MedEwok wrote:
We need a return to the ordoliberal politics of the “economic miracle” years 1950 to 1970…
Poverty, starvation, rationing, three day week, rubbish piling in the streets, factory closures, misery.
Yep, suggest you have a quick look at the history of the seventies/eighties.
BeechBaby wrote:
Poverty, starvation, rationing, three day week, rubbish piling in the streets, factory closures, misery.
In the UK maybe but perhaps not mainland Europe
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Le Sving, no they were also too late but they finally decided to lock down everything completely and Mr Kurz appears to show real leadership. There are still countries who don’t do that. There is no excuse for that.
In small country, yes a strict shutdown would surely work, the real question how long? I can’t imagine Austria will keep shutdown for 2 years…
Big countries: China, USA, France, Germany…partial solutions that fit into different communities would make more sense IMO
Note that an early 70% solution to social distancing can be maintained for 2 years, this is a lot better than 0% (UK now?) or forcing 100% solutions (Spain/Italy/France as of now?) as these will surely fail after 4 weeks
Peter_Mundy wrote:
In the UK maybe but perhaps not mainland Europe
How about the eastern europe?
State owned businesses don’t seem to innovate very well.
MedEwok wrote:
We need a return to the ordoliberal politics of the “economic miracle” years 1950 to 1970…
Sorry to be cynical, but the years 1950-1970 were “miracle good” and the previous years 1930-1950 were “nightmare darker”…
But I agree for mass epidemics (we don’t know if we are there yet!) private healthcare sectors should go to the bin 
Peter_Mundy wrote:
In the UK maybe but perhaps not mainland Europe
Sorry, globally. We had the Soviet Union, China, India, Pakistan, South America. We had the Cold War, massive racial inequality in the USA.
Vast majority were also very corrupt. It was precisely these
MedEwok wrote:
ordoliberal politics
That created the need for change. Thatcher in the UK, Reagan in the USA, the downfall of the Soviet block and the supposed economic expansion of China area although they could not give up the massive liberty and human rights issues inbred.
State is not good, nor rampant capitalism but somewhere in between, minus the greed and corruption I agree with.
Capitalism has brought more people out of poverty than any other system. Communism and Socialism tends to set records for killing its populations.
We will see where innovation comes from, but I would suspect an eventual vaccine is likely to come from a private enterprise
MedEwok wrote:
Essential services (anything with a “network” type of infrastructure, really), should be under public control anyways. The privatisations of the last 30 years were a huge mistake. This is blatantly obvious in the healthcare sector, but also in many other fields.
Essential services I do agree. There should be a public infrastructure which is at least state backed if not run. Countries however do not make for very good managers, but they are not bad at providing financial stability.
I think at this stage, it is the wrong time to muse over systematic changes or to use this to make political capital. Do not forget: The origin of this virus is a communist country which state run medicine which because of lack of freedom of information e.t.c. got us into the situation that we are in now!
It is symptomatic for crisis situations that “strong leaders” are in high demand, but we should remember what tends to happen when such people get into power. What needs to change is that in such cases a pre-set and clear concept exists how to contain an outbreak which all countries subscribe to and are held accountable if they mess it up. I have no doubt that after this havoc readiness for this under the lead of the WHO is there.
I’ll be stimulating the US economy by burning some Avgas as soon as the local weather clears up a little, and I’m very glad I earned more money to pay for that Avgas, well away from European economics such as they are. My income is eight times higher than it was as a newly degreed engineer in 1988, and I will never, ever let government meddle in my healthcare.
Silvaire wrote:
I will never, ever let government meddle in my healthcare.
Nobody sais you should. It’s not about insurance, it’s about a basic hospital infrastructure. In many places these have been thinned out by privatisation and forgotten their primary mission to take care of patients and safe lifes in favour of making money. Infrastructure may make money but it should never be it’s primary mission. That goes for airports and vital transport links as well.
Health care in Switzerland is each citizen’s private affair, the only thing the government sais is that you have to have a basic health cover. That has worked quite well in the whole run. We have a healthy mix out of state (not federal) hospitals, university hospitals and private clinics. All of them now pitch in to cover in this crisis.
