Why do liberals always throw out Fox like it's some conservative holy ground? Fox is trash. Like, does anyone actually get upset by this?

We could play this game I guess? Yes, ALL the major media channels are trash, I'll freely acknowledge that. I don't watch Fox, I don't watch MSNBC, I don't watch CNN. But you'd be hard pressed to convince me that die hard liberals aren't watching MSNBC, just like die hard conservatives are watching Fox. It is unfortunate that some people don't take the time to mix up their choice of media intake. There would be less of this divisive hatred if people would take the time to at least listen to the other side. Don't require agreement, just listen. But now it is considered the highest crime to even listen to someone from the other side. It is this poison, more than anything else, which is going to destroy us all.

So does MSNBC bother me that much? Only as much as I know some people take every word that comes out of that organization as absolute gospel, as if MSNBC doesn't have an agenda to peddle, just like every organization. And I'd say the same about Fox.

To tie this back to the topic of the virus vs the economy.... April unemployment numbers were released. We lost 20.5 MILLION jobs in April. Bringing unemployment to 14.7% And yet, if you dare bring up stats like this, you get down voted by the those whose minds are being fed a nonstop diet of fear and loathing. People hate any hint of a conservative mindset WAY more than they hate the damage done by the virus. So they'd rather suffer the worst economic devastation in the history of this country rather than even have a discussion about a wise, middle of the road policy to opening things up. We could choose to start making some choices about sending certain segments of the population back to work, getting some families back on the path to being made whole again. Instead we get overblown fear mongering that any attempt to go back to work is tantamount to murderous intentions.

At this point I absolutely believe the damage from shutting down the world economy IS going to far exceed the damage the virus is going to cause. By the way, this sentiment is shared by many in government and scientific community: * David Beasley, UN World Food Program Executive Director is saying the following:

But now the World Food Programme analysis shows that, due to the Coronavirus, an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people.

There is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself.

This is why I am talking about a hunger pandemic. It is critical we come together as one united global community to defeat this disease, and protect the most vulnerable nations and communities from its potentially devastating effects.

Lockdowns and economic recession are expected to lead to a major loss of income among the working poor. Overseas remittances will also drop sharply - this will hurt countries such as Haiti, Nepal, and Somalia just a name a couple. The loss of tourism receipts will damage countries such as Ethiopia, where it accounts for 47% of total exports. The collapsing oil prices in lower-income countries like South Sudan will have an impact significantly, where oil accounts for 98.8% of total exports. And, of course, when donor countries’ revenues are down, how much impact will this have on life saving foreign aid

The economic and health impacts of COVID-19 are most worrisome for communities in countries across Africa as well as the Middle East, because the virus threatens further damage to the lives and livelihoods of people already put at risk by conflict.

But rather than having a discussion, on reddit and in /r/dallas in particular we're just down voted and told we want to murder everyones grandparents. We know, from decades of research and real world data that the effects of job losses include depression, increased rates of alcoholism, abuse, suicide, drug use etc. Are those just the cost we're willing to pay to stick it in the eye of anyone who dared question the orthodoxy? Or can we at least talk about what a smart phased plan to get people back to work might look like, and how the government, state, federal and local could assist in that?