The coronavirus crisis is very different, at least in its origins, from the Global Financial Crisis. Both differ in crucial respects from other crises in living memory, notably including the Great Depression and World War II, as well a string of severe but not catastrophic crises that have affected the global economy and society. But thinking about them all together brings home the point that major economic crises are quite common events. The crisis of the past took each took between five and ten years to resolve. Even if the current crisis is shorter, we can draw the conclusion that crisis of one kind or another is not an aberration, but a regular occurrence in a complex modern society.
What they have in common is that the result in a need for urgent government action. The greater the capacity and willingness of governments to act to protect society from the economic damage associated with such crises the better, in general, the outcome has been.
The most immediate requirements for dealing with a crisis are a strong and comprehensive welfare state, and strong protections for workers. In the aftermath, we need a substantial economic role for government, including control over infrastructure and financial enterprises and public provision of services like health and education. In short, we need socialism.
(More to come soon!)
John Quiggin 
You’re echoing ‘The Australian’ John!! Simon Benson on the front page of today’s edition has a piece headlined ‘PM looks to nationalise failing firms’.
+ a shed load “In short, we need socialism.” Democratic for me.
I, and I’d wager 99.9% reading this Never imagined reading “He [ Trump ] abandoned his push for stimulatory income tax cuts, instead moving to a socialist model of mailing out cheques to those in need — a crucial step to avoid panic and potential unrest on the streets of America.”
https://abc.net.au/news/2020-03-20/trump-coronavirus-transformation-is-a-warning-to-americans/12070178
And ABC this morning mentioned the rN word! Renationalise.
I agree. This event makes the case for socialism undeniable but it must be socialism for poor people only, not for rich people… or for all people when there ceases to be rich people. The questions are: how much socialism and how fast do we move towards it? I am assuming here that we will remain a mixed economy, to some extent at least, for a long time to come (unless we collapse completely).
The changes needed to move towards more socialism need to be tailored to the crisis and then made permanent after the crisis ceases. There can be no back-sliding again because we always end up in the same pickle: recessions, depressions, business collapses and suffering masses of people. The permanent changes needed are;
(A) The UBI as outlined and detailed by Prof. John Quiggin et. al.
(B) The Job Guarantee as outlined and detailed by Prof. Bill Mitchell et. al.
(C) MMT or Functional Finance principles fully implemented so far as they are empirically consistent long term with real resource availability and fiat currency stability.
(D) Nationalization of all “too big to fail” businesses rescued by government subsidy whether this is done by giving convertibles (bonds or preferred shares that can be converted into common stock) to the government for aid or in some other fashion.
(E) Progressive nationalization of all natural monopoly businesses and strategic businesses.
(F) Transition through ordoliberalism (without any neoliberal component) to true worker managed collectives (like Mondragon) rather than share-holder owned businesses.
(G) Scrapping of person rights for corporations.
(H) Wealth limit laws on persons.
(I) Abti-trust laws for large corporations at least until large, privately owned corporaions are down away with.
The list could go on. That will do for starters. This is not politicizing the crisis. Everything in society is always and everywhere political. Any response to the crisis is a political response. The demand for socialism is no different. It is no more and no less political than any demand to return to neoliberal business as usual and as soon as possible. They are equally political but democratic socialism is better political economy. This is empiricallt proven by the fact that we resort to it in every crisis. It’s the only system for all seasons. It is also the only system that can save the biosphere.
The wealth extraction class will favor fascist politics over socialist reform as they always have done .
Sunshine,
Of course they will but will they win this time?
Alan Joyce was quick off the mark to say that the government had to support “the national carrier”. (Cue video of Peter Allen belting out “I Still Call Australia Home”.)
We can do without the socialism where only the losses are nationalised.
Trump – “A red MAGA socialist Trump winner, ya say? Well I never… now that’s a slippery reformed idea that’ll please my cronies, fool the rest, so win me both.”
Carlson – “Yes sir!”
It came to pass that He (Trump) abandoned his push for stimulatory income tax cuts, instead moving to a socialist model of mailing out cheques to those in need …
“We can do without the socialism where only the losses are nationalised.”
