Magox

It appears that the president will be creating another task force on restarting up the economy. He needs to not just employ his own economic advisors but also include Fauci, Burke and some external people as well, like a Scott Gotlieb. I hope he announces this very soon. It’s critical that they communicate what metrics they will be looking at along with all the measures that they would be considering. And of course they need to begin ramping up the testing ASAP. And hopefully some mass randomized testing to get a handle of what is truly going on and to gather as much data as possible.

I don’t think anyone is reasonably making the case that in the short-term if all things being equal that the countries doing these more drastic measures would limit less deaths than the countries that aren’t. Thats not the argument or at least shouldn’t be. The argument truly should be viewed on a cost/benefit prism. Unfortunately, the media doesn’t allow that sort of a public debate to occur: Sweden’s health minister believes that by applying social distancing guidelines but not this entire lock down would create a “herd immunity” strategy. Not a rapid herd immunity that he believes would overwhelm the hospitals but one that over a period of time would net a similar level of deaths than the more draconian shut down approach with less dire economic consequences. in other words in the interim there would be more deaths but over a period of time the difference would be negligible. As of right now they have about 400 deaths, Norway has about 170 and the other Nordic countries even less. My guess is that their political will, will bend if not break and go to more severe shut down measures.

Not that you may care but I promise to give it a fair shake.

I actually agree with this. With that said sadly we know politics will not go away. And we know that the national press is on hyper super duper drive to push out as much news as possible to undermine the president in an election year and it is being used against Trump by all his opponents. So unfortunately, this is the game they chose and Trump, conservative media and Republicans will retaliate in kind in the coming months.

Exactly For all the teeth gnashing from the national media over Ron Desantis, who btw was one of the earlier states to had community infections with logistical challenges of having tons of New Yorkers migrating to the state has had one of the best mortality rates per Capita in the country. I live in Florida, and I can tell you that 60% of the deaths/infections are in Dade and Broward county (south Florida) and they have been in lock down weeks. And places like Tampa and Orlando were in lock down for a while as well. Texas is almost an anomaly at this point. The relative deaths per Capita in Texas is another test case that needs to be seriously looked at. look at Sweden, they are the only country or one of the very few that are defying these national lock down measures and their mortality rates up to now have been low in comparison. That could change but at the end of all this there will be countless studies on what was the best approach.

Jim, he’s becoming depressed. He is reading through the threads about how some people didn’t vote for Trump last time and are now likely to vote for him this next time around. And he’s not happy about it. So he’s lashing out with this harumphhh thread anecdotally, my brother didn’t vote for Trump last time. A couple twitter buds of mine who were never Trumpers are now all going to vote for him as well. He didn’t have the center righties and righties fully consolidated last election. He does now

Yes, deaths so far. FYI, I check that website out 10-20 a day. They are showing a tiny upward trajectory. They are still following the CDC guidelines. A one size fits all approach is not needed for everyone. lets check back in a week and see how they are doing. But what they have been doing has been working out well, so far. and yes, the media are run by a bunch of dishonest, loathsome destructive azzholes. They have become a toxic force in our society. I don’t trust them one bit

So I decided to do a quick research on each of these 3 states. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ Missouri has 34 deaths Arkansas has 14 deaths Iowa has 14 deaths That is a far lower PER CAPITA Mortality rate than pretty much the entire country. This is why they don’t listen to the dopes in the media.

I normally would not be for something like this during these type of briefings that are serious in nature. But he didn’t go out seeking it, the reporter asked Trump his response to the tweet. That was a brutal smack down. And truth be told, I believe what he said was accurate ?

