Economic implications of a SARS/Coronavirus outbreak

[over9k]

 

[Sdajii]

COVID is out of control across Europe the US and South America. Cases are rising exponentially again as are hospitalizations and deaths.

The impact on European economies can only worsen. At some stage the markets are also going to react to falling profits and impacts on budgets.

Dry your eyes, Chicken Little. The death rate is barely increasing. The WHO accidentally admitted the Wuhan virus is no deadlier than the flu. The virus is 'out of control' in that it is freely spreading and we're not going to eliminate it (much like colds and flu etc) but where are the dead people? Early in the year we had propaganda images of deal people lining the streets in places like Spain and Italy. Now, the numbers of confirmed cases are far far higher, but few people are dying (and of course, the overwhelming majority of people dying are old folks, cancer victims etc, who just happen to catch it and be infected at the time of their already inevitable death).

Something so many people fail to grasp is that if you had a virus with literally zero symptoms which was highly contagious, a lot of people would die with it, even though it was completely harmless. Before this virus came along, more than 1% of the world's human population died every year. This virus popped up and is infecting many people, generally with symptoms so mild people don't even notice anything unusual is happening to them - they still want to work, socialise, etc etc. People are still going to die just like they always have, and some of them will just happen to have this disease at the time of their death.

The virus is not causing the economic problems. The lockdowns and fear campaigns are causing the economic problems. Removing the elderly and sickly people from the population (which this virus isn't doing significantly anyway) would actually improve the economy, not hurt it.

Unless you're a Chinese whistle blower or literally on your death bed from final stage terminal cancer or close to your expiry date due to old age, this is not a dangerous virus.

 

[Smurf1976]

The virus is not causing the economic problems. The lockdowns and fear campaigns are causing the economic problems.

Plus the cost of healthcare.

There's 2.8 million currently infected in the USA and critically, that number has continued to rise throughout the whole saga, at no point has there been a substantial decline. It has been rising or flat the whole time.

Same in other countries eg France for example. There was the first wave and that brought active cases to around 55k which then stabilised before this second wave which has brought it to just under 900k cases and rapidly increasing.

The economic effects of having an increasing number of sick people are going to reach a point where it matters at some point surely. That would happen regardless of the underlying cause - having lots of people sick and not contributing economically is going to matter at some point.

 

[Sdajii]

Plus the cost of healthcare.

There's 2.8 million currently infected in the USA and critically, that number has continued to rise throughout the whole saga, at no point has there been a substantial decline. It has been rising or flat the whole time.

Same in other countries eg France for example. There was the first wave and that brought active cases to around 55k which then stabilised before this second wave which has brought it to just under 900k cases and rapidly increasing.

The economic effects of having an increasing number of sick people are going to reach a point where it matters at some point surely. That would happen regardless of the underlying cause - having lots of people sick and not contributing economically is going to matter at some point.

The whole mantra, the whole reason for the whole lockdown nonsense, the whole plan, was on the assumption that the number of people sick with this disease would dramatically overwhelm the healthcare system. Not a question of if, but by how much. It was taken as a given that if we did nothing there would be widespread mass death, and even with our best efforts the healthcare system would be far beyond capacity and we could simply do our best and reduce the number of people by as much as possible. It was assumed that everyone would be exposed, regardless of what we did, and we were simply trying to drag it out so that as few people as possible had it at any given time.

In reality land, hospitals have not been overwhelmed, even in the USA (perhaps in isolated cases, I mean, even in normal times we sometimes see hospital capacity exceeded, but unless we're being completely disingenuous, it's fair to say that hospital capacity has not been exceeded). Sure, people are catching this disease. Generally we don't even know unless we carry out big testing campaigns. It's so mild that it can in some cases lurk long term in communities without even being noticed! Case numbers are irrelevant if the disease is not sufficiently harmful.

Yet again we can look at Sweden, it continues to demonstrate the situation and the model of what to do. They let it go through the community, they still have a reasonable number of cases and as winter approaches there were will more and more, but even as numbers increase, their fatalities remain negligible, and the number of people requiring significant medical care is very low. The economy can function normally with a small number of people needing some healthcare and virtually no one dying, as long as there is no fear campaign or economic policy retarding the economy or way of life.

