~* Make America Great Depression Again -- Official Thread of Corona Virus infected markets *~

[CitizenVectron]

I think the reality is that any system is bound to failure unless there is constant vigilance and diligence. In free-market capitalism's case, that means wealth taxes, progressive income taxes, strong social safety nets, and strong laws that favour labour over capital. Some of that existed in the US but has been eroded since the 70s/80s. Communism is the same, where unless you literally have the people watching those in power, they will amass more power and wealth.

 

The best system seems to be social democracies that have free markets but also strong laws that limit wealth accumulation and provide protection for everyone. Personally I don't feel there is any reason why someone should ever have greater personal wealth than a few million dollars outside of retirement savings, etc. Even if you said $20 million, it would greatly limit the amount of power individuals can hold over society.

[SaysWho?]

TEGNA furloughs local TV news staffs, managers take temporary pay cut

 

Quote

The company is implementing a “one week furlough for most employees to be taken between the week of April 20 and the week of June 26. In lieu of one-week furloughs, news directors and station heads of technology will receive a commensurate 8% temporary pay reduction and general managers and corporate senior vice presidents and above will receive a 20% temporary pay reduction.”

 

Lougee said he and the TEGNA board of directors will take a 25% pay cut during April, May and June.

 

Quote

TEGNA is the first of the big TV owners to announce such cuts, but a new survey of local TV news directors predicts that other cuts are inevitable around the country.

 

 

 

This is going to be hard on my industry. Advertising-driven media = plummeting profits right now.

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

Even if the curve isn’t fully bent by the end of April, I’d be pretty surprised if they don’t start lifting the lockdown or at least loosening it in the places that don’t look like New York...I think you’d be pushing the limits of what’s politically possible to go much longer.  Things are starting to collapse, and I don’t think you have the political will even in an imperfect democracy like the US to intentionally cause a depression.  (That doesn’t rule out The possibility that lifting the lock down at the end of April backfires and *unintentionally* causes a depression with the virus roaring back to life and permanently depressing business and consumer sentiment/expectations)

[CayceG]

1 hour ago, SaysWho? said:

TEGNA furloughs local TV news staffs, managers take temporary pay cut

 

 

 

 

 

This is going to be hard on my industry. Advertising-driven media = plummeting profits right now.

 

I read this as Tenga and wondered why they were laying people off because Tenga's demand has increased now that PornHub is free.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

Even if the curve isn’t fully bent by the end of April, I’d be pretty surprised if they don’t start lifting the lockdown or at least loosening it in the places that don’t look like New York...I think you’d be pushing the limits of what’s politically possible to go much longer.  Things are starting to collapse, and I don’t think you have the political will even in an imperfect democracy like the US to intentionally cause a depression.  (That doesn’t rule out The possibility that lifting the lock down at the end of April backfires and *unintentionally* causes a depression with the virus roaring back to life and permanently depressing business and consumer sentiment/expectations)

I think a lot of places that have been less affected and will likely see there numbers stay relatively low will be forced by the citizenry to start loosening restrictions in May. I'm in Brazoria County, directly south of Harris County (where Houston is located). Total population is 360k. We've had 160 cases or so, and around 15 new cases a day the last week. Only 1 death thus far. We have a shelter at home order that runs through the end of April. There just isn't any way you're going to convince people to stay in once this order expires. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

13 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I think a lot of places that have been less affected and will likely see there numbers stay relatively low will be forced by the citizenry to start loosening restrictions in May. I'm in Brazoria County, directly south of Harris County (where Houston is located). Total population is 360k. We've had 160 cases or so, and around 15 new cases a day the last week. Only 1 death thus far. We have a shelter at home order that runs through the end of April. There just isn't any way you're going to convince people to stay in once this order expires. 

This would be entirely possible if we had a robust testing situation with contact tracing, localized quarantine and isolation. Without these things we're right back to where we are in a few months (if we're lucky)

[Massdriver]

The stock market is wrong to be this optimistic. Unfortunately we are looking at a perfectly terrible scenario that will stress the entire system. I think we could be looking at some major bank stress if this thing lingers. There’s a lot of debt out there. I hope I’m wrong. It just seems like everyone thinks the virus is going to magically disappear in a couple of months. The progress we are making is because of social distancing. Social distancing is harming the economy severely. Yet the moment we stop practicing distancing, the virus will likely come back. And if we stop distancing, the virus will likely result in us distancing anyway but with more death. We are fucked until we get a vaccine. Does anyone here feel safe flying until they have either has the virus and survived or has received a vaccine? Massive testing both antibodies and for the virus seem to be the only way out with social distancing in the meantime. 

