Pandemic Economics: ‘Much Worse, Quickly’ | Hacker News Reader

Pandemic Economics: ‘Much Worse, Quickly’

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8 pointsozdave6 comments

One thing on my mind with this is how different the cause is. In many cases, like the great recession, I'd say there was an internal structural, systemic cause for the collapse. But in this case, it's a virus, coupled with top down government lockdowns. That doesn't mean it doesn't economically matter, but wouldn't the recovery process be different, maybe faster?

This is just me thinking out loud; I also expect this line of reasoning could be really misguided. It's not like there aren't any structural problems in the world at the moment.

There are many issues:

- young people have student loans.

- old people put all their retirement into their house - expecting it to increase in value.

- People will be crushed with medical debt (up to 20k) if they get coronavirus and have no insurance.

- The same people have no income because of quarantines.

- The rent is so high for almost every city if you aren't working you can't afford to live there.

If you do the math it seems like there will be a housing crisis when old people start to unload their expensive homes and realize quickly there are no buyers.

It'll probably be a couple months, but when it happens it's gonna be bad for homeowners. Probably better for society and young people though.

"People will be crushed with medical debt (up to 20k) if they get coronavirus and have no insurance." - will people without insurance be allowed COVID-19 treatment? From what I understand it's emergency only and if you don't have insurance you'll be denied admittance into the ICU as that is not emergency care?

I meant if they had bad enough symptoms to be hospitalized. Which isn't as high of a percent, but still quite a few people will need to be hospitalized to recover.

ER's cannot turn you away legally; and if you're bad enough where ICU is a reasonable expectation, it's an emergency.

It wasn't well received here, but there is technically legislation you can fall back on. Even if uninsured. EMTALA. At a minimum, they have to stabilize you such that you are not in immediate danger of dying. Which, again, severe respiratory distress tends to qualify.

This was the website linking to a battlefield consent card for the uninsured. https://www.rickbradley.com/healthcare

Know your rights. It doesn't mean they have to do much more than that, and be ready to fight and raise all hell if need be if someone gets creative on their definition of "emergency". I'd recommend having your attorney, or the State Attorney General on speed dial, and be on good social terms. Make sure to have someone healthy and willing to fight tooth and nail for you as possible. There are few things as effective as a strong patient advocate who will not back down. Make your arrangements now, while you can.

Also, spread the word to everyone you can, and tell them to do the same. I highly doubt any hospital is going to want to risk the backlash of large swathes of their community slamming them simultaneously. Especially if many do escalate to the Attorney General. It's a pandemic, and they are the people in a position to help.

Note, if you have insurance, don't bother trying anything linked there. It's more of a last resort, and is basically guaranteed to eventually result in legal action to resolve things.

Has not been tested personally, but may well end up happening if I or the SO are unlucky and contract something in the next month or so. Also, I am not a lawyer. Just a guy who reads too much.

The problem is that even 20% down for residential and 30% equity for commercial loans is not enough in a stress situation. The real estate market needs to be properly securitized and put on futures and options exchange so risk can be dynamically priced in real time by real market participants. More than 50% of wealth is stored as real estate and we are in the stone ages with how that wealth is managed when we have better financial tools.

Also local governments need to enable online initial registration of cars even for non dealers...

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