03-22-2020, 12:43 PM
I decided to check back here, since it seems pretty obvious that this pandemic crisis is the climax of this 4T and I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread on this already (although I may have missed it). Nevertheless, here are my thoughts.
Trump is, whether you like it or not, the Gray (orange) Champion of this cycle. Unless he screws up royally, I don't see him losing to Biden in the election. Biden's choice of VP is very important as whoever he picks is likely going to be the real president. I'm guessing he's going to pick Kamala Harris, but I could be wrong. It's interesting to note that a presidential nominee has never died before the election, but that actually may happen this time considering the ages of the candidates and COVID19. And even if Biden does manage to survive to the election, he's already in his late 70s so he may not last two terms.
But it's interesting how unimportant these politics seem at this time. Issues that were huge only a month ago (impeachment, FISA abuses, even climate change) just seem trivial by comparison. This pandemic is a real crisis unlike anything we've been through. You would have to go all the way back to WWII to find a crisis that required such a level of sacrifice by the whole population and put us against so common an enemy. That being said, the hardships they went through is nowhere's near the same as what we're going through. Our lives have become undeniably a lot easier since then. But because we've become so accustomed to an easy life, even a mild crisis, like this, seems difficult. So compared to what we've become accustomed to, this is our version of the WWII climax of the last 4T.
And like the great depression and WWII changed the world permanently, so will this crisis. The last 4T saw the permanent addition of social safety nets, ie Social Security, unemployment insurance and Medicare. As a result of this pandemic, we will very likely see the introduction of UBI due to the massive damage this crisis has done to an economy that was booming just a month ago. Even Republicans are supporting UBI now, and it may replace Social Security and unemployment insurance entirely. And I don't see us putting the UBI genie back in the bottle once this crisis ends either. Politicians that run on a platform to end UBI will very quickly lose support. UBI will become the new "third rail" in politics like Social Security has been for so long.
But UBI, by itself, will not be sustainable. For those of you who are familiar with my posts, you'll know that I was always in favor of UBI, but preferred the Gary Johnson model over the Andrew Yang model. The Gary Johnson "fairtax" model involved switching away from a federal income tax system to a consumption tax system, and using a percentage of the consumption tax to fund a monthly UBI prebate or "tax refund". The reason being that if UBI was funded by income tax, the incentive to work will collapse. If the checks were big enough, most people would prefer to collect free government money rather than work, and there wouldn't be enough income tax revenue to fund UBI. Plus the resentment between the workers funding UBI, and the non-workers collecting UBI will become unsustainable after a point. At least, if it were funded by a consumption tax, everyone would be paying into it, not just the people with jobs. Gary Johnson's UBI model could stand the test of time. Andrew Yangs could not. So it's likely that we will see something like the fairtax being instituted to keep UBI sustainable.
As more and more schools and companies adopt a work from home model, I have a feeling this is another genie that we will not be able to put back in the bottle. Work from home will become the norm, except for jobs that can't physically support a remote work option. School will also adopt more of a remote desktop model, and I see homeschooling becoming way more prevalent after this.
Looking at the big picture, I see this crisis as the death knell for globalization. The trend towards globalization had already been losing ground with Brexit and Trump's election, but this just killed it. Borders are more secure than ever, and although it will ease up a bit, I don't see the "open borders" argument regaining any ground any time soon. Yet, despite how socially isolated we've become, we're becoming more connected than ever online. But I see us ultimately becoming more domestically focused. Economically we're already seeing a major push to rely less on other countries (especially China) for manufactured goods. This trend is likely to continue as we'd want to be more prepared for another crisis like this. It's interesting to note that WWII ultimately resulted in increasing globalization. This crisis is resulting in the opposite.
Trump is, whether you like it or not, the Gray (orange) Champion of this cycle. Unless he screws up royally, I don't see him losing to Biden in the election. Biden's choice of VP is very important as whoever he picks is likely going to be the real president. I'm guessing he's going to pick Kamala Harris, but I could be wrong. It's interesting to note that a presidential nominee has never died before the election, but that actually may happen this time considering the ages of the candidates and COVID19. And even if Biden does manage to survive to the election, he's already in his late 70s so he may not last two terms.
But it's interesting how unimportant these politics seem at this time. Issues that were huge only a month ago (impeachment, FISA abuses, even climate change) just seem trivial by comparison. This pandemic is a real crisis unlike anything we've been through. You would have to go all the way back to WWII to find a crisis that required such a level of sacrifice by the whole population and put us against so common an enemy. That being said, the hardships they went through is nowhere's near the same as what we're going through. Our lives have become undeniably a lot easier since then. But because we've become so accustomed to an easy life, even a mild crisis, like this, seems difficult. So compared to what we've become accustomed to, this is our version of the WWII climax of the last 4T.
And like the great depression and WWII changed the world permanently, so will this crisis. The last 4T saw the permanent addition of social safety nets, ie Social Security, unemployment insurance and Medicare. As a result of this pandemic, we will very likely see the introduction of UBI due to the massive damage this crisis has done to an economy that was booming just a month ago. Even Republicans are supporting UBI now, and it may replace Social Security and unemployment insurance entirely. And I don't see us putting the UBI genie back in the bottle once this crisis ends either. Politicians that run on a platform to end UBI will very quickly lose support. UBI will become the new "third rail" in politics like Social Security has been for so long.
But UBI, by itself, will not be sustainable. For those of you who are familiar with my posts, you'll know that I was always in favor of UBI, but preferred the Gary Johnson model over the Andrew Yang model. The Gary Johnson "fairtax" model involved switching away from a federal income tax system to a consumption tax system, and using a percentage of the consumption tax to fund a monthly UBI prebate or "tax refund". The reason being that if UBI was funded by income tax, the incentive to work will collapse. If the checks were big enough, most people would prefer to collect free government money rather than work, and there wouldn't be enough income tax revenue to fund UBI. Plus the resentment between the workers funding UBI, and the non-workers collecting UBI will become unsustainable after a point. At least, if it were funded by a consumption tax, everyone would be paying into it, not just the people with jobs. Gary Johnson's UBI model could stand the test of time. Andrew Yangs could not. So it's likely that we will see something like the fairtax being instituted to keep UBI sustainable.
As more and more schools and companies adopt a work from home model, I have a feeling this is another genie that we will not be able to put back in the bottle. Work from home will become the norm, except for jobs that can't physically support a remote work option. School will also adopt more of a remote desktop model, and I see homeschooling becoming way more prevalent after this.
Looking at the big picture, I see this crisis as the death knell for globalization. The trend towards globalization had already been losing ground with Brexit and Trump's election, but this just killed it. Borders are more secure than ever, and although it will ease up a bit, I don't see the "open borders" argument regaining any ground any time soon. Yet, despite how socially isolated we've become, we're becoming more connected than ever online. But I see us ultimately becoming more domestically focused. Economically we're already seeing a major push to rely less on other countries (especially China) for manufactured goods. This trend is likely to continue as we'd want to be more prepared for another crisis like this. It's interesting to note that WWII ultimately resulted in increasing globalization. This crisis is resulting in the opposite.