I am in the hospital having my treatment at the moment and in the past, every time I have come here there has been a very friendly team of nurses working who I have got to know. There are about eight of them, with two or three being present each session. Today, there are two strangers and they are less friendly than the others. After three or four years of doing this every two months, it is a bit weird to be asked if the medication in the drip sounds familiar to me - it doesn't instill confidence. Though, the needle went in easily and it looked cleanish.
But, these days the most dangerous thing in the world is Covid-19.
The danger of the virus aside, what is interesting with it all has been the many trillions of dollars already spent globally to "combat" it, while simultaneously crippling the economy. The massive increase in global inflation combined with the decrease in average earnings is going to get very painful, very quickly, but that is something else.
What I wanted to write a little on is the opportunity cost of the response. What I mean by this is that when for example there is some kind of influx of foreigners into a country that will cost money, the local response is often "take care of our own first" - which perhaps might be justified in some circumstances. Every movement comes with the opportunity cost of the resources not being able to be spent somewhere else.
Now, my issue is that while all of these governments have been able to find the income for locking down and imposing control mechanisms and tracking to citizens - they have failed to respond to something like the obesity epidemic that sees the US with 70 percent of the population overweight and 40% very overweight. This is a global trend with the US being ahead of the curve, with an estimated 3 million people around the world dying each year directly from being over weight. In the US alone, 650K people die from heart disease each year. What are the measures taken to combat this most deadly disease?
I don't know what it is for sure, but one estimate I saw from August was that the US has spent seven trillion on Covid-19 responses and the cost to the economy is going to mean future income is going to mean reduced ability later. You know what else 7 trillion dollars buys? 175,000,000 Tesla 3 electric cars (there are 270M registered cars in the US). But, there is nothing that can be done about the environment or the air pollution that kills 100,000 Americans annually. Wanna know something else interesting? That is about the same number of people killed in car accidents in the US each year too. So potentially, 200K lives could be saved yearly for the same amount.
This is without mentioning that in the US, there is no money for universal healthcare either...
My point is, that while the world's largest volume of government spending has taken place in 2020, a whole host of other activities that could have improved our lives over time and built business, rather than destroyed it, wasn't taken. For example in Finland, 6 billion is spent on oil imports for transportation and the fleet of 2 million cars has a changeover rate of 10 years. Yet, there is very little subsidy for buying electric so that owners will consume locally produced energy. But - spending on Covid response would likely cover all of those changeover cars in total to full electric. There has been 384 Covid-related deaths to date, in Finland - money well spent?
I wrote an article the other day where the 644 billionaires in the US added one trillion to their wealth since April and in Australia, the top 200 richest added 25% to theirs on average. The money is being spent, but it doesn't seem to be going to where it actually aids the majority of the community. The response to this has been swift and extreme, while there has been what is essentially a non-response to so many other issues that have plagued us for years and have taken magnitudes more lives.
There have been many failures in the way this Covid-19 panpanic has ben handled, but the biggest failure is all of the other failures in the handling of all of the other factors that are causing us pain daily and have been plaguing us for years. There is "no money" to spend on improving the handling of the environment so we can breathe easier and handling weight associated problems is too difficult - yet there are trillions available to lockdown and kill the economies of ordinary people, while forcing them into behaving in a far more controlled way, being tracked and herded using fear as the driver.
This is okay?
Everything has an opportunity cost, including saving lives. The problem is that when there are simultaneous situations in play, we have a trolley problem scenario. We are all standing on the tracks - we seem to be changing the course to save a few now, in a direction that will see far greater numbers die down the track. We are not only all poorer for this, but the spending on it will delay spending on all the other things in the world that could have been done to improve our lives, while we get bled for generations to pay for what has already been spent in 2020 and al the knock-on effects to come.
The year of perfect vision.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
No. This is not OK.
At least crushing your economy has lessened the death rate in Finland. The US has not done a good job at that as 263,000 have died in the US.
1 in 10 people in North Dakota are infected. 1 in 1000 have died.
I don't even know how to argue health care in the US anymore. You'd think the dipshits would start to understand with 263,000 excess deaths since March. They don't. They want to further erode what we have.
Speaking of adding to the top 1%, Elon is now the second richest man alive. Tesla is the largest car maker in the world by net worth. And he's done that with perilously little Government assistance.
I wonder how many more would have died in the US without government intervention? Double? Even the lemmings in North Dakota have realized that there are things you can do to mitigate the spread and that individual action is THE most important aspect to control.
Ugggghhhhhh.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I wonder what the difference in death rates are between types of people? I think this would be an interesting metric to see if there are groups that are more vulnerable than others. Finland has hardly locked down over the last 8 months in comparison to Australia, but the rates of death are equally low. In Finland, there has been less than 100 deaths since May, but if you look out on the streets and in the shops, people aren't exactly "sanitary" in their habits.
I also question what is happening to people through the lockdowns and what will change in their habits to make them more susceptible to other negative conditions. There are plenty of bad backs going on at the moment for example - that has ramifications to quality of life for the rest of life potentially.