The economic impact of the virus itself is absolutely comparable to colds, flu, hayfever, etc. According to the WHO's own data from this month, it is no worse than the flu! It's fair to say that the lockdowns are tremendously worse for the economy than a bad flu season. The economy doesn't have a virus problem, it has a propaganda and policy problem.

If you want to look at the humanitarian issue it becomes far more extreme in terms of the lockdowns causing far more harm than good, and inevitably this means that when a real pandemic of actual medical significance comes along we're going to have a global population far more sceptical and reluctant to cooperate with lockdowns, which will cause the next one to be far worse than it otherwise would have been, in terms of the virus itself and thus presumably economically.

 

[over9k]

Again, it just doesn't matter. The politicians are NOT going to change their tune. It doesn't even matter why the politicians are not going to change their tune.

 

[qldfrog]

Plus the cost of healthcare.

There's 2.8 million currently infected in the USA and critically, that number has continued to rise throughout the whole saga, at no point has there been a substantial decline. It has been rising or flat the whole time.

Same in other countries eg France for example. There was the first wave and that brought active cases to around 55k which then stabilised before this second wave which has brought it to just under 900k cases and rapidly increasing.

The economic effects of having an increasing number of sick people are going to reach a point where it matters at some point surely. That would happen regardless of the underlying cause - having lots of people sick and not contributing economically is going to matter at some point.

Most of the sick people you mentioned are home because of regulations, not because they are unfit...
My niece got it so had to self isolate for 19 days or so before going back to work .with a cold, she might have been home one or 2 days
However you look at it scientifically,it is a man made economic and social disaster, not a medical one.
And if it is a designed crisis, the importance should be on understanding why and what is the ultimate aim/ purpose.
This will have more impact on your portfolio wealth in a decade than buying or not zoom..but hey numbers and stats are now political and just fake news

 

[Sdajii]

Again, it just doesn't matter. The politicians are NOT going to change their tune. It doesn't even matter why the politicians are not going to change their tune.

What a strange post.

It's entirely relevant that this is a political issue not a virus/pandemic issue. This nature of the issue is directly relevant to how it is going to play out, and what is happening. If you assume it is primarily a virus issue (which is the mainstream narrative and misconception held by most people) you will think that the economy is going to recover or not according to when the virus does whatever it does.

The politicians are obviously going to change policy, and it's almost literally insane to say otherwise. The fact that the economic problem is a policy and narrative issue rather than a virus issue means they will change policies sooner. If the policies were not causing economic harm, they could remain in place indefinitely. Since they are the thing causing the harm, they will be removed as soon as possible. The thing currently holding that back is the reluctance of politicians to commit political suicide by admitting their mistake. To say 'We destroyed the economy and harmed so many people unnecessarily, we've killed a number of people literally orders of magnitude larger than we've saved' is an extent of losing face which they simply will not do. They will change policy when it is politically possible to do so, or when the people demand it. Indeed, we are seeing clear evidence of community pressure working in Melbourne, with people and businesses increasingly defying the laws, and the government being forced to bend to the will of the people to create the illusion of control, rather than let them appear to win after a period of increased community vs. law/government conflict (and hats off to the owners of those businesses which publicised that they were going to open in spite of the bans, just before the 'coincidental' decision to lift restrictions).

However you look at it, policies are going to change because current policies are clearly unsustainable for multiple reasons. Understanding why the policies are what they are helps predict what will happen, and understand the nature of what's going on.

It's strange and frankly offensive that you take an attitude of 'the government won't change so don't even discuss it'.

These concepts at work are why for several months now I've been saying that the largely ineffective vaccines will be used as a face-saving excuse for the governments to lift restrictions. We are seeing an increasing number of countries where the governments are being forced by the community to ease restrictions and return to normal, and Australia does not exist in a vacuum; Australians will see other countries doing it and this will bring pressure for Australia to follow. The narratives of the virus being false and increasingly obviously so very much will have an influence on government policy around the world including Australia, and this is obviously relevant to the economy.

 

[over9k]

What a strange post.

