Althouse: "The Trump administration is asking Congress to approve a massive economic stimulus package of around $850 billion to stanch the economic free fall caused by the coronavirus..."

March 17, 2020

"The Trump administration is asking Congress to approve a massive economic stimulus package of around $850 billion to stanch the economic free fall caused by the coronavirus..."

"... four officials familiar with the planning said Tuesday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will present details to Senate Republicans later Tuesday. The package would be mostly devoted to flooding the economy with cash, through a payroll tax cut or other mechanism, two of the officials said, with some $50 billion directed specifically to helping the airline industry. White House officials also want to include more assistance for small businesses and their employees in the legislation, the officials said.... The $850 billion package would come in addition to another roughly $100 billion package that aims to provide paid sick leave for impacted workers.... White House officials are leaning hard into the idea of tax cuts and industry assistance, while Democrats have said their proposals are focused more on helping workers, health care providers, schools, and senior citizens...."

WaPo reports.

80 comments:

Curious George said...: I'm not sure stimulus is the way to go. Sure won't have small business keep employees working and themselves out of bankruptcy.; 3/17/20, 9:31 AM
rhhardin said...: I don't understand the theory. The problem is stuff not being produced anymore owing to no workers or no consumers being allowed to do their stuff.

Massively expanding Amazon's range of selling would help the consumer problem.

Small businesses will disappear in any case, even at 0% interest. The debt itself grows and kills them if they're not simultaneously making money. And banks add an interest rate for their risk, lest the bank be on the hook for that.

New small businesses would be a good focus. Kill regulation, licensing scams, etc, for later.

Scot Adams has taken up his calling of boring us to death.; 3/17/20, 9:40 AM
rhhardin said...: That is to say, small businesses will recover by going bankrupt and starting over. That kills their debt.; 3/17/20, 9:41 AM
Clyde said...: If they don't help the at-risk industries and small businesses, many of those workers that the Democrats are concerned about will become unemployed workers.; 3/17/20, 9:45 AM
Lucid-Ideas said...: I'm just not certain what the ultimate beneficial impact of an extra grand would be to affected people under quarantine (which could be all of us soon), other than buying them an extra month of something.

1) They might not have anything to sell you what you want/need to buy
2) If you're an hourly employee not pulling in money you got a month of reprieve on rent, etc.
3) Regardless, you'd better spend it wisely...or you're worse now than before the crisis

In old days royalty and in some cases the courts had the right under serious circumstances to suspend debts. A debt hiatus would probably be a better idea here, debts public and private being suspended from payment for 3 months.; 3/17/20, 9:47 AM
Nonapod said...: So we're back to stimulating (printing) our way to recovery? I didn't like it when we did it last time and I don't like it now. I was never convinced that it was the only possible way to avoid an even worse situation. We continue to devalue our currency and increase our debt with all this nonsense. It really feels like the only reason we haven't had out of control hyperinflation these last few years is because oil prices have remained so low anyway (god bless the frackers).; 3/17/20, 9:48 AM
Birches said...: Why do schools need help? The teachers are still teaching and getting paid though in an unconventional way. I know a lady who works at the school cafeteria. She says she's still getting paid too. These workers are not the ones in need, but are a reliable Dem constituency.; 3/17/20, 9:51 AM
Browndog said...: I guess I'm ok with it only because I trust Trump to do it right.

I see the casino lobbyists are already running around Washington with their greasy palms out demanding a bailout.

Casinos exist because they exist in a "sovereign nation". have their home nations bail them out. They'll be much happier that taking handouts from the pale face, and being happy is what it's all about.; 3/17/20, 9:52 AM
Michael K said...: Expand unemployment and disability insurance would help workers. Democrats will try to keep it away from "burly men," of course.; 3/17/20, 9:53 AM
Fernandinande said...: New small businesses would be a good focus. Kill regulation, licensing scams, etc, for later.

