
Europeans Discover the Myth About 'Safety Nets' the Hard Way - RickJWagner
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2020/08/27/europeans_discover_the_myth_about_safety_nets_the_hard_way_575386.html
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iagovar
> Europeans believe in science

¿? I can tell you we have our fair amount of anti-science people. It has been
growing a lot since widespread social media use.

> This collision of reality brought Europe to a logical conclusion. The money
> that is a consequence of production, and that only has value where there’s
> production, plainly ran out. Hence the layoffs. Crucial is that government
> can’t reverse this bit of reality. Only private production can. Which brings
> us back to what’s simple and easy: if countries want their economies
> revived, they must end the restrictions that are limiting the private
> production without which governments have nothing to hand out.

Man, where do I begin.

First, the only (large) country that has properly locked down is Italy.

Second, the whole article is... weird? What's the myth of 'safety nets'? They
collapse if we don't have means to sustain it? Yeah, we knew it already, so?
Is that the myth? That they are magical? I really don't get the point of the
article.

Is it suggesting that we don't get the importance of tourism as an export?

Third, the has been quite a lot discussion in Europe about what to do, and
divergent strategies. Results of such strategies are different too, even
within countries with apparently similar approach. Why? We don't really know,
there are so many variables.. even inside Spain there are wild differences
between regions that aren't apparently doing anything different from others.

IMO the only consensus being reached it's that you can't divorce economy from
public health. If you open an office and some people gets infected, what do
you do? Even if you do nothing, some people won't go to work no matter what
you tell them.

In my company we reacted quickly and pretty much everyone went remote, but
some partners can't, and we've seen them doing quite a lot of acrobatics to
keep the company going. One of those companies, aside from the mandatory mask
and hygiene checks their workers often via private labs, changed AC and
installed copper in some surfaces. I don't think they can do much more. But
they keep getting infected people from time to time.