This is pretty much where I am. I didn’t vote for Trump last time around either. I find him to be An off-the-charts narcissist. I don’t like how he communicates some things. His petulance pisses me off. But on the substance he’s done a good job with the economy and his actions considering how woefully unprepared the country was for this sort of a pandemic disease which goes back to every other administration and how quickly they are righting the ship on the testing front, the response with FEMA and national guard assisting state and local governments and the responsive task force has been solid. And truth be told, I was 100% against the trade tariffs and he received such intense criticism not just from the lefties but even the establishment Republicans and he still pressed on despite the withering criticism from them and the press. But he was the only bastard crazy enough to go through with it and what I realized was that he had something that no other president had. unpredictability. World leaders could not gauge it and therefore at the end of the day it caused them to cave and he won better trade deals than we had before. That same unpredictability also helps him with his foreign policy. So I have gone from a fervent anti Trumper to someone who still loathes many of his personal qualities who will most likely pull the lever for him this time. Specially over someone like Biden who has a long history of bad decision making. To this day he is still a bad decision maker on important matters ie. China travel ban. That would have been disastrous. Not to mention that if Biden were to be president, he wouldn’t be the one in charge. He doesn’t have the mental acuity or stamina to lead. The country would be led by a consortium of unelected lefties from his staff

There is so much wrong with this: I will have a field day with this when I get a bit of time.

Not that this pertains to the subject but I figured I’d throw this out there Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)

Bloomberg news has the most pro China content out of all the mainstream outlets. I don’t just say that, it’s true. I keep up with this stuff

I don’t blame Cuomo for taking those actions. Dire times call for dire measures and Cuomo should do whoever he can do to help solve this issue that is within his legal powers.

This whole Trump not wearing a mask deal is a perfect example of his detractors attempting to play partisan gotcha games. Here are the CDC guidelines: “CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.” 1) There is no “significant community-based transmission” in DC. 2)There is a controlled environment of social distancing measures taking place in that White House briefing room. 3) The White House has recently instituted mandatory testing of people who will be in close proximity of the president. The idea that the president is going to wear a mask while he’s talking to the country about this is absurd. Truly absurd. I don’t blame the people complaining about the president not wearing a mask. I blame the press for misrepresenting it and attempting to make this an issue. The partisan complainers are just taking cues from the press.

The unemployment rate will reach over 12 next month and close to 20% the following one.

The economy is literally dying right before our eyes. The economy is not some Wall street creation. It's not an object whose sole purpose is to make money for corporations. It's not some greed machine. The economy is about earning a living. The economy is about providing for your family and loved ones. The economy is about putting a roof over your head. The economy is about saving money for your retirement. The economy is about being able to enjoy distractions throughout your life such as vacations, having nice meals, going to sporting events. The economy is about living life. The economy is about securing your health. The economy is about people. The sooner people realize how royally fukked what this country and world is about to become due to this complete annihilation of the economy, the better off we will be.

I sure hope Trump keeps Fauci on board. That would end up being a disastrous decision from a public confidence perspective. With that said, and I made this point earlier, it is not the job of a president to do what his experts want. It's the job of an effective CEO/president/manager to listen to all his experts, weigh the costs and then make a decision. A health expert is always going to look at just the health implications. An economic adviser is only going to look at the economic consequences. A military adviser is only going to advise on military matters. When you make decisions, you have to look at these on a whole. Right now during this scare we are experiencing, there is a bit of a danger that the public (primarily amplified by the media), believes that we must do what the health experts say. While I agree that the decisions from local/state/federal government should tilt on the side of caution, they CANNOT only look at the health side of the equation. I'm pretty sure that Fauci the other day said or at least implied that we need to get to 0 cases before we can open things up. There has to be benefit/cost analysis to all this. If we are going to be reasonable about this, then that has to be the choice, not whether or not the public is 100% safe from the Virus. Because if that is the choice, being 100% safe from the Virus, then the economy cannot restart until after a Vaccine is made. This has to be viewed on a spectrum, and somewhere on that spectrum is the point when we phase back in. With that said, the press is not responsible enough to even entertain this concept. Not until some prominent democrats come out realizing this fact.

When the time is right there will be a forensic reckoning of the inactions and unpreparedness of NY. It won’t be from the mainstream media but their statements and actions/inactions are documented. It’s damning

Well, that Fauci clip will make the rounds today.

I am sure some of that will be happening. I’m still not sure what the mechanism they will use to ensure that all their employees are kept on the payroll post loan. Do they audit the books? Do they require companies to show proof that they maintained payroll? I still hadn’t heard about that

You very well may be right, but to my understanding this is going to be done in a much more expedited process than your standard bank loan. So I strongly believe that the loans will be approved with considerably less stringent guidelines than in normal times.

