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Settle in, shelter-in-placers, we’ve got another super-sized (and shall we say, impassioned) edition of the Ricochet Podcast. In addition to the robust debaters, we’ve got Deb Saunders (self-quarantined from an undisclosed location) and Arthur Brooks who provides some much needed optimism in these dark days.
Music from this week’s show: Life During Wartime by Talking Heads
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I’m glad you concede that a dead economy can lead to death now. :)
I think if there was a set timeline for when businesses would start to be allowed to function more freely, that would be much better. I think the uncertainty of continued “isolation extensions” is very bothersome and not really helpful. The goal is, after all, to prep healthcare for the flood, apparently, of hospitalizations.
Fine.
State the time required to mobilize since it seems stopping people from getting infected is not actually the end aim. Then shift the strategy.
Keep retirement homes shut down with limited contact. But create the certainty that regular business will resume in most communities–especially those outside of the “hot zones”–on such and such a date.
There are a lot of moving parts, so while I expect the president to set a direction, I am happy that governors are proving to be very important actors in their very different states.
Maybe so. But I think if we had a President Hillary now, or even a President Bernie or President Slow Joe, we wouldn’t be hearing so much about “oh no, the economy!” or “oh no, the unemployment!” At least not from the media.
i.e.
We are in the spot because of government and central bank policy. This isn’t normal capitalism.
I really liked the part where Deborah was talking about the productive economy resenting the government “experts” that get paid no matter what telling them what to do. Here are some investment guys talking about it. It’s pretty cynical.
That wasn’t my point at all. I meant, economy shut down forever, or everybody dies FROM THE VIRUS.
Per the most wild of all predictions, that’s not the case. You’re starting to sound like the climate change people per the apocalyptic predictions. ;)
But I say po-tay-to and you say po-tot-to.
We can agree that both of us are aware there’s a big problem on the American plate: a giant spud o’ some kind of bad.
i.e.
We can’t keep doing this.
Rob, ur kinda being a jerk.
I think this is another expression of a culture which believes it can alter the course of the weather and that good health is a human right.
can u expand on this?
I believe the term you’re looking for is Bourgeoisie.
I’m fine with outlawing sad songs but leave my liquor alone! I need my nightly Jim Bean Black Label with ice at night! Heck, I needed it before this all started.
Well.. That wouldn’t have been quite right.
Marx’s bourgeoisie depended upon those who owned the means of production/capital after industrialization. There isn’t the same sort of economy in the 1600s as the colonies in the New World were being settled by England. This is all agrarian.
But on some levels… uh… yeah. Okay. :)
Oh, @juliablaschke… I read this and say, “Frrrrrriiiiiiiiieeeeeeeennnnnndddd!” :)
And here is the perfect song for the times:
Ok, I’m in the middle of the podcast, haven’t read if someone else might have said this, and I don’t want to shout and frighten the dogs and children:
Why would you not call it the China Virus!?!
I’ll continue now…
Chinese Wuhan Red Death
James right now.
Totally agree. We’re in this financial pickle because the normal process of bankruptcy has been interrupted. Going back to the Long Term Capital Management collapse in 1998, there has been a growing moral hazard on wall street. They’ve been behaving like socialist pirates, the spoils of victories are widely shared (even with just upper management types) but losses are socialized and taken by a government agency. The process of creative destruction must be allowed to resume for large corporations.
Look at MF Global. The MF’ers led by Jon Corzine (former Governor of NJ) sent 42.5 Billion dollars to money heaven, with 1.2 Billion never being accounted for. As far as I know CEO Jon Corzine, had never even been questioned by the FBI.
My expectation is, that if my company went bankrupt, and 1.2 Billion dollars where missing (even Canadian dollars) I would expect some uncomfortable questions to be asked.
Jeez. Just started this and haven’t scanned the comments.
Okay. Now I’m done and I scanned the first page – more than enough, thank you very much.
