This whole thing will intensify the Seattle Freeze. Before COVID, trying to shake someone’s hand got you an icy stare. After COVID, it might result in a punch in the face.

As one scientist put it;
"The virus is more patient than you are."

It's daunting to think that the comprehensive testing that the Chinese did in Wuhan could be implemented here, so at some point measures will need to be lifted despite it not being as perfect as the epidemiologists would like.

Pandemic got you down?
See: The Death of Stalin on Netflix

(Any similarities between
Stalin and trumpfy aka
Messolini are Purely
coincidental.)

If he’s Stalin, who is Beria, and who is Malatov?

The only thing that will work in keeping people at home when they've had enough is when everyone goes back to (work, school, shopping, socializing) and another round of people get sick and die. People believe it can't happen to them. By the time it happens and they are dead, oh well, will the lesson be learned? 10,000 people have died in NYC in one month. But keep on bleating about what a pain the ass having to stay in your home is. It will be truly mindboggling to watch the number of people who get sick and die when they decide they refuse to stay inside anymore.

*Oh and that 10,000 number is who they are counting as having died from COVID-19. Approximately 200+ people have been dying in their homes in NYC on a daily basis - people never tested and therefore not counted as part of the pandemic. They are buying thousands of bodies in trenches in Potter's Field in NYC. But do continue believing this only kills old people who are meaningless and would be dead anyway. Can't fix stupid. Guess you won't care until it's kids dying, right? Meanwhile 80% of the people in hospitals in critical condition that are not elderly are between the ages of 20 and 50. Yeah lets all get back out there. Like Trump you all just want to let it "wash right over" the country, right? I mean who gives a shit how many people die? Americans are seriously dumb, selfish fucks.

@8 - Mr. Jackkay: I implore you to read this: http://www.lietaer.com/ And contemplate what a pro-social world would look like without extreme reliance on one single type of very fragile currency. Thank you.
.

Yeah, "at least another month" ~~ not so much. More like, "until early-mid 2021 when we have a solid vaccine available, mass-produced, and distributed to everyone". This is gonna last for AWHILE folks.

Remember, ASYMPTOMATIC people can be infected and spread it, so you DO NOT KNOW who will give it to you. If we relax our guard, this "very vigorous" virus is gonna just keep popping back up and killing people again. We have to stay the course until medical technology comes up with a vaccine.

Otherwise it's going to be Covid-Outbreak-Whack-A-Mole... for months. Or years (if no vaccine)

Most capitalist utopian dreams sound wonderful on paper. But they always turn into Somalia.

If you're Rich
Capitalism
WORKS.

If you're not
it's not our
Fault so
Fuck the
Fuck OFF.

@11- Not clear to me how reducing dependence on a single currency would help here. The problem we are seeing is that no one is working/can work, so there is no circulation of WHATEVER the coin of the realm (or the local part of the realm) is. If people are able to get back to work and start earning/circulating money of any sort, then we will start to climb out of the hole we are in.

The problem is knowing how to make that happen. Throwing caution to the wind and issuing a royal decree that the country is "open" is moronic (well, consider the source). Staying locked down for a year or more is not sustainable - if nothing else food and supplies will run out. I think your whack-a-mole analogy is probably the best case until we get a vaccine. Have to figure out the best way to manage that. Perhaps the government will be smart enough to leave that to the experts. perhaps not.

@9 "10,000 people have died in NYC in one month...."

yeah, but is there a downside to this thing?

@13 - I'm truly impressed you could read that with so little comprehension that your response doesn't even make sense. The fact that Lietaer ~designed the Euro~ on top of 12 nat'l currencies doesn't suggest he might have insights into the workings of currencies that you and I do not. And not least that he had direct experience designing complementary currencies.
Well, he does point out that, like a fish, you can't really objectively look at the water you swim in ~ e.g. your presumption of "reality" & "human nature"... neither of which you've ever seen outside of a usurious money, based on scarcity & bank debt, that systematically transfers wealth from the bottom 80% to the top 20%, simply due to its very design.
Oh well. His work does reward additional reading and research, and you've probably got lots of time to read n'stuff.

