Should Americans have been more willing to sacrifice lives for the economy?

There will be thousands of small businesses that will be dead with all that brings to the families involved. The choice isn't that simple. The man and woman raising 3 small children or your 92 year old grandmother? Family collapse effects generations.

 

Can't say. Between twenty five and eighty thousand Americans die every year from the flu, and nobody bats an eye. Occasionally there will be a school here or there that will close temporarily. But that's about it.
The problem with shutting down is that work sustains us. Goods and services don't magically appear from thin air. It must all be worked to bring to fruition. The government can't support 350 million people on a credit card. And you can't borrow your way to prosperity anymore than ceasing to breathe will add breath or length to your life. The slowdown/shutdown has had a hugely negative effect on our economy, health and psyche. Not to mention that it did not prevent four hundred thousand deaths from covid.

 

I've read some of the rationalizations behind this 'new money theory', but the hard, brutal fact is that we are running a national debt-to-GDP ratio that has deteriorated SERIOUSLY!

You sound like someone who knows this already, but I'll remind you that the 'tipping point' is regarded by knowledgeable economists to be 77%. The national debt-to-GDP ratio of the United States is now 107%, and getting worse every time those idiots in Washington D. C. roll out some other half-witted 'rescue' plan, completely STUFFED with various kinds of 'pork' that have nothing to do with really helping anyone but government bureaucrats, some labor unions, a klatsch of 'exporters', and stock market gamblers (all with the 'guidance' of the Federal Reserve central bank)! This fiscal "death spiral" has been getting worse ever since the 'Fed' took over what amounts to TOTAL control of the U. S. economy in August 2007!

By contrast, our chief adversaries, China and Russia, have current debt-to-GDP ratios of:

China: 55.36%
Russia: 13.79%

Link: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-national-debt

 

I know some people have trouble grasping the facts of money creation, but I'll give it a go: if the sovereign currency-issuing nation is not borrowing in foreign currency, it doesn't matter WHAT the national debt-to-GDP ratio is. eg Japan's is about 250%, the US a mere 110%. No sign of inflation or high interest rates in Japan since their property bubble burst in 1990, in contradiction to the mainstream neoliberal narrative.

The key word there is "knowledgeable" .......ie mainstream neoliberal orthodoxy, which turns out to be as much based in reality as "knowledgeable" theologians who insist Jesus Christ is God (via the Trinity). Economics is NOT pure science. If you want to learn :

How come the principles supported austerity one day but fiscal dominance the next? – Bill Mitchell – Modern Monetary Theory (economicoutlook.net)

(the above is a link)

Yes, well that's the mess an unregulated free market economy, funded by private banksters, got the US into in 2007.

Interestingly, the PBof C, unlike the Fed, can create and spend money into the economy. That's a trick the US's Fed may eventually be forced into, signalling the end of the entirely private-sector funded economy in the US.

How to Pay for It All: An Option the Candidates Missed | WEB OF DEBT BLOG (ellenbrown.com)

(the above is a link)

 

At this point, I'll agree with you on what I believe are two of the points you suggest --

1. The Federal Reserve central bank hijacked the U. S. economy, and hammer-locked it into becoming a 'money-printing' enterprise to enrich the almighty-god stock market. They've created an almost indescribably immense 'fraud balloon', which in its own perverse, anti-'free market' way, keeps the economy 'afloat' (kind of-sort of). It's been like this, more-or-less, since August 2007.

Despite all the 'QE's', Operation Twist, Obama's utter negligence, and Trump's cheerleading for deliberately crushed interest rates, the dear market was hitting some serious doldrums in September 2019 with the unsettling "Repo Crisis" (I'm certain you know this, but others reading this may not). And then two months later came "the VIRUS"....

2. Yes, the central bank of China (and Russia, too) obey the government -- not the other way around!

Thus, we're in an even more precarious situation now -- controlled by the 'Fed' and its klatsch of neo-socialist, internationalist stooges in the Democrat Party. This is juxtaposed against Russian and Chinese leaders who are clearly better organized, more powerful, and vastly more capable of strategic thought, planning, and execution.

I hope to read more of your posts. We may not agree on a great deal at this point, but at least you are interesting, and have considerable knowledge yourself....

 

So, the old people should just die? Is that what you're saying? Let's see if you feel the same way when you become old.

Wouldn't the new relief package be a better solution? Money for small business owners, money for landlords so that they don't need to evict that couple with the three kids? Money for individuals and families so they can pay for basic needs like food and shelter?

Yes, it will cost us a lot and rebuilding the economy won't be easy, but like I said, this is America. If we put our will to it, there's not much we can't do.

 

I am old.

 

Russia's economy is suffering under neoliberal othodoxy as much as any nation, since it abandoned its Marxist- Leninist command-economy. That's why Putin is losing control; poverty is now too widespread in Russia, since the price of oil collapsed a decade ago.

OTOH, China has developed a successful combination of free-market. private enterprise with state oversight, including money creation in the state-managed PBofC, aka "socialism with Chinese characteristics"....

 

The economy is life for everyone that doesn't grow their own food or manufacture their own medicine. Any protection of one must be balanced in protecting the other or both become endangered. We've have seriously endangered our economy, and likely will suffer far more death down the road to poverty and supply chain breakdown than we ever would have from Cvirus.

...the option asserting that the economy is equivalent to property is entirely asinine.

 

Please let me give you a tool that you may find very useful: https://www.levada.ru/en/ . I know that, at first, you may respond automatically that the Levada Center is just a bunch of Russian apparatchiks who spin favorable propaganda about Putin, but please check the Levada Center out. You'll find that it enjoys an excellent international reputation as an unbiased and uncompromised opinion-monitoring organization!

