Viral Content (21/03/2020): Stonks Falling

We made it another week! Everyone take a big sip from the comforting beverage of your choice and look at a dog or something to celebrate, and then let’s talk about something fun. 

That’s right: the economy.

The economic impact of COVID-19 is something that’s been on people’s mind even before the virus started to spread outside of China, given how much of the world’s manufacturing currently takes place there. But as the pandemic took off, far greater economic shock waves began than I think anyone except US senators expected. As of this writing, the US stock market is in free fall, surpassing even the 1929 crash that kicked off the great depression. Currency values are plummeting, and here in Ireland the government is predicting 500,000 could lose their jobs as a direct result of the pandemic. Stonks are falling at a rate unprecedented since the invention of stonks themselves.

Now, I don’t understand economics or the stock market at all and suspect the entire thing is an elaborate hoax (comrades). But you don’t need an MBA to know that this probably isn’t good. At the very least, a recession as severe as the 2008 credit crisis--something that experts have been warning of for several years--seems inevitable, and may already have begun. And that solidifies a sentiment that’s become increasingly popular lately: that our current economic system needs to change. A ten-year cycle of booms that mostly benefit the rich followed by busts that mostly affect the poor and working class is simply not a viable way to run society.

But we now also know that our economy can’t handle a global crisis. Even if we bounce back from this, what happens the next time there’s a pandemic? Or a major war? Or one of the more extreme disaster scenarios, like an asteroid impact or a supervolcano eruption? Or--and here’s the big one--the effects of climate change, which we know for certain are coming in the not so distant future?

I’ve seen people on Twitter and elsewhere point out that the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which was worse than what we’re dealing with now, didn’t precipitate any sort of long-term economic consequences and actually came right before the roaring twenties. I appreciate the sentiment, but I think these people are forgetting that the economic landscape of the early 20th century was very different from today. That was a time when most industrialized countries’ wealth was tied up in agriculture and heavy industry instead of international finance, GDP was measured primarily via physical goods instead of imaginary money that can vanish overnight if people stop believing in it, and many countries produced a lot of their own food and products instead of relying on an intricate web of international trade and shipping.

Like I said, I’m even less of an expert on this than I am on the pandemic itself. But my feeling is that we’re far more vulnerable now than we were before. What’s the worst-case scenario? How long will it take the economy to bounce back? I don’t know. If there’s a silver lining to all of this, maybe an economic collapse represents a chance to rethink our economic system and implement changes that couldn’t otherwise have been made. I’m not going to get on my soapbox and tell you what those changes should be, but maybe something similar to the historic New Deal that Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented in response to the great depression would be a good place to start. But since climate change is such a big concern, maybe a New Deal that also addresses the environment? Like some sort of...I don’t know...Green New Deal? Let me know if anyone’s proposing something like that, it seems interesting.

On The Ground

The pubs are all closed; many restaurants and cafes have moved to take-away only, and the few that haven’t are mostly empty. The eeries emptiness in my town reaches its apex a few days ago, and while people are still avoiding public transport and shops, road traffic is beginning to pick up and I assume those people aren’t just driving around in their cars and then going home. More worryingly, many people (especially older people) have apparently decided that instead of congregating to chat in each other’s homes or pubs, instead they’re going to meet outside. I feel like this is somewhat missing the point.

Online, it’s been surreal to see people all over the world dealing with the same situation in mostly the same ways. The truly global nature of this situation was driven home to me when I was listening to a podcast and heard the hosts having the same conversations that I’ve been having with people in real life.

The pandemic is now completely dominating social media, with lots of gallows humour and “I’m joking but actually no seriously” comments about the end of the world. I’ve started checking back into reddit and while r/coronavirus--the “official” discussion hub that the site is directing people to--is still filled with people who don’t know what they’re talking about, the constant predictions of doom and barely-concealed excitement seem to have been diluted by an influx of new users. I still recommend not reading the comments, but it’s a useful (if mostly america-centric) source for information.

To my surprise, r/COVID19, which was supposed to the more heavily-moderated sub-reddit focused strictly on scientific discussion, seems to be transforming into a central hub of what we could call pandemic deniers: people who insist that the virus isn’t as dangerous as claimed and that the measures taken to combat it should be scaled back in order to preserve the economy. According to these people, China, Italy, Iran and now Spain are random statistical outliers experiencing more severe outbreaks for spooky, mysterious reasons and not predictors of what will happen in the rest of the world without aggressive containment measures.

As you can probably tell, this isn’t an attitude I have a lot of sympathy for. The people in this sub reddit by and large don’t know what they’re talking about either, and there’s a lot of mis-reading statistical papers and jumping to believe information that confirms their biases while ignoring anything else. This is the same thing the doomsday prophets were doing last month, but in the opposite direction. But while the pessimists were at worst making people anxious without reason, I worry that the deniers might be putting lives in danger by encouraging people to ignore containment measures. For the moment, we’re better served erring on the side of caution.

Stay safe and good luck, everyone. Until next time.