Hey, fair go, not long ago Alan Joyce took a voluntary $6M pay cut to support his national carrier. (His own national carrier support now only $18M)
There is a strong argument IMO for the government to approach any request for corporate welfare with a “we’ll buy part of your business” mindset.
wordpress remains of the day:
It came to pass that He (Trump) abandoned his push for stimulatory income tax cuts, instead moving to a socialist model of mailing out cheques to those in need …
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-20/trump-coronavirus-transformation-is-a-warning-to-americans/12070178
Government involvement, of course. The case for socialism, not proven. Capitalist Taiwan has done as well as any country in controlling the virus. China botched things of course – but I guess it is “bad socialism”. Always the problem though isn’t it?
BTW Taiwan is excluded from the WHO. But its experience in controlling the Corvid-19 virus is of interest to all countries. They acted quickly to introduce border controls and compulsory quarantining. So far, although incredibly exposed to the virus Taiwan has experienced 108 infections and a single death.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/03/19/taiwan-shows-its-mettle-in-coronavirus-crisis-while-the-who-is-mia/
The Taiwanese probably have more people on the ground in China telling them what is going on than any other country. And they know better than anybody when a Chinese Community Party official’s lips are moving, he is lying. The Taiwanese would have known before Christmas what was coming.
It’s not socialism that is the issue, it’s the corruption of the political class by business class that is our major problem.
It’s on par with the mafia.
The fear about socialism is just a diversionary tactic, a smoke screen.
Did China botch things? Well, yes it botched the initial outbreak in Hubei province. But since then it has brought the COVID-19 epidemic under control in China. It has “flattened the curve”. This is IFF (if and only if) it’s figures can be trusted. I don’t know what to think about China currently. Are the figures trustworthy or not? Even if the figures are trustworthy, when they relax controls to re-start their economy, will the virus simply take off again? That seems quite likely.
In contrast, Italy, Europe in general, plus the USA, Canada and Australia really have botched things badly and this is even with ample forewarning. The neoliberal West is looking dreadfully unprepared, chronically under-funded in the necessary areas, hopelessly reactive with very slow-motion response times ands howing a complete ability to understand the real world fundamentals of an exponentially burgeoning real problem (as opposed to problems with unreal, nominal money). There’s something about capitalism where its practitioners cannot see past money. They cannot see the real world, nor can they see real people. Neither of these real domains are seen directly by the capitalist but only through the distorting prism of money.
Power has to be taken away from capital, corporations and the rich and given back to the democratically elected government which should act for all the people. This crisis should be used to roll back capitalism and further democratic socialism.
Of course, there are “no true Scotsman” arguments on both sides. There has never been true socialism and there has never been true capitalism. It’s a spectrum. Clearly, we have gone too far towards unregulated capitalism which has really become through the natural tendency to monopoly, crony/ corporate oligopoly in the West and crony/party oligopoly in the East (China and Russia).
Russia and China have remained despotic. After deposing Czar and Emperor they have never succeeded in establishing democracies. The West has democracies, albeit of various imperfect instantiations. So, whereas the process reaction of;
(A) Medieval Monarchy to Dictator Communism to Democratic Socialism;
has never yet occurred, this does preclude the possible occurrence of the process reaction of
(B) Medieval Monarchy to Representative Democracy to Democratic Socialism.
A lot of people have tried to say that China somehow botched the whole coronavirus thing. There is little doubt that they punished some people for speaking up, in the initial stages, and that’s a significant issue. However, once the authorities really twigged, they responded with drastic but survivable measures to contain the outbreak. Western democracies are not in a position for such measures, but they can come close, without unduly ruffling feathers. The resolute failure of certain democracies has been in pretending nothing was amiss, awry, for *months*, all the while allowing the virus to spread, far and wide.
In Australia, the main route for infection has been from people who came from the USA. Do we call this the “American Virus?” The “Iran Virus?” The “China Virus?” Or do we show a bit more sensitivity and accept that, once in the wild, the virus was going to turn up from somewhere, and soon.Given the latter, how should we deal with it?
