52% of people under the age of 45 have been laid off, put on leave, or had hours reduced. Putting the people with young families, or who would have been looking to start families in dire straits is a great recipe for high crime and social unrest.
We have the ability to keep essential workers safe with proper protective gear and guarantee both food and shelter to all for the duration—we just have to decide that we value human life and dignity more than money.
That said, my point is mainly that if the government were responding effectively, we could have had production shifting to ensure proper supplies in January. That could have included toilet paper, too, though I suppose it's possible that even an effective government wouldn't have foreseen that particular oddity of the crisis.
As it stands, our government is hamstrung by the fact that its chief executive cares exactly zero for the wellbeing of the country except inasmuch as it makes him feel like he'll have better chances of winning re-election.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any part of the government respond effectively to anything, to the point of it being an oxymoron. I also fail to believe that the president has much power over anything related. In a state of emergency, the president can get more powers. I am unaware of any that would help. He can imprison, disable services, turn off the Internet, sanction, all sticks and no carrots. I think our president is an ass, but I think it is silly to think “if but for him, our government wouldn’t be hamstrung.”
Edit: clarification on my first post: I was not claiming toilet paper as protective or emergency supplies, but as an example that even trifling things can’t be secured. Let alone things that are actually important such as masks or food.
As far as specific powers the President has, there's one that's already been talked about quite a bit—the Defense Production Act. As I understand it, this grants the power to compel manufacturing companies to retool to produce what's needed in a time of crisis, and to take control of logistics to see them routed in an efficient manner to where they are most needed. As a matter of fact, Trump has already used this to order GM to produce ventilators (I think? maybe it was masks?).
As far as the logistics side goes, though, he's been using it solely to punish states whose governors don't lick his boots and reward those who do (eg, seizing shipments of protective equipment arriving at the port in NYC, sending them to FL instead).
If we can provide enough PPE for essential workers for 6 months, I don't see any good reason why we couldn't provide enough for any arbitrary length of time. (This is assuming that those 6 months are going to be too long for existing stockpiles to supply to begin with, so we'll need to ramp up production.) Given that we can keep essential workers safe, and essential workers can keep producing what we need to keep the country running and people fed and safe, I'm certain there is a limit to how long we could continue to operate under social distancing, but I doubt that said limit is imposed by simple economics. It's much more likely to be related to infrastructure deterioration (unless we designate construction workers as "essential" and make sure they have appropriate PPE, which might require different standards)...and, of course, the original subject of this thread, the psychological toll the situation takes on everyone.
Because, again, our choices are not between "destroy the economy" and "people get kinda sick."
The real choices are between "change the economy" and "millions of people die." And, um, if millions of people die in the space of a few months, that's not exactly going to leave the economy feeling healthy. Not to mention the psychological toll that would take on everyone.
Also consider that social distancing orders are simply unenforceable as a practical matter. I've noticed a lot of people disobeying already, and compliance will obviously decline as time passes.
The reality is that most of us will be infected before a safe and effective vaccine is available. Focus on what is achievable in the real world, not some idealized fantasy.
People do not know what is going to happen, our leaders are not doing anywhere nearly enough to address potential famine and no world leader I have heard to far is even beginning to talk about reconstruction. It's just more endless lockdown without clear metrics for what would even end it.
Democratic leaders must use ideas are currency, and right now, they're not offering people any hope at all.
Do you have a source for this? I'm not finding it with a quick google search
From: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/millennial...
Report cited in quote: http://filesforprogress.org/memos/the-staggering-economic-im... (I haven't read this.)