Suspend Time

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artisticsolution
Posts: 1942
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 1:38 am

Suspend Time

Post by artisticsolution »

Hi everyone, old friends and new. I hope everyone is well and virus free!

So, I've been thinking of solutions that we could come up with to solve (at least) the financial problems we face as most of us are unemployed during this quarantine.

Why couldnt we just suspend time?

Now granted...every country would have to agree...but what if we said, "Okay, today is March 26th. We will stop time for 2 weeks during which time absolutely NO transactions would exist. All financial and business would completely stop as if the earth did not exist and then "time" could pick up again in 2 weeks or 2 months and start where we left off which would be March 27th?

During the suspension of time, no rents, taxes, Bill's etc, would be collected. Utilities would have to continue maybe food could be free in relief packages that would contain essentials to live on for the poor. And for those who could afford it ...be on a sort of Tab...to be paid back when time resumes.

I know this sounds radical, but time is just an abstract idea anyway, and it seems to me that this drastic idea of suspending it, is less drastic than allowing the whole world to sink in a devestaing depression.

Thoughts? Solutions?
Walker
Posts: 14245
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: Suspend Time

Post by Walker »

Howdy. Good topic. In the US, income tax filing is already extended 3 months. Stopping time would require dictatorial powers and rationing of goods to make the seizure of commerce timely and worthwhile, rationing because free food and fuel can’t be unlimited or some people will take it all to set up a black market. Suppliers could submit receipts directly to the government for instant credit transfers. No cash.

The danger to watch is that once the government starts a program it never goes away, so it would effectively socialize or communize the United States and make the filthy lucre outlawed, although that might not be the stated intent at the outset. All transfers of goods and services would be traceable, and eventually taxable.

More traditionally, I heard that the interest earned from all the college endowments would be enough money to pay all tuitions. That would eliminate student debt, but it would also dare to touch the third rail of the education voting block.

This morning I watched the death tally with my phone calculator. The death tally will be the final historic baseline to judge what is happening. Of worldwide reported cases, 4.5% death rate and a significant percentage of those would have probably died this year without the virus. Likely more have infected than reported cases, so the death rate is actually less than 4.5%. In the US, the death rate is currently 1.4%. This high death rate also includes the initial spiking so over the long haul the rate is less, but will it ever be as low as seasonal flu?

Tracing the death rate caused by worldwide economic destruction will be a murkier trail however poverty is linked to higher mortality rates in a population.

There has been a new phenomenon in past decades and that is to take drastic action based on predictions in the effort to prevent suffering. Coastlines evacuate before a hurricane, then the hurricane never arrives. Cities close for a blizzard, then the blizzard never arrives. The world closes and the pale rider rides on.
Walker
Posts: 14245
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: Suspend Time

Post by Walker »

Dr. Deborah Birx: Coronavirus data not matching extreme predictions

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/debora ... redictions
Impenitent
Posts: 4305
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:04 pm

Re: Suspend Time

Post by Impenitent »

suspend time sounds like a program for the destruction of belt manufacturers...

will the firemen still wear red ones?

-Imp
commonsense
Posts: 5087
Joined: Sun Mar 26, 2017 6:38 pm

Re: Suspend Time

Post by commonsense »

There would be some essential services during a suspension of fiscal time, e.g. plumbers.

A plumber would be given the same allotment of food and gas whether he was hard at work or just plain lazy. As it is natural to follow the path of least resistance, toilets would be backing up all over the planet.

Productivity and services would be drastically reduced. Supplies of food and fuel would dwindle. Without governmental enforcement, everything would grind to a halt. Once there is no food (because no one is cultivating it), it will be all she wrote for humanity.
artisticsolution
Posts: 1942
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 1:38 am

Re: Suspend Time

Post by artisticsolution »

Hi everyone and thanks for your input.

Commonsense, I think we could still pay pay people who provide necessary service. The only thing is the paperwork might have to be officially filed when time resumed. The pay could be an advance. Sort of like overtime and recorded as such when they returned to work. They would get their normal paycheck when they went back to work but on the paycheck stub would be a record of what they got during the suspension of time. In essence...prepaid overtime.
commonsense
Posts: 5087
Joined: Sun Mar 26, 2017 6:38 pm

Re: Suspend Time

Post by commonsense »

artisticsolution wrote: Sat Mar 28, 2020 3:52 am Hi everyone and thanks for your input.

Commonsense, I think we could still pay pay people who provide necessary service. The only thing is the paperwork might have to be officially filed when time resumed. The pay could be an advance. Sort of like overtime and recorded as such when they returned to work. They would get their normal paycheck when they went back to work but on the paycheck stub would be a record of what they got during the suspension of time. In essence...prepaid overtime.
Great idea, prepaid overtime—I couldn’t agree more.
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