressive as Denmark, taken as a whole, they still manage to do a much better job of providing everyone with health care, housing, and a good education that we do. The wealthiest classes in Europe by and large realize that paying higher taxes, while hurting their personal wealth, is a good thing for society as a whole. We have been brainwashed into thinking it's every man for himself, and with enough pluck, everyone can become a millionaire.

As of a few months ago, the median household in the US:
- Has healthcare
- Has access to whatever goods they want at a cheap price
- Makes $43,000 per year
- Is free to move, change jobs, etc. as they see fit

UK: $31,000
Germany: $33,000
France: $31,000
Italy: $23,000
Spain: $22,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gross_median_household_income_by_country

That's not even getting into the fact that they pay more for goods and services.

The half truth of these socialist societies is that they for the large part take care of lower income people by crushing their middle class. No one ever says this when talking about it. By pointing out the benefits of these systems for lower income people while not pointing out just how much the middle will sacrifice is rather disingenuous. I don't blame Dresden or any other individual because I read it so much its a mantra but its not the full story.

The real challenge is trying to figure out a system where we can have our cake and eat it too. Help lower income earners while not asking the middle class to take a 25% reduction in standard of living. I think its possible but it would be difficult and involves a lot of things that neither democrats nor republicans like.

As that article pointed out, these societies aren't "socialist", which generally implies state owned industry and little if any private property. That term gets used a lot to describe countries like Denmark because people are loath to admit that there may be a different way of "doing capitalism" than the US model.

As that article also pointed out, even though McDonalds employees make $22/hr (adding in benefits), a Big Mac there only costs about 27 cents more than it does here.

It also points out that Danes earn about the same as Americans after taxes, but that they have to work 22% fewer hours to make that income. Think about that for a moment. Not to mention 6 weeks paid vacation. Free education through college. Free health care for life, for everyone.

There are a few other things you failed to mention that were mentioned:

Danes are happier than people in the US. So despite their "crippling" taxes, as they are characterized, Danes are happier! They aren't being crushed by their responsibilities to their fellow Danes. They also have a much higher approval rating of their government.

And they live longer! On average two years longer.

And if you think things are working so well for people in the US, we have a poverty rate 6 times that of Denmark. 6 times! And "Finnish children are only one-third as likely to die by the age of 5, and that Finnish women are one-fifth as likely to die in childbirth."

Your argument seems to be that Denmarks system works better for the poor, but for everyone else, Americans are better off. I just don't think that's a valid argument based on some of the facts I listed above. Denmark scores 7.6 compared to the USA's 6.9 on the OECD scale of life satisfaction. If things were are bad for the middle class as you claim, that they are overburdened by taxes and can't afford to buy what they want, why would they claim to be happier?

These sorts of indices are of course subjective, but along with the other measurements- working fewer hours, better access to health care and education, longer life expectancies, less poverty- it's pretty hard to find an argument that Denmark's success is nothing but "one of the biggest lies in the world".

I had an earlier post specifically on Denmark. Regardless, I agree with those noting that Denmark is half the size of Chicago and completely supported and isolated by the EU. Countries like them and Finland are in tiny, happy little bubbles dependent on other nations doing the heavy global lifting and 90 to 99% of the population is one race. Its not comparable. Might as well say that we should follow the Luxembourg national model.

Those larger european countries are at least in the ballpark of the US.