The curve is huge, I'm getting a little scared. How are you holding up?

[mathguy]

The social distancing has only been to slow it down and give an amount of control to the public so they feel like they can do something. They needed something to slow it so the hospitals ect don't get overloaded to the point where we become another Italy, having to triage who lives and who dies and losing alot of health workers in the process. This last 2 weeks bought the govt time to play catch up and get logistics in place. Stimulus was to ensure a fresh injection of cash when they do lift it.

Now it is to the point though where you have to do something with the economy or it will end up worse than the virus. We have a flexible economy but it has its limits until it will break and if that happens you'd see the modern day version of the 1929 stock market crash but much worse due to the interconnection of various micro economies now. You'd see widespread bartering, breakdown of govt and social services, followed by anarchy in worst case scenarios.

Some great points AJ. I agree, beginning with your hypothesis about the govt buying time, getting logistics in place, ending with the fragility of the economy and that we are at a point where we have to do something (with a small caveat to that last part I'll explain in a sec).

Just to be clear to everyone here, I don't care about the political view of any of this stuff. I am not Republican nor am I a Democrat (I don't partisan identify). However, most would likely call me a liberal; and I do happen to absolutely loathe our president, in words that even I can't express! Lol

I don't want this to be political. I mention this now only b/c I realize after listening to some of his crap why people are seeing my posts an "uncaring" recently.

So, let me be as crystal clear as I possibly can be with respect to Trump, politics, etc... : I am NOT one single iota, not in the slightest bit, in agreement with whatever nonsense that man has spouted about economics, or how elderly may have to pay the price, or whatever other garbage and incoherent babble came out of that man's mouth. Ok? I just want that out there.

Ok, back to the economic aspect. I wouldn't say we are quite *yet* on the precipice of disaster economically, BUT I do think if we continue in this current manner where likely only half the economy is functioning, especially for more than 8wks (maybe 12 at the VERY most & that's pushing it soooo far), we could create such a dystopia that is so awful that the cure might not even be worth it. If you understand how economies work it doesn't take a genius to see what is going to happen if we don't fix it.

My great fear, regardless of whether this virus turns out to be 1/10th as deadly as the flu (this would happen once we can test millions more) OR it turns out it really is 5-10+ times as deadly, either way, we have to do something to get a large portion of the economy working again. We at least need it back to, say, 85+% capacity or we risk creating a catastrophic future that will make the Great Depression look like child's play. The hole could get so deep there just isn't any way out.

I also agree with Jefferson SF about the "party" rebounding everything. I totally agree. However, my fear now is it's taking too long and the fever pitch is getting out of control.

Realize that each 2wks or so that go by, each month that the govt had to infuse cash (which isn't nearly enough btw - we'd probably need another $1-$2Tr/mo @ least) the "party" (from pent up energy to get back to work, play, spend, etc) that needs to happen, which would spark significant economic rebound, becomes exponentially larger to fix the hole we are digging. :/