While I agree that they should waive all requirements for ACA enrollments outside of open enrollment this argument is a red herring. If people lose their health insurance due to the job losses, then they qualify for an SEP insurance enrollment in the marketplace outside of open enrollment. So, just to reiterate, if people have lost their health insurance because of the CoronaVirus or for any other other reason over the past 60 days, then they can qualify for SEP Special Enrollment Period through the ACA.

So that is an interesting point you bring up. There is a huge difference though between a regular business loan and a loan under this program. Everything is 100% backed up by the federal government. And does have leveraging capabilities through the federal reserve. In essence, there will be some bad loans that will never be repaid and that will be taken as a loss from the federal government and of course there will be good loans that will be repaid. Interest rates for borrowers will be anywhere between .5% - no more than 4%. If it's under the (PPP) then they essentially get a grant that will pay for 250% of their payroll that could be used for payroll, mortgage/rent, utilities. My hunch is that they will take a similar approach to the $1200 stimulus check and unemployment insurance programs they are enacting. Which is that they know that some of this money is not going to go to places that actually need it, but since there is an urgency to get the money out there as quickly as possible they are bypassing these inefficiencies and just pretty much putting the money in a snowblower and blasting it full tilt to get money in people's hands. I understand that the sound of that is horrible. Waste of money etc. The problem is that if they were to fine tune that and tailor it to get into people's hands that most need it, it would take much longer to identify those people and effectively get it into their hands, which of course leads to much more human suffering and a worse off economy. So to circle back to what I was saying, I think the banks are going to have a clear directive from Secretary Mnuchin to get this money out quickly. They won't be looking at creditworthiness nearly as much and will provide the banks and lending institutions clear criteria for the lenders. If they meet that criteria, the money goes out on that same day. Keep in mind, the government is backing it. Banks have virtually no risk. So I do think that the money will go out in record speed.

As is being discussed in another thread, Just to add more context to the L, W, V and Nike Swoosh recoveries: V - Recovery The likelihood of a V shaped recovery is virtually Nil. A V shaped recovery means that the economy will be right where it left off before the downturn within a short-time period of let's say less than a year. The reason why we won't see a complete V is because there will be businesses that will be permanently closed. And although at some point those businesses will be replaced, that doesn't take place overnight. Here is a report out of Michigan where they estimate 1/3 of all restaurants will permanently close. Which is why I am saying that the longer it takes to get people back to work, the more of these sort of businesses that will be permanently closed which thereby means it takes longer to recover back to pre CoronaVirus downturn. W - Recovery Basically what would need to happen here is that we relax the social distancing measures either too soon or the effectiveness of controlling the outbreak once we begin to phase in the workforce gets out of hand, therefore leading the economy to dip right back down again. L - Recovery For me this is the likely bad case scenario. Where we begin to phase in the workforce beyond June. That's not to say that you would have a profound L shape if we began in July, but the further we push it out and the more stringent the Social distancing policies post "flattening the curve" and phasing in the workforce, the more that L shape takes place. It just basically means that we dug a really deep hole and lots of businesses will be permanently shuttered or seriously impaired and it takes time to get the country back to whole after such a deep downturn. Which is why the Relief bill was so important, at least in theory. That bill was so that many of these small businesses and corporations can either retain their workforce or rehire them almost immediately. Nike Swoosh Recovery For me this is the optimistic case. I think it's 50% chance this, 40% chance L shaped, 5% V shaped and 5% W shaped. The Nike Swoosh is where we get to begin phasing in the workforce relatively soon, hopefully by June. Where the curve has been flattened in just about all places in the country. And all the measures that are needed to contain future outbreaks are in place with solid social distancing policies and the economy snaps back initially and then takes about another year after the initial snap back to get back to whole. Most likely around 18 months or so. Which leads me to the Infrastructure Bill. The more EFFECTIVE Stimulus that can be added by the Federal government, the quicker the recovery will be. Which means millions of more people will go through less suffering. And there is no better time to borrow that money than now. That is a fact. The interest rates will never be as low as they are today....If there ever was a time to borrow a fukton of money to make the economy whole, now is that time.