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2020-10-08 02:14:35
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,819|6491|eXtreme to the maX
America's pandemic response has been great eh. I would hardly call Obama an illiterate swine.

how do you negotiate all that well in advance and agree a national/international moratorium on economic activity? if businesses are to pause, you have to convince their corporate landlords to pause the office rent. and if they're pausing it, you have to convince their creditors to give them a break, too. and you have to convince the energy companies that are keeping the lights on, the local councils who rely on the tax income from businesses to pay the local refuse collectors, etc etc. this surely doesn't need to be explained to you.
Australia managed pretty well all of this.

Most companies are on at least 30 day terms, these days many have been stretched out to 60,90,120. 0.25% interest rates mean it hardly matters when people get paid.

Personally I've always saved and invested, if other people haven't its not my fault or problem.
Fuck Israel
2020-10-08 02:31:21
uziq
Member
+521|3837
America's pandemic response has been great eh. I would hardly call Obama an illiterate swine.
the trump administration de-funded most of the obama-era public health and disease prevention programs. they disbanded an actual crisis response unit, if i recall correctly. the previous obama administration left the pandemic response reports and departmental docs, leftover from the bush era, with the trump administration. it gave very specific advice on what to do in the event of a global pandemic: advice that the trump white house completely denied. they just didn't look at it.

so much for your advertising for avoiding historical knowledge and 'studying of the past being pointless'.

and, yes, great thinking again. i'm really seeing the strengths of your wizened, scientific galaxy-brain thinking now. 'what? not everyone in a 350 million person democracy lives with their parents at 50 and has robust savings? not my problem!' you are basically one degree away from being a 19-year-old Ayn Rand incel. meanwhile, in the real world, lots of people would be almost immediately wiped out by such heavy measures, and many businesses too. that is indeed what has transpired in much of 2020 -- but only after the pandemic reached a certain gravity. again, reactive rather than pro-active.

you singularly cannot understand human politics and yet constantly harrumph and huff and puff about how much better you would be at running the world. you do know that most people grow out of this edgelord delusional thinking when they are 18, right? society is a huge and complex animal; saying 'well! you should have saved!' is just not going to cut it.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-08 02:33:56)

2020-10-08 02:38:53
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,819|6491|eXtreme to the maX

Dilbert_X wrote:

Australia managed pretty well all of this.
Fuck Israel
2020-10-08 02:43:14
uziq
Member
+521|3837
ok, great, 25 million people on a remote rock managed to isolate their country.

the same approach is not one-size-fits-all. south korea and taiwan are both more populous than australia and neither opted for total economic shutdown. both are far more connected via all routes to china and vectors of infection; both have done better than australia.

total economic shutdown evidently has not worked for america, a country many times bigger than australia and with a very different state apparatus. most lower-middle class americans do not have savings. and that is not particularly their fault, either.
2020-10-08 02:44:51
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,819|6491|eXtreme to the maX
America and Britain barely attempted any kind of shut down and what little they did was way too late.
Fuck Israel
2020-10-08 02:50:31
uziq
Member
+521|3837
wow we really are going in fucking circles here. i'm getting vertigo from discussing the same fucking shit over and over.

yes, very large and very capitalist economies were slow to heed the scientific warning. politicians had to negotiate between a huge economic engine turning over at a high rpm and a pressing scientific crisis. it's not an easy as pulling the handbrake. the fallout even from the small, temporary shutdown has been huge. of course no politician could convince the country to go in for that in the very early stages of the pandemic.

it's short-termist thinking, yes. it's blind thinking, yes. we are trapped in an economic process and system with a logic of its own. all of this is fucking obvious. as i have said time and time again, the best strategy is to develop meaningful PANDEMIC PREVENTION systems, rather than to talk wishfully like a child about 'the world going on pause for 6 months at short notice'.
2020-10-08 03:13:40
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,068|7157|PNW

Couple months old now, but still great:



First try and only successful application @ around 4:08.
2020-10-08 03:23:22
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,819|6491|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

wow we really are going in fucking circles here. i'm getting vertigo from discussing the same fucking shit over and over.

