To be certain, I was not intending to give a complete formula nor how to derive it.
Production and consumption are different. A producer has a pair of hands, making things. If you lose a producer, you’re down a pair of hands. A consumer holds a slice of the world’s assets and controls how they are used but, if the holder goes away then those assets just move over to other parties and don’t leave the system. From an economic standpoint, there is no “loss”, there’s just a shift in how those assets will be prioritized.
I would have thought it was a far lower number so I’m happy to grant you that but, when you’re calculating at the population level you’re really just taking the average salary expected for the age group, by the total percentage employed, by the total number of remaining years of expected employment. In general, we expect a slow drift from mostly employed to mostly/completely unemployed - regardless of whether there is some movement in and out of the market.
But, say that we assume that everyone will work until the day they die. An older person’s expected output is still going to be lower than a younger person’s just because the remainder of their life is shorter. That’s not fair but it is just calculating the area under the curve and giving the number. There’s nothing personal about it.
More importantly, there is no rule saying that just because you calculate that 0.01% of persons over 85 year old are going to contribute to society’s production capacity, that you MUST mark them all down as expendable. The hard side of the equation is not required to be the larger side of the equation. It’s just the side that’s more concrete.
I see your points. Some people will say if it really was good for us, why would they have to bribe us? Not buckling your seat belt also brings fines. Maybe punishment works. I would hope so.
Am I alone in saying idiots who refuse vax and get covid should be denied medical treatment? (Absent some showing of medical justification or mental incompetence.)
Literally. A conservative friend (who recently got fully vaxed) said nearly these exact words. He just “did not like the way it was communicated”. As if he expected some cuddling first. SMH
I’m definitely kind of there. I work with a few ER doctors in my research so I get to hear lots of stories about things that are happening in (Canadian) hospitals. A patient died on dialysis a week or so back despite having a replacement kidney available. They simply could not schedule the surgery. They were “hoping” (like not really hoping I just cannot think of a better word) that one of the unvaccinated COVID patients would die in time. It is remarkable to me that three different ER departments in different parts of the country have all told me the same thing: “Do not get sick or injured. Not just with COVID. With anything serious, like a car accident. There’s a good chance you’ll die on a gurney in a hallway.” It is ridiculous that this conspiracy theory stupidity is causing so much damage. I’d be more patient if it were based on anything remotely real.
Yeah, I’ve heard it said several times recently. It is unreal. Like what do they think that government has been doing for months? They asked, you refused, now they’re saying do it or else face the consequences of your choice. Now suddenly* the party of personal responsibility doesn’t like consequences being attached to choices.
P.s. - They never have liked consequences for anybody white or Republican.
One thing I thought I’d address is the seeming perception that this is all coming from conservatives/Republicans. As I indicated earlier, my own personal experience is the pushback is coming mainly from unions and those in the unions…which aren’t exactly bastions of Republican support, at least again in my experience. I also don’t think this is coming necessarily from anti-vaxxer (which, again in my experience, comes from both ends of the political spectrum, not exclusively from the right/Republicans) wrt mandates anyway. I know people who are vaccinated, who encourage vaccination but who are opposed to vaccine mandates.
There just seems to be an attempt by some to categorize those who disagree with them as their political enemies, but I think this is missing a lot by doing so…there are people that are Democrat, Republican, Independent, and basically every other political stripe that have refused to get vaccinated. Most of my friends and co-workers and all of my family are vaccinated, but I know people of every political stripe from howling liberal/progressives to red-faced right-wing conservative types and everything in between who refuse to get vaccinated (they all have different reasons).
As for the anti-mandate streak in the Republicans, that makes sense since they have a streak of libertarians in their mix, while the Democrats have always been more about government intervention…personal liberty verse collective action if you will. Not a big surprise that either party is taking the stance they are taking. But I think both getting vaccinated and mandates cross party lines a lot more than some seem to be painting all of this, at least at the regular citizen level (as opposed to the party line level).
Yes, you can find some example of almost anything in almost any group. But unvaccinated Democrats tend to be more in the hesitant category (for whatever reason), while Republicans appear more frequently in the rabidly against.
