Thread by @starstryder

1 - I’m going to listen to books the rest of the day because the news is hurting my brain.

2 - Folks are talking about how our economy is going to tank in part because we offshored our industry.

3 - I’m going to out myself as a long time dem socialist before continuing.

Thread

Back when I started college in 1992, I was an international relations major in @jmcmsu. As part of our election-year course work we read the latest books by @paulkrugman & @RBReich, Bush & Clinton’s economic advisors. This had 3 out of the classroom effects on me.

/1

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich 1st impact was perhaps silly. I was so impressed by @paulkrugman’s book that the next time I was in Boston visiting a BF @MIT, I emailed him to ask to meet. He was heading off on a trip himself, but we overlapped at Boston Logan, & he met me, signed my book, & talked Econ.

/2

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT 2nd impact was life changing. I discovered I hated understanding economics - understanding what is best for rich destroys working class - that I switched to astrophysics. Yes folks, the fact that it is beneficial for a factory to kill rather than maim drove me to astronomy.

/3

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT 3rd impact is relevant here. In reading these books I decided that my 18yo, MA Democrat, socialism loving self was going to vote for Bush because I wanted to live in @paulkrugman’s economy instead of Reich’s. We didn’t get to see @paulkrugman’s 2nd term future. Clinton won.

/4

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT The thing that terrified me about @RBReich’s book “The Work of Nations” was a call to offshore industry to other nations and transform our nation into what would today be called a nation of thought-leaders. We would innovate, lead, and industry would go else where.

/5

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT Argument was, we needed to increase the education of our population & if we are well-educated we can take that pop doing industrial work at good union salaries & get them doing other jobs. Then we can lower production costs (Hi, Mexican factories) & focus on innovation.

/6

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT I was living in Michigan surrounded by students whose parents worked in the auto industry. I have a family of truck drivers and skilled crafts people.

I saw 1st hand not everyone wants to be educated into being a thought-leader & not everyone can be. We need industry jobs.

/7

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT The argument I remember hearing in class was there would always be the need for service industry jobs for those who can’t be educated Into the white color work force. Thing is, your McDonald’s employee isn’t unionised, & has no hope of healthcare, retirement, other benefits.

/8

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT Put simply, it was and is my opinion that a healthy nation needs a diversity of jobs that provide insurance and a living wage that allow people of all educational attainments to flourish. The rust belt once built our economy by making a large middle class possible.

/9

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT The rust belt was just starting to oxidise when I was in college. I lived in Michigan when GM left Lansing & Ford started opening plants in Mexico. I saw the fear it put in people who had been buying cars regularly, using vacation to travel, & who pumped money into economy.

/10

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT Today, more than 20 years since I left @michiganstateu w an Astrophysics degree, we are seeing the results of Clinton era economics. Our supply chains rely on cheap off shore labor, and the majority of non-“thought-leader” jobs are now in the service economy / gig economy.

/11

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT @michiganstateu Hell, I’m a PhD Astronomer now, & I've only had health care as an option for 3 of the last 14yrs. Currently, because I’m not full-time on a grant, I'm an hourly employee with no benefits. This is reality for so many adjuncts and research scientists.

(Husband has insurance)

/12

@jmcmsu @paulkrugman @RBReich @MIT @michiganstateu Ok, so how does this effect us *right now*.

1 - Service industry workers can’t afford time off. If they are sick, they will still serve. These are the people we will see collapsing on US streets and transit in coming weeks, just like we’ve seen in photos from Asia.

/13

2 - Many of us wait until we're unable to function before we go to the Dr because we hope to get better on our own. Why? Because of cost. I have insurance, but the few $100 that blood tests & X-Rays will cost me in co-pays in more then I sometimes have.

/14

3 - Our nation relies on foreign manufacturing of medicine, machinery, & most everything else. Our former factories, the ones that defined the assembly lines perfected by Japan, are literally rusting apart. If international travel to the US is cut off, supplies are cut off.

/15

We’re watching in the news as country after country is cut off to stop spread of coronavirus. Flights to and from China, Iran, Italy…

What if that happens to the US.

We have what’s called “Just in time” shipping in most stores & what factories we do have.

