Understood and agreed. I'm all for reasonable measures to reduce the outbreak (speed limits, safety belts). I have a problem however when people start talking about extended lockdowns for months on end. I think such measures would lead to a true depression with unimaginable consequences.
I'm going to dip out of this discussion for a little bit. I wish everyone good health and hope we are one day closer to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
The challenge is that there’s no middle ground. There isn’t a “halfway” measure to slow the spread of the coronavirus. We saw the piecemeal approach earlier this month with states and cities attempting to encourage people to curb social interactions on their own but not actually taking the step to order closures of public gathering places was completely ineffective.
Unfortunately, too many Americans have shown that if you give them an inch in this crisis, they’ll take 2 or 3 inches, whether it was continuing to pack bars for Maris Gras and St. Patrick’s Day despite warnings or hoarding toilet paper, disinfectant wipes and pretty any other vital supplies and food that people need to get through this time. Pretty much the only thing that people will respond to is an actual government order, which is why it’s so frustrating to see the federal government in particular (but also certain state governments such as Florida) giving mixed halfway messages about trying to open back up as soon as possible even though cases are rising exponentially.
For those that are still somehow skeptical about this being an extraordinary health crisis and trying to compare it to the “normal” flu or car accidents, I just ask how they can ignore what’s happening in New York (much less Italy or China). New York isn’t setting up a makeshift hospital in a massive convention center just for the heck of it in response to a supposedly alarmist media - the health crisis is real and it’s HERE. Chicago (the area where I live) is now doing the same thing with McCormick Place in preparation for the coming wave of patients... and note that the State of Illinois has taken much more stringent statewide measures than Florida over the past few weeks to close off social gatherings and shutting down non-essential businesses. Anyone that thinks that Florida is going to somehow escape this with its Molotov cocktail combination of tourists, vacation home owners and elderly residents without drastic measures (which frankly might be too late to deploy at this point) is probably in for a rude awakening in the next couple of weeks. I really hope that I’m wrong... but pretty much every hope that this wouldn’t turn out to be as bad as it is now has been wrong.
Look - I’m someone with degrees in finance, economics and law. One of my best friends just got laid off this week and my own 401(k) plan has been beaten like a drum. My own employer had financial issues and needed to lay people off even before this pandemic. So, I understand the worries that these measures are causing a huge amount of economic pain. However, what a lot of the people that seem to prioritize the economic argument over the public health argument are missing is that the economic problems won’t be solved until the public health crisis is solved.
When I say “public health crisis”, this isn’t about sheer numbers of death compared to the flu or car accidents or how high the mortality rate might be for COVID-19, but rather the massive influx of patients on our health care system all at one time. Don’t think of this in terms of how many people die per year, but rather what would your hospital system look like if you had *multiple* Hurricane Katrinas or September 11th attacks all at one time. *That* is what we’re facing - it’s the equivalent of multiple massive natural disasters hitting the *entire* world all in a compressed time period. It’s the public health equivalent of an asteroid hitting the Earth.
The problem that I foresee is that federal government and too many locales are still hesitant to rip the proverbial band-aid off for a true nationwide lockdown, which means that once New York gets under control, we’ll see a place like Florida on the upswing of cases... which means everyone the country effectively still has to lockdown even longer and will prolong the economic malaise.
If you want our economy back on track and your stock portfolios replenished (as I do), we should have had a 3-week mandatory *national* lockdown. Our economy would have taken the same massive shock to its system as now, but it would have had the impact of a coordinated national flattening of the curve and give us a chance that this would just be a quarter-long blip to an otherwise healthy economy.
Instead, this piecemeal local approach means that we’ll probably have outbreaks in different locations over a much longer period of time... which means more lockdowns over a longer period of time... which means what should have been a quarter-long economic blip can turn into a years-long economic recession or even depression.
Lockdowns aren’t causing economic pain. It’s the virus that’s causing economic pain, and until that’s under control, the economy can’t function no matter how many people want to believe that we can just magically open up stores and restaurants by a certain date and everything will be magically fine. The only solution to our economic problem is a solution to the public health crisis, NOT the other way around.
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