We can freeze the economy, or allow it to form a cocoon like a caterpillar.
Freezing the economy would be paying businesses to pay for overhead and labor. This would ensure everyone's job is frozen in place while furloughed.
What we have instead done is try and form a cocoon like a caterpillar does. If you don't know about how a caterpillar becomes a moth, well it basically just dissolves completely into goop in that cocoon and forms an entire new animal out of that goop. We are allowing the economic structure to dissolve into goop while paying everyone to keep alive while at home inside the cocoon. However, since we've eliminated the structure, what emerges will not look the same. It will be much smaller as capital moved to safer investments. People will not be able to get their old jobs right away, if at all. They might have to change fields. It is going to suck and a lot of people will end up set back in their lives and careers as a result.
Freezing the economy would be paying businesses to pay for overhead and labor. This would ensure everyone's job is frozen in place while furloughed.
What we have instead done is try and form a cocoon like a caterpillar does. If you don't know about how a caterpillar becomes a moth, well it basically just dissolves completely into goop in that cocoon and forms an entire new animal out of that goop. We are allowing the economic structure to dissolve into goop while paying everyone to keep alive while at home inside the cocoon. However, since we've eliminated the structure, what emerges will not look the same. It will be much smaller as capital moved to safer investments. People will not be able to get their old jobs right away, if at all. They might have to change fields. It is going to suck and a lot of people will end up set back in their lives and careers as a result.