I've found the next armchair QB issue, and it's hydochloroquine-zinc

Don't cherry-pick data to prove your point. Life expectancy rose during the remainder of the 1930s, before and after the four-year period you mention.

The reason for the drop was an increase in infant mortality; life expectancy AT BIRTH is a statistical average. That increase was due to the cumulative effect of several years of economic hardship.

However, the life expectancy of Americans UPON ATTAINING ADULTHOOD actually increased modestly even during those four years.

You know why? "Free shit" from the New Deal, which kept a LOT of people from dying. I know you're rabidly against that, though, so I won't mention it again.

Your hypothesis isn't supported by evidence. On what do you base your estimate of 1.5 million deaths?

Since we have no idea what the effect of a crippled economy will be on the health of the populace, I prefer to go with what we know:

1. The coronavirus kills people, and the more who are exposed, the more will die. The only counter we have is to minimize exposure.

2. Poverty kills people. However, we don't really know to what extent. We have several counters, including simply giving people money.

Therefore, we can reduce poverty using the resources we have. Therefore, we can minimize exposure and deal with the attendant economic distress.

We cannot do the opposite, though: we cannot open the economy and also avoid the attendant additional deaths.

So 1) I prefer the alternative that results in fewer deaths, as poverty can be reversed but death cannot, and 2) I prefer the problem we can remedy with the resources we have (recession) to the problem we cannot presently remedy (a deadly disease for which there is no cure).

Kevin's argument is that only babies were dying at a magnificent rate during the depression, and that this data and fact should be ignored.  That's a good one.

Kevin asks "Your hypothesis isn't supported by evidence. On what do you base your estimate of 1.5 million deaths?" 

I assumed that a similar economic downturn would lead to a similar decline in US life expectancy.  I then did a rough calculation of the area under the curve for a population of 330 million people.

A decrease in life expectancy does not immediately create a significant increase in the death rate.

You are looking at one of the worst economic periods in US history, during a time when most people did not have access to medical care, and assuming the effects of a recession would be the same now as they were then.

Kevin, didn't you say that the decrease in life expectancy during the depression was due to the increase in infant deaths?