/16

/16 “Just in time” supplies means that you get supplies / shipments just as you begin to run low on goods. Thanks to complex models, the need to stock up on goods was eliminated because predictions can say “You need this much now & that much then”. It’s good economics.

/16

Did I mention I hate economics? Doesn’t mean I don’t try to understand.

OK, so we don’t have massively stocked backrooms of goods. We don’t have massive industrial capacity. We’re a lean mean economy w no excess.

If supplylines are cut, we have only the national reserves.

/17

So let’s look at COVID-19. We aren’t testing efficiently. This means we have unchecked person to person spread of unknown degree.

Why? Funding to teams developing tests had previously been cut by Trump, so we’re running on Skelton crew of tired researchers = Slow response.

/18

Results:
- We can't know who is sick ATM
- Sick people can’t afford to stay home
- Really sick people can’t afford to go to Dr.s
- Illness will spread one service transaction at a time
- Hospitals will get people after illness takes hold, when denial of sickness impossible.

/19

Honest talk here: I’ve 2x had pneumonia because I said “its just allergies” until I was so sick my admin demanded I go to Dr.s.

I've also been yelled at for not being at work immediately after a major surgery & dropped from a collab after telling PI I had a health issue.

/20

This isn’t a poor people issue. This isn’t an uneducated people issue. This is an American issue.

In recent years, it’s become acceptable to treat people poorly at work if they have a health issue. Calling them unreliable or otherwise marginalising them if they get sick.

/21

If people only go to the doctor when they have hit the severely ill stage (as I’m guilty of doing), what is the result?

Instead of heading off the disease (any disease) while it is treatable / manageable Doctors have to start in crisis mode. This is a lot more expensive.

/22

For Coronavirus, crisis treatment appears to mean ventilators. Most hospitals have just enough to get through a normal flu season w some in national reserves/storage.

I’m hearing on news that we don’t have factories to make respirators in the US. We will have a shortage.

/23

Result - people will die due to lack of going to doctor early enough and due to lack of ventilators. (Not necessarily coupled).

We also don’t have enough protection equipment for Health care workers. This could mean fewer HCWs caring for more people, more sick/dead HCWs.

/24

But what if you survive / don’t get sick?

Most Americanss are 4 pay checks from homeless.

Most Americans don’t get paid sick leave.

If a business shuts down, you don’t get paid. If you get sick you don’t get paid.

/25

People will, as they always do, stop making non-essential purchases. This will hurt small business, construction, major manufacturing, and service industry first. No new cars, no new stoves, no new Easter dresses, no vacations, no replacing the roof, no extra anything.

/26

When families get hit with hospital bills they’ll end up selling their homes, tanking the housing industry.

Rents will get drive-up as people stop owning. This will lead to over crowding.

Also homelessness.

The same will play out when businesses shut for weeks / months.

/27

So how do we stop this.

1) Test wildly - find everyone who is sick
2) Make tests free
3) Offer emergency bailout measures to pay all medical bills associated cold / flu / bronchial illness so no one fears the doctor.

That is the medical side of things.

/28

But we also have to look at economics.

We also need to
1) Offer immediate unemployment benefits to anyone out of work due to coronavirus related business closures
2) We need to put into effect emergencies laws preventing price gouging in all sectors. Freeze rents.

/29

And we’re going to need a ail out plane in place so that people know that when this is over, America will be here to help them rebuild.

We can do this. We can come out stronger like we did with the great public roads programs of the New Deal.

I’ll pay more taxes gladly.

/30

But right now, frankly, we are fucked. Because none of this is going to happen with the Trump administration.

And I’m scared.

So how do we make it through?

/31

We have to take care of each other and be prepared to be our own community safety net.

If you have extra, stock up extra food - dried beans, canned goods, and be ready to share.

If you have an extra room, imagine saying “I have space” to the friend who is jobless”.

Give.

/32

We are going to have to take care of each other. Plant a garden, share a meal, make your extra someone else’s only.

Pray / hope / work to make this never happen.

Employers enact paid sick leave now. Researchers, make those COVID-19 tests CDC authorised.

We’re on our own.

/33

At some point I may blog this, but for now, I’m going to write a rec letter for a student, start this year’s seedlings, and listen to a good book.

Rise up and make this world better from the bottom up.

We’re on our own, but we’re not alone.

We have each other.

/fini