It's entirely relevant that this is a political issue not a virus/pandemic issue. This nature of the issue is directly relevant to how it is going to play out, and what is happening. If you assume it is primarily a virus issue (which is the mainstream narrative and misconception held by most people) you will think that the economy is going to recover or not according to when the virus does whatever it does.

The politicians are obviously going to change policy, and it's almost literally insane to say otherwise. The fact that the economic problem is a policy and narrative issue rather than a virus issue means they will change policies sooner. If the policies were not causing economic harm, they could remain in place indefinitely. Since they are the thing causing the harm, they will be removed as soon as possible. The thing currently holding that back is the reluctance of politicians to commit political suicide by admitting their mistake. To say 'We destroyed the economy and harmed so many people unnecessarily, we've killed a number of people literally orders of magnitude larger than we've saved' is an extent of losing face which they simply will not do. They will change policy when it is politically possible to do so, or when the people demand it. Indeed, we are seeing clear evidence of community pressure working in Melbourne, with people and businesses increasingly defying the laws, and the government being forced to bend to the will of the people to create the illusion of control, rather than let them appear to win after a period of increased community vs. law/government conflict (and hats off to the owners of those businesses which publicised that they were going to open in spite of the bans, just before the 'coincidental' decision to lift restrictions).

However you look at it, policies are going to change because current policies are clearly unsustainable for multiple reasons. Understanding why the policies are what they are helps predict what will happen, and understand the nature of what's going on.

It's strange and frankly offensive that you take an attitude of 'the government won't change so don't even discuss it'.

These concepts at work are why for several months now I've been saying that the largely ineffective vaccines will be used as a face-saving excuse for the governments to lift restrictions. We are seeing an increasing number of countries where the governments are being forced by the community to ease restrictions and return to normal, and Australia does not exist in a vacuum; Australians will see other countries doing it and this will bring pressure for Australia to follow. The narratives of the virus being false and increasingly obviously so very much will have an influence on government policy around the world including Australia, and this is obviously relevant to the economy.

I think it's stupid that you want to waste time discussing something that isn't going to happen. Even stupider is giving your opinion on anything reference what the powers that be should do.

You want to argue about what should be done, there's a thread for that. This is a thread for what WILL be done.

 

[Sdajii]

I think it's stupid that you want to waste time discussing something that isn't going to happen. Even stupider is giving your opinion on anything reference what the powers that be should do.

You want to argue about what should be done, there's a thread for that. This is a thread for what WILL be done.

It's always ironic when someone takes the time to post in order to tell someone else that they're stupid for taking the time to post. But hey, good for you.

If you want to take your head out of your proverbial, you'll realise that even the world's greatest cynic can see that there is some relationship between what should be done and what does get done. What you are saying here is that there is no relationship. This is simply not true. This thread is indeed, as you say, about what we expect will happen. If you manage to keep your head out of your proverbial and read my post again you'll see that I was relating everything to how it affects what will happen, not simply rambling about what I think should be done despite it having no hope of happening. I wasn't even talking about what I think should be done, I was literally pointing out that there was no chance of it, I outlined various reasons for why, and speculated on what would happen.

You may disagree with my analysis on any of the above, but what you've said is hypocritical, stupid and clearly incorrect.

 

[qldfrog]

The view politicians in control will change but are afraid to admit their mustake is a very gentle one and assume there are no more sinister design.
Here in qld, virus is used by labour to ensure reelection, and was same in France a few months ago, covid is widely used to suppress freedom, curfew in france so covid dangerous by night orbin bars but ok to get into the metro to go to work before 9pm..etc
It also de facto results in big business win, extermination of smaller businesses, and is a hidden step toward the universal income dreamed by many leftists
100 pc of population ending as public servants, and an over ruling government in full control
Do not smoke , burn petrol, think or your income is going to be slashed..
China 2.0 playing up in the west
So yes invest on the big names, all totalitarian tools to control mind..social media, google and bodys: prisons, drones and surveillance, AI soft weapons...
Orwelian..

 

[Smurf1976]

However you look at it scientifically,it is a man made economic and social disaster, not a medical one.
And if it is a designed crisis, the importance should be on understanding why and what is the ultimate aim/ purpose.

