McConnell hopes to send next coronavirus relief bill to House within three weeks

Exactly how am I supposed to teach you macro-economics and monetary theory in one FreeRepublic post response? If you want an answer to that question, go get at least a bachelor’s degree in Economics at any school.

JoMa

You think the only people being tested are those who are directed to by their doctor after receiving a diagnosis of probable COVID-19? Because that is not what's happening. People are lining up for tests all across the country. Here's just a few examples:

Queens, NY Denver, CO Tampa, FL

The positivity rate has absolutely ZERO to do with doctors and their ability to accurately diagnose anything. 99% of the people getting tested right now haven't been diagnosed by anyone. They're doing it to see if they're infected and need to quarantine. Or they're being tested because their job requires it or because they're going somewhere that requires it (e.g. patients going into the hospital for any procedure must have a very recent negative SARS-CoV-2 test).

As for the accuracy of the PCR test, the problem is much less with false positives than it is with false negatives, particularly during the first 3-4 days after infection. Until the infection is actively spreading to a significant degree, there just isn't enough material to register on the tests. The only real issue with false positive results are from after recovery. SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins remain present in some individuals for weeks, even months following recovery from COVID-19. Those proteins are what the PCR test is looking for, so they'll come up positive even though the infection is over.

It manifests sort of like this:

We're living on borrowed time because we're living on borrowed dime. As deficit spending increases, the share of the Federal budget that goes to servicing the debt (currently about 8%) increases, crowding out other spending. If we keep racking up more debt, the amount we spend on servicing the debt will eventually eclipse the entire Federal budget, then the entire GDP of the US, and by about 2092, it will eclipse the GDP of the entire world.

Let me repeat that: if we continue spending the way we have been, then before the end of the century, we will have to spend more to service our debt than the gross domestic product of all nations on Earth combined. Which, obviously, is impossible. Which only leaves two options: defaulting on loans or printing money Zimbabwe style, which will destroy the purchasing power of the US dollar and leave everyone in the US earning those US dollars unable to buy anything with them. You'll need a billion dollars to buy a loaf of bread. And most of us don't have that much.

Two main reasons:

1) We have a very, very large and growing economy. This delays the inevitable ending of all this. Any shrinking of the economy (incoming to the Federal government) or expansion of spending accelerates it. But the enormous economy drives so much money into the Federal coffers that we have to reach truly ludicrous debt levels before we see a tipping point from which we cannot recover.

2) Even exponential growth takes time. We just haven’t reached the inevitable tipping point yet where everyone realizes the game is up. I can spend $500 or $5,000 or $20,000 more per month than I actually have, and for a while - with savings and debt - I can keep doing that. Four months into that, you might ask “why hasn’t this caught up with you yet?” And the answer is simply that while the end game is inevitable, it still takes time. Whether it’s 6 months or 2 years or 5 years, if I continue spending money I don’t have, the game will end.

And the same is true for the US as well. Not since 1956 has the US national debt actually decreased. The “surplus” of the 1990s was an accounting trick. We have overspent every year since 1957 and have done so with increasing abandon as of late. The more we do so, the more we accelerate the end of the game. The CBO and the GAO have been sounding this alarm for DECADES. And still, we pretend all is well.

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