The reasonable answer is that the government, as effectively an insurer/issuer of last resort, bails out all the small businesses and, separately, the employed and unemployed and homeless, for the foreseeable future. The cost would be massive, but the social and financial dislocation for failure to do this would be on an entirely different scale. Governments are unlike private citizens, in that they do not have to run a household at a profit, nor do they need to accept what is on offer from overseas. They can step in and make things happen! If they choose to do so. It is not “socialism” (in the classic sense) to step up as a government and to do things that are monumental, if that’s what the situation demands. Failure to do so, on the other hand, that is something history will pick over. As much as I detest the current government (but then, I am never happy with any government), I suspect they are capable if they choose to be of making sh*t happen. Up to them now. But, we’ll remember.
Don, I largely agree with some changes and caveats. I am not entirely sure the main route of infection was from the USA although it was a serious route of infection especially after travel from China was closed. I do think Chinese tourists and students early on also played a big and maybe the biggest role. This is not to blame China or the USA. Rather, our government made serious mistakes by failing to lock down sooner from ALL countries and failing to keep ALL returning Chinese students out. And there has been a litany of government failures after that but then we agree on that part I think.
We have a moat and we failed to pull up the drawbridge. Any commander would and should be court-martialed for that.
isolation etc that prevented any new infections would mean aust could be clear within 4 weeks .
Contra Harry Clarke, Taiwan has done well because of its Big Government social democratic approach, and its relatively recent move to single payer healthcare has widely been credited with helping.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/11/asia-pacific/science-health-asia-pacific/taiwan-coronavirus-covid-19/#.XnSjAIgzaUk
Donald Trump’s callous indifference, incompetence, denialism, nepotism (“Kushner Inc”) and racism (“China virus”) is the epitome of modern capitalism and the conservative ideology that protects it.
The German secret service knew is said to have known pretty much everything right from the start during the Chines denial phase. Since it´s not exactly an organisation known to be particular well connected, let´s assume everyone was well informed. In all likelyhood China just cared about the official version anyway. While its quite disgusting what China did and even more so what they are doing now in terms of prophaganda, it would not have necessarily made the western response any better. Suppose there is a case to be made and i´m sure there will be many papers written about it that secret service knowledge alone did not reach the right people fast enough in a liberal democracy where virologists probably are not used to be in talks with the secret service, but still at the end blame China seems misguided.
You want socialism as a response to the crisis? The UK Conservative government has just effectively nationalised that country’s entire private sector.
Are you using the word ‘effectively’ to mean ‘not’?
The government making cash grants is not the same thing as nationalisation.
Also, for anybody impressed by what President Trump and Republican Senators are prepared to agree to, here’s a different point of view:
https://www.cbpp.org/blog/senate-gop-response-to-pandemic-recession-is-seriously-inadequate
Note this, in particular:
J-D
The UK government is paying 80% of wages to people who lose their jobs because of the pandemic.
The control is there for the taking if they choose to exercise it.
Smith9 “You want socialism as a response to the crisis? The UK…”
So that would be National Socialism? I see tv reports of them rolling out pop-up morgues in the suburbs in readiness to receive confirmed economy sapping useless feeders.
Oh, sure the UK has the power to nationalise businesses. It’s been known that it had that power for a long time. A good many businesses were nationalised by the UK in the past, and many of them also subsequently denationalised/privatised. We don’t need to observe the cash grants currently being made to know that the power to nationalise exists; but the making of those cash grants is not the same thing as nationalisation. Right now, nothing has been nationalised.
I am not convinced we need big government. We need a capable techpcratic state limited to doing what it is designed to do and do it well – like protecting society from pandemics for it is currently manifestly inept at because it was not prepared and ru s a health system on a just in time efficiency model. Not big government as we currently have it which is spread thinly over all our lives with state capability at an all time low.
Thanks JQ and all.
JQ please note the word ** visual ** below. If you want a phase change that is – and topologic coherence.
You certainly have your work cut out. Overnight success – 30yrs in the making. Go for it.
Yet you will have to deal with the definition of socialism, and this lot; and the ensuing Social Coordination and definition problem.
Just this thread;
* socialism for poor people only
* more socialism need to be tailored to the crisis
* how much socialism
* democratic socialism
* more socialism need to be tailored to the crisis
* socialist model of mailing out cheques to those in need
* over socialist reform
* without the socialism where only the losses are nationalised.
* It’s not socialism that is the issue
* The case for socialism, not proven
* but I guess it is “bad socialism
* The fear about socialism
*This crisis should be used to roll back capitalism and further democratic socialism.
