Robin Sears writes that COVID has taught us several lessons. Here are a few:
First, it’s time to begin preparing for the next pandemic, now. We have had a virus attack emerge more than twice a decade since the turn of the century. Let’s never again enter the next one as shambolically as we did this. Better public health funding, regularly inspected and replaced PPE stockpiles, and public health classes for every elementary school student are a minimum.
We have learned how scandalously we allowed our parents to be treated by some in the elder care industry. We treat cattle better than some of the miscreants in this crisis were doing secretly. Every long-term care facility must have legislated requirements about staffing levels, medical support, and no more than two clients to a room. Government oversight was often stunningly careless. Regular inspections and stiff penalties, and timely public reporting on findings, are required. We should all give our heads a shake for allowing these appalling abuses to have taken place under our noses.
We learned that massive and fast injections of cash and credit work. One small example: the U.S. Fed injected 700 per cent more liquidity into their economy in three months than it did in the three years after the 2008 crash. What we don’t know is what the fiscal legacy will be. There appear to be two schools of thought.
There is the usual debate among economists about how long this level of public debt can be maintained:
One group of mostly younger economists say that the global economy can absorb far higher debt levels for longer than we ever thought possible. That high levels of public sector debt are manageable without being inflationary or currency crushing. The United Kingdom, slower than many to respond — but still a provider of massive levels of assistance — has just reported their inflation sits at one half of one per cent. This is not what mainstream economists, let alone right-wing monetarists, said would happen.
The second school, still believers in the traditional fiscal and monetary orthodoxies, say we have bequeathed an alarming unfair burden to our grandchildren. No one knows, today, who will be proven right.
But, as an old man, I'm placing my bet with the younger economists. Finally, we've learned something about ourselves:
Perhaps most impressively, we learned how deep is our shared commitment to each other. From the tens of thousands of essential workers who daily put their lives at risk, to the myriad of small kindnesses that neighbours and friends supported each other with. The predictions of some gloomy pundits that people behave badly, when wracked with terror in a pandemic, were simply wrong.
Massive challenges are ahead of us. And there is no guarantee that we will meet them. But we can meet them -- if we choose to do so.
Image: Quotefancy
8 comments:
As to the economy, the cat is out of the bag. We have all learned that there is plenty of money if the political leadership chooses.
Many of us have learned things of small account that may have lasting effects. Some of us are eating better under Covid than we did before and have no urge to go to a restaurant to eat. Some of us have lost the urge to shop for stuff we don't need. We can exercise without going to a gym. Etc. It may take a long time for a consumer economy to recover.
We have also had time to consider deeper issues such as racism in the RCMP.
We are looking at the potential for great change, Toby. Time will tell if we will or will not seize the opportunity.
I don't know that we have the collective will to pull us out of this dive. This is bigger than we imagine, the economic aspects in particular. Read Nouriel Roubini's interview in Der Spiegel. He sees a consolidation of wealth in the already powerful accompanied by the insolvency of medium and small businesses. He speaks of a looming uprising as the Precariat is tipped over the edge, perhaps before the summer is out. "The Precariat is made up of temporary workers, freelancers, people who work on an hourly basis, gig workers, contractors - even though they often have university degrees. Those who are not in regular full-time employment no longer receive state transfers after three months. These people can then no longer pay their rent and telephone bills, and electricity and water are cut off. It will be a long, hot summer."
https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/nouriel-roubini-the-stock-market-is-deluding-itself-a-a9d3ab21-cfea-4220-8727-5b59105d0858?sara_ecid=nl_upd_1jtzCCtmxpVo9GAZr2b4X8GquyeAc9&nlid=bfjpqhxz
We have a fair idea of the perils that loom over the next two or three decades but almost no sense of our resilience as families, communities and societies. We have avoided looking at how wobbly we are and how easy it may be for us to be destabilized. Virologists can estimate how many pandemics we may have to confront. Climate scientists can predict sea level rise, extreme weather events and such. Economists can toss around concepts of debt and liquidity. Yet each of these impacts has knock-on effects. Each can weaken our resilience to other challenges. Our societies are at their zenith but they've become brittle, inflexible. There are some who will speak of the 'cascade' factor where we might have to deal with overlapping or simultaneous threats. As Jared Diamond chronicles, when societies collapse they are invariably at their zenith and the collapse happens very rapidly.
Father's Day greetings, Owen.
We have more access to information than ever, Mound. You would think that knowledge would give us the power we need to confront the crises we face. But there are signs everywhere that we choose to put our heads in the sand.
In the midst of knowledge and great wealth, we choose our own self-destruction. It doesn't have to be this way.
Happy Father's Day.
Yes we have unparalleled knowledge, Owen. What we lack is wisdom. We are not even wise enough to realize that we must find ways to live within the finite limits of our planet, in harmony with our environment. A ship of fools, I suppose.
Much of what we call wisdom is learned outside a classroom, Mound. And it arrives when we start paying attention. As a culture, we suffer from ADHD.
Had a good laugh, about the economists who believe we can't leave a "huge debt" to the Grandchildren. those economists might want to have a good look around. if the government weren't "supporting" families and running up those "debts" investments in children, we won't have to worry about Grandchildren having to deal with debt. the Grandchildren won't make it to adulthood. They'll die of disease, malnutrition, etc. This living long thing we have going on is only a thing in "modern" times, since WW II. Until then only the rich lived long lives and even then not always.
To give those economists a better look at the reality of living without money, drop them in some second or third world country without money and see how long they last, or drop them in any economically deprived area in the far north or the U.S.A. and see how old they get to be. About a hundred years ago, when we didn't have social services and government support the average life span of an adult in G.B. was 51.5 years. if you want to see poverty, watch, call the Mid Wife on PBS or Knowledge network and you will see how people lived following WW Ii in G.B.
Canada was better but we had more room. but if you didn't have money or were out of work, you went hungry. Even back in the 1950s, life wasn't that great if you were without money. those economists just don't have a clue. The government either spends the money now or there is no future. Hey the big corporations such as the banks may just have to start paying their fair share of taxes, no trusts to avoid taxes, no off shore etc.
Just to have a look at Canada: Indigenous, average life span for males--68.9; women 76.6. Non Indigenous Men--78 yrs, women 81.
Spend the money. We don't need more dead. A lot of dead are very economically draining on an economy.
It's all about having the money circulate, e.a.f. The more money that circulates through the more hands, the better the economy works.
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