> Economic depression and deprivation also causes death, and staggering amounts of human misery.

Let's quantify things here, for a first world country with a social net.

On the one hand, we have people getting evicted from their homes and having to visit soup kitchens.

On the other hand, we have dead people (more likely, dead poor people).

Evil seems pretty fair.

> On the one hand, we have people getting evicted from their homes and having to visit soup kitchens.

Which translates directly into many years of reduced life expectancy, no?

I have trouble seeing a worse economy for a few months vs a highly optimistic 100,000+ dead having similar numbers of lost lives.

It's not just a few months though; a 0.2% recession (say) quite possibly translates to everyone in the future being 0.2% worse off, forever.

That would be true if annual returns were independent of each other which is definitely not the case.

I understand the point you and GP are trying to make.

I'm saying that the two miseries feel like apples vs oranges, given the context.

You'd have to go pretty far to convince me that (even mass) economic depression is more harmful than widespread, near-term fatalities.

That is part of the problem. It is very hard to quantify the consequences of economic depression because it affects everyone at least a little bit, and some more than others. It might cause so and so many more people to have to go through therapy, so and so many families break up over financial hardships, and the children are ever so slightly worse off and the second-order consequences aren't fully realised until 30 years down the line. It's individually (possibly) very small effects, but it hits the entire population.

That's hard to weigh against a concrete number of very concrete deaths and serious recuperation periods.

mass economic depression affects certain groups more than others.

Near-term fatalities affect certain groups more than others. Those with access to medical services (or can pay for more of it) will be less affected.

Which side being worse is a determination you have to make for yourself.

Funnily enough recessions are associated with lower overall mortality rates.

Something to remember the next time people harp on about GDP being the most important metric for a country's advancement.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-02-recession-greater-dec...