* There has never been true socialism
* Representative Democracy to Democratic Socialism
* This crisis should be used to roll back capitalism and further democratic socialism.
* It is not “socialism” (in the classic sense) to step up
* because of its Big Government social democratic approach
* So that would be National Socialism?
For those interested;
“My long-promised post on capitalism and socialism
JULY 31, 2002
…” The problem with definitions like these is that they aren’t really operational.”…
https://johnquiggin.com/2002/07/31/my-long-promised-post-on-capitalism-and-socialism/
“Socialism with a spine: the only 21st century alternative
Soft neoliberalism has exhausted its appeal. The best progressive alternative is an explicit embrace of socialism”
by John Quiggin
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/09/socialism-with-a-spine-the-only-21st-century-alternative
https://johnquiggin.com/2017/10/10/socialism-for-the-21st-century/
https://johnquiggin.com/2017/12/19/socialism-and-social-democracy/
“Socialist utopia 2050: what could life in Australia be like after the failure of capitalism?
From four-day weeks to unconditional basic income to free education, it’s possible to imagine a future where society’s focus has moved from consumption to quality of life”
By John Quiggin
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/17/socialist-utopia-2050-what-could-life-in-australia-be-like-after-the-failure-of-capitalism
** “Social coordination dynamics: Measuring human bonding
“We hypothesized that, under certain contexts, spontaneous synchrony -a well-described phenomenon in biological and physical settings- could emerge spontaneously between humans as a result of information exchange. Here, a new way to quantify interpersonal interactions in real time is proposed. ”
NOTE the word VISUAL
“… revealed that spontaneous phase synchrony (i.e., unintentional in-phase coordinated behavior) between two people emerges as soon as they exchange ** visual ** information, even if they are not explicitly instructed to coordinate with each other.”
Soc Neurosci. 2008 Jun; 3(2): 178–192.
doi: 10.1080/17470910701563392
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2156197/
My thesis will include “spontaneous phase synchrony”.
Ernestine – missing word last reply “eloquent”
I have been price gouged at my local farmer’s market today.
Message… Testing – Testing!
Considering Vo, Italy has”Around 3,300 people were tested, even if they had no symptoms” and 10,000 in my town, and 89 tested positive in Vo, the science & maths says;
My town – 89 x 3.33 = approx 270 cases. One death = min 270 more of us infecting us.
“Professor Cristani said Italian health authorities did not seem concerned by Vo’s infection rate.” Same in Australia.
* “So the town took charge.”
“Around 3,300 people were tested, even if they had no symptoms.
“We tested everybody,” Andrea Crisanti, professor of microbiology at the University of Padua, told the ABC’s The World Today.
“We found that an alarming portion of people were already positive for the virus.”
“Nearly 3 per cent — or 89 Vo residents — were infected with COVID-19.
“Even more alarming for Professor Cristani and his colleagues was that many of the patients had no symptoms.”
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-21/one-italian-town-is-bucking-the-countrys-coronavirus-curve/12075048
Just in…
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-21/number-of-coronavirus-infections-soars-past-400-in-nsw/12076622?pfmredir=sm
I am convinced that we need big government. We need a capable democratic state that is responsive to the entire population and not just to rich people, corporations and their lobby groups. We are not prepared for this epidemic for three main reasons;
(1) The Neoliberal model does not properly fund needed social infrastructure including hospitals.
(3) The corporations, the rich and upper middle class do not pay enough tax.
(3) As a society we spend far too much on tourism, pubs ,clubs, gambling, sport and recreation.
If the corporations, the rich and upper middle class paid more tax we could afford more hospitals, medical staff and medical equipment. If we as a people and our governments spent more on schools, universities, hospitals and staff for them we would be better off. Gold-plating the hospital system is better than gold-plating sports with grants and over-supplying our suburbs with pubs and clubs. Every sporting stadium is a hospital we could have had. Every pub is a school we could have had.
When crises happen, markets fail. Markets are fair weather friends and then mainly work only for differential betterment of the rich. They cannot supply what is necessary in a crisis. They are too inefficient and too slow to respond. The government must step in with full statist measures. Every strategic business saved by government money (like QANTAS) must be nationalized. Every professional sport in trouble must be told make all their money in the market place if they can and to pay for their own stadiums one hundred percent. We are nation building now to fight epidemics, bush-fires and climate change. Non-essential economic activities must do without subsidies.
