Wow, I had no idea that Ohio had a line for reporting people who don't show up to their jobs out of fear of becoming infected [1]. It seems crazy to me that people are being asked to choose between their life and their livelihood.<p>[1] <a href="https://secure.jfs.ohio.gov/covid-19-fraud/" rel="nofollow">https://secure.jfs.ohio.gov/covid-19-fraud/</a>
I dream of a world where we could discuss the complex trade offs involved in the situation without people accusing others of just wanting to sacrifice workers to a volcano god.
GDP in the US is about $17 trillion per year. That's the total amount of income we create each year. The top 1% have $25 trillion in wealth.<p>So if we took all the wealth of the 1% (income > $421,926/year), we would be out of their money in less than 2 years.<p>Btw, the total wealth of the US is about $123.8 trillion. We would consume that in about 7 years.<p>On board with redistribution, monthly $1500 checks, higher wages, unemployment checks, paid sick leave, PPP, and all that. But people gotta work. A main goal of policy makers right should be quickly figuring out how to get people back to work safely.<p>The idea that work is a pointless volcano feeding plot is way off, work is creating all the goods and services around you. There's no vault of gold somewhere we can raid to live off of.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_Unit...</a>
Very US-specific, exceptionalistic, arguments in this piece. The fact is that the 1% is making the same aguments all over the world, including all the places that have universal healthcare.<p>>>> They think they won't get sick, and if they do, they think they'll get better. That's because they never had to go without medical care because they lacked insurance or because their insurer-imposed rationing denied them the care their doctors advised them to get, so they are less likely to have chronic illnesses and other comorbidities.<p>But in canada all those workers have health care yet exactly the same arguments are being made by business leaders. The reality is that the 1%, who are generally older, are probably more susceptible to this disease than the workers they hire. Rich people have heart disease. Rich people are old. Rich people are diabetics. They don't want to see disease sweep though the lower orders anymore than the rest of us.
That did not seem anywhere near a balanced argument at all.<p>Is skepticism permissible? Do individuals retain any agency and responsibility for balancing risk on their own?<p>Covid-1984, indeed.
The death rate is about 10 times lower than the original estimates stated.<p>If you don't make stuff then there isn't stuff. People like this act as if goods just materialize from nothing.
We still need to apply caution but what we are doing right now is excessive. This is a new virus, there are still a lot of unknowns but the current situation doesn't warrant a complete shutdown. We need to protect the most vulnerable members of our society. We need to make sure that long term care homes have strict procedures and we owe good care to our elderly and vulnerable. They've earned it and we're more than capable of providing it. The facts seem to be that if your young and healthy you have little to worry about. We should still practice good hygiene and reduce unnecessary contact but we need to do our jobs. We need to produce the essentials that our civilization depends on. It's not business as usual but it is a matter of soldiering on so there will be a world to come back to.