Oh, never mind that there are now hundreds of community currencies around the world, and that alternative currencies WERE WHAT GOT PEOPLE THROUGH THE GREAT DEPRESSION because the Federal dollar had a little "crisis" and became unworkable.

I, for one, am tired of being subjected to repeated "recessions" and liquidity freezes that have nothing to do with the availability of engaged, capable, creative people who want to do work ~ ~ and EVERYTHING to do with esoteric manipulations by a tiny minority of people who never really suffer the results of their chaos-causing profit-chase.

@16 - Aye, money is a curiously confusing subject. But your two points: "no one is working/can work,".and "start earning/circulating money of any sort". Yes, to both fo those. Except:
Few can work their JOBS to be paid in the interest-bearing green tickets that are accepted for rent, food, etc. Because there are no "jobs".

But people definitely can WORK, there are plenty of things people are willing and capable of doing right now. I can't possibly list them all, but we'll have a need for mass testing & people to do that, food production could use help, home schooling, helping parents, helping the elderly, guarding empty shops, creating PPE, and so, so much more. We can do those tihngs WITH social distancing and effective contagion precautions. There's plenty of WORK to do, there's just no "jobs".

A "mutual-credit" currency ---where credits-&-debits in one's account are based on one's ability to DO something for someone, or RECEIVE assistance/food/goods-- is created when people actually just DO those things. If we had time-based, mutual-credit currency accounts already set up, I could give you credits for mowing my law while I'm taking care of my sick relatives, and you could use those credits to buy food. Or pay part/all of your rent.

If I have a need you can fulfill, or I buy food, my account is debited.
When I watch my neighbors' dogs for a week, or help the farms bring in a crop, my account is credited.
Everyone's accounts fluctuate from negative to positive and back and forth like that; with "negative" accounts just meaning that the person needs to contribute a bit more. (or receive donations in the case of infirmity, etc.)
The 'money' is immediately available based on your ability to DO actions or provide goods/services that people need. The money is self-sufficient, available immediately when needed, and doesn't need a "Central Bank" to "control" it because it won't "inflate", and you don't get it from banks, where you immediately owe the money back + interest.

The critical detail is that these "Sasquatch Hours" need to be accepted for FOOD and SHELTER, --almost everything that dollars are accepted for today-- or else they will be useless for the real issues facing us.

I think if we are able to engage farmers / farmers' markets to get involved with it early on --pay their workers with it, accept it for food (at least in part to start)-- then we have a solid foot in our collective security circulating: food & time.

Then we get landlords to take it (what choice will they have?), and let credit unions open accounts for us in Sasquatch Hours that we can credit or debit via cell phone app. If the mutual-credit (Note: ~not~ "positive-interest") currency is regional, then international financiers or stock-market people or whatever can't take it and whisk it to another part of the world (like buying something from Walmart can do).

The time WE spend & buy stays local, ensuring locally reinforcing prosperity. The lack of "debt-interest" or any ability to use it for "profit" removes the scarcity problem and eliminates greed as a necessary element.

It's going to have to happen. The federal dollar is too 'brittle" to get us out of this, it keeps having damaging crises, because the top 20% keep ending up with it, because it "trickles-up".

As we all intuitively know.

Awesome comment, treacle.
It could stand alone.

Not being treated as something to be
Harvested has a whole lotta Appeal, to me.

Plus, I Like to Work.

Although, it would put those
who profit off others in a Tough Spot.

Yeah, well put, I hate being harvested too. It's about time 'rentiers' and those who profit off others face a Reckoning. No time like a pandemic to make that happen!

If folks are still interested in learning more about money, particularly the standard currencies (eg. dollar, etc.)... but want to have your lid flipped, check out these two documents written by the Capitalists themselves.:

The venerable Bank of England
Describes how most money is actually created. It's a bit of a twist-surprise too.
~
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve of NY
...writing in 1946 that "Taxes for revenue are obsolete."
Taxes don't underwrite a Federal "Budget". Your taxes don't fund government operations at all. Which also means there is no "austerity" either.. and the "deficit" is not what you think it is.
~
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/07/taxes-for-revenue-are-obsolete.html
.
.
Directly from the Capitalist Horses' mouths... True facts. Enjoy!