OT: Sweden’s economy grows in first quarter
There have been many controversial threads about Sweden’s policy of “lite lockdown” and the excess of death they have had compared to their Scandinavian neighbors.
Despite predictions that Sweden’s economy would suffer just the same, that actually did not transpire this far
Sweden’s economy actually grew 0.1% in the first quarter
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/29/coronavirus-swedens-gdp-actually-grew-in-the-first-quarter.html
By comparison, Norway’s economy contracted by 1.9% in Q1
Finland contracted 0.9%
https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/statistics_finland_economy_is_officially_in_recession/11375177
Denmark contracted 1.9%
Obviously, still way too early in the game to draw long term conclusions, but found it interesting given that many US states are about to go the route of Sweden whether they admit it or not.
Oh FFS
<insert stupid comment on politics and covid I regurgitated from my favorite partisan news site>
<insert rebuttal comment and article from my favorite news source using selective information which proves my biases>
Done!
<realize the show I watched only gave me two talking points that could make me look even semi-intelligent, so start slinging around personal insults like an angry monkey slings poop (sorry RGard)>
<Points out the fact your favorite show only has 2 talking points by using the only 2 talking points about your show from my favorite show and then I use ad hominem>
Haha!! <insert straw man filled by the most poorly thought out argument from authority, then see your ad hominem and raise it by 2 ad hominems, followed by insulting you and your politics>
<Insert obligatory can't we all just get along and talk about sports>
<insert stupid reference to my shtick of being a koala and my arch enemy Rgard and some other random bullshit everyone's tired of>
<insert ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ >
<insert Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif>
+1 for everyone in this thread. This has been MGOBLOG in a nutshell for the past 4 months.
<insert cite to a scientific publication I know you're not going to read so occasionally I just make the link go to a Rachel Ray cooking tip for making chicken pot pie>
Or < insert cite to article on the general topic of your comment, but assuming no one will read it, claim it says something entirely different than what it does >
Mmm...chicken pot pie....
<insert redneck WTF gif>
I’m here to tell you I enjoyed the thread !
insert tipping hat gif
<insert person reminding everyone that “redneck WTF gif” is actually Tom DeLonge in a music video>
In like 1990 I watched a Lions football game and ran into a guy outside the Union from one of my classes and we started talking through the game. Part way through the conversation I realized that he we just regurgitating everything the play by play announcer and color guy had said. After judging him for a moment as a lightweight I realized that I was doing the same exact thing. I think he came to the realization at the same time and we ended the conversation.
At times I wonder how much each of us actually knows. I laugh at flat-earthers and anti-vaxers but I haven't done the math or lab work. That said, there is general consensus and pretty solid evidence that a round earth and vaccines are real things.
With COVID, Sweden is a solid data point that should be taken into consideration, but when it comes to a global pandemic, it seems wise to err on the side of caution and build consensus on how to open everything up without needlessly killing or bankrupting people. If there is anything where interests should be aligned it is a pandemic. As dangerous as the virus is the real danger are the agents of chaos trying to divide us.
<Insert obligatory WE ARE THE BEST and OSU is barnyard puddle dump comment>
Exports of Swedish Fish are up.
If a .1% growth is worth 4000 more deaths than your neighbors to you, then your priorities are questionable fam.
To be fair, the growth was +1-2% relative to the neighbors.
1% growth is an extra ~$1.4B for Sweden for 1 quarter.
Or ~$140 per person.
Or figuring 2500 more deaths than a Finland rate, Sweden gets an extra $560K for each person that died.
Just approximations, dates don't line up.
What is the longterm economic value lost of each Swedish death? I'd be curious to know.
The U.S "values" every human life at $10 million when making safety regulation decisions. They don't differentiate between age, etc. Flat $10 million.
Agreed. Also comparing Sweden to the U.S. is apples/oranges.
The growth means that the lite lockdown in Sweden did not damage their economy. Same could be said in the U.S had the shut down lasted a few weeks.
It's reached a point, any argument that challenges the most vocal herd are ridiculed, boxed into fox news blah blah blah maga, etc. While those of us looking at it as anything but 2 million deaths AAAGHHH!!! LOCK DOWN FOREVER at least attempt to acknowledge some middle ground. It's no longer worth discussion. Fuck the hide in the basement concept, in the end the truth comes out one way or the other. We know where predictive models went.
