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Comment by empath75 | Hacker News Reader

As long as we ignore that the economy is in very deep trouble, the economy will be fine.

The economy is in trouble because of the virus, not because of lockdowns or following advice of medical experts.

People scared to die or spread a viral infection to loved ones => reduction in eating out, going to concerts, or traveling => major economic pain for the service industry.

Obviously the voluntary actions people are taking is having an effect on the economy. But when you declare that entire sections of the economy are illegal ("non-essential"), then this has an even bigger impact. Now businesses that could have tried to stay open with certain precautions are simply out of business. This puts even more people out of work.

Also, the voluntary actions people are taking are affected by how they see this pandemic, which of course are in turn heavily affected by media reporting (and also how other countries have reacted).

I'd guess the hairdressing and restaurant industries (for starters) would not agree.

The restaurant industry would be wise to note that the steep decline in customers preceded the lockdowns, and are being very slow to tick back up in states that have lifted theirs.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/05/19/american...

Getting people to come back will require making them feel safe, regardless of whether the government says they can open.

A dataset showing that restaurants had zero customers during lockdowns can't possibly be accurate, since they're still open for takeout. I'm sure there's some real trend being exhibited here, but how do we know people aren't just not using OpenTable?

I'd figured wording like "fill tables" and "restaurant reservations" made it clear enough they were talking about eat-in, not takeout?

People like me stopped going to restaurants well before governors were even seriously talking about lockdowns, and won't be going back for many months, if not many years.

That said, at least in the US, there are quite a lot of people that will go back as soon as lockdowns end. And in-person service is a big deal, because people dining in drink a lot of booze, which is a big moneymaker. If I ran a restaurant, I'd be praying for this moment.

Isn't it more like

Government orders businesses to close => restaurants, concerts, stores are closed => people can't eat out, go to concerts, buy stuff => major economic pain for the service industry

No.

Restaurants saw a decline in bookings before those lockdown orders, and haven't bounced back to normal in opened-up states.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/05/19/american...

Your comment is funny because in essence, it's kind of true. Economy only works as long as people keep buying (heh) into the idea. I agree that the form of our economy can change substantially but human cooperation via barter and trade is a sound institution on this Earth, and this pandemic has shown that if people are unhappy with circumstances, they will simply pretend as if everything's fine.

Makes me imagine an "end to civilization" where there is a large contingent of folks pining to return to normalcy while the world literally burns.

In so many words, we fucked up our economy because we didn’t have a robust/flexible/scalable approach to managing the quarantine.

It’s an epic fuck up for sure, it’s getting even more epic now that places like California are still extending the lockdown.

We didn’t have the courage to lockdown sooner, and now we don’t have the courage to open up sooner.

California's not still extending the lockdown. Restaurants are beginning to reopen, and almost all businesses are expected to open in June.

So I’ll believe that when I see it. The deadline got moved three times already.

Sure, that's fair, but I think there's reason for optimism this time. Many counties are actually opening faster than they'd planned at the beginning of the month.

I genuinely can't tell if the parent is being sarcastic or not.

I would say that if it cannot be decided whether a comment is sarcastic or not, then it actually sits in the saddle point of the truth.

Can't gauge if you're being sarcastic or serious honestly.

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