Posted on 03/09/2020 10:14:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
COVID-19 infected the American psyche and stocks rather suddenly during the final week of February. Last week I attended at large technology investment conference in California -- The Montgomery Summit 2020 -- and was eager to see whether investors and entrepreneurs were pulling in their horns. I also moderated two discussions on the pandemic’s likely damage to the economy, markets and supply chains around the world.
My first session was with Michael Milken, the noted financier and philanthropist. Milken was cautious for the short term, but generally optimistic. Computer power for gene sequencing and AI models to predict infection spread, he said, are vastly more capable than during the SARS scare of 2002-2003 and the H1N1 epidemic of 2009-2010, when 700 million to 1.4 billion people became infected worldwide and upwards of 500,000 died. Technology can identify and solve problems much faster today.
Milken cited the U.S. polio epidemic of 1952 and the HIV/AIDS panic of the late 1980s as times when fear gripped the population. “People were afraid to be in the same room with someone infected with HIV.”
Fear, of course, is hard to break. The polio fear persisted a few years after the Salk vaccine. Milken said it was popular figures like Elvis Presley, photographed during his Army vaccine, that broke the spell. What lifted the clouds for AIDS were new drug cocktails that eliminated the death sentence, along with thriving patients such as basketball star Magic Johnson.
Capitalism, reasonably regulated, Milken reminded us, has remarkable recuperative powers. The COVID-19 crisis has created the lowest mortgage rates in U.S. history. Oil and gas are priced almost at the lows of early 2009 [update: and now significantly lower.] “The cost of living is going down. Purchasing power is going up.”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I think she is right. Also a lot of companies will move some of their factories.. Not sure if China will recover.
The Chinese factories are already back into production. It appears that the coronavirus has peaked in China. Also thank you President Trump for making America oil independent.
I’m both counting on this and gambling on it.
“The cost of living is going down.”
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Say what?
The thing about a manufactured crises is that it is not real. I think once that becomes more obvious we’ll recover. Maybe not as fast as the down turn happened, but we we’ll recover by summer.
The Supply Chains are mostly still running on stuff that was in Process. Many of them are still going to crash...
Until China can get things moving again.
We have not seen the bottom of the market, yet.
Its a manufactured MEDIA panic because they need something, ANYTHING to hurt Trump..and I hope that most sane people in this country give the Dem party what they deserve in November for inciting a panic for political gain
If gasoline is $2.00 per gallon instead of $3.25, you have more money left over after you fill your tank.
Two aspects of this:
1) the virus and its morbidity. It’s real and is being dealt with. It is legitimate and necessary to ask if they are dealing with it as efficiently and quickly as should be.
2) the use of this virus as a political tool through hyped panic. The problem with this one for those hyping it for political reasons is, like Collusion and Ukraine, sooner or later it becomes put up or shut up time. Sooner or later the hype has to match reality. And when that doesn’t happen, it’s hell on the hype merchants.
The good news is also that the Saudi move with oil may take down the Mullahs in Iran.
It will also damage Putin’s ability to direct oil profits to his military buildup.
Look who is getting weakened the most by this virus: The ChiComs, The Iranians and the Russians.
The situation could have a lot of beneficial results, assuming it doesn’t spiral into The End, which I hope it does not.
“If gasoline is $2.00 per gallon instead of $3.25, you have more money left over after you fill your tank.”
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That’s the price of a gallon of gas at a given time, not the cost of living.
Biden is more vulnerable than Bernie here by far.
I'm tempted to make a buy.
Well, “cost of living” is typically defined as what a typical consumer spends on food, fuel, housing, clothing, etc. Mike Mliken’s point was the prices of some of those are down.
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