Coronavirus Pandemic: Trump Does Not Intend To Save The U.S. Economy. He Intends To Save...
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-coronavirus-pandemic-trump-does-not.htmlby Umair Haque, 19 March 2020
When I say that Coronavirus might have an upside, I don’t, of course, mean anything like "the very real pain and suffering of a pandemic should be minimized, erased, or ignored."
Quite the opposite.
I suggest that all that should make us pause for a moment — maybe a month or two — and reflect. On the meaning of us. On the purpose of us. Why we are really here. On what we owe to each other — and to life itself. Doesn’t life as we lived it just a few months ago feel hopelessly, well, superficial…maybe even a little irresponsible?
The journey, the universe is telling us, must go on.
It’s time for us to take the next step.
Quite the opposite.
I suggest that all that should make us pause for a moment — maybe a month or two — and reflect. On the meaning of us. On the purpose of us. Why we are really here. On what we owe to each other — and to life itself. Doesn’t life as we lived it just a few months ago feel hopelessly, well, superficial…maybe even a little irresponsible?
The journey, the universe is telling us, must go on.
It’s time for us to take the next step.
What the hell does all that mean?
"Mom! Umair’s talking crap again!"
Grandpa mode over.
If Coronavirus does have upsides, to me at least, they go like this.
"Mom! Umair’s talking crap again!"
Grandpa mode over.
If Coronavirus does have upsides, to me at least, they go like this.
Coronavirus is forcing economists and leaders to get real about rebalancing the economy.
Weirdly, Trump is doing exactly the right thing when it comes to Coronavirus — or at least saying that he’s going to.
Giving people money.
No conditions, no tests, just…giving people money.
That’s a change that’s been long, long overdue.
Why?
Capitalism has been failing globally for a long time now — decades.
American incomes have been flat for fifty years: that’s longer than the Soviet Union stagnated.
80% percent of Americans can’t raise a tiny amount for an emergency.
Yet meanwhile, billionaires have grown titanically, obscenely wealthy.
Zuck, Bezos, and Buffett together could single-handedly fund a working society.
Weirdly, Trump is doing exactly the right thing when it comes to Coronavirus — or at least saying that he’s going to.
Giving people money.
No conditions, no tests, just…giving people money.
That’s a change that’s been long, long overdue.
Why?
Capitalism has been failing globally for a long time now — decades.
American incomes have been flat for fifty years: that’s longer than the Soviet Union stagnated.
80% percent of Americans can’t raise a tiny amount for an emergency.
Yet meanwhile, billionaires have grown titanically, obscenely wealthy.
Zuck, Bezos, and Buffett together could single-handedly fund a working society.
Do you see how suddenly, while economic “growth” has stalled, pollution has come to a dead stop, fish are returning to Venice’s canals, and trees can breathe again?
That’s about as big a hint as the universe can send us.
Rebalancing the economy means that it can’t just be a global system run for the enrichment of a tiny few, at the price of life as we know it.
Everyone must prosper, and everyone means rivers, trees, forests, oceans, animals, insects, and you and me.
Maybe not deadly viruses, though.
Just a planet that can exist in balance with itself.
So let me come back to you and me.
That’s about as big a hint as the universe can send us.
Rebalancing the economy means that it can’t just be a global system run for the enrichment of a tiny few, at the price of life as we know it.
Everyone must prosper, and everyone means rivers, trees, forests, oceans, animals, insects, and you and me.
Maybe not deadly viruses, though.
Just a planet that can exist in balance with itself.
So let me come back to you and me.
Governments should have given people emergency money long ago, seeing the plight of the average person. Whether it was called “basic income” or “helicopter money” or any of the other numb of names it goes by.
So the idea of giving people money was seen as radical and impossible — even those who agreed with it theoretically questioned its feasibility.
Nixon's Guaranteed Basic Income Bill Passed The House But Fell One Vote Short In The Senate
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/05/nixons-guaranteed-basic-income-bill.html
The problem was that "giving people money" conflicted with what economists call “policy-makers’ tools.” The only levers that orthodox economists think decision-makers have over an economy are taxes and interest rates. 72nd B'day Reflection On "The 1%," Taxes, Guaranteed Minimum Income And "Following The Money"
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/08/72nd-birthday-reflection-on-1-taxes.htmlSo the idea of giving people money was seen as radical and impossible — even those who agreed with it theoretically questioned its feasibility.
But simply giving the average person money in this day and age is hardly rocket science.
Money is just bits on a server.