After the crash on 2008, the government was looking (or did - can't remember) to cut the cost of school food served to kids (it is normal here) by giving lower quality to save 2 million euros a year. a couple years later they spent between 12-20B on fighter planes.
Society tires me out and perhaps we need an asteroid to put us out of our self-inflicted misery.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Well, that or a good pandemic.
One non functioning Ford Class Aircraft carrier (the Ford has been in 'Sea Trials' for 18 months and can't get certified as serviceable) would pay the health care bill for the entire US forever. One FA-35 fighter would pay the cost every year. But we couldn't do with 99 we need to have 100 per year.
Society tires me out, also.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
The "funny" thing in Finland is that the "reason" for military expenditure is to protect against the threat to the east. Seems like a worthy cause - until the estimate is that if they attack, Finland could hold out for about 20 minutes. Literally twenty minutes. I reckon if they put up all of their WWII planes, it probably would take them 40.
The worst thing is that Finland has no major natural resources other than water and wood, which Russia has plenty of both. The value here is in the people and if attacked, the value is lost, so why do it?
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
@tarazkp, Russia always wanted to own a port that did not freeze in winter. So, Russia conquered Finland and the Baltic states.
During the Tsar-Russian period, Finland was a Russian territory.
The United States, Britain, France and Germany are preventing Russia from taking Finland now.
Russia is likely to wage war with the United States, Britain, France and Germany while trying to conquer Finland.
So, Russia made Finland a neutral state after conquering part of Finland's territory.
Currently, Finland holds important values as a buffer zone for Western countries and Russia.
So, when Finland is conquered by Russia, its value is lost.
There was some discussion before it reached US shores along the lines of there likely being a high death rate among Americans due to the high rates of obesity. Smoking and pollution were also high risk indicators.
Funnily enough I said something similar recently, except it was more along the lines of a solar flare big enough to EMP the planet. Your chosen method is probably much quicker and more final, though.
It wouldn't surprise me that with a little big data, the patterns would be quite clear from a general sense.
The EMP would just turn us back 20K years. We would unfortunately still be humans :D
Lol! Touché. Not much confidence in human nature changing, then?
The data isn't being published, generally speaking. Fairly early, like March or April there was an early study involving smokers. The death rate was a tick higher per capita but the infection rate was statistically lower. U of Arizona study. Never seen a followup of any sort.
I'm sure we ordinary folks couldn't handle the results of the studies so they are being kept from us.
Our death rate in the US isn't so high, but the infection rate is just about off the charts.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.What I learned from Covid-19 above everything else is that when the government tells you that it can't do something it simply doesn't want to do something. Speaking from a German point of view here:
I could go on like this forever...
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Pretty much everything done by general governments is insincere at the best. The 2015 migrant crisis was a test of response and Europe failed. It will happen again at a higher magnitude soon enough.
Anything that matters to people is done incrementally, anything that matters to governments is done wholesale.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
From what I recently heard or read, the money to lock everything down has come from the IMF (International Monetary Fund). So until they offered every country this money to lockdown (although apparently Belarus refused it), the money wasn't there. This money will, of course, have to be paid back, so we should expect to see tax increases further down the line. Not that this money even existed until the IMF created it on a computer.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.And, the problem lies in the mindset where the government is doing everything in their power to actually save the citizens. However, as you mentioned in the article, saving lives now versus making sure everything is done in a sensical way is a dichotomy that we are witnessing which should not be the case. The economic debt we are seeing here in Canada during COVID will have larger impacts in the long term.
The housing market, unemployment, economic diversification and many other issues are there that need to be dealt with putting COVID response in the center. It is one thing to saving few lives now and another to steer your traditional economy to a new sustainable path that will ultimately be a new economic normal.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
It is going to have generational impacts in more ways than just the economy also. There will likely be an increase in dysfunctions in the home, which will also affect the kids who will grow in a society of more dysfunction. The affects are far-reaching.
In 5 years from now, with they be spending on preventative healthcare or like today, reactive?
Thanks.
It seems countries like Canada, not sure about Finland, like to think that they have the best health care system to prevent health care challenges including pandemic. However, they are yet to modernize the system that was designed in the sixties which requires overhauling. The issues that we see here with Long Term Care homes are the example of the problem we have. The government thinks its being preventative but they are actually reacting. And, they have no time to think and react on how they would like to rebuild their economy to be climate smart and finance-smart (is that a word? 😇).
