Long term repercussions from Covid-19 what will they be?

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by lio45

The (small) part of my real estate portfolio that's run as Airbnb units has greatly increased its vacancy rate. Interesting to finally see one downside to it! So far it was only full of win (no Régie du Logement, no rent controls, no unpaid rent ever, no problem tenants you're stuck with, etc.) and I was going to expand this very successful experiment - the Airbnb units, 12 in total, all downtown, were almost always full - but now, I'm suddenly glad that most of my units are occupied by long-term tenants.

Out of curiosity, is AirBnB obliging hosts to refund cancelled bookings?

[TorontoDrew]

Why yet another thread on this? That question could have just been asked in the original one. I get it people are freaking out but coming to ssp should act as a break from all of the doom and gloom we are getting bombarded with each day.

Mods can we please just keep it to one thread for the time being.

[LakeLocker]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Why yet another thread on this? That question could have just been asked in the original one. I get it people are freaking out but coming to ssp should act as a break from all of the doom and gloom we are getting bombarded with each day.

Mods can we please just keep it to one thread for the time being.

Because there are 15 different aspects to this.

It's annoying when you have 15 different topics posts on one page.

[Acajack]

I'd say that once this crisis has passed it will take quite some time before international travel becomes as carefree or fancy-free as it was just a couple of months ago.

We saw a similar chill after Sept. 11, 2001 and it had a significant impact on the global travel sector. This one is likely to be even worse unfortunately.

[esquire]

Not gonna lie, this will have a lifelong impact on my thoughts regarding urban built form, density and transit use.

Suddenly Asian megacity style density doesn't seem quite as appealing anymore...

[hipster duck]

My personal hope is that this crisis bolsters the case for universal basic incomes, or just more of an embrace of demand-side economic policies that give everybody cash to spend rather than bailing out corporations and expecting spending from a destitute public to magically happen. And it has to be cash paid out right now. Giving middle class Canadians some boondoggle, means-tested 2020 tax write off that they will only see in their bank accounts in May 2021 won't do much and will probably only attract criticism for future demand-side stimuli from places like the Fraser Institute.

Without this, I fear that we'll have a long recession and this amazing summer of letting loose won't happen if millions of Canadians who run small businesses or are in the gig/service economy declare personal bankruptcy.

[misher]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

My personal hope is that this crisis bolsters the case for universal basic incomes, or just more of an embrace of demand-side economic policies that give everybody cash to spend rather than bailing out corporations and expecting spending from a destitute public to magically happen. And it has to be cash paid out right now. Giving middle class Canadians a 2020 tax write off that they will only see in their bank accounts in May 2021 won't do much and will probably only attract criticism for future demand-side stimuli from places like the Fraser Institute.

Without this, I fear that we'll have a long recession and this amazing summer of letting loose won't happen if millions of Canadians declare personal bankruptcy.

Giving everyone money sounds great to the uninformed.

Reminds me too much of Germany's pre-WW2 policies, if we can't pay for things lets just print more money and give it to everyone. That will solve all our problems right?

The BC NDP and City of Vancouver have been using demand side policies for years, you can see how that worked out.

[LakeLocker]

Originally Posted by esquire

Not gonna lie, this will have a lifelong impact on my thoughts regarding urban built form, density and transit use.

Suddenly Asian megacity style density doesn't seem quite as appealing anymore...

The bigger damage is the telecommuting trend.

Why be in a major city when you can get your career and the rural lifestyle.

[LakeLocker]

Originally Posted by misher

Giving everyone money sounds great to the uninformed.

Reminds me too much of Germany's pre-WW2 policies, if we can't pay for things lets just print more money and give it to everyone. That will solve all our problems right?

The BC NDP and City of Vancouver have been using demand side policies for years, you can see how that worked out.

Agreed, racist politicians do not create fascism, the far better indicator of fascism is 2 week vacations. At that point you know the government isn't worried about your future.

[misher]

Originally Posted by LakeLocker

Agreed, racist politicians do not create fascism, the far better indicator of fascism is 2 week vacations. At that point you know the government isn't worried about your future.

Someday almost all work will be done by robots. Until then we need to get humanity to work. And you know what makes many of us get out of bed everyday to go to work? Suffering.

