Does America Have a Future?
Is America’s Collapse Into Disease, Depression, and Isolation Irreversible Now?
America now faces three catastrophic events, in the immediate future. A tidal wave of mass death at the level of a world war. An historic depression on the scale of the Great Depression. And a world that quarantines it — meaning there’s no escape for Americans.
These three trends are likely to define much of the next decade of American history — and maybe your life, too.
One of these three trends alone would be horrific enough. But all three together? It makes me shudder. It’s the stuff of nightmares to an economist like me.
It’s about as bad a set of outcomes for a society as it’s possible to imagine. Yes, really — no matter how Trump and his army of American Idiots have normalized the dystopia they live in.
Let’s take those three trends one by one.
You probably thought I was exaggerating when I said America now faces a tidal wave of death at the level of a world war. 20,000 Americans died per month at the height of World War II. That’s how many are dying of Coronavirus right now.
Stop to take it in for a second. America has a tidal wave of death on the scale of a world war. What the?
Why? Because America still has no national strategy, plan, vision, agenda, to fight Coronavirus. In New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern called for Kiwis to become a “team” — and they did, following a careful, quick, thoughtful plan to fight a deadly pandemic, proudly calling themselves a “team of five million.” In America, there’s just a vacuum at the top — when the President’s not telling people to drink bleach, not wear masks, or gathering them in arenas.
In that vacuum, the predictable happened. Red States, which are run by some of the world’s most backwards leaders, reopened too fast, and barred people from wearing masks — something that I have to explain to my European friends whose jaws drop in disbelief.
Hence, today, Texas has 5500 new Coronavirus cases. Pakistan has 3500. Pakistan. Texas alone has more cases than one of the poorest countries on earth. Pakistan has seven times the population of Texas. That means on a per capita basis, Texas alone has seven times the Coronavirus incidence of one of the poorest, most devastated countries on the planet.
Just think about that for a second. Texas, a rich state in a rich country, has more cases of coronavirus per day that one of the poorest countries in the world. Do Americans understand how needless and horrific this is?
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Add Florida, Oklahoma, Arizona, and so on — and America’s Red States are outdoing even a failed state like Pakistan by a long, long way. America’s Red States are now outdoing the world’s poorest, most dysfunctional countries when it comes to Coronavirus — by shocking, surreal lengths, five times, ten times, more.
What the?
One thing we know by now is that the predictions economists like me made about the link between pandemic and depression were correct. Reopening the economy doesn’t reopen the economy. You can force stores to open, and even force people back to work, by denying them benefits — but you can’t make people spend money. (Alan: And so, the economy doesn't improve in any meaningful way and the underlying adversity of the increasingly out-of-control pandemic makes the economy worse. I will emphasize this same essential point: The economy doesn't improve in any meaningful way and the underlying adversity of the increasingly out-of-control pandemic makes the economy worse.)
That’s exactly what we see happening in America, too. Red States don’t just have surging Coronavirus numbers — they also have economies which are falling into depressed states, even though they’re “reopened.” The reason’s simple. Who wants to go shopping when there’s a pandemic spiking? To the hotel, bar, restaurant, club? Maybe that fringe of Trumpist American Idiots does — but the average person stays home, having lost confidence.
Consumer spending comes to a halt. As it does, unemployment surges, and “hysteresis” sets in — what economists call it when short-term unemployment becomes long-term unemployment. Businesses that could have survived, shutter their doors, because few can survive six months, a year, of dampened spending. All those people they used to employ are now jobless. And spending falls even further. The vicious cycle of depression ignites.
That’s exactly what’s happening in America right now: the vicious cycle of depression is setting in. Let me put that another way.
The longer the pandemic lasts in a country, the worse the economic effects will be. In Europe, for example, where the pandemic is under control, the economic effects will still be enormous — but they won’t be nearly as bad as in America, where the pandemic will go on with no end in sight.
To stave off a depression is to restore confidence in an economy — by preventing three things from happening. One, preventing short term unemployment from becoming long term unemployment. Two, preventing short term falls in consumer spending from becoming permanent declines. And three, preventing a wave of personal and business bankruptcies, which cause economic “scarring”, or a long term shift away from entrepreneurship, risk, and investment.
