The world after the pandemic

[Rippounet]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because if the raw materials are not locally available it may be prohibitively costly to produce “Item X” locally.

Is the place of production determined by the availability of raw materials today?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Is the place of production determined by the availability of raw materials today?

It is certainly a consideration.  If you want local production doesn’t it make sense to produce what can be produced easily locally... locally?

[Rippounet]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It is certainly a consideration.

But can you say it is a major one?
Could you show that in a global economy the availability of raw materials is always "a consideration" ?
More than (for example) the cost of labor?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

22 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

But can you say it is a major one?
Could you show that in a global economy the availability of raw materials is always "a consideration" ?
More than (for example) the cost of labor?

I truly do not know.  

[Heartofice]

45 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Since we're entering one of the most devastating depressions in history I have to confess I have no clue what "catastrophic effects" you're imagining exactly.

 

Right so, if we are looking at an economic catastrophe, where is the logic in making moves to deepen the effects of that catastrophe and drag them out even longer? 

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One way or the other, our governments will be facing tough choices to chart a path toward recovery. One way or the other not all industries and all jobs will be saved.

I mean I agree with this, I just find it strange you would pick the aviation industry. If you'd said 'coal mining' or something I think it would be easier to agree with you because that's an industry where there are alternatives and it doesn't contribute much. But the UK aviation industry is worth something like £20 billion and contributes 1 million jobs, and it's not like everyone is gonna get on a boat or an air balloon. I can't see how anyone can wave their hands and say 'UBI' as if nobody would notice if these industries disappeared.

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Not all industries or corporations will be bailed out anyway, so why not make the choices with climate change in mind this time? From a purely economic perspective the end result would pretty much be the same

Why would the end result be the same? Not all industries are equal, some are more valuable than others. If you killed off the airline industry tomorrow it has enormous knock on effects for the rest of society. 

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 in fact there's a pretty solid case to be made that choosing demand over offer works better to recover from a crisis.

How does a government determine what goods and services are in demand? 

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For some reason you remind me of some objections that were heard at the end of the Cold War. When it seemed likely that the Soviet Union would one way or the other agree to a groundbreaking arms reduction treaty with the US, there were some who said "but what of the people employed in the armaments industry?"
The jobs were actually saved with the US invading Iraq.

I'm not sure why you think comparing the aviation industry to the arms industry is in any way a fair comparison to make at all. 

Look overall I get the sentiment. Use the extra money to help developing industries grow and subsidise industries which are greener. Stuff we should be doing already. The big problem is that in a time of extreme economic crisis where one of the most important things to do is to try and pull ourselves out of the hole the crisis has created, it doesn't seem like a good time to chop off your legs by crippling a huge economic sector of your country, thereby adding decades more economic decline to the existing mess.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

The big problem is that in a time of extreme economic crisis where one of the most important things to do is to try and pull ourselves out of the hole the crisis has created, it doesn't seem like a good time to chop off your legs by crippling a huge economic sector of your country, thereby adding decades more economic decline to the existing mess.

Empirically and historically speaking, stimulating demand (through UBI or other government-provided benefits) is probably the quickest way to economic recovery.
The opposite position in our exchange, which would be to bail out airline companies, is the one that makes no sense from an economic perspective and thus would likely prolong the crisis (or at least waste a lot of taxpayer money).

My bad. I thought what I was saying was pretty basic. Maybe not...

[SpaceChampion]

There is some reason based on comparing cities that locked down quickly in 1918 vs those that didn't that shutting everything down flattens the economic curve too, by allowing them to bounce back faster economically.

[Zorral]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/coronavirus-who-will-be-winners-and-losers-in-new-world-order

..."le jour d’après" ... {as Macron is suggesting after be called}

 

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[....]

In Hong Kong, graffiti reads: “There can be no return to normal because normal was the problem in the first place.”

[....]

“The crisis also represents a stark test of the competing claims of liberal and illiberal states to better manage extreme social distress. As the pandemic unfolds it will test not only the operational capacities of organisations like the WHO and the UN but also the basic assumptions about the values and political bargains that underpin them.”

Many are already claiming that the east has won this war of competing narratives. The South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han, in an influential essay in El País, has argued the victors are the “Asian states like Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Singapore that have an authoritarian mentality which comes from their cultural tradition [of] Confucianism. People are less rebellious and more obedient than in Europe. They trust the state more. Daily life is much more organised. Above all, to confront the virus Asians are strongly committed to digital surveillance. The epidemics in Asia are fought not only by virologists and epidemiologists, but also computer scientists and big data specialists.”

He predicts: “China will now be able to sell its digital police state as a model of success against the pandemic. China will display the superiority of its system even more proudly.” He claims western voters, attracted to safety and community, might be willing to sacrifice those liberties. There is little liberty in being forced to spend spring shut in your own flat.

Indeed, China is already on a victory lap of sorts, believing it has deftly repositioned itself from the culprit to the world’s saviour. A new generation of young assertive Chinese diplomats have taken to social media to assert their country’s superiority. Michel Duclos, the former French ambassador now at the Institut Montaigne, has accused China of “shamelessly trying to capitalise on the country’s ‘victory against the virus’ to promote its political system. The kind of undeclared cold war that had been brewing for some time shows its true face under the harsh light of Covid-19.”

