Coronavirus - Economic and Political Fallout: Page 5 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Coronavirus - Economic and Political Fallout

jones

Germanys supreme constitutional court declares the ECBs public sector purchase programme, probably the foremost factor keeping the EU from spiralling into a deadly deflationary crisis in the last five years, to be ultra vires. If the ECB isn't able to prove the "proportionality" of its measures within three months the court will order the German central bank to stop participating in the PSPP.

Whenever in this country you think you've reached the nadir of arrogance and blatant ignorance you're proven wrong. God knows how much damage this ruling will cause, at a time like this especially. Good thing for the presiding supreme judge he won't have to face any of it, he went into retirement literally the day after.

goon

Spoke with the MD today, he’s planning of making a few redundancies while also cutting wages across the board by 20%. No clear idea of whether or not this applies to me but it sucks either way. These sorts of decisions are being made across the country and while there’s talk about a relatively quick recovery once this is all over you can’t help but think it will take a long time for many to recover from this, if at all.

Mirth

The quick recovery is a fantasy - I can understand why it's being entertained since no one wants to panic but I think we're looking at a few years of pain.

Claudius

Most economic models are looking at 12-18 months. What’s concerning is there is an anxiety to reopen offices and factories as quickly as possible without all the necessary safeguards to ensure that they don’t end up in an endless cycle of infections. The father of AI, Elon Musk, is the poster child of this. This rush could backfire. The key to economic recovery is getting the public health situation under control first. But a lot of industries will take the rest of this year to ramp up, particularly where there are physical cross-border dependencies: like tourism or industries with complex supply chains like automotive and airline.

Claudius

There have been a lot of shallow discussions on the disproportionate impact on African Americans of Covid-19. This Ezra Klein interview with David R Williams of the Harvard School of Public Health was the first informative one I've listened. Williams explains this phenomenon by saying its a result of 2 things
1) On average, African Americans are poorer than White people, and poorer people live in neighbourhoods with lower access to shops with good nutrition, and have relatively expensive goods and services. These are also the people doing essential work
2) For Whites and African Americans at the same income level, African Americans have worse health outcomes because the stress they encounter from racism manifests itself in physiological outcomes like heart disease, and can also be inherited by foetuses.

The second point was very striking. He and others have done quantitive research around this

jones

Think this is the wrong thread but anyway - if the second is a real factor then surely the continuing treatment of black people with hydroxychloroquine (the one Trump tweeted about in all caps) should be accounted for somewhere too. People with G6PD deficiency (which is most non-white people, but especially sub-Saharan Africa, black North and South Americans) react highly adversely to HCQ to the point it's literally killing them quicker than any virus could. I've read a document the other day of a study done in Brazil years ago where 12 out of 80 healthy people died from the medication.

Really worried about how HCQ production in numerous African countries is ramped up despite there being very little evidence it's actually helping and a whole lot of evidence it's really harming people. The Moroccan government bought the whole supply off of Sanofi's hands weeks ago and in Yaoundé an international consortium started investing in production for both Cameroon and neighbouring countries.

Meatwad

Claudius wrote:
There have been a lot of shallow discussions on the disproportionate impact on African Americans of Covid-19. This Ezra Klein interview with David R Williams of the School of Public Health was the first informative one I've listened. Williams explains this phenomenon by saying its a result of 2 things
1) On average, African Americans are poorer than White people, and poorer people live in neighbourhoods with lower access to shops with good nutrition, and have relatively expensive goods and services. These are also the people doing essential work
2) For Whites and African Americans at the same income level, African Americans have worse health outcomes because the stress they encounter from racism manifests itself in physiological outcomes like heart disease, and can also be inherited by foetuses.

The second point was very striking. He and others have done quantitive research around this

charlamagne da god likes to say "when you are black, owning a legal firearm in America is a form of self-care."

Mirth

goon wrote:
Spoke with the MD today, he’s planning of making a few redundancies while also cutting wages across the board by 20%. No clear idea of whether or not this applies to me but it sucks either way. These sorts of decisions are being made across the country and while there’s talk about a relatively quick recovery once this is all over you can’t help but think it will take a long time for many to recover from this, if at all.

Furlough scheme over here has been extended till October - tell your MD to stop being a dick.

Klaus

MistaT

Stay far far away from that website, what a train wreck with ads everywhere and videos automatically starting.

Claudius

The whole Bezos as a trillionaire in 2025 concept makes no sense. Amazon is unlikely to generate that kind of growth.
That said, it’s a bit mad that we have moved from talking about millionaires to billionaires to trilliinaires in a couple of generations. Meanwhile, I’ve spent the day looking at how digital payments can improve financial inclusion etc., because poverty and underemployment are still a thing.

flobaba

Klaus wrote:

There he is! Daddyyyyy!

Mirth

Claudius wrote:
The whole Bezos as a trillionaire in 2025 concept makes no sense. Amazon is unlikely to generate that kind of growth.

If Amazon has that kind of growth, Bezos being a trillionaire will be the least of the world's problems.

Claudius

Mirth wrote:
Claudius wrote:
The whole Bezos as a trillionaire in 2025 concept makes no sense. Amazon is unlikely to generate that kind of growth.

If Amazon has that kind of growth, Bezos being a trillionaire will be the least of the world's problems.

So it’s unlikely to pass just because of the value pools available to make it happen. It’s running at $300bn revenue run rate (and 6% net income without Covid). These figures drive most of Bezos’ $150Bn wealth. For him to hit $1tr, Amazon would need to grow 7x at similar net income. The problem is there aren’t that many places to go. The entire media industry is about $700Bn revenue. Retail is $5tr but mostly fragmented and about 80% offline. They’ll run into anti-trust in both places. They can look at gaming and healthcare, etc, but the growth path is harder. 30% growth per annum is a new Netflix or Disney every year.

As for what additional growth means, I alluded to it with antitrust. Amazon’s left a trail of ruin behind it because they’ve befuddled economists with their non-price based market domination. So laws need to be adjusted to include non-price issues to stop them squeezing companies within the retail stack, and then using their retail assets to lock out competitors in adjacent markets.

Klaus

You said it yourself though Claude - we've gone from talking about millionaires to talking about billionaires to talking about the imminent prospect of trillionaires, all within not a lifetime or even 50 years, but basically within the frame of the 21th century; the same time it has taken for Bezos to accumulate money that is equivalent to the entire GDP of Ukraine.

When you own all the wealth

QuincyAbeyie

The number of cases "over time" in the most impacted countries. Look at the dates at the bottom.

Edit: Counties.

Klaus

*Counties, not countries

That is one of the least useful diagrams I've ever seen 😆 It looks like someone accidentally clicked to sort values from highest to lowest in excel.

QuincyAbeyie

Oh, yeah of course. I honestly couldn't guess if it was that they've accidentally formatted it wrong or if they're trying to make it seem like the virus is about to disappear.

Coombs

Klaus

Disgusting.

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