COVID-19 Stuff Here

[Braveheart81]

Wage growth should be driven by productivity, not taxpayer-funded PS salaries. The latter just leads to a giant Ponzi bubble ready to burst.
That may happen soon, with 72% of Australian workers being paid by the private sector. Federal, state and local government employees plus current JobKeeper and JobSeeker numbers rely on 28% of the workforce plus other taxes. It's too big to sustain.
Rising Public Sector salaries are counter productive.

This is part of our problem though. Wage growth has become disconnected with productivity gains because of artificial things such as public sector wage freezes.

 

[Up the Guts]

No it isn't. We are in a position where we will be able to largely re-open our economy and return to business as usual in a domestic setting and then hopefully in time add in NZ.

There is so little evidence currently how many people actually have antibodies in countries that have had huge uncontrolled outbreaks. Many of the antibody tests have been shown to be wildly inaccurate or outright ineffective. There is also the problem of how those countries bring their outbreak back down to a low enough level that the population is safe to resume normal activities. It is entirely unknown how long people with antibodies will have immunity. The fact that there has never been herd immunity achieved from a virus where a vaccine doesn't exist is entirely relevant.

Borders are going to remain largely closed in most places regardless of what rules are created. If the US says it is open again to tourists, do you really think they're going to turn up?

Aside from the hit to the tourism and international student industry (which is probably a good thing) - i don't see why. Exports and imports and going ahead full steam.

This is missing the point, without a vaccine/treatment Australia hits the same critical infection mass as all other countries.

 

[Up the Guts]

Hard to say why - but reducing public servant salaries is not good for the economy. It just means less tax dollars are put back into the economy.

If you are running balanced budgets over the cycle then reducing public servant salaries one for one reduces the total tax you need to recover. If you really wanted to run Keynesian redistribution policies, where the goal is to put more tax dollars back into the economy, you'd cut public servant salaries and redirect it to hand to mouth households with lower savings rates than public servants.

 

[Derpus]

If you are running balanced budgets over the cycle then reducing public servant salaries one for one reduces the total tax you need to recover. If you really wanted to run Keynesian redistribution policies, where the goal is to put more tax dollars back into the economy, you'd cut public servant salaries and redirect it to hand to mouth households with lower savings rates than public servants.

I'd be interested to see the stats on public sector savings rates - you always hear about the Director level salaries but i'd warrant the vast majority of public servants (nurses, cops etc) aren't on particularly high salaries and don't save much.

Plus, the more you cut public service salaries the harder it is to compete for talent which just reduces efficiency and does little to help government spending. See the current consultant problem. Many of these consultants are former public servants who left to do 1/4 the work for 4 times the price.

I think your argument only works in a society that has no need for public servants?

Also, for whatever stupid reason, direct hand to mouth policies are completely unpalatable politically.

 

[fatprop]

Plus government debt is not really the end of the world - as long as it's at serviceable levels.

Especially if, like the US, they have been refinancing their dept at 0% whilst hoping to get some of that juicy negative stuff

 

[fatprop]

Business have been offshoring to India and the Philippines in particular for years. Someone making that decision now really just means they were slow on the uptake. It's not some new phenomenon from working from home.

Yep, but he didn't want to, now he has to save money anywhere he can

 

[Up the Guts]

I'd be interested to see the stats on public sector savings rates - you always hear about the Director level salaries but i'd warrant the vast majority of public servants (nurses, cops etc) aren't on particularly high salaries and don't save much.

Plus, the more you cut public service salaries the harder it is to compete for talent which just reduces efficiency and does little to help government spending. See the current consultant problem. Many of these consultants are former public servants who left to do 1/4 the work for 4 times the price.

I think your argument only works in a society that has no need for public servants?

Also, for whatever stupid reason, direct hand to mouth policies are completely unpalatable politically.

There are certainly a number of households with much lower savings rates than your average public servant. You could easily increase consumption expenditure, as was your original goal, by decreasing public sector wages. I'm just pointing out the argument that cutting public sector wages puts less money into the economy isn't really true.

 

[Derpus]

There are certainly a number of households with much lower savings rates than your average public servant. You could easily increase consumption expenditure, as was your original goal, by decreasing public sector wages. I'm just pointing out the argument that cutting public sector wages puts less money into the economy isn't really true.