We must end all subsidies for fossil fuels, sport, entertainment, car racing, horse racing and even tourism. All these activities should make their own way without subsidies. They are not essential. Tourism is not an industry. Tourism is close to pointless consumption. It is fun but it is too damaging to the environment now. The world environment and climate can no longer afford these things. They are luxuries which are destroying the world.
The economy will need adjustment. Workers will need help. This true but we need to press ahead and reconfigure our entire economy away from discretionary non-essential spending into essential spending on health, welfare, education, environmental protection and sustainability, plus the truly productive industries which support us namely agriculture and manufactures plus human services. Sport, entertainment, pubs, clubs, restaurants, car racing, horse racing and even tourism are are purely consumption activities, not productive activities in any way and need to be seriously toned down. The first step would be removing ALL their subsidies albeit doing so progressively as we redeploy people into truly useful activities. Some of the non-essential activities could remain if they can make a profit without subsidies. We need a heavily regulated market for non-essentials and statism for essentials.
Ikon, I am convinced we need new words for; Big Government.
Split up functions with new name via a twenty year process. They wont stick otherwise imo.
Off the top;
– Executive – decisionment
– Reps, Demosment
– monitoring and compliance -Management
Etc
Socialism???
Crapitalism???
Any suggestions? Studies. Citations?
Australia has closed down Chinese students coming to Australia the Queensland Uni has for instance not had 58,000 students come this year.
The spread as i understand it in Australia has been due to returning people from other countries or visitors.
Now the borders have been closed now we are doing testing more in fact in number than the USA.
We are being proactive to limit social interaction.
It does not matter your political bent this is a serious new virus and everyone has to take actions to limit their exposure.
The aspect of ignorant interaction with the media in other countries has not happened here.
I need not repeat the ignorance as shown.
Yes this is going to hurt the economy.
Yes those in power who so decried the actions to stem the GFC are taking the same kind of action.
Please wash your hands after going out and after putting away your goods.
That is about all you can do atm.
Well, we certainly need something. The neoliberal way has had its fair share of stuff-ups.
In any case, we have very little time in which to arrest the exponential growth phase of Covid-19, for it has a doubling rate of every 3 to 4 days, here in Oz. We have 1000 cases already (that we know of) and when we reach 45000 cases, with say 5% needing intensive care in ICU beds, we run out of beds (2230 beds, give or take). Or ambulances or staff or protective equipment. Or some combination.
Take a calculator, use a = 1.3 as the growth rate in infected people, take current number of p = 1000 cases, and multiply, i.e. tomorrow’s infected count = p x a. To get the day after that, multiply by a again, to wit: p x a x a. And so on. Around day 14 to 15, we hit ICU bed capacity, i.e. by the 5th of April. That is barely into the start of April!
A day or two later, and there is no hope of finding enough ICU beds for the new cases. Change a to be a = 1.25, and you gain a day. If a = 1.166 (very optimistic with current strategy), you gain 8 days.
All synonyms of “clusterf**k” seem apposite.
To kill the growth phase, extensive testing of contacts of contacts of possible positive cases is almost essential. That, coupled with enforceable quarantine, and the growth phase can just possibly be arrested in time to avert disaster. Why we have let people disembark from cruise liners and disperse into the community has me beat, for every known case is another start point for exponential growth, so putting them into quarantine immediately prevents them from (inadvertently) doing harm. People are human, they want to go get groceries (or toilet paper, heaven forbid), have a yack with the neighbour, etc. We can’t afford to be blase by allowing “self-isolation” of known infected people, at the initial stages of the exponential growth phase. Don’t our politicians know what compound interest is?
The Royal Commission into this one is going to be a beauty.
Don, you are right in basic terms. I did a rough estimate the other day on this blog where I assumed 1,000 confirmed cases in Australia by midnight tonight, 21/03/2020. I am already wrong on that score as we reached 1,000 confirmed cases at about midday today. Then I assumed a doubling every 3.5 days.
1 week later – 4,000 cases.
2 weeks later – 16,000 cases.
3 weeks later – 64,000 cases.