 

And to think this is a soft pitch compared to what a pandemic could be. I really hope support is there for a beefed out WHO and CDC. 

[Kal-El814]

7 hours ago, Massdriver said:

And to think this is a soft pitch compared to what a pandemic could be. I really hope support is there for a beefed out WHO and CDC. 

Yeah this is the thing that really gets me.

[SaysWho?]

7 hours ago, Massdriver said:

The stock market is wrong to be this optimistic. Unfortunately we are looking at a perfectly terrible scenario that will stress the entire system. I think we could be looking at some major bank stress if this thing lingers. There’s a lot of debt out there. I hope I’m wrong. It just seems like everyone thinks the virus is going to magically disappear in a couple of months. The progress we are making is because of social distancing. Social distancing is harming the economy severely. Yet the moment we stop practicing distancing, the virus will likely come back. And if we stop distancing, the virus will likely result in us distancing anyway but with more death. We are fucked until we get a vaccine. Does anyone here feel safe flying until they have either has the virus and survived or has received a vaccine? Massive testing both antibodies and for the virus seem to be the only way out with social distancing in the meantime. 

 

And to think this is a soft pitch compared to what a pandemic could be. I really hope support is there for a beefed out WHO and CDC. 

 

I feel safe traveling. I'm not, but I'd feel all right.

 

However, I wouldn't mind getting tested the second I get back.

[SuperSpreader]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/acting-navy-secretary-rips-ousted-captain-who-sounded-alarm-over-n1177676

 

lol military acting like trump 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

13 hours ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

Even if the curve isn’t fully bent by the end of April, I’d be pretty surprised if they don’t start lifting the lockdown or at least loosening it in the places that don’t look like New York...I think you’d be pushing the limits of what’s politically possible to go much longer.  Things are starting to collapse, and I don’t think you have the political will even in an imperfect democracy like the US to intentionally cause a depression.  (That doesn’t rule out The possibility that lifting the lock down at the end of April backfires and *unintentionally* causes a depression with the virus roaring back to life and permanently depressing business and consumer sentiment/expectations)

I'm fairly certain that large sections of at least the West Coast can start loosening restrictions relatively soon.  It would be wise to keep in place those that limit the number of people in a non-essential business at any one time.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

9 hours ago, Massdriver said:

And to think this is a soft pitch compared to what a pandemic could be. I really hope support is there for a beefed out WHO and CDC. 

 

1 hour ago, Kal-El814 said:

Yeah this is the thing that really gets me.

 

This is what I keep telling people.  As far as pandemic-type diseases go, this one is actually one of the best that we could hope for.  The population groups significantly impacted by this disease are those that unfortunately should be "expected" to be impacted by such a disease.

 

Somewhere out there in the bloodstream of an animal in Asia, Africa, or Latin America, there exists a viral demon that will burn through ALL human population groups and will make SARS-COV-2 seem like a pleasant holiday in comparison.

[mclumber1]

13 minutes ago, Emperor Diocletian II said:

I'm fairly certain that large sections of at least the West Coast can start loosening restrictions relatively soon.  It would be wise to keep in place those that limit the number of people in a non-essential business at any one time.

 

I think the fact that Nevada instituted social distancing pretty early on has paid dividends.  But since the state is so reliant on casinos for the economy, I'm afraid that opening them back up too soon will not only lead to a festering problem in the state, but doing so will cause infections to spring up elsewhere because of all of the flights into and out of Las Vegas. 

[SaysWho?]

Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic

 

Quote

Calviño didn't offer a specific date as to when basic income could be rolled out in the country. But she said the government hoped it would become "a permanent instrument."

 

"We're going to do it as soon as possible," she said. "So it can be useful, not just for this extraordinary situation, and that it remains forever."

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

7 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

A high-level Small Business Administration official criticized several big banks over their reticence to get involved in a $349 billion federally subsidized small business lending program, in a recorded teleconference obtained by the Washington Post.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/08/video-sba-official-blasts-big-banks-over-failure-quickly-distribute-loans/

Quote

“Some of the big banks ... and this is just editorial ... that had no problem taking billions of dollars of free money as bailout in 2008 are now the biggest banks that are resistant to helping small businesses,” Amato said.