As I listened, I was making notes in my head of all the things said that I wanted to respond to. Which I’ve decided not to do.
I’m in California. I have six adult children (counting in laws) that have have been deeply effected by the shut down. As have my husband and I.
And I found @peterrobinson ‘s attitude and comments to be unhelpful to the point of obnoxiousness. And I’m glad you weren’t at my dinner table or cocktail party.
What a profound disappointment. How about a little of : we’re all in this together?
I’m not sure if what the government has decided to do is correct or not. And I don’t know if it will work. And I don’t know what would happen if they didn’t take such draconian measures. And you know what? Neither do you.
For anyone who has time to listen to podcasts, I recommend Scott Adams, who is Periscoping twice a day. We are living in trying times. I am choosing to spend my listening time with people who are smart, well informed and optimistic.
PS Arthur Brooks was terrific.
It’s exasperating how few people get this. All of this financial nonsense drives politics. You can do all of the analysis you want but that is how it starts. We don’t practice capitalism. Talking about politics and government exclusively doesn’t work. You have to include the financial system.
For the record, I always like every flagship podcast. I’m not exaggerating.
Disappointing start to the podcast @peterrobinson
There are plenty of outlets I can go to where I can listen to disrespectful, angry speaking, interrupting and general mocking of others. That is not what I turn to ricochet for.
This is not to say I take @roblong to have the correct view … but then I can’t say whether I think he’s right or wrong because he kept being interrupted.
Such a shame.
Perfect.
For the record I think I got that from Rush Limbaugh.
You have to get an easy commie reference in. Then it has two geographical references which is the normal way they do it.
The Chinese communist party forced the world health organization to make both the scientific reference and the cloak your reference to be politically correct. The scientific name should have “SARS’ in it and the colloquial name, far more often than not, has a geographical reference.
Yes, I think its better described as Crony Capitalism but I call it Debtism, because you can’t run a Capitalist system without any Capital. Somebody somewhere has to have a surplus – but everyone seems to be up to their eyeballs in debt.
The only thing the Bush Administration got right in the 2008 Crisis was letting Lehman Brothers to fail. If they’d have let the dominos fall – AIG, CityBank, Bank of America, etc would have gone bankrupt (or at least would have had dramatic reorganizations) that they all would now be on a stronger footing. Wall Street would’ve had some fear struck into them and the Federal Reserve would not have 100s of billions in toxic “assets” on its books.
The only country to get the 2008 Crisis right, was Iceland. They didnt bail out their banks, and they’re in far better shape.
There is just no reason for Wall Street to be that wealthy, controversial, and parasitical. What you call an “agency” relationship. They are critical intermediaries but beyond that they don’t produce jack. All finance should be no more than 15% of the economy, basically.
There are a lot of implicit insults in political debates. I think one of the biggest issues in contemporary politics is that a lot of people sit out of the conflict because fighting seems undignified to them.
That is a shame.
It’s fine to share what we’ve heard so that we can see what holds up to examination and what needs adjustment.
Herd immunity is good to develop, but that only happens when people are infected and their body learns how to fight that pathogen, i.e. gains some immunity. Healthy people in seclusion cannot gain any herd immunity. It’s not possible as long as their body doesn’t have the virus (or a vaccine).
If a healthy large community completely shuts down so that the virus cannot enter that community, no one in that “herd” is gaining any immunity at all. Once they come up for air and the seclusion ends, they are just as exposed and vulnerable as when they went into it. The virus is free to spread just as fast as before the shutdown.
A benefit of temporarily shutting things down before people are sick is to just buy some time, which allows researching treatments, getting ventilators, masks, test kits…
Eventually there needs to be a different solution that bends down the curve (slows spread) through testing and selective quarantine, even while people are working.
When you start the isolation period there are already plenty of people already infected that will create herd immunity. It’s like 80% that don’t get that screwed up. When you get over 14 days the sick people manifest (many of the spreaders) and then you isolate them.
You can argue about how you do it, but that is the theory.