What good is increasing G.D.P. if it kills you? By Paul Krugman

[babylonsister]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/opinion/coronavirus-economy-death.html

What good is increasing G.D.P. if it kills you?
By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist
May 28, 2020


America is now engaged in a vast, dangerous experiment. Although social distancing has limited the spread of the coronavirus, it is far from contained. Yet despite warnings from epidemiologists, much of the country is moving to open up for business as usual.

You might think that such a momentous move would come with elaborate justifications — that politicians pushing an end to social distancing, from Donald Trump on down, would at least try to explain why we should take this risk. But those calling for quickly reopening have been notably silent about the trade-offs involved. Instead, they talk incessantly about the need to “save the economy.”

That is, however, a very bad way to think about economic policy in a pandemic.

What, after all, is the economy’s purpose? If your answer is something like, “To generate incomes that let people buy things,” you’re getting it wrong — money isn’t the ultimate goal; it’s just a means to an end, namely, improving the quality of life.

Now, money matters: There is a clear relationship between income and life satisfaction. But it’s not the only thing that matters. In particular, you know what also makes a major contribution to the quality of life? Not dying.

snip//

One way to put it: Trump and his allies don’t want us to wear face masks but do want us to wear blinders.

How will this exercise in denial end? Again, there’s a lot of uncertainty in epidemiological projections. Trump and friends could get lucky; their insistence that we should quickly go back to business as usual might not lead to a large number of deaths.

But it probably will, because the push for reopening rests on a foundation of willful ignorance. Never mind G.D.P.; the most fundamental job of any leader is to keep his people alive. Unfortunately, that’s a job Trump doesn’t seem interested in doing.

[Sherman A1]

1. We need UBI

As proposed by Andrew Yang

[lark]

2. He is profiting by killing us, satisfying his 2 greatest urges - greed and absolute hate.

He's going to do everything humanly possible to keep the carnage going because it delights him so to see cops hurting minorities. Also it provides a distraction for his absolute failure and blame in pushing the country to open up unsafely and kill extra tens of thousands or Americans - or more.