Paying useful people - farmers, shelf stockers, truck drivers, TP engineers - something like "combat pay" to continue their normal work might help prevent economic and paper-related disaster.; 3/17/20, 9:54 AM
rhhardin said...: Capital only works if there's slack in the economy. Somebody foregoes consumption and instead makes a new machine or specializes. He needs a real resource though.; 3/17/20, 9:54 AM
Qwinn said...: As far as the stock market goes, I think they really need to suspend short selling until this is over. The arguments against that idea sound very bogus to me. "The stock market works best with maximum information, and if you ban short selling, you're removing the information of the pessimism about the stock from many traders!". Oh bullshit. I'd rather have just the information from the people who are familiar with the stock enough to have bought it in the first place, not the asshole short sellers who know nothing about the stock but are just shorting it because the volatility index on it hit some benchmark in their algorithms.; 3/17/20, 9:54 AM
rehajm said...: I'm not sure stimulus is the way to go

Absolutely correct. The problem is not aggregate demand it is the loss of the structural economy. Democrats 'solution' is no better- short-term cash in pocket doesn't help workers who lose a job because of business failure. This is no time to score political points by pandering to inequality nuts...; 3/17/20, 9:55 AM
Fernandinande said...: Dunno if this Dilbert is appropriate or not ... probably is
Transfer Money To The Rich; 3/17/20, 9:56 AM
rehajm said...: Government backed business interruption insurance in return for pledges of no layoffs is far cheaper with far better results for workers...; 3/17/20, 9:57 AM
Lucid-Ideas said...: Another thing that's aggravating is how so many people in general worldwide live hand-to-mouth. I'm not one in the camp of saying that such behavior is 100% the fault of these people, but I know people who pull very very good incomes - professional people - who do this too

How can you be pulling $8000/month after taxes and be complaining about not being able to make the next month? Are you really that housepoor? Where is it all going?

I'd say a circumstance like this is what makes these people think twice, but that never happens.; 3/17/20, 9:57 AM
rhhardin said...: Cash for clunkers would help the poor. No need to buy a new car though. Just steal one and sell it to the government. Like the Romanian recipe for omlette - first, steal two eggs.; 3/17/20, 9:57 AM
rhhardin said...: The short seller is giving the buyer of the stock a better price than he would have gotten without him.; 3/17/20, 9:59 AM
rhhardin said...: Mostly the government is stamping out resources and adding money. I don't think that works.; 3/17/20, 10:01 AM
TreeJoe said...: This is a great test of leadership and priorities, so let's see where our focus is:

"White House officials are leaning hard into the idea of tax cuts and industry assistance, while Democrats have said their proposals are focused more on helping workers, health care providers, schools, and senior citizens"

White House: Tax cuts and Industry Assistance are important parts of protecting jobs and workers immediately. Reasonable areas of focus.

Democrats: Helping "workers" is vague enough I'll say thats a sensitive priority. Helping "health care providers" is vague and it's unclear how the federal government can centrally do that unless it's emergency powers to enable final year nurses/physicians to begin acting in clinical practice. So TBD. Helping schools? That'll be too late and is shameless vote buying of a key demographic. Helping senior citizens? Also too late and also shameless vote buying.; 3/17/20, 10:04 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: I'm guessing very little of this money will find it's way to the people being harmed. However, it will probably open up some great new business opportunities for connected folks like Hunter.; 3/17/20, 10:05 AM
rehajm said...: Just steal one and sell it to the government.

The Obama 'stimulus' gave away free golf carts to anyone savvy enough to recognize it. I could use one of those right now...; 3/17/20, 10:06 AM
Kevin said...: Remember when Schumer tried to show Trump didn’t take the virus seriously by spending, like, 8 billion?

Good times.; 3/17/20, 10:06 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: The bad news: You no longer have a job.
The good news: Payroll tax holiday!; 3/17/20, 10:06 AM
Francisco D said...: Trump has never been shy about government spending.

In that sense, his Democrat roots are showing.; 3/17/20, 10:08 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Sheesh, that's a lot of money. Why not start with something a bit more modest?; 3/17/20, 10:08 AM
rehajm said...: A repost of the John Cochrane podcast:

Is An Economic Stimulus The Right Cure For The Coronavirus?; 3/17/20, 10:11 AM
Fernandinande said...: Casinos exist because they exist in a "sovereign nation". have their home nations bail them out.

That never happens. The "sovereign nations" are all parasites which can't pay for own road-building, healthcare or law enforcement.