It’s never been easier, in fact — and economists are mostly still thinking in 20th century terms of “money” being paper.
Money is just bits on a server.
It’s never been easier, in fact — and economists are mostly still thinking in 20th century terms of “money” being paper.
Today, we could simply open a central bank account under everyone’s passport number, and zap money into it. We could do so every month.
We could go further, and endow babies with “basic assets”, a nest egg, when they’re born.
The sky’s the limit.
Maybe that money is conditional on only being used in green ways — see how we rebalance even more?
We could go further, and endow babies with “basic assets”, a nest egg, when they’re born.
The sky’s the limit.
Maybe that money is conditional on only being used in green ways — see how we rebalance even more?
Coronavirus has changed our economic sense of the possible, what’s doable, what’s necessary, what we can accomplish with these lumbering dinosaurs called "treasuries" and "central banks" and "currencies" and so forth, and that’s an eminently good thing -- and it’s long, long overdue.
That brings me to the second upside.
Financial markets will have to price in existential risk.
Why did the markets crash, suddenly? The superficial reason is that they finally saw, with horror, everyone was going to stay home, which would lead to businesses closing, which would lead to mass layoffs, and so forth.
But that’s only the superficial reason.
The deeper reason is that they never saw existential risk coming — and when it finally had to be priced in, the result was a massive shockwave across global markets.
Why did the markets crash, suddenly? The superficial reason is that they finally saw, with horror, everyone was going to stay home, which would lead to businesses closing, which would lead to mass layoffs, and so forth.
But that’s only the superficial reason.
The deeper reason is that they never saw existential risk coming — and when it finally had to be priced in, the result was a massive shockwave across global markets.
Let me put that another way if it’s not clear.
Markets have long been operating under a foolish delusion — that the great existential threats of this century don’t really exist.
And if they do, well never mind, business as usual can simply happily plow on.
This century is jam-packed with what are known as existential risks — risks to human civilization and progress.
Like climate change, ecological collapse of air, water, topsoil, mass extinction, inequality, and… pandemics.
And yet markets — that is, the hedge funds and banks they’re made of — while they might have acknowledged such threats, and even speak grandiosely about them at conferences… never priced them in, never actually accounted for them, much less invested against them.
Hence, we lived through a time of pointless IPOs like Fakebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter — instead of pouring capital into defenses against existential risks.
Markets have long been operating under a foolish delusion — that the great existential threats of this century don’t really exist.
And if they do, well never mind, business as usual can simply happily plow on.
This century is jam-packed with what are known as existential risks — risks to human civilization and progress.
Like climate change, ecological collapse of air, water, topsoil, mass extinction, inequality, and… pandemics.
And yet markets — that is, the hedge funds and banks they’re made of — while they might have acknowledged such threats, and even speak grandiosely about them at conferences… never priced them in, never actually accounted for them, much less invested against them.
Hence, we lived through a time of pointless IPOs like Fakebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter — instead of pouring capital into defenses against existential risks.
Pricing in existential risk means exactly what we saw this last week.
What happens during a pandemic?
Bang! Depression.
And yet we’ve had two pandemics in the last 20 years alone, clearly signaling a larger one was on the way.
Why didn’t markets price in the risk?
Hubris, arrogance…maybe ignorance.
But Coronavirus is just a warmup for the main event.
What happens when climate change bites — like it’s going to in the next decade?
When people aren’t just quarantined — but entire cities are beginning to sink, or continents burn?
What happens when ecological collapse convulses entire global supply chains, which can’t operate without enough topsoil, water, energy?
Or when mass extinction rips the bottom out of all the “resources” we take for granted, whether timber or silicon?
Bang!
What happens during a pandemic?
Bang! Depression.
And yet we’ve had two pandemics in the last 20 years alone, clearly signaling a larger one was on the way.
Why didn’t markets price in the risk?
Hubris, arrogance…maybe ignorance.
But Coronavirus is just a warmup for the main event.
What happens when climate change bites — like it’s going to in the next decade?
When people aren’t just quarantined — but entire cities are beginning to sink, or continents burn?
What happens when ecological collapse convulses entire global supply chains, which can’t operate without enough topsoil, water, energy?
Or when mass extinction rips the bottom out of all the “resources” we take for granted, whether timber or silicon?
Bang!
The climate change depression, the mass extinction depression, the ecological depression — these are going to make the Coronavirus depression seem like a happy memory.
The good news is that markets are finally going to have to price in this risk.