Someone on TV, more expert than me, has already stated we could see 30,000 cases in two weeks time so my estimate looks low-ball. Even if my low-ball estimate is right we will see in 3 weeks time 64,000 / 20 = 3,200 cases needing intensive care treatment. The data suggest 5% of known diagnosed cases need intensive care treatment. That 3,200 cases is well above the 2,230 IC beds you quote. I am not sure if this ICU bed number sounds right as the USA have about 95,000 ICU beds. But as an expert on TV said, most of these ICU beds in the US are already occupied by the old, the dying, chronic sufferers, cancer patients, car accident victims etc., etc.
Maybe people bought all that toilet paper because they knew the sh*t was about to hit the fan. Just joking. Most people have no idea what’s coming. If they did they would all stay at home all the time except for absolutely essential activities (which is getting food that can’t be delivered and performing essential duties and jobs in society and the economy).
Update.
“According to the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society, Australia has just over 2000 intensive care beds fitted with ventilators, which would be required for COVID-19 patients who become critically ill with serious respiratory illness. ” – Crikey.
Clearly, this will be overwhelmed in less than 2 weeks from now. Maybe within as little as 10 days. We are in deep sh*t.
The failures to date have been about Competence not the relative size of public and private.
We need Competence, loyalty to the general interest, leadership.
Government owned schools will spread the disease as well as private so long as governments allow them to stay open.
The conservative vermin in the Murdoch press, Sky News After Dark and Fox News were busy telling everyone coronavirus was just a blip on the radar until the moment Trump started to take it seriously. Characters like Andrew Bolt should be hung from a lamp post:
According to my local chicken shop people have been buying vege seeds etc from the plant places, and they have sold a lot more chickens than they expected.
So I was unable to get 8 week old layers, instead I have 4 week old babies and at least one is likely to be a rooster based on past experience. Babies are now cheeping away in the nice sunny bedroom that I normally live in, while I am exiled to the spare room (I can only have 4 tenants before having to register as a boarding house and oh boy don’t go there… so I have a spare bedroom).
On that note, I wonder how long until the government starts forcing international students to return to their home countries.
A lot of this comes down to bad macropolicy I.e. super cheap money, which has led to mad asset prices, especially housing. With the counterpart being bad fiscal policy, too restrictionist , reflecting right wing views of the role of government. More generally, we have had too much right wing government over the last 20 years, and with the left over emphasising identity matters rather than broader based equality.
So the answer, as always, is a solid ALP Government with a bit of ticker. Internationally, that would equate to a lengthy period of leftish social democratic hegemony. You could call that democratic socialism I suppose.
There is no point sending international students home now. At the start of the year there was a point in stopping them from arriving in Australia in the first place. That is if they were coming from China. We should not have let Chinese students come back this year but it’s too late now to do anything about that.
Domestically, lock-down is necessary to “flatten the curve” otherwise our intensive care units will be overwhelmed within a few weeks. Since a strict lock-down has not been implemented to date, we can predict that our intensive care units will soon be overwhelmed. That much is clear.
There is very little we know about the activity of this virus yet as opposed to knowing its basic structure. One myth though has been exploded. That is the myth that Asians are more susceptible to the disease because of the ACE-2 receptor issue. Events in Italy have exploded that myth. But we know little about the prevalence of possible asymptomatic infection, asymptomatic transmission, actual contagiousness (R0) in practice except that it can be high without quarantine and isolation and finally the actual rates of critical and deadly cases. These rates cannot be calculated because we do not know the denominator in that equation. There are clearly many hidden cases (not yet tested and diagnosed) in the community. This can be inferred from the high exponential rise of cases but we do not know the size of this denominator.
One very concerning possibility is that immunity, once acquired, may only last months and reinfection may be possible. Some other corona-viruses are like this and some are not. Some common colds are caused by corona-viruses. COVID-19 may also be like this and thus reinfections possible. A current possible myth is that COVID-19 may be dangerously bi-phasic. That is to say a second infection would be much worse. This can happen with some diseases. The body is actually “primed” to respond worse and suffer worse the second time round. But so far this has to be considered a likely myth until when and if it is proved otherwise.
