Property could fall 30%- LOL

we simply cant afford to do this. Not to mention how many lives we will lose

Shutdown costing economy $4 billion a week as Cabinet prepares to assess restrictions

 

Not really when/if unemployment is over 10 percent. Would you go to a country with a high unemployment knowing you might not find a job and knowing you are uprooting your whole family?

 

They would probably be coming from a country with even higher unemployment. Migrants do not go to places that are worse than their current homeland - they go to where it is better. Push/Pull factors - we have discussed to death all the ways Australia is one of the most desirable places in the world to live.

 

Sure but with a 10 per cent unemployment. Electrote may put lots of pressure to reduce migration.

 

This is the central problem.

The US and Europe are opening up again and will grind towards herd immunity or at least a reasonably high level of immunity as the percentage of people infected increases.

Australia and NZ on the other hand are looking to turn the place into a giant cordaine sanitaire. And like all cordaine sanitaires it only works if the borders remain shut.

I simply don’t accept that you could have open the borders and oblige people to do 14 days in a hotel at their own cost without a serious reduction in the number of people willing to migrate here. Not high skilled migrants anyway. And it’s a non-starter for tourists obviously. The property lobby have openly admitted that without fresh bodies arriving in the high numbers they have been for the last twenty years, their business model is bust with all the attendant repercussions for the economy at large.

Then there is the issue of people who are already here who have immediate family overseas, millions of them. How long will they be happy to have the borders shut? How many of them will be willing to stay in a hotel room for two weeks after returning from a three week visit to Manchester to see Mum? That’s if they can get an affordable flight.

The whole plan only makes sense if you think a vaccine will be developed before the economic damage and public discontent with the policy create fractures in the national consensus. In other words, soon.

The quickest vaccine ever developed was for mumps and it took four years. Lets say a vaccine could be developed and enough people vaccinated within Australia to create herd immunity within two years of the outbreak. That’s still 18 months away. 18 months is, for my money, longer than the borders can remain closed.

 

There are no assurances that herd immunity will even occur and if it does, at what level of exposure is required. It also needs stating that Europe is opening up borders because of very strong political considerations than public health ones. I'm not sure Europe, like the USA, are good examples just yet of conducting business. This needs patience and literally, for Australia to use the European countries as lab rats for seeing see how they cope with more widespread open borders and the effects of coronavirus afterwards.

Too bad for the speculators and they'll need to develop a better business model - nothing stays the same forever. Just ask Kodak how their business model went after the introduction of digital photography. Kodak succumbed but it provided greater opportunities for many more others.

 

I disagree in that the dichotomy between 'public health' and 'political considerations' is a false dichotomy. Unemployment kills. Poverty kills. The Spanish and the Italian governments know this which is why they are trying to salvage something of the tourist season. Eviscerating their economies will cause far more damage than the virus from a public health and every other perspective but, of course, they need to do it in a measured way.

 

I'm not arguing that I ma arguing the reasons for Europe opening its borders. It's an anathema to many European Govts to have closed borders irrespective of the reasons. That was why, even when Italy was in the midst of the crisis, borders remained open and people were able to commute between countries.

 

If Australia eradicates the virus, the borders will stay closed until a vaccine is found. No politician will open the borders to the virus - it’s political death.

 

yes , and while i support this. We have to accept its also economic death, and that's the position the government have backed themselves into now. its a huge gamble a vaccine will be found , if not , for the current government its a loose loose situation

 

Have you read the report about the percentage of people developing antibodies in Sweden after the recovered from COVID-19? Only one in 14! So how many people need to be infected to achieve herd immunity? How many will die before that?

Yes there is a risk that a vaccine won't be found. But there is also a risk that herd immunity cannot be achieved at all. Australia approach is flattenning the curve to better prepare our healthcare system and outbreak management, not full eradication. So I think the goverment will review the border restriction regularly to balance the health risk and economic needs.

 

Have we quantified the number of people dying because of the lockdowns?

From depression, suicide, heart disease. And the degraded quality of life because of the economic consequences of the lockdown?

Are we sacrificing the life of the young in order to save the old?

Etc etc?

 

I would like to hear your solution for the current situation if you are the PM

 

Short term health effects have been prioritised, short term economic policy has been prioritised.

Long term health effects cannot be priced and policy makers today have no future accountability on that. Like debt taken out today , paid off in future dollars worth less tomorrow, there’s no attempt to price in health costs today occurring in the future. It eludes the policy and how people even think.

Long term economic policies are unfavourable, it’s all about ensuring asset values remain high and purchasing power is preserved (at least until the boomers retire). Central bank policy aimed at inflation targeting is assymetrical. It cares about asset prices if they fall but ignores them if they rise. I don’t know if this is deliberate or through ignorance but at the moment it is the only game in town. The irony is, inflation is what they’re after and if achieved it will destroy the current system.

If debt deflation occurs on a large scale, mental heath impacts will run long into the future, beyond this pandemic.

 

Investing in something other than digging rocks from the ground and construction of new MDF homes in future ghettos would be a good start.

In fact any policy that allows investment to create surplus (real) savings would also be a good start. But that puts the current system at risk of default , so on we kick with more of 2008 V2

 

I kinda wonder how many deaths haven’t happened because of lockdowns. Massive amounts of workplace and road deaths possibly murders in some countries.

 

On house prices Sydney's north west is very active. Maybe some pent up demand but houses selling in days. One place I was looking at last year and sold for $1.8m which I thought was overs, sold this week in 3 days for a bit over $2m.

If you one of the 90% of the workforce that hasn't lost their job through all this, carpe diem.

 

I don’t know , that’s why I said I support it but they are also backed into a corner ,

do you think the political opposition won’t use it to their advantage ? It’s a no win situation

Probably downgrade travel warning to level 4
open travel to all , but with expensive pre paid not taxpayer paid self funded 14 day hotel quarantine on arrival , it’ll then be default open travel only to essential business travel and students and long term arrivals prepared to pay for the 14 days
I’ve been involved on 2 large Energy projects On hold because the owners can’t get people in

Remember departure travel is also banned , businesses can’t get people out either , it’s a matter of time before business or dual citizens challenge this


I’m not against it , I just think they are backed into a corner banking on a vaccine