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 ...
President Trump is going to have Wall Street executives to the White House on Wednesday, to discuss what the administration is doing.
I guess if words have no meaning - or, as in this case - quite specific economic meaning, “cost of living” could indeed mean anything - the color of the sky, Jupiter’s moons or a gallon of gas.
But we’re not talking here about someone who does the shopping, nor sits down at the kitchen table to figure which bills can get paid this month or has to worry if he can afford rent/mortgage when he’s seeking housing for his family - and this is the junk bond king after all, he’s used to selling crapola.
At any rate, the guy’s astonishingly out of touch with the realities of average Jane & John Does.
Might not be quite the bottom yet, and you will see a lot of wild swings for a while, but I’m near certain that when the skies start to clear and the stupid media induced panic begins to break up, the market is going to rocket up and there will be multiple reasons for this.
:^) Michael Milken, not Michelle Malkin.
I wish I had a hundred thou or so to invest right now.
lol good catch..
People will make MILLIONS!!
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