In light of the many unknowns and also of the disturbing knowns like exponential infection rates and ICU’s being overwhelmed (Italy), then the only prudent course is an immediate total lock-down to buy time for hospitals and to buy time for virus research. The economic issue of option value also indicatesthat a full early lock-down seriously flattening the curve and leading to effective epidemic containment will cause less economic disruption in the long term.
> There is no point sending international students home now
We live in a country where “there’s no point the government doing that” is a political question rather than a scientific one. I suspect some racists will settle for nothing less, and my confidence that our government wouldn’t be willing and able to make something of it is low.
Scott Morrison does not understand the point of a lock-down. He also does not understand about the exponential growth of an epidemic. He has stated “If you lock-down now what do you do later?” Let us answer this question in this manner. If you lock-down early you look like China. If you lock-down late or not at all, you look like Italy. The difference is stark.
The empirical evidence is already to hand as to what should be done. We should lock-down as China did. Then, when the pandemic is under control in the sense that the curve has been flattened and hospitals and ICU’s are coping, then you slowly and cautiously re-start certain things that have been locked down. This is kept under review and new lock-downs commence if the the curve turns upwards again.
Scott Morrison and his government do not understand this. Thus, we will suffer the most dreadful consequences.
Ironic we are locking down social interation in meatspace, yet boosting the case for socialism. We need new words.
And watch out for roving rovers!
Second dog in Hong Kong tests positive for coronavirus
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/second-dog-in-hong-kong-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-20200320-p54ccr.html
This is good news. Heck knows we need it.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-22/doubt-over-contracting-coronavirus-covid-19-twice/12075878
Akarog – “It’s not socialism that is the issue, it’s the corruption of the political class by business class that is our major problem.
It’s on par with the mafia.
The fear about socialism is just a diversionary tactic, a smoke screen.”
I agree. Our biggest problems and failures to manage them are not consequences of socialism or capitalism per se, but of corruption. Whether a regime sets itself above the law or allows itself to be the bought puppets that puts their puppetmasters above the law, the outcome looks very similar. Responsible and accountable free enterprise, within democracies with independent rule of law seems to encompass the best of both capitalist and socialist ideals – whereas the “pure” forms are almost always disasters; they seem to tolerate and favour corruption better than within a dynamic mix of government and market based businesses with an independent legal system.
The ability of governments to do whatever it takes when need demands it should not be constrained – and mostly are not, given they can call a State of Emergency. But the nature of their responses to emergencies can be skewed by rigid ideological convictions.
Ikono: I thought the government was now taking “scientific” advice. Don’t the advisors use suitable mathematical models? I know they haven’t done enough testing, but still….
Don says: March 21, 2020 at 6:30 pm – “The Royal Commission into this one is going to be a beauty.”
What royals, what monarchist dinosaurs left?
“Moments of shock are profoundly volatile. We either lose a whole lot of ground, get fleeced by elites and pay the price for decades – or we win progressive victories that seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier.” – Naomi Klein
Exponential growth eludes a lot of people, not just SmoKo. The class maths puzzle “a lily doubles in size every day. On day 20 it completely fills the pond. What day did it half fill the pond?” (day 19). Most people have to think that one through and it still doesn’t fell right, they just have to follow the maths.
For people who are used to ignoring inconvenient facts it’s not a problem with the advice they’re getting, it’s with their habit of ignoring it. “and the High Court will so find”… some things even the Prime Munster can’t order around, and pandemics are much less amenable to political persuasion than the High Court is.
@Hugo
Bolt’s pontifications from 28 January are a classic. I didn’t realise that his many qualifications included ‘epiemiologist’
Moz of Yarramulla – I did actualy pen and paper calculations with my child the other day using the pond “what cover day 47 if covered by day 48”.
From 1 got to quadrillions.
Child finally twigged – half. A 12 yr old. And recognised patterns forming. Nice learning. Covid silver lining?
And we are full self isolation as of Tuesday.
Speaking of Royals, I bet Harry and Meghan are kicking themselves over their precipitate exit from Royaldom. Right now they could be Royals with full privileges and no engagements. What an ill-timed departure! ROFL.
Ikon: OTOH, can you imagine how much fun the gutter press would have with that forn bch spreading forn diseases around the country? It could easily be that she had a lucky escape, because the Jo Cox exit is not out of the question.