Posted on 03/27/2020 9:36:37 AM PDT by Shane
The coronavirus has scared everyone, from consumers and investors to central bankers and politicians. But one question looms over everything: Are we frightened enough to do what needs to be done? That might seem surprising to say. The fiscal policy response to the coronavirus crisis is coming. It will be big. It will be costly. It will be messy. But it won’t be big enough. A robust fiscal response is an imperative if the U.S. economy is to avoid a deep, lengthy recession or, as some fear, a depression. And it’s going to have to be bigger than many of us can even imagine. The coronavirus pandemic is the ultimate black swan event, unlike any threat faced by the U.S. since the Spanish Flu of 1918. It’s not simply a financial system that needs to be backstopped, an enemy to be defeated, or even a dislocation in the commodities market that was seen in the 1970s. It’s a disease that will pass from person to person, cause dislocations in the financial system, bring economies to a standstill in its wake. And we need to be prepared to go to war on two fronts—the health crisis and the economic crisis. To succeed, Washington needs to set aside partisan bickering, xenophobia, and blame-shifting, and pass legislation first to stanch the bleeding and then to help heal the people and businesses that will bear the brunt.
(Excerpt) Read more at barrons.com ...
It will definitely help. It already prevents bank runs. However, this is still going to be deep and global.
I once asked my mother, who was born in 1915, about why we never heard anything about that Spanish flu pandemic and she said she thought that was because people just wanted to put it out of their minds and forget about it. Also, more people went through World War II in formative years. People who are a little bit older and in mid life during the world war one era we’re gone by the time Boomers started growing up. Of course the depression lasted much longer too.
I am not disagreeing with you, but there may be a variety of factors why we heard so much more about the depression than the Spanish flu.
The first depression was orchestrated to get FDR into the White House. He did a lot to damage this country over the years. Talk to people that lived during the 1930s and they’ll tell you that it was bad and stayed bad.
That’s what having a leftist in charge does.
And that’s what the democrats want to do to the country again...
Do they still have stocks? Most with their mind set dumped it in February.
The engine of prosperity has been slain, under orders from the government. The government thinks it can restart it by sending money to the folks. Big delusion. Unless people get back to work, it’s Depression, not Recession.
My grandfather never forgave FDR for making him kill all his pigs. As a young farmer, he obeyed that ridiculous and useless order from Washington. As old farmer, the snooping agents would have died first.
Once I saw the word xenophobia I knew they were two jerk offs
Simply stated: the seditionists will never let us do what needs to be done to prevent a depression. You know who the are.
Amen to that!
last winter the CDC says there were 80,000 deaths in the US from seasonal flu. So far there are 12-13 hundred deaths from Coronavirus complications in the US. And we know from this what segment of our population needs to be isolated and protected. Why in God’s name would we ever shut down the entire country to purposely create a depression?
Agreed...I'm not qualified to make pronouncements on the actual seriousness of COVID19 vis-à-vis other calamities that have befallen us. Time will tell. But I'll take a flyer at naming the economic and fiscal policies of this nation as an unmitigated disaster. Globalist policies, spending, not saving and investing in America are major factors in exacerbating this mess.
The c virus didn’t scare anyone until the media, demonrats and anti trump government bureaucrats decided to collectively gin up the hysteria and fear.
We had depressions/recessions before FDR, they lasted usually a year or less. It is FDR that made depressions “Great Again”
Actually, I have said all along that the cancellation of sports events all over the country was probably the thing that influenced more of this hysteria than anything else.
That, and the schools.
America is about to be taught some real economics in the most painful way. Government can literally destroy the strongest economies but they are powerless to create them. Only the people can create wealth and prosperity.
On a side note have you heard of any government employees being laid off? Any of THEM lose 30 percent of their retirement funds? Every school in the nation is closed, surely some of those millions of administrators have been laid off and will be collecting unemployment checks like millions of private sector employees, right?
My guess is no. It seems to me that what really needs to be done is to massively cut wasteful spending. No money for illegals, little to no foreign aid, no money for abortions, no money for … the list is long.
I enjoy the solitude. I enjoy life as it is.
“The solution is to let our people go back to work.”
So much damage has already been done that it will ripple through the economy for a decade. Even if everyone went back tomorrow.
It is a belief of mine that the standard distribution of human intelligence always keeps us just a stone's throw from a predominantly socialist form of government. FDR, love him or hate him, flew very close to the flame of collectivism; and whether they had to or not, his generation set us on the path to where we are now headed. I appreciate your comment, and I'm not sure the courage exists in our nation to stand and fight anymore--whether it's against a foreign enemy or our own gimcrack politicians.
I don't believe that we will have a depression (yet).
I think we will have a severe recession with millions of jobs gone and not returning.
Hopefully those people will be able to find other work. But many will not.
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