THE IMPACT of the coronavirus on the U.S. economy will be grave: potentially graver than the Great Recession of 2008-2009. JPMorganChase projects that gross domestic product may shrink 14 percent between now and the end of June. Picture your local area as it was a couple of weeks ago, with its shops, factories and farms; now, imagine one-seventh of all that activity gone, with more damage, possibly, to come.
No one has a certain template for how to limit the harm — least of all ourselves. It is both urgent and possible to define the predicament correctly, however. The United States is not confronted with a financial crisis and a follow-on crisis of demand, as in 2008 or 1929. Rather, previously robust consumption and production are being deliberately halted to save lives. Thus,traditional tools of monetary and fiscal stimulus, such as zero interest rates and direct cash aid to households, are unlikely to prove decisive. You can’t shop, or invest in new construction, while on lockdown.
The vital need of everyone in the economy, from the corner drugstore to the local transit authority to the mightiest multinational, is liquidity: credit to meet payroll and other key obligations so as to remain solvent until the end of what we all must hope is a finite crisis.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) $1 trillion initial proposal seems realistically sized but poorly conceived. Where cash relief must be reserved for the poorest and those newly jobless, his package would deliver less of it to the bottom of the income scale than to the middle. Where the private sector as a whole needs quick and, above all, flexible access to credit, the proposal would assign $150 billion on a sectoral basis, to airlines, hotels and others admittedly hard-hit. Potentially complex rules would apply to $300 billion set aside for qualifying small businesses.
Far better to use the Federal Reserve’s power to act as a lender of last resort, not only to the financial sector, as in past crises — and as it is already doing now — but to business generally, using the existing commercial banking system as intermediary. Congress’s part would be to provide a large pool of capital to support such loans, which, as former Fed official Kevin Warsh and others have suggested, would charge interest and require collateral to protect taxpayers against inevitable losses.
This would both permit and incentivize companies and lenders to shape cash relief in the economically most sustainable manner. It would be self-limiting in duration; presumably the need for emergency credit would dissipate as the emergency does. Like the successful Troubled Asset Relief Program in the Great Recession, this aid, too, would be paid back.
Yes, very general conditions — limits to executive pay, for example — should be attached to whatever private sector relief goes out. This is not, however, the time to cry “bailout” or impose accountability for alleged past irresponsibility such as stock buybacks. The big picture, right now, is that U.S. companies, small and large, have behaved responsibly — giving up revenue and profits for the sake of public health. Helping them get through this crisis will help everyone get through it.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first coronavirus diagnostic test that can be conducted entirely at the point of care.
The test from California-based Cepheid will deliver results in about 45 minutes — much faster than current tests that require a sample to be sent to a centralized lab, where results can take days.
The test has been designed to operate on any of Cepheid's more than 23,000 automated GeneXpert Systems worldwide, of which 5,000 are in the U.S., the company said. The systems are already being used to test for conditions such as HIV and tuberculosis.
The systems do not require users to have specialty training to perform testing and are capable of running around the clock.
"An accurate test delivered close to the patient can be transformative" and can "help alleviate the pressure" that the COVID-19 outbreak has put on health facilities, David Persing, Cepheid's chief medical and technology officer, said in a statement.
"People in general are frustrated with the turnaround time. They don't know their status until days later. Knowing your status quickly ... will allow much better decisionmaking" and help doctors choose the best treatment, Persing said in a video on the company's website.
The test initially will be used primarily by hospitals, the company said, but the FDA's "emergency use authorization" covers all “patient care settings,” including doctors’ offices.
The test will begin shipping next week.
He walks, he talks
He exporiates,
All kinds of crazy
He’s our leader,
Our liar in chief
He’s the Donald
How sad is that?
LOL - Shakespeare ain't got nottun to worry about from me - LOL
NY Times headline story tonight 2/20/20
Russia Backs Trump’s Re-election, and He Fears Democrats Will Exploit Its SupportSo it is time for all you Conservative Wrongs to leap in with denies and lies supporting your LordGod Trump. Have fun.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”
– Albert Einstein
Barr, Linsey, McConnell and others are going keep investigating Trump Russian Collusion, wishing and hoping it will go away - that Trump has not carried out repeated treasonous acts. No matter how insane it all is, or how much chaos the process generates.
Okay this an opinion based essay by me. I speak as one well educated in the sciences, especially Evolutionary Biology.
The concept of RACE is NONSENSE. Species, as in Homo sapiens, is defined the ability to sexually reproduce viable offspring. Viable here defined as also being able to reproduce viable offspring. (Yes, I am talking sex) A horse and a donkey can have sex, even produce a Living Offspring, but a Mule is infertile, it can NOT produce viable offspring. However humans, no what part the globe they come from or what skin they inherited, can and do reproduce viable offspring.
Please email me back if you need further clarification on the above.
Nevertheless Racial Purity and its offspring Eugenics has long been with us. Indeed it currently inhabits the minds of our president and his white house staff. Stephen Miller in my opinion should taken out on the front lawn and lashed near onto death with a bull whip. Men like him should not be allowed to walk in public. D Trump should be first forced to watch Miller get whipped then be escorted out the white house back door and into prison for crimes against humanity.
That is my opinion on this issue - there is no excuse for those who practice Eugenics.
Politics is who gets what, why and when, which is everything. And well, Trump wants everything.
Winner Take All economic think of Adam Smith and Donald Trump is not the only way to carry out global trade. In 1994 John Forbes Nash Jr and others were awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for their work in mathematical game theory.
Nash's doctoral thesis - titled “Non-Cooperative Games" suggested business negotiations need not be solely a winner take all competition as Smith suggested, but a cooperative dynamic equilibrium.
Ever notice how gas stations, pharmacies and grocery stores cluster together. This is about Nash, not Smith. It is about a cooperative effort to share the market instead fighting each other to the death. Too bad Trump can't set aside his Winner Take All think. The world would be a better place if he did.
The secret is out, Bolton's book backs up the fact Trump held back Ukraine aid for dirt on Biden.
No way Bolton will be called to testify now. That's for sure.
And the crowd danced merrily to the tune of the Liar playing his five string Lyre. Puppets All.
OldeGuy Blog (78)
