Friday thinks

[tielan]

I feel like one question that isn't asked when people are queried about their feelings around shutdown is:

If you didn't have to worry about money - if your bills and payment requirements were put on hold, frozen with no requirement to pay them back - how would you feel about the shutdown for health reasons?

I mean, I don't know if there's a way to parse through that from, "purely in a health sense, not on an economic standpoint, how do you feel about the whole shutting down to keep the virus from spreading?"

Because the concern worrying at most people who want to end the shutdown - not the nutsos waffling on about freedom, as though they had any idea what 'freedom' really is, but the people who put their heads down and try to do their best - is the money, not the health. And I think that in the US, there's no effective difference between money and health, because if you're not earning, you don't have a health plan. And even most health plans appear to be in name rather than practicality. Not having work simply means that your bills are racking up and will need to be paid at some future date.

And a virus is a possibly-maybe-might-not-happen thing - like a young man with a licence and a fast car, thinking a crash won't happen to him - while bankruptcy and homelessness is a far more present and likely future for most people than dying gasping for breath.

There might be an issue of economics in there. Frankly, I think that economics is overrated, and I'd like to see a Universal Basic Income brought in, partly because it shift the balance of power around employment, and partly because I'm a democratic socialist capitalist at heart. Yes, money and progress should be an incentive, but it shouldn't be the basis of our society and our interactions.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

I agree. A basic income would make such a difference, especially right now.

People who are pushing the idea of going back to work are worried about finances, and understandably so. But finances aren't going to get better if you're dead.

So there you are. No good way for things to go.

[tielan]

No, but I guess the math taking place in a lot of people's heads is "I might get coronavirus, but I will get kicked out if I can't pay the rent."

If you have some savings or some kind of insulation against financial straits, then you're more likely to look at coronavirus as the bigger concern.

[kore]

That's a really good point.

A lot of people "pushing to go back to work" are NOT the "essential" workers, who've been stuck working all along. They also want testing and PPE and the assurance their employer sees them as more than a replaceable body. And a lot of them "want" to work because they're sending money to extended family in other countries.

I don't know how it's being handled in other countries, but here in Seattle there's an eviction and rent hike freeze on -- only people who can't pay rent, won't be evicted, but it's not waived either. They just wind up owing back rent until it's due (which is probably going to result in more evictions). I don't think any US landlord would ever ever support a rent or mortgage waiver. They start shrieking about how they won't be able to pay their loans or mortgages or something, and oooh if lots of big time property owners don't get all those individual rent checks, they....I dunno. Have less money to count. (The guy who owns our building owns FIVE more, all nice buildings in the dense urban area.)

[tielan]

I think NSW has an eviction and rent freeze on, too. Which had landlords and people who wanted to be landlords FURIOUS because they paid the mortgage on these places from the rent that came in.

At least one rant from a former friend was quite vicious about the situation.

I get that some landlords operate multiple buildings of rentals, and that those guys are less likely to be in financial straits, and yes, I get that people who had a little extra money and thought that buying a rental property was a good idea are now panicked because they have a liability instead of an asset.

At which point I'm like "the banks can freeze all mortgages and loans in a shutdown, you know; it's not like they're short of money". But no, the account balance of a corporation is more important to the directors than the customers, because it's their KPI - Key Performance Indicator - which must be met at all costs. Even if the cost comes down to turfing a million ordinary people out to live on the streets and in their cars and scrape what they can.

And that's where our society is fucked up.

[jenab]

Now's a great time to roll out a universal basic income, especially with all the different plans the Canadian government is implementing. One plan for everyone would be much better.

My province was one year into a three year pilot project on it however the new Premier cancelled it after saying he wouldn't. Some of the stories I hear from it was stress easing for many people, others able to stop working multiple jobs and others starting to plan to open their own businesses because they had a stable, steady income.

[tielan]

I think I heard about that UBI experiment. I'm so sorry that it didn't go forward because it looked interesting and I wanted to see what the results were.

A part of me wonders, though, how many operators would just increase their prices - "these people can afford more now, so I'll take a bigger share". But then you'd probably have people who wouldn't raise their prices, and those people would then be the ones to get all the business? Maybe?

[pensnest]

I *am* in a situation of not having to worry about money. I feel almost guilty about this, it's like we're playing the situation on Ultimate Easy mode, particularly since as a household of introverts we are not finding our new routine particularly difficult. There are differences, of course, but all bearable. We (three of us) are in a large house, so we aren't on top of each other all the time, and we have excellent broadband. And I don't have to pay for healthcare, because NHS.

