[empath75]

Successive lockdowns and easings are probably going to continue for up to two years. Anybody arguing that the stock market or the economy is going to bounce back quickly in the next two months are either bullshitting you or deluding themselves.

No “stimulus” package is going to be effective, because you can’t use spending to stimulate an economy which has been forced to stop producing goods and services. All you will accomplish is inflation as more money chases fewer goods and services.

[vladd]

The economy is going to change, for sure. But different verticals are going to react differently to this state of intermittent lock-downs. Travel-related industries (hotels, restaurants, airlines, oil) are going downwards. Food delivery and gym@home equipment is going to sky-rocket. At the end of the day, it's a gamble to state where overall GDP or stock-market is ending, but over time increased air-born disease risks are going to facilitate new industries to come to life, and old ones to offset. Just like it always happened.

Like Warren Buffett says, "From a standing start 240 years ago, Americans have combined human ingenuity with a market system to deliver abundance beyond any dreams of our forefathers...". There is nothing to suggest this is suddenly going to stop moving forward, even as we adapt to these new realities.

[empath75]

I’ll just give one example of how things will change — massive amounts of women are going to leave the workforce. Schools and day cares are not going to be reliable for the foreseeable future and women are more likely to quit their jobs and stay home if that becomes necessary.

[vladd]

There are significant second order effects (and 3rd, 4th degree effects and so on) that are difficult to foresee and accurately simulate. For example, just to continue on your train of thoughts, the number of average children in existing young families is going to go up, which is going to increase food consumption and, potentially decades later, construction activities in real estate.

[alexhutcheson]

> the number of average children in existing young families is going to go up

Intuitively, you'd expect that, but the data from previous epidemics show the opposite effect:

- http://www.populationassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/CAD_...

- https://ifstudies.org/blog/will-the-coronavirus-spike-births

[frosted-flakes]

Why would young families suddenly have more children?

[evv]

Something I saw on Twitter the other day:

"in 9 months there will be a baby boom, entirely consisting of firstborn children"

[swsieber]

There are various memes floating around about how there's going to be a surge of kids conceived during this quarantine/social distancing times.

In short, it seems likely people are going to have more sex when they are stuck at home.

OTOH, I know people with children who are going crazy. I don't they are encouraged to have more children.

[core-questions]

> I know people with children who are going crazy

I am going crazy, but my kids are also learning an absolute ton from having all this 1:1 attention from someone who is totally invested in them. I've seen big strides from each of them. Their character is really coming out.

I'm one to look for silver linings; this is surprisingly one of them.

[shahbaby]

Most people are desperately looking to the past for guidance on what the future will bring.

[x3n0ph3n3]

The same reason that there are spikes in child births 9 months after a long snowstorm.

[DenisM]

>either bullshitting you or deluding themselves

Was this the best possible way to treat an intellectual disagreement? Surely people can disagree with you without being liars or delusionary?

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[danharaj]

Surely people can tell you the Earth is flat without being delusional or a liar.

At some point, when the stakes are so high, willful ignorance is harmful and should be called out.

[amylene]

The difference is that flat earthers reject objective evidence. This is someone disagreeing over projections about the future. And, to be frank, nobody has a fucking clue how to estimate the medium term effects of this.

[danharaj]

If nobody has a fucking clue then anyone who is certain that the economy will recover in 2 months is either deluded or bullshitting themselves.

But we do know certainly that we will only be hitting the peak of infections sometime in April in states that were much more proactive than the median. It is extremely unlike that things will clear up, say, by Easter. Those who are so optimistic are innumerate and don't understand exponential functions.

[amylene]

Yes, certainty in future economic projections is delusional, but it’s a delusion that is well received by society. Humans prefer confidence over competence, and abhor uncertainty. Right now, we have a lot of uncertainty.

[IgorPartola]

/r/Wallstreetbets just had someone put $775k, the person’s entire net worth, into options on the idea that the market will crash by 6/19. I am sure comments like yours give them hope that they are right.

Personally, I think that the economy will change significantly, but crash vs recover for markets is different. If suddenly workers got a fair wage and everyone got universal healthcare we could easily see the country doing a lot better while the markets would tank as this would undoubtedly be paid for by loss of corporate profits.

[masonhensley]

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/fpo4y5/brot...

[alexandercrohde]

That's a dumb bet. If the system crashes odds are pretty high they aren't getting paid.

[bob33212]

From a first principal perspective there is no reason why anyone should think that it is impossible for China or another country to create 2 billion vaccine doses in the next 6 months. There are plenty of reasons to say this will not happen but it isn't impossible. If it does happen everything flips very quickly.

[pretendscholar]

Which first principles are you using to come to that conclusion?

[gizmo686]

From a practical perspective, there seems to be no appetite in the medical community to attempt this. We have vaccine candidates now, and the consensus opinion seems to be that we should go through the trial process. There just isn't much room to shorten the timeline without cutting corners and safety and efficacy verifications. Unless we learn something dramatic and terrifying new about this virus in the near future, I don't see what would cause this calculus to change.

[marcosdumay]

Before administering a vaccine into everybody, we must first make sure it's not worse than the disease (on average, what is a very high var).

This test takes some time, so no, not on the next 6 months. One can realistically expect it by 2022, if we are willing to rush and accept some risk.

By the way, 6 months is how long it takes to create a batch of flu vaccines.

[bawolff]

Huh?

From first principles there is no reason why anyone should think that their won't be 2 billion vaccines tomorrow (perhaps via divine intervention). Heck, from first principles I'm not even sure Australia exists (Maybe Australia is a giant hoax. After all, i have never been there.)

Proving things from first principles is really hard. The fact you weren't able to disprove a statement from first principles is not strong evidence the statement is actually true.

[bob33212]

Sorry, I don't believe in a magical skyman as a first principal.

[bawolff]

Well you can of course take anything you want as a first principle, this is kind of an odd choice. Typically people take as first principles foundational things they believe to be true but know they can't prove. Things like, our memory reflects things that happened in the past or other people exist as real people and aren't just complex NPC.

Most atheists believe that there is no reasonable evidence for a deity, thus it makes no sense to believe in one (or some varation of that). In particular they believe this conclusion is rational and can be arrived at through reasoning. Taking "there is no deities" as a first principle, is in essense taking a view about religion on just "faith". My understanding is that to most atheists, this sort of appeal to faith is an anathema.

[empath75]

It’s also possible no vaccine will be discovered as there are no coronavirus vaccines.

[fedorareis]

There are no human approved coronavirus vaccines. There were a number of SARS vaccines that never finished clinical trials because SARS became pretty much a non-issue before they finished. There are also coronavirus vaccines approved for animals. Both of these things could potentially help with faster developing a vaccine for COVID-19.

[heavenlyblue]

Your black-and-white answer to this also has a pretty low probability. We may not find a vaccine, however we may find ways of treating the illness making the ICU less needed.

[anonsubmit2671]

First part is mostly correct.

Second part, you're dead wrong in two areas. Manufacturing of essential goods continues in haste. And, stimulus is essential for people have lost their jobs and need to buy food. So take your theoretical keyboard economics degree and leave it at the door. Let's take away your source of income, ability to work and see how you feed your family.

[empath75]

It will keep people in their houses in the very short term, but it won’t fix the overall economic problems if the economy is frozen for a year or more.

[throwaway122378]

For the next 2 years? You understand that there are antivirals being tested as we speak and vaccines in trial for a 12 month release right?