TPS

As I mentioned, nice little sugar jolt for the stock market, but as the numbers of cases increases, traders will "reevaluate" since lower rates don't compensate for a drop in demand...

Yeah, this was posted up-thread. The point though, the administration needs to be transparent, otherwise they lose trust. This is not a good sign.

Unless, of course, you start suppressing the data....

No. They opted not to adopt WHO's test for some reason. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/fda-coronavirus-testing.html “If we had the ability to test earlier, I’m sure we would have identified patients earlier,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, the health officer for public health in Seattle and King County, Wash., where the first death was reported on Saturday. Both C.D.C. and the F.D.A. did have the option of adopting the test approved by the W.H.O., and public health experts said it was unclear why the agencies decided not to do so. “In retrospect, it seems like a bad decision,” said one high-ranking C.D.C. official who requested anonymity and was not authorized to talk to the news media.

On your last question, that is the point being made in his thread--they should've also started community testing (as some were arguing) at the time they initiated travel bans and quarantines of those returned.

Of course it will. Look at the energy sector, for example. Any shale drillers that were struggling at prices near $55 will collapse. There was a bubble in high yield bonds which were also being securitized--there will be pain here as well. It's hard to say how long the macro impact will last. The short term will mainly be about localized impacts. As people hunker down, there will need to be temp bailouts of businesses, large and small, to keep them afloat during this time. And State and local governments of affected areas will need help from the federal government, as sales tax revenues fall. Again, hopefully it will blow over quickly....

I think This guy tries to provide a mostly objective view of what else should've been done, and why maybe it wasn't...

Some random thoughts: While there is certainly TDS out there, there is also the opposite, whatever you want to call it. I hope I'm wrong about this... It won't be such a big deal for younger, healthier people, but for people like me (over 60 with some health issues), the chances of recovering from it if contracted aren't good. In fact, it's quite possible we will see a "significant impact" on the boomers (and older). The market is rallying today because, as I said, the Fed will most likely make a significant rate cut. But, as I also said, that won't impact the real economic effects from this virus. In my view, as the virus numbers accelerate, this bit of hope today will disappear into more selling (in fact, it will be interesting to see what happens at the close today....). People can blame the media, but this is what the media always does, especially in the era of 24/7 cable news--nothing sells like fear. As for Trump, unfortunately I think he's more concerned about the stock market and economy than being as transparent as possible about the situation. As I mentioned in response to 3rd, I believe leading the country through this thing would offset any negative impact the economy might have on his election. If he doesn't see that, then he will have to shoulder any blame from not taking it serious enough and not being transparent. Again, I hope I'm wrong....

This no longer about politics, and both sides need to stop. I disagree with your last statement, as a calamity can bolster a leader who leads, instead of politics. As I said, I hope he is up to it...

The 10-year was just under 1.4% when I posted this, and it's 1.07 this morning. It will break 1% soon enough. The Fed will cut big time, but it can't stop the recession we're now entering into. I hope this administration is up to the task....

I imagine the attitude of those who defend Trump's every move will change on this issue over the next two weeks. Both sides need to stop the political games and lead. If he's more concerned about the stock market, then we're F....d....

Yeah, I was thinking 20k isn't far fetched...

Grew up in SoCal a Rams fan. Moved to Buffalo in 1990 (for a job), the start of their Super Bowl run. Easy to become a fan, then Rams moved to St. Louis, so I never looked back. Love the city, the team, and the people.

Looks like virus fears will force the Fed to act on the downside again. The 10-year treasury is once again lower than the 3-month, creating an inversion of the yield curve. Despite recent comments by Fed officials that they are content with their current target rate, they won't have a choice. Their next meeting is mid-March.

The Pats always have multiple backs with different skills. Daboll, comes from that background. I would think he wants backs with different skills.

