COVID-19 & US healthcare system - thread relapse

[robkelk]

Cory Doctorow took part in an online chat in late April to promote Canada Reads. He ended with a political statement:

I live in Burbank, which is in Los Angeles County, but is its own city, separate from Los Angeles (like North York and Toronto were, pre-amalgamation — I can see the Los Angeles city line from my house).

We're getting a front-row seat for a stress-test of the limits and power of the U.S. system of federalism, with California asserting a wide latitude of autonomy from the federal authorities (the federal response, needless to say, has been a catastrophic failure that may yet bring the country down) — and moreover, California is joining forces with other states in the region to form a single block. That's really weird, as is the reversal of the left and right's position on "state's rights" with Trump asserting that states have NO right to assert independence in the face of federal authority, and the left insisting that states have broad latitude to act (normally it's the other way around with the right asserting that states can engage in racially or gender-based discriminatory conduct, ban abortion, etc).

What will be really wild is what may come of this after the next federal election, in which the new Democratic president could use the strong federal powers that Trump could get the Supreme Court to agree to to enact gun control, abortion rights and antidiscrimination rules that overrule state governments.

I have been paying attention to Canada as well. It's certainly more functional than the U.S.

The thing that both Canada and the U.S. are getting wrong, most of all, is being too timid with stimulus. They are sovereign currency issuers whose debts are denominated in their own currencies. They should be conjuring up TRILLIONS more, and nationalising the payroll of every struggling business, keeping those workers employed so they can return to work when the crisis ends. This should come with conditions for employers (good conduct orders that ban discriminatory conduct, structured bankruptcies, dividends, stock buybacks, etc), and should be capped at a sum sufficient for payroll employees to pay rent/mortgages and buy groceries and other necessities. The inflationary risk is minimal: it won't raise the cost of labour, nor will it put more dollars into circulation to bid up the price of goods — it will simply replace the dollars that have ceased to circulate in order to pay for goods that are still being produced and debts/liabilities (mortgages/rents) that are still owed.

(Okay, he ended with two political statements, because his actual final words in the chat were a request that everybody taking part delete their Facebook accounts. Yes, the chat was on Facebook. But that's a completely different discussion.)