COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[Dick Allen]

I saw a political cartoon that said on this week's episode of The Apprentice/Governors, you will be playing for ventilators.

[StrangeSox]

Oh I'm not saying liquidity is bad right now. We don't want tons of businesses cratering due to completely uncontrollable circumstances. But that's why the stock market goes up on a day we announce 6.6 million unemployment claims.

The subtext there is that we're still doing far, far too little for actual everyday people as rent and mortgages come due, and floating SALT deduction rollbacks as your next big policy idea is just shockingly inadequate.

The next wave is going to be tens of millions losing insurance because their jobs evaporated combined with severe state and local austerity as tax receipts collapse, leading to more unemployment. Congress appears to be completely incapable of even conceiving of ways to address this crisis right now let alone put them into action.

[Dick Allen]

7 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

The stock market has been unmoored from the real economy for awhile now. Today's Number Go Up is because the Fed promised infinite money to prop up businesses/shareholder value.

it's amazing they are willing to print as much money as they will need, but cut a pandemic team because it's considered wasteful spending.

[bmags]

2 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

it's amazing they are willing to print as much money as they will need, but cut a pandemic team because it's considered wasteful spending.

The FED =! Federal Government.

I'm unclear why people should be cheering for the FED to not meet the incredible demand for USD globally right now. 

[StrangeSox]

I'm hoping that as a society, we change the way we view the importance of so many working class jobs. How many "unskilled" workers are putting their health on the line right now for little pay and no sick leave or job security while most of us work from home? Perhaps we should recognize them as essential and important always, and above all as people equally worthy of dignity and respect and living wages.

I hope too we recognize the importance of making our society more resilient to these sorts of crises in the future. We could have been much better prepared and equipped to deal with this, and we will need to deal with more global warming induced crises in the near future.

[whitesoxfan99]

Some unfortunately much less positive news on hydroxychloroquine - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-new-study-questions-the-effectiveness-of-a-potential-game-changer-against-the-coronavirus/amp

Another small anecdotal study so can hope that this one is wrong but if the drug was truly a complete game changer I think we’d be seeing better results with patients by now.  

[bmags]

4 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

Oh I'm not saying liquidity is bad right now. We don't want tons of businesses cratering due to completely uncontrollable circumstances. But that's why the stock market goes up on a day we announce 6.6 million unemployment claims.

The subtext there is that we're still doing far, far too little for actual everyday people as rent and mortgages come due, and floating SALT deduction rollbacks as your next big policy idea is just shockingly inadequate.

The next wave is going to be tens of millions losing insurance because their jobs evaporated combined with severe state and local austerity as tax receipts collapse, leading to more unemployment. Congress appears to be completely incapable of even conceiving of ways to address this crisis right now let alone put them into action.

I just think this is the best Fed Reserve in our lifetimes. The action they have taken has been more correct and faster than certainly 2008. Powell has been the most responsive to the dual mandate of any FED since the economists took over.

But more, the stock market is down, and it already lost 1/3rd of it's value in a month. But more, I think it's just a reality that much of the growth of the last 4 years has come from the top companies. And those are also the least likely to be hurt by this growth and likely will benefit (maybe not apple, but then again, maybe it gets their terrible streaming off the ground). So I'm not shocked.

[bmags]

Also, just to be clear, when the fed is "injecting liquidity", they aren't just handing out money to businesses. Banks are trading in good treasuries and getting dollars to pay out short term obligations, including helping firms meet payroll. 

[Texsox]

3 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

I'm hoping that as a society, we change the way we view the importance of so many working class jobs. How many "unskilled" workers are putting their health on the line right now for little pay and no sick leave or job security while most of us work from home? Perhaps we should recognize them as essential and important always, and above all as people equally worthy of dignity and respect and living wages.

I hope too we recognize the importance of making our society more resilient to these sorts of crises in the future. We could have been much better prepared and equipped to deal with this, and we will need to deal with more global warming induced crises in the near future.

I had a life changing meeting with Dolores Huerta. You are unfamiliar with her name but she co-founded American Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez. I never told my students that they should study so they didn't have to work in the fields, but I avoided that because I didn't want to insult their parents.  But when she spoke about how important those migrant workers were to our LIVES it grabbed me. Not to our economy. To our lives. We can't feed ourselves in American today. We need imported foods and imported workers to keep our grocery stores stocked. 

How many hospital workers are here without documentation? How many undocumented workers touch your food on the way to your grocery store?

[StrangeSox]

Right, I don't disagree with that. I think the criticism isn't of the Fed itself and it's actions, it's the government's willingness to let the Fed do it's thing to help businesses but the government isn't moving quick at all to truly address the scale and scope of this crisis. Also some calling out hypocrisy of the people who protested very very loudly for years about the Fed doing anything during a deep recession who now don't seem to mind at all.

Maybe it's just more visceral distaste/reaction to stuff like this:

Seeing stock prices rebound quickly, which has little or no impact on the average American (even if you have a nice 401k/IRA, you aren't touching for years), while you have to wait for a small one-time check for possibly months on end just isn't going to sit well with a lot of people. It's not an accurate picture or understand, but people hear "banks got $2T overnight!" and then think "and I'm waiting for my $1200 for weeks when I can't pay my rent?" It's not entirely the Fed, either (hundreds of billions for business in the Phase 3 bill), but it'll all get conflated together in many peoples' minds.

