Having trouble posting - trying in two parts maybe.

Part 1.

That's why I said no 'EU' country had sent masks to Italy. So pointing the finger solely at Germany seems a bit harsh.
There's humanitarian aid, and there's economical lending i.e. bonds. Let's not mix those two up. Also, there *are* other ways to solve this problem, like mentioned the re-purposing of the Euro Stability Fund/Mechanism, which seems to be the way EU is headed. So no, eurobonds are not the only way to solve this crisis and the ensuing economic recession.

Eurobonds cannot be implemented now without a common fiscal policy, or at least a somewhat unified one. It would basically mean transfer of money/income/wealth from less indebted countries to more indebted countries. The interest rates for Germany would go up (even if a bit) because the EU bloc as a whole would be borrowing, not only Germany anymore, it would 'average' out a bit. So Germans would stand to lose a lot actually - all without any control how that money is overseen or spent and with what kind of fiscal responsibility.

It's a hard pill to swallow in 2020 for many countries, who are also all suffering from this, though to a lesser extent than Italy.

And if it's just an emergency temporary measure - that's not what a huge change like eurobonds is for. There are other ways to support EU members through the crisis, like using the ESM in an innovative way, and using the already provided stimulus from the ECB.

For whom? Germany? Or Italy?
Part 2

My understanding it's an innovative new way to re-purpose the ESM for this task - there would be no mandatory reforms. 2% of GDP could be borrowed without any restrictions. That's the latest I read about where we are headed.

I agree, the other extreme viewpoint is also too much to handle, i.e that of isolationism and counting each cent and where it goes and how it's spent. The whole EU is a project in solidarity and the belief that everyone benefits a lot by being a part of the EU. Even if your 'net' flows of money are negative and go to other countries. Though seemingly a loss, much is gained by enlarging the economic market and having access to it, and making it wealthier, increased trade etc.

But I think eurobonds are such a massive step (in the right direction personally), we cannot just implement them like this, in 2020, even if temporarily.

Don't worry dude, they'll figure it out, and somehow we can survive this crisis.

You're right, there will certainly be variants of quarantine in the next weeks, it will certainly depends of countries :
- less "democratics" one would be more prone to make strict quarantine (or deny the pandemy)
- more "democratics" may have different quarantine, following how the spread increases or decreases and how their health system can handle the more diseased one without having to let die to much people. That's not realy uneducated : we don't have for now many figures to know what warm weather will do.
That's why I say it seems that warm weather doesn't help much - maybe it will slow the virus, but it can also lead more people to want to stay out longer and be more in physical contact with others. I'm not even sure we lived something like that in whole human history (economy was so much different, even if some epidemics could have killed way more percentage of the world population than Covid will) yes it is, it's only beginning. It will hit them hard, really hard I fear.

If you want to try to pass a morale failure check :
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Another prediction from myself :
- maybe we won't have eurobonds in the next 6 months;
- but governments will certainly put their hands on personnal savings
- they will make laws so that you won't be able to withdraw money from your bank accounts (it's already very difficult to do so with somewhat large sums) to avoid that.

And when you think that most of this money will go to a dying and virtual system...

About the flame war here between Italy and Germany :
I would like also to remind that without european countries Germany won't be able to sell a big part of their production, and that without the decisions of USA post WW2, they wouldn't even have the industry they have and are proud of.
To schematize Marshall plan in one sentence (!!!): France was ordered to make industrial farming (destroying environment and buying USA tractors) and Germany to be the industry of Europe : money was sent only if they obey that plan.

Choices could have been different, so modesty should be there for every country who think they deserve what they have and owe nothing to others.

Italians lost a war (in which they committed quite a few atrocities btw, as they had before in their colonial empire), just like the Germans, you needn't feel so self-righteous about having "changed" and being superior moral beings to those beastly Teutons, the choice wasn't yours. And talking about "solidarity" is all nice and good, if it's you who's demanding solidarity from others. I'm certainly unaware of any occasion in which Italy ever helped Germany in any way.
Anyway, if you feel China and Russia are your "true allies", feel free to turn to them, good luck to you.

Exactly, the Covid-19 crisis is merely the pretext for policies which Italy and France have been demanding for years anyway, for unrelated reasons. Linking it with the issue of how to deal with the pandemic is simply moral blackmail against Germany.
Anyway, I'm out of this discussion, I hope the thread won't get locked.

Your question is absurd. I have a multitude of sources at my disposal, from which I can choose those which have the best sourcing, so I don't have to rely on internet randos *or* corporate "experts" -- and it's the exact same for everyone who has access to the internet and is able to think critically.

It should be commonly understood that the corporate ethos considers profits to be sacred, and that the value of life is strictly determined on the basis of utility, because corporate behavior demonstrates this day in and day out. So internet randos are the least of what human beings should be concerned about at present.

I'm not going to go into it here as it will derail the thread, happy to chat via PM if you want. However I would say that if you're going to say that china is the biggest economy in the world, beyond the officially recognised largest economy of the U.S.A, you're not using the official statistics. In this case you have to account for all the unnofical statistics (including on debt, shadow banking etc.) & uncertainty within those statistics. I don't think you're wrong in your assertion, just that it means we're getting into a less easily proven area.