yes, very large and very capitalist economies were slow to heed the scientific warning. politicians had to negotiate between a huge economic engine turning over at a high rpm and a pressing scientific crisis. it's not an easy as pulling the handbrake. the fallout even from the small, temporary shutdown has been huge. of course no politician could convince the country to go in for that in the very early stages of the pandemic.

it's short-termist thinking, yes. it's blind thinking, yes. we are trapped in an economic process and system with a logic of its own. all of this is fucking obvious. as i have said time and time again, the best strategy is to develop meaningful PANDEMIC PREVENTION systems, rather than to talk wishfully like a child about 'the world going on pause for 6 months at short notice'.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Australia managed pretty well all of this.
Fuck Israel
2020-10-08 03:26:34
uziq
Member
+521|3837
australia is not a very large capitalist economy. you are a low population, middle-tier nation.
2020-10-08 05:39:14
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,819|6491|eXtreme to the maX
GDP Half of the UK

GDP per capita 30% higher

Not that its relevant.

So how long did the UK wait before shutting down air travel?
Fuck Israel
2020-10-08 06:13:08
uziq
Member
+521|3837
lots of countries that have managed well didn’t shut down air travel.

again, it is not a one-size-fits-all scenario.

of course GDP per capita is relevant when you’re talking about putting all of society on government welfare for 3 months, bailing out businesses, etc. the national balance sheet is kind of important. australia’s huge fossil fuel exports probably helped you achieve ‘miraculous’ management of covid, too.

britain is far more densely populated than australia. our towns and cities are different. our culture is different. all of these things are coefficients for that all-important r0 factor. your thinking is over-simplistic and dumb.

nevermind that there is absolutely zero political will to bailout the airline industry here.
2020-10-08 07:08:34
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+657|4104
A lot of GDP are fake numbers. I mean Italy and Spain have higher GDP's than Australia, Russia, Mexico etc. but they definitely don't have the resources, productive capacity, and manpower of those places. But the buying and selling of overpriced clothes, homes, perfume, and wine add to fake GDP numbers meanwhile the Russians have actual tangible things that matter like farmland, forest, minerals etc. Australia is blessed with a small population and a bunch of mineral resources that the aboriginals didn't know existed or have the means to exploit even if they did.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2020-10-08 08:16:37
uziq
Member
+521|3837
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ej0OIVaXkAkOK5G?format=jpg&name=small

dilbert sounds like a bad parody sometimes. this from private eye.
2020-10-09 03:45:58
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,068|7157|PNW

This cover of Time:

https://i.imgur.com/WzS8xGJ.png
2020-10-09 05:29:44
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,819|6491|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

lots of countries that have managed well didn’t shut down air travel.

again, it is not a one-size-fits-all scenario.

of course GDP per capita is relevant when you’re talking about putting all of society on government welfare for 3 months, bailing out businesses, etc. the national balance sheet is kind of important. australia’s huge fossil fuel exports probably helped you achieve ‘miraculous’ management of covid, too.

britain is far more densely populated than australia. our towns and cities are different. our culture is different. all of these things are coefficients for that all-important r0 factor. your thinking is over-simplistic and dumb.

nevermind that there is absolutely zero political will to bailout the airline industry here.
We started with much lower debt, but the remainder I honestly believe is down to good planning and quick reaction, mostly.

Britain waited until June 8 to quarantine international arrivals no? Aus and NZ did that in mid-March.
Total madness on the part of Britain.

Once again 90% of the population lives in cities as dense as many european ones.
Fuck Israel
2020-10-09 05:31:53
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+657|4104
https://i.imgur.com/XtVKJ7e.png
Interesting that we are actually climbing from the decline we were on that was still way above the NYC outbreak.

Also interesting NYT article from March
https://i.imgur.com/N6GtTqh.png
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2020-10-09 05:55:24
uziq
Member
+521|3837

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

lots of countries that have managed well didn’t shut down air travel.

again, it is not a one-size-fits-all scenario.

of course GDP per capita is relevant when you’re talking about putting all of society on government welfare for 3 months, bailing out businesses, etc. the national balance sheet is kind of important. australia’s huge fossil fuel exports probably helped you achieve ‘miraculous’ management of covid, too.

britain is far more densely populated than australia. our towns and cities are different. our culture is different. all of these things are coefficients for that all-important r0 factor. your thinking is over-simplistic and dumb.

nevermind that there is absolutely zero political will to bailout the airline industry here.
We started with much lower debt, but the remainder I honestly believe is down to good planning and quick reaction, mostly.