It must be terrifying to need an income and have to risk going out to work - I'm thinking of people working in supermarkets and as delivery drivers, ie the ones really in demand right now, but there must be loads of others. The comparative financial security is offset by fears about health. This thing has to be kicking the blue collar workers hardest, because office jobs are in general doable from home. Both my children are working from home. I am safe in my middle-class, pensioned existence.

Lockdown as a response to the spreading virus seems to be a good thing, because it seems to be working. We are getting used to the new normal of queueing to get into the supermarket, and avoiding other people while out for a walk, etc. I just don't know if our societies, any of them, have found the right balance between anti-virus precautions and the economic consequences of lockdown. I grieve for small business owners who have fought to build something up, and now cannot make it work. I feel so sorry for chefs and waitstaff and entertainment organisers and cinema staff and childcare providers - I dare say some of them are now working as delivery drivers, but when are they going to have their 'proper' jobs back? I worry that suicide figures are going to climb, and that at first they won't even be noticed because everyone is looking at the CV-19 death rate. For me, the most annoying things about the situation are the cancelling of certain leisure events I was looking forward to: for some people, there's no knowing when they will get their lives back.

Our government did announce some fairly sweeping measures to make sure people have an income even while they cannot work. I'm pleased, impressed and, frankly, surprised, given who we have in government right now. Implementing the system isn't going to be quick and easy, and there are going to be some people who slip through the cracks, but they did the right thing. We have not had the staggering increase in unemployment that the US is experiencing, because employers are assured that even if they have to 'furlough' staff, the government will support them. There are still plenty of people in difficulties, of course there are, and the insecurity and uncertainty of this situation must be lurking like a sea monster in so many lives.

I do have the strong impression that CAPITALISM is worse in the USA, which means that *people* are given very much less priority. In a time like this, we should all be living in socialist states.

Sorry, this turned into more of an essay than I expected.

[tielan]

I've been unemployed for six months, haven't had to collect unemployment, and have had to adjust my lifestyle only marginally. I know exactly how you feel!

And yes, on the balance. We need to keep things closed to stop the spread of it, but we also need to support individuals who, through no fault of their own, are trapped in situations that they wouldn't usually have to face.

And yes, this will cost money; but better money than lives. Besides which, if we actually claimed the taxes due on corporations who've posted billions in profit, we'd have more than enough to support all the people in need for six months if not more.

Our government has taken some measures to assist incomes, but they're mostly going through businesses to try to persuade them to retain staff and, assholes being assholes, some business owners are trying skim off the top instead of using it as an assist to retain their people. And yeah, there are always cracks - and right now the cracks are pretty HUGE.

And yes, from what I've read, capitalism in the US is rather worse. For starters, they've been indoctrinated against democratic socialist programs (OMG COMMUNISM), combined with the myth of 'self madeness' (I DID IT ALL MYSELF!), with a toxic masculinity cherry on top (REAL MEN DON'T NEED HELP).

Both the UK and Australia have reasonable social programs that are ingrained in our systems and while our conservative leaders would like to be rid of them, if they try any funny business on that front, the Baby Boomers will shit bricks and all their election surety goes out the window. The US...has no such insulation, and with an incompetent at the help, it's so very fucked.

[pensnest]

Trying to find the *people* to implement all these relief programs must be quite a strain. (Some of our civil servants have been working crazy-hopeless already, trying to deal with the looming extra disaster of Brexit. They must need a rest, but they aren't going to get one.)

There is a lot of comfort to be found in the way people, individually, are doing their best for one another. As we have a 95-year-old in the house (plus I'm diabetic) we can't volunteer to do food deliveries or whatever, so I'm comforting myself by donating to things and Being Nice To People via the internet when I can. But we are going to need the people at the top of companies to be decent as well, and they don't tend to find that easy. I would very much like to see proper investigation into what companies have done, afterwards, and severe penalties for abusers.

Yes, we are definitely fortunate to live in places where we expect there to be some kind of safety net for our citizens! In the timeline that should have happened, President Clinton hung on to President Obama's pandemic planning....

[geckoholic]

Good thoughts there; I think every economic system will inevitably show flaws, and there isn't a perfect way to handle modern human society. But yeah. In the aftermath of this crisis, there will be a whole different toll of casualties than those from the virus itself.

[novel_machinist]

I AGREE. Hands down.