Currently, yes, after some definite 'dips' in popularity last year which coincided with the deepening onset of the COVID-19 virus, Putin is generally back 'up' now, with a popularity measured last November at 65%, and a disapproval rate of 34%. Last April, Putin's popularity had declined to a very low point of 59%.

Russia's economy, which as you know is heavily-dependent on oil/gas is very likely to experience a double-shot of prosperity this year, with the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, other profitable ventures in the area of the Caspian Sea, and, the perhaps best of all -- the newly-installed Biden Administration has declared WAR on energy-independence in the United States by killing the Keystone Pipeline and forbidding any further drilling on government-controlled land in this country.

Already, just since Biden won the election in November, WTI crude oil prices have gone upward, from $38/barrel to $54.79/barrel today (2Feb21). And it's not just a momentary 'spike' -- it's developing into a real trajectory....

Now add to all that the fact the Russia's Sputnik V vaccine has gained acceptance from Great Britain's highly-prestigious "The Lancet Journal": https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00234-8/fulltext .

. -- "His future's so bright, he's gotta wear shades!"

 

No dispute from me. But the current anti-Putin protests must have a cause, which I put down to the failure of Putin's government to raise enough people out of poverty.

 

I'd say the protests are centered on Alexei Novalny, an anti-Putin Russian lawyer and political activist, who was educated at Yale here in the States. He founded a group called "Rospil" which looks for and publicizes corruption in exposés which it conducts in Russia. Mr. Novalny was a virtual unknown in the "West" until he was allegedly poisoned by the Russian government a couple of months ago.

Subsequently, Mr. Novalny went to Germany where he was cured of this poisoning, and then he went back to Russia, where he was arrested by Russian state investigators, who said they had opened a new criminal case accusing him of fraudulently spending public donations to organizations he controls on his personal needs.

My German friends don't know anything about it, and I sure don't, either. I guess it's just 'a Russian thing'....

 

The economy (specifically, in this pandemic) IS "equivalent" to real resources, eg food, housing, essential services....

1. The death-toll from failing to manage the pandemic is approaching half a million (more the the total loss of US lives in WW2).

2. The government COULD have authorized the Fed to change the digits in the bank accounts of nonessential workers forced to stay at home during the pandemic, to save lives (by minimizing social contact).

 

And we can't make the old young again.

 

You know the expression "Youth is wasted on the young"? How true that is. If I could start over at around age 18 knowing what I know now . . .

 

And, believe me, not all the "old" would even WANT to be "young again" at this point in the decay and ruination of the United States!

Those of us Americans who have successfully gone on into retirement can easily remember when this country was a much better one than it has devolved and sunk into now.

Prior to "9/11", we were a remarkably different, and far better nation than the unstable, fundamentally-insolvent, desperately-IGNORANT, parasitic pile of crap we've become twenty years later....

Sure... 'death is inevitable'. But, as an 'old guy' in 2021, I dread the idea of an approaching death far LESS now than I used to....

. "There it is, for all the world to see! And they did it to THEMSELVES!"

 

Wrong Question. The Correct Question is: "Are Americans Free to Trade their Labor for pay, if they want to, or to refuse to do so, if they don't want to?" The answer is "Yes".

All an "economy" is, is us all freely exchanging labor, goods and services. We don't "sacrifice" our lives to do so, we do so to preserve and further our lives.

 

You forgot: there is a raging pandemic.

Americans ought NOT be "free to trade their labor" while spreading the pandemic to such an extent it will soon exceed the death toll from the 1918/19 flu pandemic, and the total US lives lost fighting Hitler in WW2.

Even granting that is correct in normal times (and it isn't); in this pandemic the attempt to "save" the economy was directly responsible for sacrificing 500,000 people.

The non-essential economy could have been shut down and stayed locked down, saving hundreds of thousands of lives after the initial loss of several thousands.

And if you start squawking about money, you deserve to be locked-up for murder; the sovereign currency-issuing US government has an unlimited currency-issuing capacity which could have been utilized to save those several hundred thousand lives.

 

The US government only creates new dollars via government debt. The dollar is a defacto global currency for which there is growing demand. The only way to meet that demand is to create more public debt.

 

My question to that would be.

Should Americas feel free to spread the infection and risk others health without fear of any repercussion? Because the problem is, your not just taking that risk for yourself, but for everyone else you interact with also.

If your decision ONLY effected your own well being, I would agree. But that is not the case.

 

Do you realize that we can't all sit home and collect checks?

Your plumbing works because someone is maintaining this pressurized water system, and they are not doing it from home.
Same with your gas and electric.
The drivers bringing packages to your door.
The stores where you pick up groceries.
The Truckers that are delivering the goods.
The Dock workers that are unloading the ships.
The train workers that are maintaining the delivery lines.
The gas stations that fuel the trucks

So, we all go to work, socially distance, wear our masks and constantly disinfect, well, except for the Union School Teachers.

L.A. TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD…: L.A. Unified is officially out of excuses for keeping elementary schools closed.

County officials say COVID-19 rates are low enough to reopen elementary schools. It is an outrage for L.A. Unified to delay any longer.

 

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/432977/

Time for the GOP to offer annual educational tax rebates for parents whose kids do not attend public schools.

 

But the science says 70% of infection occur in the home. That would mean opening businesses and closing homes. Since that won't work we only need to open the businesses. If people don't want to risk patronizing a business, they are free not to. The key is freedom. We all know how to avoid infection. I've avoided it for more than a year. Others can as well. Deaths from covid aren't a given. They are a choice in my view.

 

Can you provide a link to that, please?

 

As always I don't do requests. You are welcome to find a number you like better and post it here if you like.