Hey Pacifist,

I usually only lurk, but I'm mainly introducing a devil's advocate scenario.

Part of the problem with this discussion is that we are at a significant disadvantage as to what it means to cause irreparable damage to the economy.

I mean, we can just invent $4 trillion out of thin air. Seriously, why can't the gov/fed just inject $ repeatedly until the economy is back to a reasonable level?

And I think as long as people's essential needs are being met (UBI of sorts), you will have very little civil unrest.

AstroAg17 said:

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Thank goodness Trump is the president. I suspect the conspiracies and general mistrust of government would be much worse from the loonies around here if it wasn't their guy leading the establishment. A lot of people may feel that if Trump is trying to restrict their freedoms there must be an important reason.

Sentence 1 is a brand new sentence for me.

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Completely agree with this and you're the first person I've seen articulate it. The part of the country that bought into social distancing early would have done so under president Obama or president Hillary. The part that came along reluctantly now never would have with them.

Beer Baron said:

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AstroAg17 said:

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Thank goodness Trump is the president. I suspect the conspiracies and general mistrust of government would be much worse from the loonies around here if it wasn't their guy leading the establishment. A lot of people may feel that if Trump is trying to restrict their freedoms there must be an important reason.

Sentence 1 is a brand new sentence for me.

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Completely agree with this and you're the first person I've seen articulate it. The part of the country that bought into social distancing early would have done so under president Obama or president Hillary. The part that came along reluctantly now never would have with them.

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Well, the part of the country that didn't buy into social distancing hate Trump, according to the data. So with this absurd observation, NY and CA are a bunch of loonies.

Wrongful death jury awards and settlements are a good source of information here.

They typically range from $500k to $15 million, with some outliers for really bad actors.

Here is an advertisement about what goes into that analysis.

https://www.sutliffstout.com/wrongful-death-guide/average-settlement-amount/

Ulrich said:

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It's not as simple as death on one side and nice clean dollars on the other.

Suicide, drug use/overdose, homelessness, disease, and poverty in America increase when the economy does worse. A significant number of the dead would have died from other infections or underlying conditions relatively soon, and that has considerations when this is reduced to a math problem.

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And on top of that, the current situation has a negative impact on nutrition (as meal choices are dictated by availability at grocery stores) and exercise (as gyms and parks are closed).

Point is, shutting down the country will kill people. The big question is: At what point will it kill more people than the virus we're hiding from?