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We just hit Great Depression levels of unemployment... except this is way worse because that was *merely* a financial crisis. There wasn’t a pandemic doing the rounds and half the civilizational machine in a dangerous unplanned shutdown mode it wasn’t actually designed for.
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I suspect a lot of the people who are optimistic right now believe the laissez faire part of the economy is much bigger than it is, and don’t realize how much bigger the planned part is. By which I mean both state capacity and the innards of large corporations.
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This planned part is not some sort of magical self-healing, self-regulating emergent stochastic magic show orchestrated by money. It is more like a precisely engineered machine that runs in somewhat deterministic ways via explicit coordination.
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And it is MUCH bigger.... “laissez faire was planned, planning was not” — Polyani. We’re about to see the biggest natural experiment in actually free markets. A sample of the world free marketers want, as regulatory reins fail.
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Find your generalized green zone now. Not as in virus-free, but as in resilient — high local basic sustainability — global logistics connectivity — varied, digitalized local economy — good healthcare — good law and order — medium density — communitarian spirit — blue >> red
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Replying to
What I hear of red states (outside of newsworthy stories) is that people are community minded. My main concern with them is widespread rejection of science. I'm in Australia – I suspect both rural and very progressive communities will pull together more than most.
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This. My husband is Bengali. His work is in a rural area that voted Trump, and he commutes there an hour each way from the nearest large city. We briefly discussed moving closer for his job and he was like no I'm safer here. Can't argue with that.
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