Rohrabacher responds... https://www.rohrabacher.com/news

This is the type of discussion that I was alluding to--a list of the highest cap savings and whether or not it makes sense to move from them. My point was having Sweeney on the (OP's) list didn't make sense. https://www.newyorkupstate.com/buffalo-bills/2020/02/buffalo-bills-have-6-offseason-cut-candidates-what-to-do-with-trent-murphy-tyler-kroft-and-the-rest.html

Yes, and wages go up when workers become scarce. Wages started going up a bit higher when unemployment dipped below 4%. (There is also evidence that minimum wages increases have helped.) As the unemployment data show, there has been a continuous decline as the expansion has continued. Fortunately for Trump, the Fed stopped raising interest rates which would have caused a slowdown. The US economy will continue to muddle along at roughly a 2% growth rate (assuming no significant event occurs, like the virus accelerating). Trump has done some good things (taking on China), but economic growth is not much different than it was under Obama...

It’s not a knock on long so much, rather if you’re going to put together a list of possible cap casualty/savings, long makes more sense than Sweeney.

Yeah, take Sweeney off and add Long.

The Rams had the "unstoppable " offense last year and scored 3 points. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out this year...? Should be a great game.

It looks like Denver's KO return man was the top returner. He was very discerning about when to return (about 27% of returnable kicks), and when he did, he average almost 5 yards past the 25.

Most important is the policy reversal of the FED which allows the expansion to continue. Yeah faith, one of these days those deficits...?

There really is no other comparative period for this. The reason I predicted (back in January 2018) a recession in 2020 was because I thought the stimulus from the tax cuts and spending increases would cause the economy to accelerate, leading to inflationary pressures, causing the FED to raise interest rates faster than planned (the FED raising its short term rate is the cause of the inverted yield curve that has preceded the last 5-6 recessions). However, the relationship that I (and the FED) relied on has changed....AGAIN. The relationship between unemployment and inflation (the Phillips Curve) has changed. The FED uses the concept of NAIRU, the rate of unemployment it believes will trigger inflationary pressures from wage gains) to guide its interest rate policy. In the mid 1990s, NAIRU was believed to be about 6%, and Greenspan argued it had decreased due to technology, so the FED held steady on rates and allowed the economy to expand, not raising them until mid 1999--hence the long Clinton expansion. Based on that experience, they adopted a new estimate for NAIRU of 4.5%. The FED started raising rates when unemployment hit 5% back in December of 2015 because it thought inflationary pressures would start to build. However, inflation remained subdued, even as unemployment dipped below 4% in early 2018. The FED was struggling to explain things, and some of the doves were starting to argue they should hold steady on rates until inflationary pressure could actually be observed. Then Trump's trade war started impacting manufacturing last year, so they started to lower rates again. So currently no one at the FED really knows what the value of NAIRU is, so they have taken a wait and see approach. As I've stated several times, employment growth under Trump hasn't been much different than the previous several years under Obama. I've posted these before, the average monthly job gains by year for the past 6 years: 2014 251K 2015 227K 2016 193K 2017 179K 2018 223K 2019 177K Trump's job gains have not been extraordinary, and neither has RGDP growth. The real issue is why hasn't the low unemployment rate of 3.5% caused an acceleration in wages leading to higher inflationary pressures? I'm in the camp that believes workers' bargaining power is non-existent because of things like globalization, the decline in unionization, non-compete clauses, and economic concentration (monopolies) which give large corporations "monopsony" power in bargaining with workers. While we have seen some uptick in wage gains, they are not enough to cause inflation to exceed the FED's 2% target. Eventually, one would think, we would have to see a trigger point, with businesses having to raise wages to attract even moderately skilled workers. Interesting times. Prognosticating, economic growth for 2019 is back to Obama era levels--it will come in somewhere around 2.3% +/- 0.2 (i'm basing this on the average monthly growth in jobs above, with 2019 much lower than 2018). If the economy continues to grow at this rate, it puts things in a sweet spot, where employment grows without putting upward pressure on wages, and it the economy will probably muddle along the entire year like that. If Trump and China come to a more significant agreement and manufacturing recovers, then growth will be higher and it could set the FED back on its interest rate increase path, which is ultimately the cause of recessions. For market players, that's what you want to watch out for--at the first whiff the FED will reverse course (raise rates again) is when you should get defensive. Cheers.

Yikes! Just saw this. Thanks.