Agreed that the actions don't match the official explanation. The virus is serious, I don't dispute that, but the level of seriousness claimed and the actions taken don't really match. It's akin to sending out 50 senior police to deal with a burglary - makes no sense unless the real reason is something other than a smashed window and some household items being stolen.

Noting that the number of governments involved, from both sides of political spectrum, makes sheer incompetence relatively unlikely I see three possibilities:

1. Governments have information about the virus which has not been publicly disclosed. That is, there is in fact a sound medical reason for the actions taken.

I won't speculate as to what that information might be but I mean something serious. Serious as in, for example, those who've had it will never be able to have children or they're highly likely to die 20 years earlier than normal, etc. Some issue which means the true toll is far higher than those who die in the short term.

2. It is being used as a convenient reason to fix the economy which was in a parlous state long before COVID-19 turned up.

A pandemic enables governments to get things done, or to back track on previous policies, in a manner that would be far more difficult under normal circumstances. That is not suggesting the virus was created for that specific purpose, just that once it turned up and the initial response had been implemented the opportunity to continue, and to rebuild the economy, was readily apparent.

3. Politics as such. Governments have concluded that "being tough on viruses" is a way to win elections.

I'm far less convinced about the latter possibility given that the truth will out at some point and it's probable that quite a few politicians would end up literally being shot etc if the whole thing turned out to have been a political stunt. If it is, then it's an extraordinarily risky one.

 

[Sdajii]

Agreed that the actions don't match the official explanation. The virus is serious, I don't dispute that, but the level of seriousness claimed and the actions taken don't really match. It's akin to sending out 50 senior police to deal with a burglary - makes no sense unless the real reason is something other than a smashed window and some household items being stolen.

Noting that the number of governments involved, from both sides of political spectrum, makes sheer incompetence relatively unlikely I see three possibilities:

1. Governments have information about the virus which has not been publicly disclosed. That is, there is in fact a sound medical reason for the actions taken.

I won't speculate as to what that information might be but I mean something serious. Serious as in, for example, those who've had it will never be able to have children or they're highly likely to die 20 years earlier than normal, etc. Some issue which means the true toll is far higher than those who die in the short term.

2. It is being used as a convenient reason to fix the economy which was in a parlous state long before COVID-19 turned up.

A pandemic enables governments to get things done, or to back track on previous policies, in a manner that would be far more difficult under normal circumstances. That is not suggesting the virus was created for that specific purpose, just that once it turned up and the initial response had been implemented the opportunity to continue, and to rebuild the economy, was readily apparent.

3. Politics as such. Governments have concluded that "being tough on viruses" is a way to win elections.

I'm far less convinced about the latter possibility given that the truth will out at some point and it's probable that quite a few politicians would end up literally being shot etc if the whole thing turned out to have been a political stunt. If it is, then it's an extraordinarily risky one.

I can certainly see how a lot of aspects of current events lend themselves beautifully to conspiracy theories, but while some of them are clearly actual conspiracies (the WHO is a Chinese puppet for an obvious example), others which sort of seem plausible break down on closer inspection.

1) It doesn't seem plausible that the majority of national governments could have access to some secret information about this virus which reveals it is nastier than publicly acknowledged, yet that cat remains in the bag. In this scenario, they would have needed to know it by early this year at the latest, and it would still need to be a secret. That just isn't realistic. Additionally, it's utterly biologically inconsistent with a non chronic respiratory virus (unless it's specifically bioengineered as a weapon for that exact purpose). If you want further evidence against it, politicians are letting their own children out and about, etc. If this was the case they'd be in bunkers or some remote island or something.