[....]

Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, also fear an authoritarian contagion, predicting in the west “a new barbarism with a human face – ruthless survivalist measures enforced with regret and even sympathy, but legitimised by expert opinions”.

By contrast, Shivshankar Menon, a visiting professor at Ashoka University in India, says: “Experience so far shows that authoritarians or populists are no better at handling the pandemic. Indeed, the countries that responded early and successfully, such as Korea and Taiwan, have been democracies – not those run by populist or authoritarian leaders.”

Francis Fukuyama concurs: “The major dividing line in effective crisis response will not place autocracies on one side and democracies on the other. The crucial determinant in performance will not be the type of regime, but the state’s capacity and, above all, trust in government.” He has praised Germany and South Korea.

South Korea is in fact selling itself as the democratic power, in contrast to China, that has best handled the crisis. Its national press is full of articles on how Germany is following the South Korean model of mass testing.

But South Korea, an export-oriented economy, also faces long-term difficulties if the pandemic forces the west, as Prof Joseph Stiglitz predicts, into a total reassessment of the global supply chain. He argues the pandemic has revealed the drawbacks of concentrating production of medical supplies. As a result, just-in-time imports will go down and production of domestically sourced goods will go up.

[... ....]

Europe’s chief solace is to look across the Atlantic and watch the daily chaos that is Donald Trump’s evening press conference – the daily reminder that rational people can plan for anything, except an irrational president. Nathalie Tocci, an adviser to Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, wonders whether, much like the 1956 Suez crisis symbolised the ultimate decay of the UK’s global power, coronavirus could mark the “Suez moment” for the US.

 

As someone else suggested somewhere: what's happening in the USA is cronyism has taken the place of capitalism, and the entire function of the so-called government is to protect and amplify the power, possessions and survival of the very rich.

[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Empirically and historically speaking, stimulating demand (through UBI or other government-provided benefits) is probably the quickest way to economic recovery.
The opposite position in our exchange, which would be to bail out airline companies, is the one that makes no sense from an economic perspective and thus would likely prolong the crisis (or at least waste a lot of taxpayer money).

My bad. I thought what I was saying was pretty basic. Maybe not...

Come on now, lets not get patronising, at least try.

Stimulating demand is a tool that can work in certain circumstances, if there is a demand problem. It might be useful to some extent after the crisis is over, not ruling that out. It's not a cure all though. 

The biggest issue I have with your posts is that you don't seem to see the economic importance of the aviation industry and treat it's death as something that won't have much effect, as if it's just about a bunch of holiday makers going on trips to the south of spain once a year. 

The aviation industry IS vital, just because we can't use it right now doesn't mean it isn't. There will have to be an aviation industry of some kind. Not bailing failing companies out is something I am totally on board with, the government shouldn't be subsidising failure. But this is very different because you are seemingly suggesting a country doesn't need an airline industry.

Again going back to the UK's aviation industry, worth £20bn a year to GDP and 1 million jobs. If we just let that go, let that stop existing over night, what do you think will happen? We just pay those 1 million unemployed people UBI until they retrain to work in the industry that replaces aviation.. except there won't be one because it's not like there is a like for like replacement. 

It of course makes perfect economic sense to back the airlines, because so much of the UK economy is reliant on the ability to travel in and out of the country. 

 

[A wilding]

19 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Again going back to the UK's aviation industry, worth £20bn a year to GDP and 1 million jobs.

I suppose that that is only 4% of the UK workforce, but that still sounds somewhat high. For example I happen to know that the number of UK Airbus employees (who are anyway likely going to be losing their jobs after Brexit) is about ten thousand. I imagine it must be including jobs preparing in-flight meals and so forth?

To put it into context though, probably about a million people in the UK have already lost their jobs as a result of this pandemic.

[Larry of the Lawn]

43 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Come on now, lets not get patronising, at least try.

Stimulating demand is a tool that can work in certain circumstances, if there is a demand problem. It might be useful to some extent after the crisis is over, not ruling that out. It's not a cure all though. 

The biggest issue I have with your posts is that you don't seem to see the economic importance of the aviation industry and treat it's death as something that won't have much effect, as if it's just about a bunch of holiday makers going on trips to the south of spain once a year. 

The aviation industry IS vital, just because we can't use it right now doesn't mean it isn't. There will have to be an aviation industry of some kind. Not bailing failing companies out is something I am totally on board with, the government shouldn't be subsidising failure. But this is very different because you are seemingly suggesting a country doesn't need an airline industry.

Again going back to the UK's aviation industry, worth £20bn a year to GDP and 1 million jobs. If we just let that go, let that stop existing over night, what do you think will happen? We just pay those 1 million unemployed people UBI until they retrain to work in the industry that replaces aviation.. except there won't be one because it's not like there is a like for like replacement. 

It of course makes perfect economic sense to back the airlines, because so much of the UK economy is reliant on the ability to travel in and out of the country. 