 

He responded to widespread concerns that the largest U.S. banks are slow-walking their involvement in the Paycheck Protection Program, an important small businesses aid program. The SBA is trying to forge relationships with “non-bank lenders” because the major banks are limiting their involvement in the program, Amato said.

 

“We are trying to work quickly with national non-bank lenders and other sources that may make up the difference for the companies like, sadly, BofA, Wells Fargo and Chase that haven’t really stepped up to the plate to take on all the small businesses they can,” Amato said.

 

Addressing criticisms that the SBA did not release its regulatory documents quickly enough, Amato said: “So what they are saying is 'I don’t give a...a hoot about the small businesses...what I care about is whether or not I have enough paperwork. It’s just crazy."

 

[Guest]

There is definitely something fishy going on with how the major banks are handling the PPP loans.

[CitizenVectron]

Purely just a thought-exercise, but I wonder how different the situation would be if banks were inside federal jurisdiction rather than state. You'd have far fewer large banks, but action would probably be easier to take.

[chakoo]

53 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

There is definitely something fishy going on with how the major banks are handling the PPP loans.

Which is kind of criminal in my mind. In talking about the state of things with my wife, we kind of feel what determines if the economy can jumpstart quickly and rebounce or not is how well small & medium size businesses handle their debt load. If they can weather the storm and re-open quickly we might be able to crawl out of this dip by years end. If they falter and shutdown then we're in for a hell of a recession. 

[Ghost_MH]

8 minutes ago, chakoo said:

Which is kind of criminal in my mind. In talking about the state of things with my wife, we kind of feel what determines if the economy can jumpstart quickly and rebounce or not is how well small & medium size businesses handle their debt load. If they can weather the storm and re-open quickly we might be able to crawl out of this dip by years end. If they falter and shutdown then we're in for a hell of a recession. 

 

This is how we wind up with Taco Bell being the last restaurant standing.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, chakoo said:

Which is kind of criminal in my mind. In talking about the state of things with my wife, we kind of feel what determines if the economy can jumpstart quickly and rebounce or not is how well small & medium size businesses handle their debt load. If they can weather the storm and re-open quickly we might be able to crawl out of this dip by years end. If they falter and shutdown then we're in for a hell of a recession. 

As I said earlier, we are certainly on the verge of losing a generation of small businesses and we just don't know the ramifications of such a seismic event. I'm still hopeful that most people will be able to hold on and we get more of a V-shaped recovery...but who knows? We are less than a week into the US federal rescue plan for small businesses and it's gone about as poorly as could be imagined.

Not sure if any of you saw this, but in the CARES act, there was a provision for the SBA to give out $10,000 advances on applications for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program to any eligible entity that applied, and for the funds to be deposited within 3 days. As far as can be seen at this point, not one penny in advances have gone out in the two weeks since it was supposed to start. The program was also supposed to allow for loans up to 2 million dollars, and yesterday the loan portal finally opened and the loans were maxing out at $15k no matter how high the revenue of the business.

There is still time to sort it out, but I have no confidence in this government to meaningfully solve the issues and certainly not in a timely fashion.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I have received two calls today from small businesses that I routinely patronized to inform me that they are closing permanently.

 

I cannot agree more with @sblfilms - this is a small business apocalypse.

[CitizenVectron]

Seems the federal 75% wage subsidy is working - companies hiring back laid off employees.

 

 

[Firewithin]

too bad that will never happen in the US

[mrbiggsly]

Riley really needs to stop trolling us with his competent government

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

US first-time unemployment claims were 6.6 million last week.  

 

That brings the total first-time claims for the last three weeks to 17 million.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

"What great recession?"

[marioandsonic]

So why the hell has the stock market been going up?

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

3 minutes ago, marioandsonic said:

So why the hell has the stock market been going up?

They just got the biggest bailout of all time, and we got $1200

[CitizenVectron]

15 hours ago, mrbiggsly said:

Riley really needs to stop trolling us with his competent government

 

'So easy I thought it was fake': Canada's CERB program gets stellar reviews in first days of operation.

 

https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/so-easy-i-thought-it-was-fake-cras-cerb-system-gets-stellar-reviews-in-first-days-of-operation

 

Quote

“Successfully applied for the #CERB at 6.01am … Fully expected it to crash. It didn’t. Easy as pie,” tweeted one applicant at 7:26 a.m. who goes by the moniker Suburban Voyeur on Twitter.

