Sure they can. They are artificially inflated all the time - look at tether.
And it's not as if governments forced these shutdowns on a whim or because they felt like it. They were the result of scientific examination, and more importantly, the majority of voters were in favour of them (I think 8 out of 10 in the US in April?). In this case the government was just expressing the will of the people, whether it was your personal will or not.
[Source: a friend of mine who worked in local government disaster & contingency planning]
I don't believe that government-mandated lockdowns were ever part of any pre-Covid19 pandemic planning. It was assumed that [for instance] schools might well end up having to close if the spread of disease got so widespread that there wouldn't be enough healthy staff to keep them open, not because government would order them closed.
So if we did nothing, then P1 / B.1.351 would have reinfected the country anyway. Manaus (Brazil) got reinfected and its hospitals are overflowing with P1 infections, even after achieving 76% infection rate last year.
I say this because there's a large number of people who actually believe that "do nothing" is the correct response. Now with the hindsight of these new variants, we now know for sure that "doing nothing" is the wrong answer.
Not only does "do nothing" fail to prepare against future variants, it CREATES new variants as large masses of the population mutate the virus.
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It is increasingly looking like vaccination is our only option. (or really, has always been our only option, and we're only gathering proof today that this is absolutely the case).
For those at high risk, vaccination sounds like an excellent idea. A bit like we do with seasonal flu?
Except note that: "Flu viruses are constantly changing, so the vaccine composition is reviewed each year and updated as needed based on which influenza viruses are making people sick, the extent to which those viruses are spreading, and how well the previous season’s vaccine protects against those viruses"[0]
What do we do about those who are at low / very low risk from Covid19?
We give them the vaccine to stop the spread, once the vaccine is proven safe. After all: the vaccine slows down the spread of the disease (probably at a lesser rate than it prevents hospitalizations, but a slowdown in any case is good).
I'm not sure what you're trying to insinuate in your post. Since the vaccine has been given to over 30-million Americans, we know it is safe at this point (with issues occurring in literally one-in-a-million allergy issues, which is largely solved by just watching the patients 30-minutes after injection).
EDIT: I should note that we should vaccinate the high-risk / high-impact population first. The only reason we don't vaccinate the low-impact / low-risk population yet is because we don't have enough vaccine yet. But as Johnson&Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Novavax release their doses, things will go a lot faster.
Of course people hope that the vaccines actually do reduce transmission, the first study on that being the case for one of the vaccines appears to be less than a week old[sic] and it's not published yet.
"the study shows [for] the first time a vaccine has been shown to reduce transmission of the virus" [0]
> Since the vaccine has been given to over 30-million Americans, we know it is safe at this point[..]
I can think of a few things that were "known" to be safe that later turned out not to be quite as safe at all, let's all hope that isn't the case here.
> The only reason we don't vaccinate the low-impact / low-risk population yet is because we don't have enough vaccine yet
I'm not sure it's that simple. It's not just that there isn't enough vaccine, none of the vaccines are (yet) licenced for children.
(Full disclosure: all three of our kids are up to date on all their regularly scheduled vaccinations...)
Do you think some|most|all parents will consent to their children having one or more vaccinations against Covid19 when "the likelihood of children having significant detriment if they catch Covid-19 is very, very low" (quote from UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock)[1]
How often do those kids see their Grandma?
Even in your grossly optimistic scenario, you're assuming that those parents (and kids) are willing to risk spreading COVID19 to their Grandparents, killing them. There's plenty of grandparents who are unable to receive vaccinations due to high-risk conditions (heck: Pregnancy hasn't been tested yet: so Pregnant parents this year are going to have to go unprotected).
Preventing the spread through the use of vaccines is an obvious win. The studies are pending, but vaccines in the past have prevented spread (even lesser-effective vaccines, like the 2014 flu vaccine).
When we're looking at 95% efficacy against symptoms (Pfizer / Moderna's vaccines), the amount of "prevents the spread" is likely going to be very very high.
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If you have a family of 5, and the mother is Pregnant, the best way to protect the mother (and potential #6 child) is to vaccinate everyone else. The family unit achieves herd immunity (>66% vaccination rate), making it very hard for COVID19 to spread to the mother.
There's a HUGE number of untested people with regards to the vaccine. Everyone who has been proven safe with the vaccine should be vaccinated. For the sake of pregnant mothers, cancer patients, and yes children (for now). Hopefully, when children are tested and proven safe, we can vaccinate them too afterwards.
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Alternatively, we can start testing at-risk patients, like pregnant women and cancer survivors. Which seems like the "greater evil" in my opinion. It makes more sense to test children and inoculate them, than to test higher-risk groups.
Joking aside, are we really seeing a data-driven approach to dealing with Covid19?
(Un)fortunately we still have our elected politicians holding the levers of power, and they have a habit of wanting to manage the narrative.
> Pregnant parents this year are going to have to go unprotected
I can't quickly find the appropriate data, but would imagine it's worth looking at the pre-Covid19 risk of dying in pregnancy vs dying as a result of Covid19 for an otherwise healthy woman in her 30s.
Data on leading causes of death by age group can be pretty eye-opening, I'd recommend everyone take a look.[0]
When and where on the charts do we think Covid19 is going to end up placing once the 2020/21 data is available?