It's true, I was using GDP(PPP), whereas at nominal GDP US is still (currently) the biggest. You're right.

But that doesn't actually affect my points...

But yeah, this is veering offtopic (though China's ability to survive the crisis economically is in my opinion still related to the corona virus).

When the East German mark was changed 1: 1 to the West German mark.
France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Slovenia, Belgium, Luxembourg also want eurobonds for this crysis and I'm sure there are other countries that will join.
China and Russia only showed they had more empathy than expected.
The real allies with which to create a European union, on the other hand, I think are also in Europe and are many more than selfish countries.

Well I'm not against a real alternative to eurobonds. The problem is that the current crysis require quick action. If Germany and other countries against coronabond want to actually use ESM without mandatory reforms they should act quick (they instead asked for 15 more days to decide).
In fact, to be honest, I think the best alternative would be to make eurobonds among the countries that want them and leave all the others out. That way Germany and others would not risk-share and Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Slovenia, Belgium, Luxembourg and others will be able to get what they need for the current crysis without an high interest rate.

The main problem to solve quick is money, because lot's of people that cannot work need that money to be able to continue to live (and I'm among the lucky few who can work from home being a programmer, so I don't speak for myself either) and of course to be able to support the sanitary system.

What I find interesting is that China gave a grant to a BSL-3 facility at UNC-Chapel Hill, that has a long, sordid history of weaponizing animal pathogens. The grant allowed China to place a researcher there, and shortly after his return to China's BSL-4 facility at Wuhan, we see the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. Shortly after the outbreak, we see the emergence of the "bat soup" narrative.

So be afraid of bat soup, people. o.O

And how do you choose ? How do you know what is the best sourcing ? I'm not sure that everyone with access to the internet has the ability to think critically.
I would say that almost everyone is subject to many biases and usually don't think critically. I would modify : the value of life is strictly determined on the basis of utility to on the basis of the wallet.

If value of life was dertimined on the basis of utility, today crisis show that a supermarket cashier are worth a thousand traders, that a nurse is worth a thousand advertising executives or any bullshit jobs as defined by David Graeber for example.

That's not wat I see. And I can safely bet that traders will earn billions dollars this year and that the family of a supermaket cashier who will die of Covid caught while working will "earn" less than a few thousand dollars in the best of cases.

Then to bring it back on topic - what's your view on China's Covid-19 figures? Logically I just can't reconcile how they managed to go from such a spiralling rate of infection to suddenly plateauing when it's way below their population level for herd immunity. Maybe I'm missing something, would be interested to know other views.

Well, I can only speculate - but China's figures have been surprisingly accurate on a bunch of statistics in recent years. Especially pollution numbers, and they don't actually paint a rosy picture of China on the global scale(by far the largest greenhouse gas emitter for example). But those numbers can be independently verified by either US or EU satellite measurements, and the self-reported numbers were in agreement with the satellite measurements.

I have a lot less confidence in overly positive figures in this crisis, from certain authoritarian regimes elsewhere (hello Russia), but at this moment I want to give China the benefit of the doubt.

They seemed to have really implemented strong measures during the epidemic, which is not really surprising from what we know of their government. I did read something disturbing about Wuhan, which I'd rather not repeat here (it's about ashes), so in conclusion, I don't know and can only speculate.

I agree with you with respect to valuation, but you seem to be someone who embraces a more humane ethos. Subjectivity, and all that. ;p

As for sourcing, who would you say has greater credibility with respect to WMD, Dick Cheney, or Hans Blix? And please take your time. lol

I still don't understand your point. My discussion started by pointing out (and agreeing with some previous poster) that we should follow the knowledgeable sources, rather than the random facebook posts or gog forum posts (especially when they are in opposition to each other, notably in this thread with regards to how to disinfect, suitability of a mask, reinfection possibility, how to be immune, etc., where the wrong statement could actively harm people who follow those instructions).

Are you suggesting that my suggestion that as a general rule, we follow and listen to the authoratitive, knowledgeable sources as opposed to facebook shares and gog forum posts is somehow wrong?

It's all very well to talk about "think critically!", "Review the info and think critically", "CRITICALLY!", but considering the rate of spread of viral misinformation, nobody thinks critically. I've seen shared tens of millions of times incorrect information by some fellow "who has a Doctor uncle who was stationed in China" and another that tries to get technical by going into details about RNA and DNA to confuse laypeople- all with incorrect information that most will never catch on to, rather share further and increase the virality (of the misinformation), and potentially lead to more harm. Compare that to actual, useful information that isn't BS- and isn't virally shared.

People who actively (unintentionally or not) spread unverified (and often wrong) information should be called out on it. Have WHO or CDC (and I say again, hilarious to think that something as defanged and defunded as the CDC could be considered to have some corporate ethos of profit-before-all-else, or even the power to pull such off) given advice that has turned out wrong that they have not retracted?