Its been shown by Communist Russia that workers do not work well unless there are direct benefits and punishments correlated with their work ethic. If people do not obtain less from working less, they will work less or slack off.

I don't enjoy my job everyday. Its stressful and I do have small mental breakdowns at times due to many abusive clients and stressful situations. I'm on call 24 hours, get paid crap, end up working a lot of weekends, and don't get paid overtime. My clients are cheap and will often throw me under the bus. My clients are generally the low to middle class, the everyday man/woman. So I know how selfish most people are. Most people would make for abusive, terrible bosses. I don't go to work because I want to. I go for the money and because of a few other reasons.

We don't live in some magical communist society where we're all nice and caring. We live in a hard world where we need to push people to work with threats of suffering if they don't. There are some nice people out there. But there's also abusive selfish asses. We cannot create a perfect system because humans are not perfect.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

My personal hope is that this crisis bolsters the case for universal basic incomes, or just more of an embrace of demand-side economic policies that give everybody cash to spend rather than bailing out corporations and expecting spending from a destitute public to magically happen. And it has to be cash paid out right now. Giving middle class Canadians some boondoggle, means-tested 2020 tax write off that they will only see in their bank accounts in May 2021 won't do much and will probably only attract criticism for future demand-side stimuli from places like the Fraser Institute.

Without this, I fear that we'll have a long recession and this amazing summer of letting loose won't happen if millions of Canadians who run small businesses or are in the gig/service economy declare personal bankruptcy.

I imagine we are going to see many accidental experiments be run as this crisis unfolds and many previously untested theories be proved right or wrong. I think there's a good chance governments will just send money out the door, and if that continues for a few months it will look a lot like a UBI.

[LakeLocker]

Originally Posted by misher

Its been shown by Communist Russia that workers do not work well unless there are direct benefits and punishments correlated with their work ethic. If people do not obtain less from working less, they will work less or slack off.

I don't enjoy my job everyday. Its stressful and I do have small mental breakdowns at times due to many abusive clients and stressful situations. I'm on call 24 hours, get paid crap, end up working a lot of weekends, and don't get paid overtime. My clients are cheap and will often throw me under the bus. My clients are generally the low to middle class, the everyday man/woman. So I know how selfish most people are. Most people would make for abusive, terrible bosses. I don't go to work because I want to. I go for the money and because of a few other reasons.

We don't live in some magical communist society where we're all nice and caring. We live in a hard world where we need to push people to work with threats of suffering if they don't. There are some nice people out there. But there's also abusive selfish asses. We cannot create a perfect system because humans are not perfect.

The key concept is that virtually Everyone are horrible bosses.

A centralized government doesn't get rid of the boss worker oppression it amplifies it.

Instead of having a choice in your brand of oppression you're force fed.

Originally Posted by misher

Someday almost all work will be done by robots. Until then we need to get humanity to work. And you know what makes many of us get out of bed everyday to go to work? Suffering.

I'm not sure about that if you ban quantum computing it might not even be a problem long term. My understanding is computer speed will peak in the near term future without quamtum computing.

You're still gonna see mass layoffs etc hit, and if this reverts to abondoning our consumption based economy we might be sunk.

But as long as we have capitalism I think it'll work itself out in a generation.

The problem is the mid term might sink us unless we can keep the working class employed.

Again we have to ban quantum computing and start getting use to the idea that our species won't survive without aggressive prohibitions on technology.

A quantum computer is potentially more deadly than a nuclear bomb if that power can be used to reinvent nuclear bombs.

[misher]

Originally Posted by LakeLocker

The key concept is that virtually Everyone are horrible bosses.

A centralized government doesn't get rid of the boss worker oppression it amplifies it.

Instead of having a choice in your brand of oppression you're force fed.

Yep. The minute we create a hierarchy we create opportunity for people to use their power to abuse others below them. The minute we create a distribution system we create opportunity for individuals to exploit it for their own gain.

The whole point of capitalism is that people rise to their own potential and dedication. Sure some get a boost from their parents but hey their parents worked hard and sacrificed to give them that boost. Also in the end those with potential and dedication will rise above those without.