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.Yes, in total agreement on this one. This time, like far too many others, all the politicians both high and low want to "do something" that "proves" they have "done something" when all the "solution" provides is a short term checkbox without any real long term value. What they should have done here was invest money in funding healthcare, training and staffing up to handle the issue. This could have then gone to supporting the next critical flu virus that pops up. Look at history, there have been many such crisis before, and there will be many again. The answer is not to cripple the economy and create yet another crisis (oh I forgot that was part of their political agenda too). What we need is a real solution to the issue at hand. The claimed issue was that we would overwhelm the hospitals. Well, then fund the hospitals, staff them up and create jobs instead of stealing them by forcing businesses to close. They should also be creating isolated urgent care facilities as well as dedicated hospitals or wings to isolate the virus positive (and their healthcare providers) instead of mixing them around all the other sick people who now are at higher risk. Meanwhile they go about wondering why opening schools (with the highest historical flu infection rate), sports, and propagating a false sense of security to people that a near useless cloth mask will protect them so they think it is ok to go out like normal. Bah! Creating their own self-fulfilling prophecy. .
The teachers have to wear a mask at the daycares. I have to wear a mask when I drop off my daughter to the daycare. I kiss my daughter a thousand times a day. she isn't wearing a mask. What is the point?
I think that people should start recognizing that the government is there for them and start demanding that there is preventative healthcare, not just crisis management. That includes making sure the environment is improving steadily.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.It is the fear factor and control factor. It has so far been pretty easy it seems for the world governments to rack the fear points up where it concerns Covid and Pandemic. The overweight issue has been called a pandemic in America for a long time, but it is not contagious so people think it wont happen to them or their family members. The car and fossil fuel use issue gets brought out every now and then, but the "End of fossil fuels" has not come about as talked about in the mid nineties with the Peak oil dilemma, much like the coming Ice age from the 70's or the global warming of the 90's.
World governments have something now that they can instill fear into the population. They have a control mechanism they have been seeking for sometime. It has bought world governments together in away that nothing since WW2 has been able to accomplish.
Fear is the easiest way to control, the trick is to divide enough first for the conquering to begin.
Yes and no. I had a discussion with a colleague the other day about this when he said "but it isn't contagious" - a it technically is. When it has become normalized into part of our culture, our behaviors and response to it change. It is like advertising that drives the sale of obesity. Once the wheel is turning, it speeds up and creates a gravity that pulls more in to increase the likelihood of joiining the ranks of the obese. It is the same for any cultural idea, isn't it?
It is, I suppose, the same for cultural ideas.
In America we are a culture based on convenience, whether that is food, marriage, divorce, work, or even play. If it is convenient then it is acceptable anymore. Out of milk go to a convenience store, need a wife look on line, need a divorce look on line, need a job look on line, need something to play look on line.
I kind of feel sorry for the upcoming generations. The convenience culture is spreading rapidly. Soon it will be convenient for one set of laws world wide, one ID, no nationality, a convenient society of sameness.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.You've certainly put a few things into perspective here.
I think that what should come out of this at the very least, is a far greater amount of spending in preventative measures, rather than reactive.
But prevention isn't as lucrative as a treating. I won't even say cure, because that's not very lucrative either.
As hubby watches more things on common law and the removal of freedoms, I'm starting to realise that things like the Magna Carta being signed were never for the sake of the people as we see them now, they were for the noblemen. The majority of the populous were still serfs and not even considered to be in the class of "Men." Over the years we've started to see ourselves as people with equal rights, but those in the positions of power who earn from us never have. We are still just the product.
I feel like we can be viewed like a farm. A smaller scale farmer will be more likely to look after his flock, putting preventative measures in place, because any loss is going to have an impact on the bottom line. A large scale farm can afford to lose a few, so preventative measures are a cost that eats into his profits. Cheaper to treat a problem if it comes up. Then, of course, there is also the point where a farm is exceeding capacity...
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.Being in a hospital now must be unpleasant knowing what is happening around the world now. I hope that you are good and take care of your health😊
!ENGAGE 20
I think it is worse for the hospital staff who have to be there all the time listening to everyone complain :)
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Actually I think that you are right. Some of the staff though has stopped caring and here in Romania there are many who are plain rude with the patients just because they are fed up. I am sure that working in a hospital is a very hard job, but no patient wants to be ill so compassion goes a long way
Since the covid 19, the government has borrowed money all in the name of getting cure and feeding for people in the isolation center but all are lies but they never thought it wise to borrow money to create job opportunities for the unemployed youth.
Till today, they can't give a detailed account of how the money was used but it is said that they owe a huge amount of money. They said that there was no money to get enough food to distribute for everyone (most especially the poor) but during the Endsars protest, it was said that some palliative was found in some abandoned warehouse. Whose food is there and where did they get money for those things.
The governments are liars and fraudlers
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
jobs for the youth is a waste of money that could go into the pockets of the rich.
I don't know what the point of elections is when the elected don't tend to do much of much.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.Good evening. I wish you a speedy recovery and good health. Thanks for posting.
Your post has been voted as a part of Encouragement program. Keep up the good work!
Try https://ecency.com and Earn Points in every action (being online, posting, commenting, reblog, vote and more).
Boost your earnings, double reward, double fun! 😉
Support Ecency, in our mission:
Ecency: https://ecency.com/proposals/141
Hivesigner: Vote for Proposal
ENGAGEtokens.