(03-24-2020 01:08 PM)Marc Mensa Wrote: (03-24-2020 12:46 PM)TripleA Wrote: Trump subscribes to the Stink Doctrine. He is really itching to pull all the stay at home orders and put everybody back to work.
I imagine he will hold off until next Monday, at least, but he said he intends for the stay at home orders to be gone by Easter (April 12), and still "practice good social distancing."
He cited the average number of annual deaths for the flu (36K), and said we don't shut down the economy for that, or stop manufacturers from building cars, b/c so many die in traffic accidents.
You can tell he is getting hot under the collar about the economy. At one time, he said, "Three weeks ago, we had the strongest economy in the world, and now it's being destroyed. We used to pay people to work. Now we're paying them not to work...More people are going to die if we don't get back to work." Paraphrasing.
What did Dr Fauchi say?
Trump is concerned with the political fallout of a declining economy... and I understand the economic and political concern, but this isn’t the flu... for which there is a vaccine and is far less communicable and lethal. Flu season lasts for 8 months. If Coronavirus goes unchecked for 8 months, the fallout would be disastrous. It’s a false and reckless equivalency.
FYI.... Fox is not neutral.
First, I have seen Dr. Fauci back up the president more so than not. He understands Trump is not a scientist, and in business/everyday life you make decisions off of gut instinct or even data that is persuading even if a theory/medicine/etc. may not be 100% scientifically confirmed because you don't always have time to wait. In this case, we obviously can't wait for all of those and clearly Trump is trying to be as optimistic as possible in this terrible situation.
I'm sure it's in the president's mind (as it would be in any president's mind) how the economic decline may impact his re-election, but to just claim The President is only motivated by political fallout proves your not Mensa material.
Have you ever seen the Movie "The Big Short"? I happened to have seen it many times and clearly remember Brad Pitt's character (Ben Ricker) claiming that 40,000 people die when unemployment rises each percentage point or goes up by 1%?
Since this was a movie, did some basic google searches to see how accurate and here it goes:
1) A Yale study that does not include exact statistics but comes to the conclusion of higher national mortality rate when unemployment increases: (
https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/rising-...cher-shows)
2) Luckily someone responded with some good knowledge on Quora:
It's often credited to Gregory Mankiw and his textbook "Macroeconomics", but I can't find it in my book (the 7th edition), perhaps it wasn't in the actual book but only in the accompanying slides.
Anyway, looking online it shows up in "The American Economy: What it is and what it isn't" by Thomas and Carson on page 300 under the subheading "The cost of unemployment". They cite their source as Bluestone, Harrison and Baker, "The Causes and Consequences of Economic Dislocation" from 1981.
The information put forth for a 1 %-point increase is as follows:
37,000 deaths... of which:
20,000 heart attacks
920 suicides
650 homicides
(the rest is undisclosed as far as I can see)
So, let's do some basic math and we will take 40,000 since we have many more people in The United States of America today than in 1981.
- Unemployment in Dec 2019= 3.5%
- Estimated Unemployment by experts (including 20% by the President's Secretary of the Treasury) in Q2-Q3 2020 may hit up to 20-35%. Levels not seen since The Great Depression or in many cases even higher. We'll take 20% so we don't freak people out and hey it helps your argument against Trump.
Math time:
20%-3.5%= 17.5%
17.5 x 40,000 =
700,000 people dead (Note: You do not do .175 x 40,000. It is an increase of 40,000 for each percentage point increase.)
Now, I myself am skeptical that 40,000 people die directly or indirectly each percentage point unemployment rises. More likely the higher the unemployment number grows, the mortality rate would grow more and more exponentially.
I'll agree with Dr. Fauci that my statement about exponential growth is not confirmed and it would take numerous studies to confirm this quick theory, but I'd bet that is much more likely. Since your Mensa material, why don't you do the studies for me. Thanks!
Anyways, this is going to be a day to day decision on balancing the cost and benefits between fighting the virus itself and fighting the economic downturn as more and more data comes to light regarding each.
Note: Did not proof read so anyone feel free to correct any errors you may find as woo wee long day with work.