America has done none of those three things. None of them. What has it done? People were offered $1200 in support. Businesses were offered roughly the same. That’s the equivalent of just…one week’s worth of average income. Here we are — and it’s now the 14th week of staggering rises in unemployment. One week of support — in a pandemic that’s already lasted three months and counting.
No wonder the vicious spiral of depression is now setting in.
We shouldn’t be seeing massive numbers still filing for unemployment — a million new people a week and more — but we are. We shouldn’t be seeing such depressed levels of spending — but we are. We shouldn’t be seeing bankruptcies and closings already going nuclear — but we are.
These are grim portents. To a good economist, they are clear signs that a depression is already igniting — and little to nothing is being done to stop it. The result will be a catastrophe to rival the Great Depression.
Meanwhile, how do you imagine the world is going to respond to a country in which Coronavirus is still hitting new peaks? It’s going to quarantine it.
And so Europe has already announced it’s considering banning Americans from entering its borders. That’s polite European-bureaucratic-speak for: please prepare yourselves, we are closing our borders to you.
Europe is already quarantining America. Canada won’t be far behind, and neither will China.
Now, the 70% of Americans who never leave America might say: “So what? Who cares!” But a nation being isolated by the world is very bad news indeed. What will some of the effects be?
One effect will be that the depression already in the cards will be magnified. When Americans can’t enter Europe — or China — how much harder do you think it will be to do business? To sign deals, to forge agreements, to find partners and customers and markets? Bang! America’s depression hits even harder.
Another effect of being isolated by the world is that American authoritarianism will flourish. Who’s going to care much about Trump stealing the election… when the world’s busy trying to quarantine America? Much of it’s likely to just say: “Good riddance! Americans are a nuisance. Let them lie in the bed they made.”
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America’s arrogant, clueless class of pundits used to call Europe the “sick man of the world.” It never was — but now America indubitably is.
The third effect of being isolated by the world will be the most devastating. Americans will be trapped. Just like Soviets were, by their Iron Curtain. They won’t be able to leave. And so they won’t really understand how much better life is — even post-pandemic life — in other countries. How Europeans have a decent, civilized society, how Canadians have learned to cooperate, and so on. Americans will stay ignorant, and that ignorance is what makes them vote, time and again, against things like their very own healthcare, retirement, education, incomes.
You might interject at this point: “But electing Biden will fix all that!”
The above is me assuming Biden does get elected.
If he doesn’t, America gets all the above — pandemic, depression, isolation — with the added bonus of Trumpist fascism.
Sure, if Biden gets elected, he can begin attacking these three great problems right away. But they will not go away overnight. America has let them bake in too long, and now it’s cooked. These problems will define much of the next decade — public health, depression, and isolation. It will take massive waves of investment — resting on equally massive waves of social cooperation — lasting for years, to even begin to undo them now.
No President is going to be able to snap his or her fingers and undo the damage that so much negligence, folly, and self-destructiveness have caused. It’s going to take time, money, vision, and working together — four things America doesn’t have much of left, and doesn’t know how to do very well anymore.
America’s future is beyond bleak. The world is horrified, shocked, and bewildered. Why would anyone let their society turn into this bizarre, grim dystopia? Even poor countries ask the question now, like Vietnam, which beat back Coronavirus, or even Pakistan, which, like I said, has fewer cases than Texas alone.
America’s purpose at this juncture in history is to serve as a warning to the world. Of where greed, selfishness, hatred, ignorance, and violence lead. Not up, not towards the light — but only down, down into the abyss, where the monsters scurry, and history laughs.
Maybe, after a long, painful decade, America can reinvent itself — as a civilized country, a decent society, a friendly nation. But don’t kid yourself. The road there isn’t just going to be long: the climb is going to be steep, the way perilous, and the path twisted. Getting there — to being a functioning society — from here, being a failed one? That’s the kind of challenge that most nations in history have failed.
Umair
June 2020
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