Most of the articles in the Diné bi Naltsoos (Navajo Times) are about bureaucracies with poorly defined powers fighting with each other and accomplishing nothing. Most of the letters are about how some Indian got ripped-off by some Indian agency: here's the latest one: Belittled, ridiculed at Burnham Chapter

A couple of weeks ago I got pretty drunk with a Navajo guy (he only had two beers, being a shaman and all-really!) and we were listening to the Navajo band "Xit" on youtube, and the lyric "And then the white man came", and I said, "I didn't do it! And besides, you Indians are meaner to each other than white people ever were" and he agreed.; 3/17/20, 10:13 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Yes, I think rehajm is in the right ballpark- you need to preserve some of the economic structure we seem now intent on destroying in our panic. Paying companies' payrolls vs them laying people off might make the most sense given the reasons for the layoffs. This has got to be the biggest worry of a lot of workers- they are losing their jobs in the middle of a health panic. The benefit to this would be that we already largely know all the details of such workers- and you could tailor it just like unemployment benefits themselves- strongly progressive in design, and this is especially good given that it the lower income workers who are going to suffer the most. Additionally, as the panic subsides, you could slowly start withdrawing this support.

I am guessing this will probably cost more than $850 billion dollars, but not doing it is probably going to cost far more. You should be trying to limit the damage before it is done.; 3/17/20, 10:14 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: Like the $750 billion the government threw at the last crisis, much of it will eventually end of in the hands of local governments to ensure public sector job security and benefits. Certain folks are never allowed to feel the pain.; 3/17/20, 10:17 AM
Yancey Ward said...: On short sellers:

You need someone on the other side of a trade in a stockmarket panic who can profitably buy in a steep decline- else panics feed on themselves even more dramatically. And you can dismiss it, but it is all but certain that shortsellers add information to the market- they have more incentive than regular sellers and buyers to get it right since they have more skin in the game.

Short sellers, and options buyers/sellers for that matter, are your smoothing functions, both on the upside and the downside.; 3/17/20, 10:18 AM
Sebastian said...: The best economic stimulus is to tighten "the rules" for people over 65-ish and relax them for people under 40.; 3/17/20, 10:18 AM
Yancey Ward said...: In 2008/2009, it wasn't the case of complete business seize up- 95% of the economy was just fine the entire time- here we are talking about a near complete shutdown coming, and getting it restarted afterwards is something that has never been tried before.; 3/17/20, 10:21 AM
Buckwheathikes said...: I don't get it, frankly.

How would a payroll tax cut "flood" the economy with money? For there to be a payroll tax, there'd have to be a payroll to BEGIN WITH, no? I'm looking around and I'm seeing a LOT of people who are simply UNABLE to earn income due to the governments actions in virtually completely shutting down the entire economy. Sure, some are working remotely, but that won't be for long, because all their customers are sitting at home idle.

Here's (some of) what needs to happen and it needs to happen IMMEDIATELY:

1) The banks must be ordered to offer all mortgage holders immediate relief in the form of home loan payment suspension (these payments can just be added onto the end of loans - for however many months this crisis persists). Banks have existing procedures to do this anyway. People should not be put at risk of losing their homes or having their credit ratings destroyed due to the governments dismantling of our economy. Same for car loans and other types of loans. Just put everything on suspend until the crisis passes and add those payments onto the back end. No harm, no foul.

2) A temporary UBI simply MUST be instituted for the duration of this crisis. A single $1,000 check is not going to be a drop in the bucket for ordinary Americans. Families have to eat and I can tell you from personal experience that my supermarket is REQUIRING me to PAY to get the meager food that's left in it and to wipe my butt with the receipt, since there's no toilet paper.

3) Certain Americans are simply going to be REQUIRED to work - food don't get to supermarkets unless there are truck drivers. There can't be truck drivers if there aren't gas stations attended to. There can't be gas stations if there's no gas - so refinery workers will simply be required to continue working (and so on and so on). And this is just one small piece of the life pie. There are thousands of other critical jobs even outside health care. The federal government needs to immediately REWARD these critical workers beyond a payroll tax cut. There should be a temporary INCOME TAX HOLIDAY for all earnings made during this period. No state or local income taxes either.

4) Congress should be in PERMANENT SESSION for the duration of this crisis. That means nights and weekends too. Sick of seeing folks fleeing Washington and then critical time lost while they're lollygagging back in their home districts.

