
Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds - hhs
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-food-rent-basic-expenses-coronavirus-crisis/
======
roenxi
I suspect shutting down such broad swathes of the economy is unprecedented
even in wartime. Nobody has any idea what we are toying with here or what
happens next.

It wouldn't be surprising if everything worked out well, and it isn't
unthinkable that this ushers in the worst decade of chaos and suffering in the
last 200 years. The economy is the most complicated machine we have and nobody
knows what it is doing right now.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
I can't help but recall that the Great Depression and the resulting widespread
poverty is considered by some historians to be one of the factors leading up
WW2.

~~~
eloff
I would say the suffering, hyper-inflation and widespread poverty imposed on
Germany by the allies after World War I was a stronger proximate cause for the
rise of the Nazis and the war in Europe. A very depressing illustration of the
proverb that you reap what you sow. WWI was a complex jostling for power of
the kind that had always happened in Europe, but on a scale and devastation
never before seen. If not sparked by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand,
it would have likely been sparked by something else. WWII, on the other hand,
was probably entirely avoidable, if not for the Treaty of Versailles. At least
in Europe.

~~~
axguscbklp
Not sure about that. From what I understand, the German economy was recovering
nicely and the Nazis were doing poorly in elections in the late 1920s. Then
the Great Depression hit.

Nazi share of the vote in German federal elections from 1924 to the Nazi
seizure of power in 1933:

    
    
      May 1924 -   6.5%
      Dec 1924 -   3.0%
      May 1928 -   2.6%
      Sep 1930 - 18.25%
      Jul 1932 - 37.27%
      Nov 1932 - 33.09%

~~~
unhomedcoder
unemploymemt in Weimar 1932 was 30%.

umemploymemt in the Reich in 1936 was 1%.

like some wise economist said "it's the economy, stupid."

i hear today US unemployment is 30+% and will hit 45% by July. i guess if
America was ever going to repeat the steps from Weimar to Reich, that time is
now.

what was Hitler's formula for his economic miracle? it was dead simple.

1\. default on the War Debt (owed to America)

2\. pour over 50% of GDP in the re-armament in preparation to go to War.

America is -$27 trillion in debt now. if we start ramping up the war machine
to test drive the eagle against, oh, say, Chy-na, then start to worry about
the new Weimar to Reich tramsition.

may you live in interesting times.

------
nimbius
Im sure someone on HN has explained this before, but why are the markets
steady and rebounding when the actual state of the US economy is so dire??

I've been waiting on that promised $1200 check for 2 days shy of an entire
month now, and every day that passes I see another bar or clothing store or
furniture outlet with boards up on the windows.

~~~
bitlax
If you know better than the market you should buy some puts!

~~~
ericb
This always seems a bit circular to me? If you participate, then you are in
the market, and you become part of its efficiency. Ergo, you are correct.

------
aaron-lebo
Goes without saying, but it is shocking how quickly the world has changed. The
easy take would be that a lot of people are finding out how the other half
lives, without easy access to healthcare or using credit cards to pay bills,
but the poorer are disproportionately affected.

The only positive, if there is one, is the ability to really consider how our
societies operate, how dangerous apathy and incompetence are and for tech
workers more specifically, to realize how much of an impact our work has.

The next time someone wants to act like they know what the future looks like,
remind them to have some humility. Be safe yall. This too shall pass.

~~~
cactus2093
Sorry but I can't help but remark on the contradiction in your last
paragraph... Nobody knows for sure what the future will look like, but don't
worry, you know that this too shall pass and things will go back to normal.

Just reminding you to have some humility.

~~~
iamthirsty
> you know that this too shall pass and things will go back to normal.

No, we don't. Who knows if this coronavirus will ever truly go away? What will
the new "normal" be like when—if—things truly settle down. Surely our world
will be forever marked by this event.

~~~
__blockcipher__
> Who knows if this coronavirus will ever truly go away?

Wait, what?

I keep hearing this notion floated around and I'm honestly very confused.

Are people under the impression that our lockdowns are going to eradicate
this? Or are you using "going away" as a metaphor for "will recede to the
background level of death from flu/etc that we have learned to tune out?"

It should be stunningly obvious that a highly infectious respiratory disease
that is present in every country, originally came from animals and has shown
the ability to infect other animals will _never be eradicated_. There's too
many reservoirs, even if the totalitarian dream that everyone seems to want
were a full reality.