2 and 3) There are clearly elements of these going on, but they seem to just be opportunistically being used by individual politicians or government bodies, rather than the whole big thing being an orchestrated event. Without getting into extremely stretched hypotheticals (USA is playing 4D chess, happy to take the world into turmoil and take a severe poison pill themselves to lull the world into thinking they're weak, then unleashing some super weapon/secret plan... and clearly this would be a B grade movie plot at best), the only 'it's a deliberate plan' scenario which begins to hold any level of plausibility is that China is behind it all, but while they do seem to have taken opportunistic advantage of it to the best of their ability, which has been extremely impressive, it doesn't seem too likely. Just playing devil's advocate, if China is behind a deliberate orchestration, other national governments are incompetent with a number of corrupt individuals scattered around (this part actually is clearly true - incompetent governments and corrupt politicians taking Chinese bribes). Even playing devil's advocate, it's not plausible that many if any governments could be in direct cahoots with China and fully on board with some nefarious Chinese plan, although to varying extents, some individual politicians are assisting China (and other nations obviously bribe various other nations - Biden's family being a very blatant example, as were the Clintons, but people hate Trump so much that they're ignoring it, a disturbing state of affairs.

It really doesn't seem like a political stunt as such, not in a big picture sort of deal anyway.

 

[qldfrog]

Agreed that the actions don't match the official explanation. The virus is serious, I don't dispute that, but the level of seriousness claimed and the actions taken don't really match. It's akin to sending out 50 senior police to deal with a burglary - makes no sense unless the real reason is something other than a smashed window and some household items being stolen.

Noting that the number of governments involved, from both sides of political spectrum, makes sheer incompetence relatively unlikely I see three possibilities:

1. Governments have information about the virus which has not been publicly disclosed. That is, there is in fact a sound medical reason for the actions taken.

I won't speculate as to what that information might be but I mean something serious. Serious as in, for example, those who've had it will never be able to have children or they're highly likely to die 20 years earlier than normal, etc. Some issue which means the true toll is far higher than those who die in the short term.

2. It is being used as a convenient reason to fix the economy which was in a parlous state long before COVID-19 turned up.

A pandemic enables governments to get things done, or to back track on previous policies, in a manner that would be far more difficult under normal circumstances. That is not suggesting the virus was created for that specific purpose, just that once it turned up and the initial response had been implemented the opportunity to continue, and to rebuild the economy, was readily apparent.

3. Politics as such. Governments have concluded that "being tough on viruses" is a way to win elections.

I'm far less convinced about the latter possibility given that the truth will out at some point and it's probable that quite a few politicians would end up literally being shot etc if the whole thing turned out to have been a political stunt. If it is, then it's an extraordinarily risky one.

As always better said than i could, i would not believe in 1
But option 2 is my preferred view, plus opportunistic actions here and there by local gov.
that would mean the need to protect your assets from gov appropriations, a bet on big business,gold and crypto
big government being the rule: universal income taxation for the working fews

 

[qldfrog]

As always better said than i could, i would not believe in 1
But option 2 is my preferred view, plus opportunistic actions here and there by local gov.
that would mean the need to protect your assets from gov appropriations, a bet on big business,gold and crypto
big government being the rule: universal income taxation for the working fews

Or option 2 with the blame for the misery coming due to that reset put on the Chinese
Just need to announce
we have proof it came from wuhan .as it is most probably the case, not hard to prove wo doubt
Blame is deflected, you can even start a wae if you need to .,

 

[over9k]

It's always ironic when someone takes the time to post in order to tell someone else that they're stupid for taking the time to post. But hey, good for you.

No it isn't. Irony means an outcome that was the opposite of what was intended. If one post of mine saves the time of >1 of yours, we're in front.

If you want to take your head out of your proverbial, you'll realise that even the world's greatest cynic can see that there is some relationship between what should be done and what does get done. What you are saying here is that there is no relationship. This is simply not true. This thread is indeed, as you say, about what we expect will happen. If you manage to keep your head out of your proverbial and read my post again you'll see that I was relating everything to how it affects what will happen, not simply rambling about what I think should be done despite it having no hope of happening. I wasn't even talking about what I think should be done, I was literally pointing out that there was no chance of it, I outlined various reasons for why, and speculated on what would happen.

You may disagree with my analysis on any of the above, but what you've said is hypocritical, stupid and clearly incorrect.

This entire post:

The whole mantra, the whole reason for the whole lockdown nonsense, the whole plan, was on the assumption that the number of people sick with this disease would dramatically overwhelm the healthcare system. Not a question of if, but by how much. It was taken as a given that if we did nothing there would be widespread mass death, and even with our best efforts the healthcare system would be far beyond capacity and we could simply do our best and reduce the number of people by as much as possible. It was assumed that everyone would be exposed, regardless of what we did, and we were simply trying to drag it out so that as few people as possible had it at any given time.