That’s because the smarter hedge funds and banks aren’t going to be able to get away with pretending things can go on as normal in an age of existential threats.
If only to hedge their own losses, they’ll have to price in existential risk, beginning now, and forevermore.
The alternative is to leave themselves exposed to massive, massive losses — like most suffered over the last week.
The markets finally pricing in existential risk is an eminently good thing — one happening much too late.
The good news is that markets are finally going to have to price in this risk.
That’s because the smarter hedge funds and banks aren’t going to be able to get away with pretending things can go on as normal in an age of existential threats.
If only to hedge their own losses, they’ll have to price in existential risk, beginning now, and forevermore.
The alternative is to leave themselves exposed to massive, massive losses — like most suffered over the last week.
The markets finally pricing in existential risk is an eminently good thing — one happening much too late.
That brings me to my next upside of Coronavirus.
You might have had - long before Coronavirus - the sinking feeling that the global economy wasn’t quite working — despite pundits and politicians telling you that everything had never been better.
You were right, my friend — and they were wrong.
What ailed the global economy?
One very simple, dismal, dire trend: global investment rates have been stuck for our lifetimes. And worse, at the low, low level of 25%.
You were right, my friend — and they were wrong.
What ailed the global economy?
One very simple, dismal, dire trend: global investment rates have been stuck for our lifetimes. And worse, at the low, low level of 25%.
What does investment of 25% for an entire economy get you?
The answer is: not much.
It gets you a society like America, whose investment rate is just 25%. A place without good hospitals, or decent healthcare, or livable retirement, or affordable education.
Actually without any social systems whatsoever.
A lack of social systems has produced, in America, a stunning, rapid decline in the quality of life; in hard terms, income, savings, happiness and longevity have all cratered.
The answer is: not much.
It gets you a society like America, whose investment rate is just 25%. A place without good hospitals, or decent healthcare, or livable retirement, or affordable education.
Actually without any social systems whatsoever.
A lack of social systems has produced, in America, a stunning, rapid decline in the quality of life; in hard terms, income, savings, happiness and longevity have all cratered.
A planet investing just one quarter of what it produces is not a sustainable planet.
It certainly isn’t a planet where progress and civilization can continue their forward march.
Rather, it’s a world where we never have enough hospitals, schools, universities, companies, jobs, possibilities, opportunities, to go around.
It's a world where billionaire monopolists take all the gains, because nobody will much in anyone else to begin with. It’s a world in which a virtuous cycle of peace and prosperity will come to a grinding halt, and then reverse itself.
It certainly isn’t a planet where progress and civilization can continue their forward march.
Rather, it’s a world where we never have enough hospitals, schools, universities, companies, jobs, possibilities, opportunities, to go around.
It's a world where billionaire monopolists take all the gains, because nobody will much in anyone else to begin with. It’s a world in which a virtuous cycle of peace and prosperity will come to a grinding halt, and then reverse itself.
"The Rich Aren't Just Grabbing A Bigger Slice Of The Income Pie.
They're Taking It All"
"Plutocracy Triumphant"
Cartoon Compendium
That is precisely why we’ve seen a wave of regressive, right-wing extremism sweep the globe.
People’s living standards have been falling — particularly poorer people, like rural Americans or deindustrialized Brits — and they turned, predictably, to demagogues, for a feeling of strength and power and safety.
People’s living standards have been falling — particularly poorer people, like rural Americans or deindustrialized Brits — and they turned, predictably, to demagogues, for a feeling of strength and power and safety.
If that doesn’t make you think, think about how much we will need to invest as a world to forfend an existential threat like climate change.
Or eco-collapse.
Or mass extinction.
Think how much we will need to invest in things like clean energy grids, and subsidies for startups, and new building technologies and water-reuse systems… the list is endless.
We will have to invest far more than 25% of the globe’s GDP, probably a minimum of 50%. And we will need to make that annual investment permanently.
In other words, the world's level of investment needs to double.
Or eco-collapse.
Or mass extinction.
Think how much we will need to invest in things like clean energy grids, and subsidies for startups, and new building technologies and water-reuse systems… the list is endless.
We will have to invest far more than 25% of the globe’s GDP, probably a minimum of 50%. And we will need to make that annual investment permanently.
In other words, the world's level of investment needs to double.
The good news about Coronavirus is that it is going to force us — finally — to do just that.
Coronavirus is already sparking a huge, huge wave of investment; In hospitals, in medicine, in the search for a vaccine, and so on.
