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from the lockdowns-were-supposed-to-be-just-one-part-of-defense-at-depth dept.
Economists warn of 'widespread costs' from lockdown:
Blanket restrictions on economic activity should be lifted and replaced with measures targeted specifically at groups most at risk, say economists.
[...] They argue that while the extent to which the lockdown contributed to a subsequent slowing in the rate of new infections and deaths is not easy to estimate precisely, it seems clear that it did contribute to these public health objectives.
However, they say it is "very far from clear" whether keeping such tight restrictions in place for three months until the end of June when they began to be lifted was warranted, given the large costs. They say that the costs of carrying on with such a lockdown are likely to have become significantly greater than its benefits.
Debate over the global dilemma continues.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:18PM (19 children)
You really should take an economics course, socialist boy. Government money is not magical leprechaun gold. It either has to be taken from someone else or printed and thus taken from everyone. Wealth is created by valued human effort and cannot be miracled up by any government.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:29PM (12 children)
Of course it's not. Of course it will be paid for. In 30 years - that's the term of the bonds that were issued
Of course it helps the Australian govt doesn't need to feed a MIC, so it can afford to borrow money.
Of course it's even more helpful that those money are paid to the people, not to the corporations - they can afford to buy things and keep the economy afloat until a treatment or a vaccine becomes available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:36PM (11 children)
That's not how that works. Printing bonds doesn't decrease currency value when the bonds mature, it does so immediately.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:22PM (10 children)
How marvelously genital theory.
Can this theory explain how come 2 months after the Australian govt magically printed AUD1.3T, the inflation dropped into the biggest deflation in 72 years [9news.com.au]?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:41PM (9 children)
Yes, in fact it can. It's basically a Dead Cat Bounce. Perceived value accompanying a change being completely out of line with actual value leading to short term gains. Keeping that bounce going is like playing Jenga by yourself though; that shit's going to fall no matter how careful and skilled you are.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2020, @05:05PM (8 children)
Except you extracted that from your ass. Nothing to do with the stock market (Dead Cat Bounce being a term used there), but even accepting the extension by continuation outside the domain for the meaning, the deflation came after 11 years of ever-shrinking inflation [companydirectors.com.au].
Those 11 years saw almost stagnant wage growth [abc.net.au] (growth adjusted to inflation is practically zero), the sudden deflation is a sign the population has too little money for buying what's already on the market.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @05:19PM (7 children)
Doesn't matter if you're trading stocks or currency. The good in question is irrelevant.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2020, @05:26PM (6 children)
Ok.
So you have 11 years of "appreciating currency" (decreasing inflation) followed by a sudden spike in the same "appreciating currency" (inflation got into negative territory). That's not the definition of a Dead Cat Bounce in any extension of the term.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:42PM (5 children)
No, it's not. And it's also not what you were making a claim on. You were saying "Spending this buttload of money we didn't have this particular year did this wonderful thing" while you're now saying that shit had been trending that way for quite some time and can no longer claim any utility on that particular spending.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 31 2020, @05:36AM (4 children)
It negates you claim of "immediate currency devaluation", tho', letting you with your economic theory still owing the explanation (because it's clearly not a Dead Cat bounce, since there's no bounce). For your convenience, here's what you said:
Yet, in spite of $1.3T injected in the market starting 2 months ago, we now experience deflation: if this is not "increase in currency value" on the local market (same money buys more), I don't know what else is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 31 2020, @11:04AM (3 children)
No, it doesn't. The currency was devalued immediately. If that was hidden by other larger and more flashy factors, it is what it is but value was still lost. If you don't start understanding that soon you're going to have a lot of pain headed your way in the medium term and completely fuck yourselves in the long term.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 31 2020, @11:17AM
Right. We're getting to matters of faith here, because the evidence don't show such a thing.
Assuming those money were never issued on the market, what would be their value?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday August 03 2020, @02:11AM (1 child)
Is this like the enormous debt from WWII? Economy grew enough afterwards that the debt kind of vanished.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 04 2020, @03:29AM
Yup, very much. If OZ wants to devalue their shit and expect the devaluation to be made trivial by growth, more power to them. I personally don't like betting the rent money though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:54PM (3 children)
Your problem is that you have drank the coolaid the rich parasites have been pushing.
The massive tax cuts for the rich cost more than short-term nationalizing payroll, but I don't remember you posting about being upset about fiscal irresponsibility when the tax giveaways were announced. And, short-term nationalizing payroll would have prevented the economic hit.
A small fraction of the relief money went to keeping folks fed and housed. Our corrupt far-right government used most of it as another giveaway to the rich. If we could get rid of the fascists currently controlling government, we could pay the wages of all who are not at work for less than the corrupt Republican giveaways to the rich just since Trump was elected. If we go back to the corrupt far-right Republican and corrupt center-right to right Democrat giveaways to the rich since Reagan, we could pay for everyone who is of working age to retire today. We could also start dismantling the police / surveillance state the far-right with their allies on the right has been building (also at a huge cost human/economic). And, stop the illegal wars of aggression that have murdered millions, and end the gulag at home also both creations of the far-right and right that have huge costs in both economic terms and human rights.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:56PM (2 children)
Nope. When you engineer a medium term economic disaster, no short term solutions will be anything more than a bandaid.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:55PM (1 child)
Oh, is it 2008 again? Or do you mean that the short-term band-aids of 2008 are finally coming off?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @05:20PM
Whataboutism? That's your argument? You know it's not going to make you correct no matter what you point at, right?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @05:29PM (1 child)
In a crisis like this one, printing is -in my opinion- the correct approach to the problem. The fact that everyone's money gets slowly devalued over time due to printing for a short period is a small price to pay for the ability to keep many businesses afloat and people in a job and able to keep paying their bills and buy food and keep the economy going, albeit at a temporarily slower pace. Once a vaccine or other good solution to the epidemic is found, businesses can start to recover and go back to normal, and the printing can stop.
Another side benefit is that debts denominated in the currency which is being devalued also become less valuable, which gives debtors more breathing room. Of course creditors do not like this, so interest rates might start rising eventually. But most creditors are large insitutions which are better able to deal with setbacks than individuals. The vast majority of individuals do not have large amounts of cash in savings accounts so they are less affected by devaluation, but losing their job can cause very serious problems.
The main risk of printing is runaway hyperinflation but I consider that very unlikely to occur. Sure, there's asset bubbles forming in stocks and real-estate in many western nations, but that is nothing new.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:47PM
I don't agree but that at least is a legitimate position that I can respect. I may not always agree with someone but if they put actual thought into their position instead of basing their political stands on feelz, I can at least acknowledge that their opinion is one an adult might be expected to hold instead of childish nonsense.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.