Britain waited until June 8 to quarantine international arrivals no? Aus and NZ did that in mid-March.
Total madness on the part of Britain.

Once again 90% of the population lives in cities as dense as many european ones.
i actually don't disagree with you that britain waited way too long to address airports (it still hasn't, really, our arrivals/departures testing and gate-based scanning is woeful compared to germany). like so many things from our government during this crisis, it seems inscrutable and confusing to me -- and pretty much everyone else. the ineptitude of our leadership is not in question.

but again, it's just not as simple as saying 'you should have shut down all air travel immediately', 'should have closed up the economy immediately', etc. not every country found it necessary, and every country has quite different economies, different distributions of jobs/businesses across different sectors, etc.

i'm not trusting that our government made good decisions. i just don't think your simple prescriptions are satisfactory, either.
2020-10-09 05:58:31
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,819|6491|eXtreme to the maX
With the benefit of hindsight they worked.
What would have been great of course would have been more notice and information from the Chinese, not deception and aggression.
But most countries had enough, maybe not Italy, but countries which failed from that point can blame poor leadership.
I'm not saying I like the govt, Morrison's sole talent seems to be to know when to defer, still better than being an arrogant moron who won't.
Fuck Israel
2020-10-09 06:02:37
uziq
Member
+521|3837
well 'with the benefit of hindsight' is precisely the issue i have been discussing for about two pages. our pandemic response has been reactive rather than pro-active. as it surely must always be, in some cases, because we are discussing the global fucking economy and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. taking precautions and enacting massive change 'to be safe' involves ruining or suspending the ability of billions of people's income. look at what happened with the lockdown in india -- just insane levels of suffering, people walking 100s of kilometres to leave cities at short notice and put down tools, etc.

i have always been pro-lockdown and never in support of 'the economy' over people's lives. but there is a very clear reason why the world didn't just 'watch netflix for 6 weeks in january'. it involves putting a halt to a vast running engine. it's not putting a computer to sleep, dilbert. i think you are incredibly closed-in with your own circumstances, there. not everyone has your lifestyle arrangement.
2020-10-09 06:06:06
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+657|4104
If the Chinese sent out a desperate plea for the rest of the world to prepare for the outbreak it would have just resulted in right wing Americans thinking it was a trick to shut down our economy or a Chinese bioweapon.

Interestingly I read a Zombie outbreak book, World War Z, and in that book the Zombie Apocalypse starts in China and China responds by trying to cover up the outbreak despite gradually losing control of the country.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2020-10-09 06:16:42
uziq
Member
+521|3837
lots of news articles did the rounds about how Dean Koontz as well as world war z 'predicted' this. the koontz book even had a novel pathogen arising in ... wuhan.

and it was written in 1981.
2020-10-09 06:20:02
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|7078
If this were a bio weapon don’t you think the top brass would hide that fact from Trump as a way to prevent him from nuking China?
x
2020-10-09 06:23:21
uziq
Member
+521|3837

SuperJail Warden wrote:

https://i.imgur.com/XtVKJ7e.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/N6GtTqh.png

Interesting that we are actually climbing from the decline we were on that was still way above the NYC outbreak.

Also interesting NYT article from March
remember how much jay shit-talked the projections of epidemiologists? he kept citing the 'worst case scenario' projection from imperial college and saying it was insanity that millions could die. now quarter of a million died pretty handily just in the first year.
2020-10-09 06:35:24
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,068|7157|PNW

Anyone still in contact with Jay know whether or not he's eaten humble pie over this? I mean don't get me wrong, I'd much rather the virus hadn't blown up like it did.
2020-10-09 06:38:37
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+657|4104
I assume the super high projections were if we did literally nothing. No mask mandates, keep everything open, etc.

Still the rest of the country has no excuse for what happened to them after seeing what took place in NYC/NJ. I think the media did a real disservice by highlighting how many minorities were among the sick. I think that made a lot of right wingers actually happy and undermined a lot of fears about the potential of the virus. And that helped get that 28 year old blonde killed.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg

 

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