This pandemic will nudge the level of global investment up from 25% by a couple of points — finally breaking the stranglehold that a dying system has had on all of us.
That system, by the way, is global capitalism, neoliberalism, which says that more investment is always a liability. Coronavirus shows us how foolish and wrong such a belief is.
Global investment is finally - finally! - beginning to tick upwards. After decades of stagnation, this uptick is the start of not just a good trend — but a necessary one... assuming we want a livable world instead of the degenerate dystopia we’re currently trapped in.
Coronavirus is already sparking a huge, huge wave of investment; In hospitals, in medicine, in the search for a vaccine, and so on.
This pandemic will nudge the level of global investment up from 25% by a couple of points — finally breaking the stranglehold that a dying system has had on all of us.
That system, by the way, is global capitalism, neoliberalism, which says that more investment is always a liability. Coronavirus shows us how foolish and wrong such a belief is.
Global investment is finally - finally! - beginning to tick upwards. After decades of stagnation, this uptick is the start of not just a good trend — but a necessary one... assuming we want a livable world instead of the degenerate dystopia we’re currently trapped in.
That brings me to my fourth upside of Coronavirus.
What should we be investing in anyway?
Promising new technologies?
Glamorous new startups?
Sure — to a point.
But that misses the forest for the trees.
What should we be investing in anyway?
Promising new technologies?
Glamorous new startups?
Sure — to a point.
But that misses the forest for the trees.
Let me re-wind history to make this point, because it’s a subtle one.
Not long ago — just a few centuries — human beings thought that disease came from degeneracy.
Poor people ended up ill, which then spread to richer people.
Why?
Because poor people were lazy, because they were "vicious," as in, full of "vice," because they were naturally weak.
Poor people ended up ill, which then spread to richer people.
Why?
Because poor people were lazy, because they were "vicious," as in, full of "vice," because they were naturally weak.
What nobody much thought was that disease came from lack of hygiene and sanitation. In fact, everyone was convinced the opposite was true.
Disease? Disease came from within, not without.
Those poor people got disease because they drank and gabled and whored and not for any other reason. (Never mind that the rich did just the same.)
Disease? Disease came from within, not without.
Those poor people got disease because they drank and gabled and whored and not for any other reason. (Never mind that the rich did just the same.)
Nobody much imagined that the reason diseases would ravage whole cities — then leap into the palaces where kings and nobles held court — was because the poor didn’t have the resources to keep themselves clean and healthy and disease-free. Nobody imagined that the reason for epidemic disease was that poor people had no choice but to live in grime and filth and squalor.
Were not the "shanty Irish" and "dirty Jews" proof of poor people's decision to live in squalor?
Were not the "shanty Irish" and "dirty Jews" proof of poor people's decision to live in squalor?
What were the consequences of this way of thinking?
Disease was never conquered.
It just stayed a grim constant in human life, more or less until Edward Jenner discovered the vaccine, with a little help from a milkmaid.
We laugh at such a foolish mistake now.
But we shouldn’t — because we are making exactly the same one.
Disease was never conquered.
It just stayed a grim constant in human life, more or less until Edward Jenner discovered the vaccine, with a little help from a milkmaid.
We laugh at such a foolish mistake now.
But we shouldn’t — because we are making exactly the same one.
Why did Coronavirus really begin and spread?
Because some poor fellow in Wuhan ate a bat slaughtered in unsanitary conditions in a “wet market.” In other words, because some poor person was forced to eat unsanitary food in an unhygienic way.
Clearly that guy would rather have a Five Guys burger.
Nobody wants to eat a bat, if they can have steak.
Nobody chooses to live in squalor and filth and decay.
Because some poor fellow in Wuhan ate a bat slaughtered in unsanitary conditions in a “wet market.” In other words, because some poor person was forced to eat unsanitary food in an unhygienic way.
Clearly that guy would rather have a Five Guys burger.
Nobody wants to eat a bat, if they can have steak.
Nobody chooses to live in squalor and filth and decay.
And yet here we all are, missing the point: Coronavirus was born and spread because much of the world still lives in poverty and dehumanizing deprivation.
Which brings with it a lack of sanitation and hygiene and healthcare, which breeds disease, which then spread everywhere.
But we don’t see the nearly inescapable trap of poverty as a cause pandemic new diseasaes.
We think those poor people get sick with new, highly communicable (and untreatable) pathogens because that’s their fate, their lot — “they like eating bats!”
Not much has changed.
We’re a lot like those 16th century ignoramuses.
