(06-23-2020 02:45 PM)tanqtonic Wrote: But the idea that one can 'plan' for this level of an economic hit is really kind of stupid.
One can plan, and just barely get by, with an economic disaster on a hyper local scale. Like your example of a hurricane.
When the dollar scale is literally multiple orders of magnitudes higher, and the geographic scale is that same multiple orders of magnitudes higher, your expectation that one can 'plan' for that level of economic hit is really kind of mind shakingly bizarre.
...
When you are dealing with an event that is more than likely 10,000x the economic and human scale of anything that happened in any single 60 days (in a relative scale) in the last 10,000 years, you say 'plan better'. Wow. Give me some of that **** you are drinking....
To be clear, I agree that planning/preparing for the economic hit is not as feasible as planning for the medical/epidemiologic side of it. But better prep and planning for the medical/epidemiologic stuff improves the outcomes for the economy as well, which was the point I was trying to make. The economic impact could have been significantly reduced without doing anything specifically economic.
(06-23-2020 02:45 PM)tanqtonic Wrote: (06-23-2020 01:16 PM)mrbig Wrote: It is unfortunate that the lack of planning and slow reaction to the virus resulted in the extreme economy-crippling measures that were required.
This is almost (but not quite) the equivalent of you saying "It is unfortunate that the lack of planning and slow reaction to the Yellowstone super caldera that blanketed the NA continent in 4 feet of soot resulted in the extreme economy-crippling measures that were required." The difference between that Yellowstone thing and Wuhan is probably a single order of magnitude -- with Yellowstone being worse. The difference between what you allude to with a hurricane example as being the 'test' is probably one of 6-8 orders of magnitude.
I cant tell if this is OMB blindness here, or just that you are seemingly trying to equate a fing world wide pandemic to a single hurricane without understanding or being able to note the teeny tiny itsy bitsy issues of scope between the two.
Unsurprisingly, I don't agree at all with the analogy to the Yellowstone super caldera. We have a virus that is more deadly and a little more virulent than H1N1, so we had a partial dry run with H1N1. And we have something that is less deadly but much more virulent than ebola, SARS, and MERS, so we had a partial dry run with those. We have never experienced anything similar to the freaking Yellowstone super caldera exploding or earth getting hit with an meteroite in modern society. And those can't be prevented or protected against in the same way as a virus.
(06-23-2020 02:47 PM)tanqtonic Wrote: Well *you* compare it to a gd hurricane.
Not really. I said that like a hurricane, the eventuality of a virus like this was foreseeable and there are ways to minimize the impacts as it begins to happen. I was not saying Covid-19 and a single hurricane have similar effects. Is this a proper place to use "Christ on a cracker"?
With a hurricane, you have building codes, building above flood/surge elevations, etc. that are done beforehand. Then when the risk of the actual hurricane materializes, you bring loose materials inside, get some sandbags if you need them, shutter your windows, possibly evacuate, and the government prepares to flood the area with rescue operations and resources if necessary. With a possible pandemic, you build up your detection and response infrastructure beforehand. Then when you have the beginnings of an outbreak, you try to isolate and quarantine, study to develop vaccines/treatments, communicate risks and strategies to the public, and take various steps to reduce spread. Unlike the Yellowstone super caldera example, where you can't exactly build a lava-proof and explosion-proof society and build a huge bubble over the whole area to filter out atmospheric particulates.
(06-23-2020 02:52 PM)tanqtonic Wrote: Short hand for Orange Man Bad. The root of all evil and wrong in the world for some. Duh.