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

10 minutes ago, Texsox said:

I had a life changing meeting with Dolores Huerta. You are unfamiliar with her name but she co-founded American Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez. I never told my students that they should study so they didn't have to work in the fields, but I avoided that because I didn't want to insult their parents.  But when she spoke about how important those migrant workers were to our LIVES it grabbed me. Not to our economy. To our lives. We can't feed ourselves in American today. We need imported foods and imported workers to keep our grocery stores stocked. 

How many hospital workers are here without documentation? How many undocumented workers touch your food on the way to your grocery store?

There are a whole lotta people, with and without legal status, who are in the complex chain that gets a meal on to your table. Most of those people are paid and treated poorly.

[bmags]

I saw an idea that frontline workers should be able to collect the unemployment benefits in addition to their salary which I think makes sense, but they should also be able to access medicare regardless of income level (should any warehouse or truck driver exceed threshold but lack insurance)

[southsider2k5]

6 hours ago, StrangeSox said:

6.6M new unemployment claims this week, and that's probably still undercounting because state systems are so overloaded right now

I am seeing a LOT of people talking about how they can't file for one reason or another, but mostly overwhelmed systems.

[southsider2k5]

5 hours ago, StrangeSox said:

We are doomed

 

(We've known this for months)

Wow, what an idiot.

[bmags]

This is good news and matches what I've heard from friends at hospitals:

[southsider2k5]

4 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

One of the most striking statistics of the last few days is Germany hitting 500,000 tests per day in a much smaller country when we’re touting that we ramped up to 100,000 per day...that’s not counting the 160,0000 backlogged at Quest and 500,000 that aren’t being used because they’re in the wrong places to meet current needs, private hospitals and testing centers, etc.

Pretty jarring that the UK and US need to learn so much from other countries about how to get this right.   Germany’s still under 1000 deaths and they’re still extremely critical of their own response so far and looking to make continuous improvements.

 

And Florida is still exempting religious services from the stay-at-home order.  Sigh.

Germany ramped up for this at the same time our leadership was mocking it.  They had their first case the day after we did.

[StrangeSox]

7 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

I am seeing a LOT of people talking about how they can't file for one reason or another, but mostly overwhelmed systems.

Yes, we're still definitely undercounting this.

 

 

 

 

[southsider2k5]

2 hours ago, Jenksismyhero said:

This right here is why you have the hoax/conspiracy nuts. Young people (under 30) have a terrible understanding of history and how society today compares. So when you say crap like this, the Trump supporter who is 65-75 and has seen some worse shit (e.g., being forced to go to war vs. being forced to stay home and watch TV all day) immediately discounts it. This isn't the most dire crisis this country has faced. It probably doesn't even rank in the top 5. It's a serious, serious problem though and overstating it's seriousness is just as detrimental as understating it.

He's right though.  This is first time an illness has shutdown the entire country in over 100 years.  While Boomers might think that isn't a big deal, they are wrong.

[Marky Mark]

So how do you guys think Joe Borchard is handling the pandemic?

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, Jenksismyhero said:

A lot of this economic disruption is short term though. Once businesses can operate again, most of those jobs will come back. Sure, not all will, not all businesses will re-open, and for those that do, it may take some time to get back to where they were before this. But the reason the economy is tanking is not because the fundamentals are bad. It's because the government literally told people to stop going to work. 

And 9/11's disruption for most was a week.  This is going to be months.

[southsider2k5]

54 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

Oh I'm not saying liquidity is bad right now. We don't want tons of businesses cratering due to completely uncontrollable circumstances. But that's why the stock market goes up on a day we announce 6.6 million unemployment claims.

The subtext there is that we're still doing far, far too little for actual everyday people as rent and mortgages come due, and floating SALT deduction rollbacks as your next big policy idea is just shockingly inadequate.

The next wave is going to be tens of millions losing insurance because their jobs evaporated combined with severe state and local austerity as tax receipts collapse, leading to more unemployment. Congress appears to be completely incapable of even conceiving of ways to address this crisis right now let alone put them into action.

Today's rally was mainly due to the Presidents lie about oil supplies and talking to the Saudi's and Russians about a 10 BBL cut in production.

[southsider2k5]

48 minutes ago, bmags said:

I just think this is the best Fed Reserve in our lifetimes. The action they have taken has been more correct and faster than certainly 2008. Powell has been the most responsive to the dual mandate of any FED since the economists took over.

But more, the stock market is down, and it already lost 1/3rd of it's value in a month. But more, I think it's just a reality that much of the growth of the last 4 years has come from the top companies. And those are also the least likely to be hurt by this growth and likely will benefit (maybe not apple, but then again, maybe it gets their terrible streaming off the ground). So I'm not shocked.

Especially when factor in the public dumping they keep getting from the President.

[southsider2k5]

11 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

Yes, we're still definitely undercounting this.

 

 

 

 

There are a ton of small businesses which are already gone forever, and lot more will follow as this crisis extends further out.

[StrangeSox]

Yeah, as mqr put it, we're probably looking at major Amazonification coming out the other side of this. Fewer and fewer megacorps merging with each other and owning everything.

 

edit: Media is going to be eviscerated by this. We've already seen journalist positions dwindle at papers and news orgs across the country in the past decade as there are more and more mergers and fewer and fewer revenue streams. This is going to kill off a lot more. 22nd Century Media who does a number of local weekly papers in the suburbs, announced today they're suspending operations indefinitely.

Edited April 2, 2020 by StrangeSox

[Quin]

17 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

Yes, we're still definitely undercounting this.

 

 

 

 

There are some projections projecting 30% unemployment. That's the high end, but this is looking like 2008 on steroids.