I wouldn't call it no big deal. However, the circumstances today are totally different than they were in 1918. There was no thinking of quarantening people -rather they did the opposite: hundreds of thousands of soldies were shipped around all over the world. In addition, so many people lived in appalling conditions, like the soldier in the muddy trenches and civilians being malnourished. And the strongest medicine they had was Camomile tea with honey.
What worries me on this current virus is, how it is battled by the Chinese. If they keep their industrial production closed for a while, it will have devastating effects on the economy all over the world. Already now some car manufacturers in Europe had to stop production lines, because parts needed are not being send from China any longer. And that will rapidly spread and get worse, if things don't go back to normal in China soon.
This could lead to the big economical and financial crash, that some people have forecast. This virus could be the "black swan" event that triggers the economical big bang, and only God know what the consequences could be.
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I think we're past the benefits of quarantining a single country at this point, especially a country like China that seems to still be hiding how bad it really is over there. But it's going to happen anyway, and you're absolutely right--this could be a horrible thing for economies.
In any case, in 1918 they had soldiers traveling around the world, and in 2020 they've got everybody traveling around the world--a hundred years ago travel was rare by individuals outside of the military. If they don't come up with a vaccine for this, I think we're in for a big double whammy of widespread sickness, and damaged economies. Oh, fun.
Its the reaction of the authorities that is absolutely unprecedented. Its as if they want to provoke a economical and financial crash world wide.
May be because it was coming soon anyway, and now they can blame it all on the virus.
There wont be a vaccine any time soon, it takes 6-8 month to develope that. In addition, viruses tend to mutate sometimes, which can render a vaccine useless.
But thats no different to flue waves of the past. I remember winters, when half the population fell ill with flue. Everywhere you went there was staff shortages because people had to stay at home in bed. Even the doctors couldn't handle it anymore. And I bet thousands of people died then just in Germany. But there was never such a hype about it like now, they just said "Stay in bed and wait until its gone." Nobody was quarantined and stuff like that, or factories closed or travel stopped.
This time is really weird. Did you see whats going on at the stock markets world wide? Indexes free falling almost everywhere, 3 or 4, even 5% a day! It looks much like 1929, the start of the great depression period. Not good at all.
I understand the stock markets have taken their worst hit since 1987, with only a few times that bad before this. We were way overdue for what they like to call a "correction", so maybe this is just the trigger for something that was going to happen anyway, as you say. However, some leaders in the Democratic party over here have been caught saying they hope there'll be an economic downtown, so it will harm Donald Trump's Presidency--if anyone puts that together, it could cause a severe backlash against those people, including the Speaker of the House. I can't imagine them trying to make it happen on purpose, but you never know.
The chart of the Dow Jones looks exactly like 1929. After a long rise it falls sharply, about the same amount it did last week. And after that comes a less steep but steady decline over 2 years, all the way to 10% of the high or so.
That was the Great Depression time into the 1930s.
May be they will blame Trump for this, although Obama, Bush jr. and the previous ones all participated in creating this situation. And nobody really has a solution for the problems that exist, whatever party it is. The only answer would be declaring a default of the debit - but then the glory days of the US are over.
Politicians don't have as much effect on improving the economy as they think they do--but certainly they can screw things up, especially with accumulating debt. If anything makes our economy really tank, it'll be year upon year of Congress making absolutely no attempt at all to rein in spending ... some years they can't be bothered to pass a budget at all, much less a good one.
They have no intention to cut budgets of save money. Debt is the only thing that keeps the show running. It all works fine for the high finance. People like us think we can only spend what we have, but for the banks and governments that is not important.
And actually, things are way byond the point where saving or whatever would make a difference. Its as if you would have a loan of 100 million $ to pay back - do you think saving on your food bill or so would help to pay that?
So its also irrelevant who becomes the next president. Changing presidents is like changing underpants, at first they are clean, but later... :)
That won't keep us from trying! But conditions have been right for an economic downturn, and now the coronavirus and an oil price war are pushing us over the edge. The Federal government believes very strongly in spending its way out of recessions, so I expect we've got another few years of still more heavy spending ahead of us.