Thanks for the links. I dug into a few of those, and it does seem to confirm what you are saying, though this one indicates that Black and Hispanic citizens vaccination rates are low, and those are generally high percentage Democrats (Asians, unsurprisingly to me at least, make up the highest ethnic vaccinated by percentage).
There are currently around 56% of Americans who are vaccinated. I don’t know exactly what percentage of those are Republican verse Democrat (verse other), but I’m willing to concede that the Republicans make up a larger percentage, especially looking at the links you provided. But not all of them are Conservative/Republicans by any stretch.
As long as we are offering personal experiences, I’ll toss in my experience when working in Valparaiso - NW Indiana. Through a co-worker I played in a golf league with a number of union steelworkers. To a man, these men were extremely anti-tax, pro-gun, and even anti unions - except for their own, of course! Pretty impressively racist, anti-gay, and misogynistic as well.
While union organizations may lean left, I am not sure whether that can be said of the rank and file in every location. My personal experience is that ostensible conservatives are not overly strict about adhering to their philosophy, when failing to do so is to their economic advantage.
It is certainly closer than most people think, at least in the USA. I would have guessed the percentages would have been more skewed before looking it up. I think the situation is worse here in Canada where I think it is vaccine resistance is tied more so to the right/alt-right.
Also, with respect to sympathy for the unvaccinated, a recent poll stated that 83% of Canadians have no sympathy for COVID victims that choose to be unvaccinated. I’m not sure what it is in the USA, but I doubt it is that high. Perhaps it is because of our universal healthcare and we see it being overwhelmed by a fundamentally ill-informed and selfish view.
Union heads are still Democratic, it seems, but the average worker (ignoring things like Hollywood unions) is probably a Trump supporter. As those work up the ladder, we should expect to see the unions go Republican and for the party to steadily go more pro-worker.
At that point, if you’re a person who was a Republican in 1960 and still remain a Republican today, you’ve effectively switched parties.
Well, honestly I don’t have a ton of sympathy for those who could get vaccinated, chose not to, and got Covid. So, my WAG is at least wrt 'dopers it would be higher than your 83% since I seem to be the only one even on the fence about mandates. But I don’t know what the percentage would be for Americans on this score…my guess is that it’s as you said, fairly low, or at least lower. And that probably does break down along party lines, with less sympathy from Democrats and more from Republicans wrt people who chose not to get vaccinated and then got Covid.
California will become the first state in the nation to require all teachers and staff in K-12 public and private schools to get vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing
So, teachers are not required to get the shot - they are afforded the opportunity to test weekly. I know it’s semantics - but how is a mandate supposed to work of there is a massive exception hole for people to exploit? At my company there is a vaccination mandate (that I support), and no option to test regularly. You either get vaccinated, or have a medical exception (or a religious one - that will be challenged), or you will not be allowed to work here.
I am reading now that the mandate for school kids will adhere to previous vaccine exception rules for other childhood immunizations - so evidently all a parent has to do is say “I don’t wanna, for personal reasons” and their kid will not have to get the shot. Too many exceptions.
Uh, isn’t that how the whole Federal COVID mandate is set up for businesses with more than 100 employees? Either get the jab or get weekly testing. Federal employees, government contractors, and healthcare workers don’t have the testing option.
Personally, I REALLY like the idea of the insurance companies deciding that COVID treatment should carry dramatically different out-of-pocket, copays and payment percentages for the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Oh? You’re not vaccinated? Your co-pay is now $200 for anything associated with it, and we’re only going to pay half, rather than 80% of your bill. And your out of pocket just went up by 40%.
Have fun!
Total free market at work. And none of that pesky communistic universal health care. The problem is, insurance companies probably don’t have the balls to actually make a stand like that; they’d rather beat up on cancer patients and the elderly.
Pretty impressively racist, anti-gay, and misogynistic as well.
But I don’t know what the percentage would be for Americans on this score…my guess is that it’s as you said, fairly low, or at least lower. And that probably does break down along party lines, with less sympathy from Democrats and more from Republicans wrt people who chose not to get vaccinated and then got Covid.