 

What kinds of jobs have you worked?  I'd imagine that there is major positive transfer of skill from the airline industry to many others, in almost any capacity.  An airline attendant is probably the epitome of any customer service position, and other technical jobs are probabaly easily cross-trained.  Yes there will be some kind lost but it's an unsustainable industry as it exists.  Why not use this opportunity to change it for the better?  

I mean if you're only interest in short term solutions, sure, protect it at all costs and deal with the much higher costs down the line.  If you want your grandchildren to not be climate refugees though may not be bad to act now.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

The biggest issue I have with your posts is that you don't seem to see the economic importance of the aviation industry

Oh, I think that's a rather unfair characterization of my sentiment on the matter.
It would be much more accurate to say that I don't give a fuck.

I think you missed the point of my little Cold War anecdote.
At the time there were some people who would rather be threatened with nuclear annihilation than lose a few million jobs.
Those people were idiots.

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, A wilding said:

I suppose that that is only 4% of the UK workforce, but that still sounds somewhat high. For example I happen to know that the number of UK Airbus employees (who are anyway likely going to be losing their jobs after Brexit) is about ten thousand. I imagine it must be including jobs preparing in-flight meals and so forth?

It's jobs directly and indirectly affected by the aviation industry. So you know, not just air hostesses, but all the hotels and shops near the airports, the logistics firms that rely on services airlines, plus all the other businesses in the surrounding areas or, businesses that rely on travel.. I mean the whole thing is huge and actually I doubt it's only a million jobs. 

1 hour ago, A wilding said:

To put it into context though, probably about a million people in the UK have already lost their jobs as a result of this pandemic.

Sure, so what possible logic is there to add to that number in such a catastrophic manner?

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

I mean if you're only interest in short term solutions, sure, protect it at all costs and deal with the much higher costs down the line.  If you want your grandchildren to not be climate refugees though may not be bad to act now.

Right, so what are you expecting are the 'short term effects' of closing down the aviation industry? 'Some people lose a few jobs? Bah, whatever, we just pay them using our ever dwindeling pot of cash!' 

Unfortunately it wouldn't be a short term hit the country 'gets over'. Yes we need to be taking measures to make air travel cleaner, maybe slow it down a bit, but calling for the extermination of air travel is moronic. MORONIC.

8 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It would be much more accurate to say that I don't give a fuck.

Well you bloody well should. What a stupid comment.

 

[Zorral]

You know we really don't need an aviation industry that flies GMO cut roses from Colombia to NYC everyday.  Florists did just fine without that for decades, even at least two centuries, which I think is about how far back florists a dedicated business goes?

We could start raising loads of things right here.

That nations can't manufacture things locally because we don't have essential elements or chemicals or whatever, that is the frackin' most silly thing ever.  China became the global manufacturer and supplier while it imports almost all of the elements from other countries, because it doesn't have them itself, particularly Africa.

US Big Pharma had manufactured most its products in Puerto Rico, but with the Accension of the biggest bad and its determination to starve Puerto Ricans to death to make the island safe for only millionaires 18th vacation homes after Maria -- well there ya go.

Such frackin' tunnel vision, sheesh.

 

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You know we really don't need an aviation industry that flies GMO cut roses from Colombia to NYC everyday.  Florists did just fine without that for decades, even at least two centuries, which I think is about how far back florists a dedicated business goes?

[A wilding]

20 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It's jobs directly and indirectly affected by the aviation industry. So you know, not just air hostesses, but all the hotels and shops near the airports, the logistics firms that rely on services airlines, plus all the other businesses in the surrounding areas or, businesses that rely on travel.. I mean the whole thing is huge and actually I doubt it's only a million jobs. 

Well that feeds into Larry and Rippounet's point then doesn't it? Never mind global warning destroying civilisation, we must at all costs keep the hotels round Heathrow going because the staff working in them will never manage to find other jobs.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, A wilding said:

Well that feeds into Larry and Rippounet's point then doesn't it? Never mind global warning destroying civilisation, we must at all costs keep the hotels round Heathrow going because the staff working in them will never manage to find other jobs.

Sorry you’re right! You’ve won me over...yeah it’s fine, I’m sure they can all get new jobs doing something else, all 1 million of them.. I mean it worked out so well when we closed down all those mines. We have that big pot of imaginary money we can use to pay them with while they ‘learn to code’

[ljkeane]

A million people losing their jobs isn’t a small thing.

More to the point though beyond the significant economic cost governments won’t be torpedoing the aviation industry because people don’t want it to go away. More people care about the benefits they get from widely available flights than care about climate change.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

A million people losing their jobs isn’t a small thing.

More to the point though beyond the significant economic cost governments won’t be torpedoing the aviation industry because people don’t want it to go away. More people care about the benefits they get from widely available flights than care about climate change.

So, we're going to just end rapid international and intercontinental travel?  That's the plan?

[ljkeane]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, we're going to just end rapid international and intercontinental travel?  That's the plan?

Er, no, we're not. That's the entire point of my post.