Hrmmm. Well, it may not be necessarily so but i think it is true in practical terms.

 

[Lindommer]

In 2005 Queensland introduced the Public Health Act which gave the Chief Health Officer a range of powers. It is under that Act that the CHO is currently making directions such as "restricting the movement of persons" and "requiring persons to stay at or in a certain place". Don't forget the Premier's statement "It's not my decision".

And where did the authority of the Public Health Act originate? The Queensland Parliament. Last time I looked it was populated by elected politicians. Public servants NEVER have "free rein"; if the executive don't like the officials' actions or decisions they can always change the law.

 

[Rob42]

"10% of cases are responsible for 80% of the spread."

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...ny-others-whereas-most-don-t-spread-virus-all

Probably a good explanation for why clusters like the Ruby Princess didn't lead to a massive explosion of cases as people filed back into society.

Also suggests we might have some success, in the absence of a vaccine, in re-opening most of society, with continued aggressive tracing of positives and localised shutdowns where necessary - being in contact with 90% of cases appears to be no risk.

 

[Froggy]

The vaccine is no given, it may happen, it may not. If the virus mutates, like the flu, it will only protect against the pre-mutation strains. As to herd immunity, at this point there is no evidence it can actually be achieved and if it can, how long it will last. Personally I think the most likely outcome will be effective treatment, which I think is a far higher probability then the other two.
As to the suggestion that we are going to have the same outcomes as the US etc as things get back to normal, I guess that's possible but at this point I would regard it as mere alarmist speculation, just like the eminent epidemiologists who were saying we would have 500,000 death two months ago.
I don't intend to get into the arguments about wages, again it belongs in a politics discussion where you guys can battle it out with Boyo.

 

[Derpus]

The vaccine is no given, it may happen, it may not. If the virus mutates, like the flu, it will only protect against the pre-mutation strains. As to herd immunity, at this point there is no evidence it can actually be achieved and if it can, how long it will last. Personally I think the most likely outcome will be effective treatment, which I think is a far higher probability then the other two.
As to the suggestion that we are going to have the same outcomes as the US etc as things get back to normal, I guess that's possible but at this point I would regard it as mere alarmist speculation, just like the eminent epidemiologists who were saying we would have 500,000 death two months ago.
I don't intend to get into the arguments about wages, again it belongs in a politics discussion where you guys can battle it out with Boyo.

It seems very unlikely that we would end up in the US' situation given how much we've increased medical capacity.

 

[fatprop]

epidemiologists appear to be like climate scientists, if they are going to provide an estimate they are going go on the high side

 

[Up the Guts]

It seems very unlikely that we would end up in the US' situation given how much we've increased medical capacity.

The New Yorker reported around the peak in mid-April that there were no reports of patients having died because they didn’t have access to ventilators/ICU.

 

[fatprop]

They have too many ventilators and are now giving away

 

[Derpus]

The New Yorker reported around the peak in mid-April that there were no reports of patients having died because they didn’t have access to ventilators/ICU.

Was that based on some expert opinion?

 

[Derpus]

They have too many ventilators and are now giving away

Probably because all the vulnerable people living there are already dead.

 

[Derpus]

epidemiologists appear to be like climate scientists, if they are going to provide an estimate they are going go on the high side

How would you even assess a claim like that without waiting to see how it played out over a period of at least 50 years?

All this fucking 'uhm actually - i did my own research and discovered that the scientific consensus of millions of scientists is wrong' drives me spare.

 

[Braveheart81]

This is missing the point, without a vaccine/treatment Australia hits the same critical infection mass as all other countries.

I'm not sure how you are figuring this. If the number of cases is kept low the chances of infection remain very low. It is quite likely that Australia's caseload will remain in a similar position for the foreseeable future.

We have hopefully got the caseload low enough that people can largely resume normal activities without the numbers exploding.

I don't really see any likelihood that current COVID-19 hotspots are going to become completely safe for the people living there or for other people to travel to.

 

[fatprop]

How would you even assess a claim like that without waiting to see how it played out over a period of at least 50 years?

All this fucking 'uhm actually - i did my own research and discovered that the scientific consensus of millions of scientists is wrong' drives me spare.

Not saying that shit isn't happening.

But pretty confident the modelling wasn't/isn't/won't be the most accurate thing in the world because it is complicated

That was the correlation