 

“I clicked literally three boxes,” she later added in response to numerous other applicants who appeared to have found it just as easy to apply for the special benefit program for those out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

“It’s so easy I thought it was fake,” another applicant told the Post, explaining that all he had to do was log into his Canada Revenue Agency account, click on the appropriate link and answer three questions before getting an approval message from the CRA saying the $2,000 benefit would be in his account within three days.

 

 

Did you receive more money than you expected? It's not a mistake, Minister says.

 

https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/so-easy-i-thought-it-was-fake-cras-cerb-system-gets-stellar-reviews-in-first-days-of-operation

 

Quote

Two days after applications opened for the new coronavirus emergency aid benefit, (CERB) some Canadians awoke to find two separate payments from the government in their bank accounts.

 

There’s no need to panic, Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos clarified during a press conference on Wednesday. The second deposit is a retroactive payment, he said, and it will occur for many Canadians as thousands of payments and applications are processed by the Canada Revenue Agency this week.

 

“This is $2,000 per four weeks. So there are Canadians that received a retroactive payment dating from March 15, because that’s when the benefit can be applied,” he said.

 

 

[CitizenVectron]

 

 

Quote

Republican economist Art Laffer, an architect of the Reagan era tax cuts that paved the way for historic budget deficits in the United States, has a plan to rejuvenate today’s pandemic-crippled economy.

 

Tax non-profits. Cut the pay of public officials and professors. Give businesses and workers who manage to hold on to their jobs a payroll tax holiday to the end of the year.

 

What about the extra aid funneled to newly jobless workers by the $2.3 trillion fiscal rescue package? Such government spending, Laffer told Reuters in an interview, will only serve to deepen the downturn and slow the recovery.

 

“If you tax people who work and you pay people who don’t work, you will get less people working,” Laffer said. “If you make it more unattractive to be unemployed, then there’s an incentive to go look for another job faster.”

 

Laffer’s unconventional plan isn’t just an academic exercise. First of all, he says he has presented it to his contacts at the White House. They include presidential economic advisor Larry Kudlow, who considers Laffer a mentor.

 

Laffer is also being floated in influential right-wing circles as a good candidate to head a proposed new industry task force aimed at re-opening the U.S. economy as soon as possible. “Bring in the minds like Art Laffer,” Sean Hannity, the Fox News host said April 6 of the proposed task force.

 

Just when I thought they couldn't find anyone worse than Kushner or Kudlow.

[chakoo]

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/march-2020-jobs-numbers-coronavirus-123834353.html
"The coronavirus cost the Canadian economy 1.01 million jobs in March — easily the worst month on record. In January 2009 129,000 jobs were shed."

Ooof but kind of expected already. The markets aren't reacting too much over this but to be expected.

 

1 hour ago, marioandsonic said:

So why the hell has the stock market been going up?

The markets already reacted to projections that job loss was going to be huge and uncertainty in the government's response. So this was really just confirmation of what they already knew. To top that off they already got quite a few handouts from the government and know more are on the way. So for the near future things will probably stay stable unless something unprecedented happens (probably due to rash decision by trump & co).

[Chris-]

14 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

 

 

Just when I thought they couldn't find anyone worse than Kushner or Kudlow.

 

Conservative economics are intellectually and morally bankrupt.

[SaysWho?]

So more on what IMF said:

 

Quote

If the pandemic faded in the second half of the year, the IMF expected a partial recovery in 2021, Georgieva said, but she warned the situation could also get worse.

 

“I stress there is tremendous uncertainty about the outlook: it could get worse depending on many variable factors, including the duration of the pandemic,” she said.

 

Quote

She said the crisis would hit emerging markets and developing countries hardest of all

 

Quote

Georgieva said the pandemic was hitting both rich and poor countries, but many in Africa, Asia and Latin America were at higher risk because they had weaker health systems. They were also unable to implement social distancing in their densely populated cities and poverty-stricken slums.

 

The better news from IMF:

 

Quote

The IMF was created for times like these, and stood ready to deploy its $1 trillion in lending capacity, Georgieva said.

 

The Fund’s executive board had approved doubling its emergency funding to $100 billion to meet the requests of over 90 countries, and staff were racing to process those requests.

 

Quote

Georgieva said it was encouraging that all governments had sprung into action, enacting some $8 trillion in fiscal measures and massive monetary measures.

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

5 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

So more on what IMF said:

 

 

 

 

The better news from IMF:

 

 

 

Imf should make these grants otherwise it's just another form of imperialism by the West.