It’s not a coincidence that the last two decades have seen two new pandemics — SARS and MERS — which didn’t just presage Coronavirus, but also began in the world’s poorest regions.
It’s a lockstep relationship.
Which brings with it a lack of sanitation and hygiene and healthcare, which breeds disease, which then spread everywhere.
But we don’t see the nearly inescapable trap of poverty as a cause pandemic new diseasaes.
We think those poor people get sick with new, highly communicable (and untreatable) pathogens because that’s their fate, their lot — “they like eating bats!”
Not much has changed.
We’re a lot like those 16th century ignoramuses.
It’s not a coincidence that the last two decades have seen two new pandemics — SARS and MERS — which didn’t just presage Coronavirus, but also began in the world’s poorest regions.
It’s a lockstep relationship.
Are you seeing the lesson of my overly long story?
The systems that we have to build now are The Really Big Ones.
The ones humanity should have had long ago — and yet we have barely dared to dream of them.
Every single human life should have decent sanitation, hygiene, food, water, healthcare, medicine.
Every single human life should have decent working conditions and a clean, safe place to live.
And more. Because the price of not having these things is ruinous. We’re finding out the hard way that catastrophes like pandemics erupt and then rip our world apart.
The ones humanity should have had long ago — and yet we have barely dared to dream of them.
Every single human life should have decent sanitation, hygiene, food, water, healthcare, medicine.
Every single human life should have decent working conditions and a clean, safe place to live.
And more. Because the price of not having these things is ruinous. We’re finding out the hard way that catastrophes like pandemics erupt and then rip our world apart.
Free, Online Documentary About The "Spanish" Flu Of 1918 (40 Minutes)
Let me put this another way.
One of the great challenges of this century is building global scale systems and social contracts for the first time.
How are we to provide everyone on planet earth with decent healthcare, housing, food, sanitation?
Shall we set up a Planetary Health Agency?
Global Nutrition Office?
We don’t have any such institutions really.
We don’t even have the beginnings of them, yet.
Think of how lucky we are to have had a World Health Organization — and now think that it doesn’t actually administer anything like actual world healthcare. Yet.
"The Greatest Generation: Labor, Capital And Betrayal Of The Social Contract"
"I Welcome Your Hatred"
"Judge Me By The Enemies I've Made"
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth"
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Alan: Profuse thanks to lifelong friend Paul Schulte, NIOSH epidemiologist, for introducing me to Bucky.
"Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth"
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Buckminster Fuller
Wikipedia
Alan: Just browse a while in this brief bio and be blown away!
Alan: Profuse thanks to lifelong friend Paul Schulte, NIOSH epidemiologist, for introducing me to Bucky.
Shall we set up a Planetary Health Agency?
Global Nutrition Office?
We don’t have any such institutions really.
We don’t even have the beginnings of them, yet.
Think of how lucky we are to have had a World Health Organization — and now think that it doesn’t actually administer anything like actual world healthcare. Yet.
Now think of how many bright young people — and old ones — such institutions might employ.
How many whole new jobs and careers and industries and supply chains they’d create.
How they’d revolutionize our moribund politics — and spark our moral and social imaginations, too.
How many whole new jobs and careers and industries and supply chains they’d create.
How they’d revolutionize our moribund politics — and spark our moral and social imaginations, too.
My fifth upside of Coronavirus is that it just might spark the much needed epiphany above. We need to take care of all of us, or else we’re all at risk. And that means building what economists call global public goods, like healthcare, food, housing, water systems, for the first time in human history.
Or else.
Without global scale systems and social contracts, we will — all of us — continue to pay a price, and that price will increase.
SARS and MERS became Coronavirus, which afflicted the whole world.
Or else.
Without global scale systems and social contracts, we will — all of us — continue to pay a price, and that price will increase.
SARS and MERS became Coronavirus, which afflicted the whole world.
Remember those existential threats? They affect all of us. We’re learning that the hard way, sheltering in our homes, grasping for basics, fearful for the health of our loves ones.
Unless we want that to be the future -- only harder and faster -- then for the first time in human history, we need to develop systems that protect, shelter, safeguard, nourish, and tend to all of us.
All of us.
Alan: The great design scientist Buckminster Fuller observed that "The most idealistic is the realistically most practical."
Unless we want that to be the future -- only harder and faster -- then for the first time in human history, we need to develop systems that protect, shelter, safeguard, nourish, and tend to all of us.
All of us.
Alan: The great design scientist Buckminster Fuller observed that "The most idealistic is the realistically most practical."
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