Frankly, I don't see much coming out of Washington right now that fills me with a sense that our politicans understand the ENORMOUS SCOPE of the actions they're taking. I get they're trying to keep the hospitals from getting flooded; but there are far cheaper ways of doing that then shutting down the entire economy.; 3/17/20, 10:22 AM
Calypso Facto said...: "This is a great test of leadership and priorities, so let's see where our focus is:"

The House Dem's new coronavirus legislation added mandatory, temporary paid leave for all companies UNDER 500 people ... i.e., the big companies get an exception from the (expensive, ill-considered) mandate. Tell me again whose side the Dems are on?; 3/17/20, 10:23 AM
Paul said...: I'm gonna start a new company!!! I'll call it "Toilet Paper, a Roll At A Time!" Where you can buy toilet paper, but only one roll per person per week! And you will need ID to buy 'em!

Gonna make millions!; 3/17/20, 10:26 AM
Maillard Reactionary said...: What, are we all Keynesians again all of a sudden? (I can't say I'm surprised to hear that Trump supports this; he's a lot of things but an economic conservative isn't one of them.) Cash handouts will do little good, but as others have noted, having government get out of the way of small business by waiving regs would help at the margin.

As a retired person, still well, who doesn't have to work, I plan to donate any checks the government sends me to a local food pantry. The poor slobs who work from check to check in the restaurant and bar industry will be lining up there soon enough.; 3/17/20, 10:26 AM
narciso said...: yes its a flatliners type test, don't know if it's the 1990s version with kiefer Sutherland,; 3/17/20, 10:31 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: I think any kind of government handout will be a waste at the moment. We don't have a lot of money to play with, thanks to the massive deficit, so we don't have a lot of room to maneuver.

We don't understand the economic effects of the virus and how best to respond. This is not fundamentally an economic crisis. If the virus disappeared the economic problems would largely dissipate. The longer the lock-down lasts the more it becomes an economic problem, but at that point we will have a better understanding of which parts of the economy are most at risk. Obviously many employees in service industries are going to take a bath, but I would guess that there will be all kinds of unexpected outcomes. For many simply providing existing unemployment benefits is likely to be the best option.; 3/17/20, 10:39 AM
Inga said...: I hope it includes student loan relief so Pants’ can relax a bit.; 3/17/20, 10:43 AM
pacwest said...: In old days royalty and in some cases the courts had the right under serious circumstances to suspend debts. A debt hiatus would probably be a better idea here, debts public and private being suspended from payment for 3 months.

I've been thinking about this, including some way to suspend rent, but it would very hard to implement. It would have the advantage of concentrating the financial woes toward a smaller group (lenders).; 3/17/20, 10:57 AM
jim said...: The immediate economic problem is providing liquidity so that businesses don't have to lay people off basic they don't have cash to meet payroll. Probably better to avoid mass unemployment due to what we hope is a temporary disruption.

Lots of logistical disruptions will ripple through. I know a small (<50 employee) jobbing machine shop that now can't keep up, because normal supply chains are not working.

I'm not sure traditional Keynesian stimulus works anymore. My pet theory on that is that it dilutes too much in a fully integrated world economy. But ... may be we no longer HAVE a fully integrated world economy.; 3/17/20, 10:57 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: I like money as much as the next guy, but I don't see how giving me a bunch of extra money each month, when I'm not in financial distress, is going to help the economy or make humanitarian sense. Payroll tax elimination only makes sense if they're saying it would cost more and take too long to sift through who is in need and who isn't.; 3/17/20, 10:57 AM
Michael said...: We had to destroy the village in order to save it.; 3/17/20, 11:01 AM
MayBee said...: I'm actually pretty happy Mnuchin is in charge of the financial end of this. He isn't trying to create a new social program out of this, but he gets the problem.; 3/17/20, 11:03 AM
pacwest said...: The longer the lock-down lasts the more it becomes an economic problem,

The present strategy of flattening the curve increases the length of the economic problem.; 3/17/20, 11:05 AM
Sebastian said...: "I get they're trying to keep the hospitals from getting flooded; but there are far cheaper ways of doing that then shutting down the entire economy."

Full one-month quarantine on anyone 65 and over and anyone over 50 with serious ailments.

Let's say the $850B is the cost of preventing 100K "deaths"--too simple, I know, but just for starters. That's 8.5M per "life." Adjust for quality, since we're talking mostly sick seniors, and the cost is likely to be higher than any we have ever willingly incurred to "save lives."; 3/17/20, 11:07 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Sebastian,
"Full one-month quarantine on anyone 65 and over and anyone over 50 with serious ailments."

