Posted on 03/30/2020 8:08:30 AM PDT by DouglasKC
Have you noticed something?
There are a growing number of Americans who are in a panic about the economy.
Cries of "the economy will never recover if we're shut down too much longer" abound. Wails about "this will be worse than the great depression if it continues" are flooding social media.
This is despite President Trump's pronouncements that our economy will rebound quickly. President Trump believes that there is pent up demand that will explode once restrictions are lifted.
At least with the corona virus there was good reason to be concerned. It has ripped through other countries causing every government in the world to react in a similar way: institute measures to slow the spread so the medical system isn't overwhelmed. Every government has taken the calculus that doing nothing to combat the virus will hurt their economies in the long term. So they've taken short term economic pain to insure this doesn't happen.
Around the world and especially in the United States this strategy seems to be working so far.
Yet the panicky people who are worrying about the economy often look at the good results of what our government has done so far and say "See!! I told you the virus wasn't so bad!". They want to throw open the doors right now because they are fearful of what will happen with the economy if we don't. They have apocalyptic visions of President Trump presiding over a weak America while liberals gleefully dance on America's grave.
Yet stocks are once again on the rise. Investors are happy with what the President is doing to combat the virus AND for his vision of the economy. This is largely because before the virus broke President Trump had super-charged our economy. We were the strongest economically than perhaps at any other point in history...and we were getting stronger.
What happened with the virus has ONLY worked out in Trump's favor. It's now been proven that his vision of America first was absolutely correct. The virus has shown that we can't be dependent on China for manufacturing. It's not in our national interest. It's shown that we MUST control our borders and clamp down on illegal and legal immigration. President Trump's near daily press conferences have shown the American people that he's not the monster the news media portray him as.
Yet for all these positives those who believe that our economy can't take a two or three month slowdown are wringing their hands and screaming like little girls who have seen a spider.
As President Trump says this isn't going to stop us. We're going to bounce back faster and stronger than anyone can imagine...IF we follow his recommendations to combat the virus. If we let up too soon we're back to square one. If too many people figure they know more than President Trump does and flout his recommendations we're also back to square one.
Don't panic. Stick with the program that President Trump and his team have instituted to both combat the virus and keep the economy strong.
Dude, this is liquidity...they are forcing money in to the system, not taking it out. Go back to school, you must have been playing hooky.
You are absolutely correct. I am fortunate that I have access to nationwide data in real time for a company in 44 states, has a BS in Economics, a MBA from a T10 program, generally very business savvy, and also how things work from my time running the budgeting and long term planning for a couple companies. By the end of April, the damage will so high that it will be very apparent to everyone that we will have a depression this year and unfortunately it will be too late to undo that damage.
They are literally creating money that doesn’t exist to buy those bonds. They are creating liquidity out of thin air - it is literally the definition of MMT. Go back to school.
You cannot be that clueless. I didn't see any mention of "essential businesses," I didn't see any mention of house arrest. They are going about their lives, with simple precautions.
Dow up 481 so far today... Trump's gonna figure this one out... the street has confidence - and so do we.
I think you meant to say
“As opposed to about 0.15% of them maybe choking to death...”
Home sales are dead in my community. I doubt many will have any equity if they sell. The people that are screwed, are the ones that have 2 mortgages. I am not as ambitious as you, but I am bargain hunting. I bought my current car new for 25% off list during the GFC.
Out of thin air? The money that they are creating is based on the value of the American economy, its infrastructure and the talent of the people that created it. It allows the payment of current debt for a short period for the creation of that infrastructure. The American economy and the American infrastructure has a value far in excess of the money being printed - especially given that it will be almost literally the only game in town once the virus crests. This maintains the economy and preserves the infrastructure and the payments on that infrastructure until the short crisis is passed. It keeps it ready to launch again - without this, the entire system - and most importantly the financial system that feeds it - does collapse. So put your labels wherever you want to...and beat your hobby horse...but if you really want to kill the American economy, your method would do it almost immediately.
Home sales are dead right now because the mortgage markets froze and no one knows if they will still have a job. Once we get on the other side of this, those that keep their jobs will be fine, which will still be the majority of the country, especially higher paying jobs as not nearly as many white collar works being laid off. And investors will scoop up to buy entry level housing for rentals - count on it.
No, killing the economy is forcing 40-50% of it shutting down and 70% of the non-leech part (ex government). You can argue that letting bad debts default (1920-21) would be better actually than dragging it on (great depression, 2008-2016) but that is a totally different argument.
Blindly following a leader is foolish. The drama-queens and over-reactors have clearly been winning the day with Trump lately.
He isn’t infallible, he’s human, and he’s listening to the wrong people.
City/county/borough quarantines as needed would have been the best thing to do. However, according to people in the NE and East there is no America beyond their bubble. The rest of us in little to no affect land, suck it up, you are shut down too!
The fact that trillions of dollars are being printed is proof of this. The forest fire is now raging and the feds are trying to slow it down with a garden hose. The virus-panic crowd refused to acknowledge what these draconian measures would do to the economy and they were all to happy to trumpet the MSM/Democrat propaganda.
The potential calamity caused by literally shutting down the US economy will dwarf any potential damage from this virus even on it’s best day.
There could be some serious change of ownership of massive apartment complexes in my university town. Developers have been building these things nonstop since the GFC. If the students don’t come back in mass, somebody is hosed...
yeah, university multi-family is at risk. Retail, hotel, restaurant, malls, commercial real estate are all hosed for the foreseeable future. And God forbid this thing (or similar) comes back next fall - are we going to shut down again?
For a university town, I would think they need that answer by the end of June if not sooner.
I listened to Dr. Inglesby (Johns Hopkins) on FOX yesterday:
WALLACE..."how long is this going to last before we really go back to normal?"
INGLESBY:..."So I think dates are hard to predict because everyday the numbers continue to go up in many parts of the country. I think we should really have this more like a conditions based decision so when we see a state or a region have numbers that go down over time and when we have diagnostics in place and when we have masks available for all of our doctors and nurses who are putting their lives at risk to take care of sick patients and hospitals are well prepared and when we can get our public health systems in place to start tracing -- or identifying individuals and tracing their contracts, again like they do in Asia, I think those five major conditions then I think it's a time to begin to think about how we might experiment with lightening social distancing perhaps one step at a time."
Wish I had the expertise to tell the good doctor he was full of crap. But since my Navy aptitude test designated me as cannon fodder, I'll string along with Trump on this one, for a while longer.
Because I'm not so sure we WERE any stronger at the beginning of this than we were at the start of World War II.
My husband lost his job Friday, with the COVID-19-associated slowdown mentioned as the reason for the downsizing—and he was in the pharmaceutical consulting business. We are certainly experiencing some anxiety right now.
So sorry to hear that.
But seriously hope he got a decent severance and good luck to you all.
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