If you meant the other sense, then it should be equally obvious that this will
eventually _pass through the population_ and we will build immunity to it, at
which point Covid-19 joins the friendly cast of characters such as the common
cold coronaviruses, common cold rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, influenza, etc. In
short, _a disease that kills people but not in numbers that we freak out
about_. (And incidentally once the globe has been exposed to it it should be
much less deadly than Influenza since new humans will be exposed to it as
babies/young children and not as 80+ year old nursing home patients, and Covid
simply does not kill young children in significant numbers)

What's that? Do I hear the "There's no evidence for immunity to covid-19"
crowd in the distance? I'm getting a bit tired of that line, but if someone
wants me to dismantle that argument (again) I am happy to.

~~~
xkapastel
> It should be stunningly obvious

> it should be equally obvious

Clearly it is not obvious, considering most people have never spent a
significant amount of time thinking about how infectious diseases work.

> What's that? Do I hear the "There's no evidence for immunity to covid-19"
> crowd in the distance? I'm getting a bit tired of that line, but if someone
> wants me to dismantle that argument (again) I am happy to.

Why make a snarky, coy comment like this? If you have something to say about
immunity then just say it. In fact the WHO are among those who make this
claim[0], so "dismantle" away.

[0]: [https://www.who.int/news-
room/commentaries/detail/immunity-p...](https://www.who.int/news-
room/commentaries/detail/immunity-passports-in-the-context-of-covid-19)

~~~
__blockcipher__
"immunity" is a bit of an imprecise term. There's two major components:

(1) The presence of active circulating antibodies, which in sufficient
concentrations should result in literal immunity in the sense of inability to
catch the virus

Eventually those circulating antibodies will no longer be actively present,
but you'll still have

(2) Memory B Cells which lie dormant, waiting for exposure to viral antigens
at which point they ramp up antibody production like crazy.

So in the worst case scenario, immunity in the sense of inability to be
infected disappears after X months, but any infection would be much milder and
would clear much more quickly than normal with lower peak viral load.

Let's talk about "herd immunity" while we're at it since that's been branded
as a "dirty word (phrase)". Herd immunity is just the logical consequence of
individual immunity as applied to population-level dynamics. So people that
don't "believe" in herd immunity are like people that don't believe in
evolution, in that both logically follow from the ground truths.

\--

Nothing I've said there contradicts the WHO, but it's worth mentioning that at
this point it seems inaccurate to say "there is no evidence" rather than to
say "there is not overwhelming evidence", and they've sort of given themselves
away with this line:

> People who assume that they are immune to a second infection because they
> have received a positive test result may ignore public health advice

So, as always, they carefully shape statements to try to control behavior.

\--

Anyway, I'm actually not trying to argue against the WHO here, but rather the
hordes of people who trot out the "we don't know if there even is immunity" to
try to argue that "herd immunity" is a foolish/dangerous proposition when the
truth is that it's how we deal with every non-containable pandemic. That is
what I was getting at with my needlessly snarky and coy comment.

BTW, just to be clear, vaccines rely on the same principle. So those who point
to the uncertainty as an argument "against" herd immunity (which again to me
is like arguing "against evolution" since both herd immunity and evolution are
logical consequences of some simple ground truths taken to their logical
conclusions), are also arguing against hunkering down for 2.5 years while we
develop a vaccine.

------
lobbyingWins
Can't afford food? Between food stamps and eating for $1.50/day (source-
[https://efficiencyiseverything.com/eat-for-1-50-per-day-
layo...](https://efficiencyiseverything.com/eat-for-1-50-per-day-layoffs-
coronavirus-quarantine-food-shortages/)) I don't think the problem is the cost
of food.

Rent, sure. Health insurance, sure. Food? Not the major expense, especially
with food stamps.

~~~
chongli
A lot of people live in so-called "food deserts" [1]. That means they don't
have access to fresh produce or bulk ingredients like milk, flour, eggs,
beans, rice, pasta, or potatoes. Instead, they're stuck with convenience store
food which is mostly junk food.

If they wanted to buy healthier food they'd have to travel a long way to reach
a grocery store, a problem greatly exacerbated for those who do not own a car.
It's not easy to carry home 10lbs of potatoes and 10lbs of beans by public
transit, let alone on foot.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert)

~~~
lostmsu
They define "food desert" as 10 mile distance. I don't know how many of those
23 mil. don't have any means of transportation, but most probably do, in which
cases 10 mile is just 10-20 minutes of driving away.

~~~
chongli
From the Wikipedia article (emphasis mine):

>In 2010, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that
23.5 million Americans live in "food deserts", meaning that they live _more
than one mile from a supermarket in urban or suburban areas_ and more than 10
miles from a supermarket in rural areas.[6]