The minute you try to force someone with potential and dedication to be equal to someone without, you ruin their drive to succeed and thus encourage mediocrity. Why should someone who parties everyday and does drugs in highschool enjoy the same reward as someone who studied and never went out? The more you decrease the rewards of hard work and dedication, the more you push people towards partying and drugs. To use China as an example, being on the bottom sucks. So every person is heavily pushed towards studying and working hard. Drugs are viewed with disdain and hard work is expected. China's unemployment rate is 3.6% to our 5.5%. There's a huge difference between the homeless in the third world who are often homeless/suffering due to lack of jobs compared to our homeless who are either lazy, drug addicted, or disabled. In many third world nations even the disabled are pushed into whatever work they can do.

What this virus should do is create opportunity for those with potential and drive to grow. We are waking up to the fact that our economy and business has been shackled by regulation. We need to unleash our potential.

Canadians have lost our drive to succeed and have become too focused on vacations and work hours.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by LakeLocker

The key concept is that virtually Everyone are horrible bosses.

A centralized government doesn't get rid of the boss worker oppression it amplifies it.

Instead of having a choice in your brand of oppression you're force fed.

A universal basic income does not mean more centralized government.

I would actually argue that by basically printing checks and avoiding the bureaucracy of means testing and program administration, it probably shrinks it.

It will not shrink government expenditures, but if we're going to spend money (which we will) in a low interest environment on the eve of a severe recession, we might as well put it straight into the hands of consumers.

[LakeLocker]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

A universal basic income does not mean more centralized government.

I would actually argue that by basically printing checks and avoiding the bureaucracy of means testing and program administration, it probably shrinks it.

It will not shrink government expenditures, but if we're going to spend money (which we will) in a low interest environment on the eve of a severe recession, we might as well put it straight into the hands of consumers.

I'm not against a UBI if you weren't aware.

Assuming you get rid of the mininum wage etc.


I don't think its all that better than what we have, but it is slightly preferable to welfare.

To me it is simply a negative income tax.

[misher]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

A universal basic income does not mean more centralized government.

I would actually argue that by basically printing checks and avoiding the bureaucracy of means testing and program administration, it probably shrinks it.

It will not shrink government expenditures, but if we're going to spend money (which we will) in a low interest environment on the eve of a severe recession, we might as well put it straight into the hands of consumers.

We're very scared of inflation ramping up given that we can no longer raise interest rates to combat it and our government cannot afford to start paying more interest on its debt.

We cannot give out UBI simply because it would ramp up inflation. Thats the long and short of it. So give up arguing for/against it because it can't happen.

[thurmas]

9-11 drastically changed air travel and this crisis will have an even starker change on how air travel is done. Airlines and Airports will likely have to enforce some sort of disinfection system to passengers before they board which will make travel even more time consuming and expensive let alone potential customers fear factor from this. I will not be surprised if there becomes a push in North America for high speed rail development.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by misher

We're very scared of inflation ramping up given that we can no longer raise interest rates to combat it and our government cannot afford to start paying more interest on its debt.

We cannot give out UBI simply because it would ramp up inflation. Thats the long and short of it. So give up arguing for/against it because it can't happen.

No, you are not well read on this subject. You know just enough to think you understand the relationships between interest rates and inflation but not enough to properly predict outcomes. Not that I fully know either, and even economists are confounded by the complete lack of inflation since 2008.

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by milomilo

No, you are not well read on this subject. You know just enough to think you understand the relationships between interest rates and inflation but not enough to properly predict outcomes. Not that I fully know either, and even economists are confounded by the complete lack of inflation since 2008.

High inflation in Canada in the housing market. Other than that not much.

[misher]

Originally Posted by milomilo

No, you are not well read on this subject. You know just enough to think you understand the relationships between interest rates and inflation but not enough to properly predict outcomes. Not that I fully know either, and even economists are confounded by the complete lack of inflation since 2008.

Yep I understand that inflation has been stuck. But this is not a car we want to unstick which is why we should be very cautious and not put in UBI which will certainly drive it.

Is an UBI which likely will be no different than welfare really worth the risk of collapsing the jenga tower?