This Isn't the End - It's the Beginning
It seems a moment and an eternity ago our country was contending with blockades orchestrated by a group of environmental zealots who had appropriated a cause for their own purposes and who intended to shut Canada down. Now, we are on the literal brink of having our country shut down - not to save the environment, or bring justice to indigenous communities, but rather to halt a virus that is now on our shores and threatening our health system and our loved ones. With breath taking speed, all that was normal has become abnormal.
Our country is in shock, but it must refrain from despair. Now is when we must clearly think, where being hyper rational can avoid catastrophe - there will be costs, but we can manage if we don't over react or under react. There are things we must do now, to get through the next bit and to triage what is coming - we must move aggressively to provide social distance, while refraining from killing all commerce. We must think about where we need to go, and enable ourselves to get there most efficiently.
Our first order of business must be to heed the advice of public health officials. That advice is clear - no groups over 50, avoid non-essential travel, school is suspended indefinitely, we are to practice social distancing (keep 6ft away generally from others). Gyms, pools, restaurants, bars and clubs have closed. These are necessary things for now.
The second order of business is to pivot and think about what must happen next, to mitigate both the economic and human toll of what has happened and what must happen. To mitigate the risks going ahead. Indeed at first blush, our economic future looks inarguably bleak - and it is, if we fail to recognize what we must do in order to function over the next 18 months. Because reality is, that that is how long it'll take before we have an effective measure (a vaccine or treatment) that can be safely widely available. If we fail to recognize what we must do - we will face economic and social ruin.
It is tempting to just give everyone money, a universal basic income, but that would be the wrong approach and would fail to effectively redeploy resources where they are most needed. It would over compensate some and be breathtakingly inadequate for others Indeed it would risk hyper-inflation or economic depression, and would waste a massive amount of human resources that are going to be needed to contend with the challenge ahead. We must refrain from creating a world where people believe they are entitled to have their needs met without contribution. We must also realize that the world as it will be and as it must be going ahead, is not less labour intensive, but rather more so.
It is also tempting to just shut everything down (and we might have to for a brief period of time, hopefully limited to 8 weeks). However, if we must shut everything down the focus must be on doing so as briefly as possible and, we must provide a bridge so that everything can be started up again when it is appropriate to do so. In order for that to happen - a large number of normal financial transactions must be suspended or deferred, there are transactions that must be paused or an excessive amount of insolvency will occur. Businesses, ideally, should be subsidized to provide their staff wage continuation during any shutdown- this would enable those staff to continue to pay their rents and mortgages, limiting the economic damage. Those who are laid off should be enabled to have their rents or mortgages suspended for a period that would allow them to find alternate employment (again perhaps via direct subsidies to banks and landlords to minimize economic disruption) - and the government should move to enable that transition as efficiently as possible. Businesses that can manage risk (ie. meeting the standards set by public health and adhering to stringent sick policies) should be allowed to continue operations.
We're going to need a lot of people to make the new economic reality work - and 2020's might look a whole lot more like 1950...
Our country is in shock, but it must refrain from despair. Now is when we must clearly think, where being hyper rational can avoid catastrophe - there will be costs, but we can manage if we don't over react or under react. There are things we must do now, to get through the next bit and to triage what is coming - we must move aggressively to provide social distance, while refraining from killing all commerce. We must think about where we need to go, and enable ourselves to get there most efficiently.
Our first order of business must be to heed the advice of public health officials. That advice is clear - no groups over 50, avoid non-essential travel, school is suspended indefinitely, we are to practice social distancing (keep 6ft away generally from others). Gyms, pools, restaurants, bars and clubs have closed. These are necessary things for now.
The second order of business is to pivot and think about what must happen next, to mitigate both the economic and human toll of what has happened and what must happen. To mitigate the risks going ahead. Indeed at first blush, our economic future looks inarguably bleak - and it is, if we fail to recognize what we must do in order to function over the next 18 months. Because reality is, that that is how long it'll take before we have an effective measure (a vaccine or treatment) that can be safely widely available. If we fail to recognize what we must do - we will face economic and social ruin.
It is tempting to just give everyone money, a universal basic income, but that would be the wrong approach and would fail to effectively redeploy resources where they are most needed. It would over compensate some and be breathtakingly inadequate for others Indeed it would risk hyper-inflation or economic depression, and would waste a massive amount of human resources that are going to be needed to contend with the challenge ahead. We must refrain from creating a world where people believe they are entitled to have their needs met without contribution. We must also realize that the world as it will be and as it must be going ahead, is not less labour intensive, but rather more so.
It is also tempting to just shut everything down (and we might have to for a brief period of time, hopefully limited to 8 weeks). However, if we must shut everything down the focus must be on doing so as briefly as possible and, we must provide a bridge so that everything can be started up again when it is appropriate to do so. In order for that to happen - a large number of normal financial transactions must be suspended or deferred, there are transactions that must be paused or an excessive amount of insolvency will occur. Businesses, ideally, should be subsidized to provide their staff wage continuation during any shutdown- this would enable those staff to continue to pay their rents and mortgages, limiting the economic damage. Those who are laid off should be enabled to have their rents or mortgages suspended for a period that would allow them to find alternate employment (again perhaps via direct subsidies to banks and landlords to minimize economic disruption) - and the government should move to enable that transition as efficiently as possible. Businesses that can manage risk (ie. meeting the standards set by public health and adhering to stringent sick policies) should be allowed to continue operations.
We're going to need a lot of people to make the new economic reality work - and 2020's might look a whole lot more like 1950...
Comments
Post a Comment