> So you're saying that a total shut down of the economy which could cause a depression is whats needed to deal with this virus. And thats no reason to be worried ?

Yeah. China covered this up at first, but it responded dramatically and authoritatively once the threat was understood. Being an authoritarian state, their power structures allow them to effectively restrict movement and manage the entire economy to limit the spread, and where they sit now is very nearly a best case scenario for what a response could look like barring that initial delay. And yet, even so, it will still result in countless second/third/nth order effects that will cause devastating public health and financial ramifications (the extent of which will only be slowly realized over time).

In comparison, the US is incredibly poorly situated. This country is a mishmash of loosely coupled quazi-independent governments, and its public health apparatus is mostly just de-facto run by the "invisible hand" of the market. The Federal Government has no ability to respond in the way China did, even assuming the people in control of it understood the potential severity here (which as yet they have not.)

I’m perfectly fine with our mishmash. The US has a strong economy, smart people and smart solutions will emerge.

Are you OK if we check back with you in a couple of months?

Of course. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that this situation isn't serious. I'm saying I have sufficient faith in the framework of the United States, even in light of the virus, that I'm not willing to trade it for the frameworks of China and South Korea. I'm also not saying necessarily anything derogative about either of those countries.

Not to be blasé, but its clear you're not a wage worker. Many people will be out of a job and be unable to pay rent. I have several friends who are ALREADY in the process of being laid off as businesses around Seattle practically shutter. We need a rent/mortgage holiday for both people and businesses in order to keep things afloat.

I’m perfectly fine with a >=50% loss in the market if it gets us to consider national paid sick leave and Medicare for all seriously.

We need to seriously reconsider the incentives of those who even if tested positive for Coronavirus would still not be able to miss work.

This is coming from someone whose nominal 401k portfolio is going down a Tesla per day. Why am I not upset?? — the infrastructure is still there; iMessage still works, AWS still works, there are still oil rigs in operation, it is just the amount of money we are willing to pay for securities has changed.

The problems is those people who don't like paid sick leave and m4a are zealots and it will take more than a pandemic to change their minds. They mind agree that government should help out when it comes to depression era issues but otherwise they don't want anything like that in "normal" economic times. I think the progressive mindset that most people have on reddit and HN are really only 10-20% of the population.

The primary organizing unit of the united states is the Business, not the family nor the individual.

No I’m just a business owner who hasn’t paid himself a salary in over a year despite paying the salaries of many others. But yes let’s just keep throwing out those stereotypes. I am deeply concerned both for myself, my family, my church (which has so many 80+ year olds it might cease to exist in 90 days), my colleagues who my ability to pay is rapidly dwindling, etc.

If you aren’t paying yourself a salary it’s not a business, it’s a hobby. Which is fine, but it’s a different thing.

So you were correctly 'stereotyped' and decide that the best response is to complain about that?

I actually really hope someone does check back in a couple of months and see if people still think their gloominess about financial matters was warranted.

IMHO gloominess about financial matters will be warranted, but probably not in the way people expect. I think the stock market will have mostly recovered, most people (who don't work for small businesses) will still have their jobs - but we're going to have very significant inflation, perhaps even hyperinflation. The Fed just injected what, $2T over the last week into a supply-side shock. Prices are going to go up anyway because of supply chain disruptions now facing 75% of companies, and then on top of that we have a massive amount of liquidity being injected. I think it very likely that that'll kickstart higher inflation expectations, which are hard to tamp down once they've started. Best case we get 1970s-style 15-20%/year inflation. Worst case we get 1920s-style Weimar hyperinflation.

Wish I could do a RemindMe!3months.

I did just read this [1] and do agree that the strategy in South Korea was productive. I think a variant of that where local hospitals provide testing could be useful here in the US.

As for inflation, I think we are little too early to point to one outcome as the likely one. Right now my view is that I can either let my mind go into full freak out mode or I can think about the fact that I do have fairly extensive contacts of people who are first responders, healthcare workers, research scientists, policy makers, innovators and I trust them. If I can trust them, then I can trust that the overall system is going to work imperfect as it is.

1. https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-respons...

The part that frightens me is that every doctor I know is totally freaking out right now. If practicing medical doctors said it was going to be okay, I think I'd trust them. That's not what they're saying.

I'm fine with that. As I bet this all turns out to be a nothing burger in reality vs the sky is falling approach that's leading us into a bad recession. No one is concerned over the panddemic of obesity and I guarantee more people will die this year from heart attacks and other obesity related deaths and no one freaks out over those.

People who care enough about their life/health/wellbeing to freak out about being obese aren't going to find themselves waking up the next day obese. The same can't be said for corona virus.

I've seen this argument too. The thing is, we need a war time level response in manufacturing to prevent massive death.

That response will probably not happen until the current system is somewhat strained. 6 days after that point, there will be twice the number of cases.

I have no doubt we could respond to this given more time, but it is simply moving to quickly.

We need national quarantines now.

I’ve never been so tempted to violate the HN rules of polite discourse

I think a "rip the bandaid off" approach makes more sense. If everyone "stayed the fuck home" for two weeks, it would really help contain the spread.

Better that than to prolong things, like Italy did, and then make everyone stay home anyway.

https://staythefuckhome.com/

We should do that but the effects of that on the global economy scare me to be frank. Anyone who says that there's nothing to be worried about here simply hasn't thought through all the consequences we're facing.

It's going to hurt.

But if we don't do it, the thing spreads, and we're forced to do it anyway a few weeks later, like Italy.

Korea seems to be the best example of what has worked well, but I don't know a lot of the details. Seems like a good example to follow, but we're falling down in the US - we can't even test people.

What about an economic pause for 2 months? All rent/mortgage payments are paused, you only have to deal with the most critical costs (food, utilities) for a short period of time and then the economy resumes as best it can after the threat is gone? Of course, its not like it'll go away after just 2 months.

We told our tenants not to bother with next month's rent.

To be honest, I don't think it will be too bad. Just speculating here, but events like this only really hurt when they occur asymmetrically (think 9/11 or housing crisis)

Everyone is going to be rocked by this at basically the same time.

that won't work. It still just delays it. Everyone needs to just admit they -will- catch coronavirus with almost 100% certainty this year as it is quite virulent and likes to stick around for a few days on surfaces and a few weeks in humans. By limiting very large gatherings and observing handwashing/some isolation the best we can do is stretch it out over time so that the medical system isn't overly taxed.

Would it help contain the spread? This started with just a small number of people, and so even a small reintroduction would reset the clock two weeks later.

There are a lot of advantages to spreading it out, by reducing the peak strain on our health care resources and possibly letting a vaccine or drug come about. But a vaccine is likely months off at best, and we can't shut down everything until then. So a two-week quarantine might reduce the death toll, but I'm not sure it will dramatically reduce the number of people infected.

My personal feeling is that every day we delay mass-infection is another day that the medical community has to get a handle on this.

The initial wave of cases in a community is going to be a sucker-punch to the hospital staff. They are going to need time to regain their footing. If we can buy them that time, then we will all be much better off.

I don't know, to be honest. Seems better to stomp on it and then slowly relax and see how that goes?

I'd love to read an actual expert's advice on this. I'm just going by what I saw happen in Italy. By the time they shut things down hard, it was too late.

Does your happiness track GDP?