Agreed. Also comparing Sweden to the U.S. is apples/oranges.
Correct, they don't congregate while looting and rioting in the streets.
Way to be a typical American and make a comment that had nothing to do with what the OP said, just to virtue signal.
Literally nothing OP said had to do with his opinions on economic growth vs deaths and what level of either is acceptable, but that didn’t stop you from making up a point that was never made in your head in order to post a retort ......
Well, if the typical American had any understanding of Scandinavian social democracy and the Swedish model in particular, I'd be reassured that the implication here isn't that sudden surges in dead people are a mere speed bump in the continued pursuit of economic growth.
Shouldn't you really be concentrating your attention on the reannexation of Finland? Save Scandinavia for phase 2.
drjaws I quit logging on because of the dumb stuff I keep seeing but you had to go and ruin that by making a common sense fact based comment others jumping to conclusions.
So I had to log in and up vote you!
Signing off now............
I quit logging on because of the dumb stuff I keep seeing but you had to go and ruin that by making a common sense fact based comment others jumping to conclusions.
So I had to log in and up vote you!
Since flattening the curve was based upon allowing medical staffs to have the opportunity of treating CV19 patients with adequate resources to avoid what happened in Italy, i.e., making decisions about who would live and who would die relative to the number of available ventilators, isn't dollars/death implied in the discussion? Anyone with the slightest bit of common sense knew that closing vast numbers of businesses was going to impact GDP and employment numbers in a way not seen in most of our lifetimes.
FWIW, there are people in government and industry who routinely do cost-benefit analyses on human lives. Healthcare is a great example.
Except they are obliviously going have more cases and deaths early on staying open BUT considering there is likely no vaccine coming likely only means the rest will catch up to them later on down road.
Like it or not a comparison for Sweden is only going look better further down the road as they have had more people get it and have higher immunity percentage
Obliviously? So autocorrect has a sense of humor!
Had to login just to upvote this. Well done.
I’m pretty sure the majority of people don’t think a .1 growth rate is worth 4000 more deaths. Is it possible that the majority of people will contract this disease sooner or later and death rates ultimately even out?
Depending on nursing home policy obviously.
If a vaccine was a month away, I don't think anyone would be in favor of the Swedish approach. However, if they do reach herd immunity before the rest of us and things "even out" in the end, then is it a smarter way to go about it? I dunno.
I suppose then you could get into an argument that people died sooner rather than later and there's a value in every day alive... but I digress.
Not that this is dispositive one way or another, but Sweden is still very far from herd immunity.
The 25% immunity figure that their health minister was using a few weeks ago has shown to be way high.
Even if it were 25%, it would still be deep into 2021 before they might get to true herd immunity. Sort of depends on how much voluntary behavior changes Swedes are using, which has been reported to be a lot.
If wealth doesn't matter and has nothing to do with people's health, then why the hell are you so goddamn eager to take it from some people and give it to others with less of it?
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! You sir have distilled the contradiction down to one (albeit lengthy) sentence. You want health care for all? You want to find the trillions necessary to transform into a low carbon world economy? Well, the wealth necessary to pull that off has to be created.
This is confusing because healthcare for all would literally be cheaper than the current system, given all of the profit that is sucked out of healthcare consumers one way or another.
Economic damage leads to many deaths. Stop being so myopic.
Whoa, whoa, whoa... Nobody's calling anybody a "myop".
Put a 0 before the decimal point. Come on pube that’s grade school math and science!!!
I know things have been a wee bit "testy"on the old M Go message board so I don't want to come across as a completely snide m-f***er, but . . .
A good rule of thumb when posting: if you include the phrase "Obviously, still way too early in the game to draw long term conclusions" then it is probably best not to post
Well, there have been other sweden posts on here, and they’ve all generated long discussions. The truth is we won’t know the best approach until this pandemic ends and likely for years after then.
I find the discussions interesting since there’s not much else happening in the world right now. But I apologize if it’s irrelevant material to others and Brian can remove my post.