1. Dying in pregnancy WITH COVID19 because you can't breath seems like a higher-risk situation.
2. Reducing oxygen levels is likely bad for the baby.
> Joking aside, are we really seeing a data-driven approach to dealing with Covid19?
We can't afford a data-driven approach. It takes months to answer questions with a study. We still don't technically know if vaccines prevent the spread of COVID19 for instance (even though its widely assumed).
I don't see any evidence that contradicts the assumed vaccine protection (vaccines protect us from other diseases). So why not assume until data proves otherwise?
Big government spending is absolutely a waste of economic resources, and will make the situation worse. The REAL problem is that most americans don't have enough money saved to take care of themselves during hard times. Why might that be?
The FED's influence has resulted in our entire economic structure discouraging saving. This is specifically a problem bitcoin tries to solve (by having a specific and tapering inflation curve that results in deflationary pressures).
Or inflation will be used to reduce inequalities now that taxes have been made unacceptable by the rich (who wouldn't pay taxes). It's more a replacement than a sum.
Elected officials don't have much of a a choice when the economy goes to trash and the poor becoming poorer to a point where violence becomes a good solution for the poor to have some control over the economy (who should serve society and not the other way around).
> The REAL problem is that most americans don't have enough money saved to take care of themselves during hard times. Why might that be?
Because they already went through economic crises than got them near bankruptcy?
The rich tend hold their wealth in stock, land, and other assets. Most of which inflation is mostly neutral or beneficial to. The dollar value of TSLA goes up in response to general inflation, but the purchasing power generally remains the same.
> You may think that COVID response has been a catastrophic waste of money but if you'd lost your job would you have claimed the increased unemployment benefits? I suspect the vast majority of people would have.
Do our expenditures like unemployment benefits actually have any relationship with tax revenue at this point?
There's a lot more than this, but at the heart of this debt system is a war machine.
Debasing a currency is not a normal tax. Currency debasement is extremely regressive.
- The poorer someone is, the more of their assets are likely to just be some cash in the bank.
- it is a permanent loss of quality of life for people on fixed incomes.
- it doesn’t exempt people a normal tax code does (low income, blind, high dependent count, etc)
> it's deliberate action to improve everyone's situation in the long term.
This is the justification for nearly every government action.
Wouldn't call it extremely regressive.
> The poorer someone is, the more of their assets are likely to just be some cash in the bank.
The poor generally have less cash in the bank than the rich.
> - it is a permanent loss of quality of life for people on fixed incomes.
Those living of fixed incomes are rarely the poorest, either. Pensions in many countries are tied to inflation.
> This is the justification for nearly every government action.
Yes, and in many many cases, that justification is entirely justified. Where it isn't, the problem typically is bad government, not government.
As a percentage of total assets, absolutely not.
> Those living of fixed incomes are rarely the poorest, either. Pensions in many countries are tied to inflation.
No, this is incorrect. There is a ton of middle class retirement based on fixed payment annuities. Additionally, the “cost of living adjustments” for things like social security are often completely incorrect due to the spending patterns of elderly being impacted by some categories far more than others.
> The poor generally have less cash in the bank than the rich.
The OP said the only assets some poorer people will have will be some cash [in the bank]. Is this not correct? I’ve been near broke before. The only assets I had besides a dying car was money in between Venmo, PayPal, bank account, and actual cash.
Honestly, all the fretting about the debasing of value of a poor person's small pile of cash seems like outright misdirection to me. You have to look at the whole picture, and that whole picture is that the poor person might be trading say a <$10 loss to inflation on a small savings account for a $1000 stimulus check. That's a good bargain.
More broadly, the hard money/bitcoin people seems to want exchange the elimination of their hypothetical fear of (hyper)inflation for a very real likelihood of lingering recessions due to austerity policies. That doesn't seem like a good bargain to me.
The current stimulus checks are certainly great because it hasn’t shaken confidence in the USD so borrowing rates are cheap. But if inflation takes off because of oversupply of money or a cash shortage (due to hawkish positions) then debasement is a real fuck you to everyone paid in USD.
Similarly, your second paragraph to me is fear-mongering. Not based in actual reality.
The unemployment stimulus and expansion to include gig and freelance workers has been amazing. In a state like my New Jersey, you were able to get a minimum $831 a week with the April-July 13 week $600 stimulus. And currently $531 and $631 a week if Biden’s stimulus includes $400 extra a week.
A family member shut down their business at the beginning of the pandemic. All the minimum wage no benefit receiving former employees were able to make more through July 2020 from unemployment.
Adding on to what you said - the hard money/Bitcoin people like many other people, will blame a recession beginning in 2021 or 2022 on the other side regardless of the reasons.
That has very little to do with currency and everything to do with you not wanting to pay taxes.
You may think that COVID response has been a catastrophic waste of money but if you'd lost your job would you have claimed the increased unemployment benefits? I suspect the vast majority of people would have.
There's a lot to criticise in terms of government COVID response (and from your post you could be talking about any one of a number of governments!) but big government spending right now to stop even greater economic depression in the future is not some kind of wasteful accident, it's deliberate action to improve everyone's situation in the long term.