In reality land, hospitals have not been overwhelmed, even in the USA (perhaps in isolated cases, I mean, even in normal times we sometimes see hospital capacity exceeded, but unless we're being completely disingenuous, it's fair to say that hospital capacity has not been exceeded). Sure, people are catching this disease. Generally we don't even know unless we carry out big testing campaigns. It's so mild that it can in some cases lurk long term in communities without even being noticed! Case numbers are irrelevant if the disease is not sufficiently harmful.

Yet again we can look at Sweden, it continues to demonstrate the situation and the model of what to do. They let it go through the community, they still have a reasonable number of cases and as winter approaches there were will more and more, but even as numbers increase, their fatalities remain negligible, and the number of people requiring significant medical care is very low. The economy can function normally with a small number of people needing some healthcare and virtually no one dying, as long as there is no fear campaign or economic policy retarding the economy or way of life.

The economic impact of the virus itself is absolutely comparable to colds, flu, hayfever, etc. According to the WHO's own data from this month, it is no worse than the flu! It's fair to say that the lockdowns are tremendously worse for the economy than a bad flu season. The economy doesn't have a virus problem, it has a propaganda and policy problem.

If you want to look at the humanitarian issue it becomes far more extreme in terms of the lockdowns causing far more harm than good, and inevitably this means that when a real pandemic of actual medical significance comes along we're going to have a global population far more sceptical and reluctant to cooperate with lockdowns, which will cause the next one to be far worse than it otherwise would have been, in terms of the virus itself and thus presumably economically.

Is just you on your soapbox, saying this is all dumb, that we should be doing XYZ etc etc like 3/4 of your other posts in this thread. You want to have a pointless argument about the best policy would/should/could have been, do it in the thread for it. This thread is titled "economic implications of a sars/coronavirus outbreak" not "what do we reckon should be the government's response to the sars/coronavirus outbreak". I really don't know how much plainer I can put it.

If you can't understand the difference between what you think should happen vs what you think will happen, there's really nothing else I can say.

If you want to get on your soapbox and say "scomo should do XYZ and here's why" then my response is "riveting tale chap, let me know when he starts consulting you".

 

[Dona Ferentes]

I feel the bloviating blowhards should step down.

Economic implications of Covid.... Follow the money. This is slide 21 of Argo AGM presentation today.

 

[Sdajii]

No it isn't. Irony means an outcome that was the opposite of what was intended. If one post of mine saves the time of >1 of yours, we're in front.

Yet here we are with your post having been completely unnecessary in the first place and having spawned multiple further posts. Do you see the irony now or is your head still inserted fully?

The rest of your post missed the point and was irrelevant so I'll leave it there, noting that the fact that you posted it is... well, actually, you probably would have trouble understanding anyway.

 

[over9k]

Yet here we are with your post having been completely unnecessary in the first place and having spawned multiple further posts. Do you see the irony now or is your head still inserted fully?

The rest of your post missed the point and was irrelevant so I'll leave it there, noting that the fact that you posted it is... well, actually, you probably would have trouble understanding anyway.

Oh yeah, because you wouldn't have just continued bloviating if I hadn't said anything.

Let me know when scomo calls you up for some advice

 

[Sdajii]

Oh yeah, because you wouldn't have just continued bloviating if I hadn't said anything.

Whether or not that's true, it's very clear that you are making the effort to post. That was the irony. It continues to be. Catch up whenever you're ready.

Let me know when scomo calls you up for some advice

Let me know if you manage to fathom that this comment is irrelevant.

 

[over9k]

Now that he's added to the block list, it is apparent that he clearly does not understand that if I spend one post to save more than one of his, there's a net benefit.

He is either deliberately misinterpreting what I'm saying, or literally cannot understand the concept of net rather than gross difference.


Back to economic implications of the virus:



It's not just furniture and electronics etc sales that are stratospheric, kids have needed something to do whilst stuck at home too