Add in that anyone who can work from home does, and quarantine anyone who does test positive.; 3/17/20, 11:22 AM
Browndog said...: Inga said...

I hope it includes student loan relief so Pants’ can relax a bit.

Trump already waived the interest, which is huge and probably permanent.; 3/17/20, 11:25 AM
Michael K said...: For many simply providing existing unemployment benefits is likely to be the best option.

Yes, that should be the focus, plus maybe SBA loans at zero interest.

Part of the problem is that Pelosi and company larded the House bill with Democrat objectives that have nothing to do with the virus epidemic. The GOP staffs are going to have to go through line by line. Democrats are much better at this than the GOP.; 3/17/20, 11:28 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Blogger jim said...
providing liquidity so that businesses don't have to lay people off

Service industries are already laying people off. They are not going to take on debt to keep employees.; 3/17/20, 11:29 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Blogger Buckwheathikes said...
but there are far cheaper ways of doing that then shutting down the entire economy

Old people, even very old people, vote. If they think you are discounting the value of their lives they won't be voting for you.

Maybe we should institute a rule where you have to be able to run 50m in under 20s in order to vote. The Republicans may be on to something by making people stand in line for hours to vote (no folding chairs allowed).; 3/17/20, 11:35 AM
Rick said...: Freeman Hunt said...
Sheesh, that's a lot of money. Why not start with something a bit more modest?

Never let a crisis go to waste. After all why should owners of airlines suffer losses when taxpayers are available to ensure they don't?; 3/17/20, 11:54 AM
jim said...: I know people are being laid off. It costs money to get rid of people you have invested in. If money is cheap businesses will be able keep many things going they that they would have to cut otherwise: paying employees, paying suppliers.

Eliminating the payroll tax struck me as mostly a political idea, with most visible benefit going to high earners, but low earners (the Trump base) getting enough to make them happy.; 3/17/20, 12:04 PM
bagoh20 said...: I do not trust the government to spend that money intelligently. Just give us all a huge tax break, and we'll handle the rest much better than a bunch of sticky fingered bureaucrats and politicians. Does anybody really doubt that?; 3/17/20, 12:07 PM
bagoh20 said...: Another thing would be to just increase unemployment payments. That gets it right where it is most needed.; 3/17/20, 12:10 PM
NYC JournoList said...: Put buckwheathikes in charge!; 3/17/20, 12:28 PM
tim in vermont said...: Any huge relief in student loan debt going forward should be coupled with a promise by the universities to stick to useful content. It’s funny that during the ‘60s, the big thing was that the courses should be “relevant” and ironically, that ended up steering the universities into near irrelevance to the economic life of our nation, at least in a positive way.

We also have to accept that not everybody is cut out for college and those people shouldn’t be burdened with a life long debt for that simple fact.; 3/17/20, 12:29 PM
tim in vermont said...: "with most visible benefit going to high earners,”

Payroll taxes stop as incomes climb. And if you don’t think that an extra 8% in your paycheck means anything, maybe you aren’t the kind of person who need the help.; 3/17/20, 12:31 PM
tim in vermont said...: "After all why should owners of airlines suffer losses when taxpayers are available to ensure they don’t?”

We need the airlines. What has to change is that airlines have to set aside reserves in the future, even if it means fares are higher. It’s fine if it is across the industry, so nobody can shirk to cut fares. Their business model of running their operations on the revenue from bookings 90 days out has to change.; 3/17/20, 12:33 PM
tim in vermont said...: "Full one-month quarantine on anyone 65 and over and anyone over 50 with serious ailments.”

We don’t know enough yet to force people to play that kind of Russian roulette. Maybe in a week we will. THere are two studies out of China, I heard, that suggest that it will go down as summer approaches, just like Trump got ripped a new one for suggesting was a possibility.

Still it’s. easy to get a summer cold on an airplane in my experience.; 3/17/20, 12:36 PM
TreeJoe said...: A much better stimulus would be to concretely announce a set of criteria that, if hit, would trigger an "all-clear" or a lifting of restrictions - forced or encouraged - at the national level.

People and businesses can hunker down for 2 weeks. Maybe even a month. But the prospect of months of heavily surpressed business for companies and of lost income for sole proprietors/small business means people are going to have to start cutting down on their expenses NOW in order to weather an unknown storm.

I'm all for federally provided economic stimulus/relief (which I believe should be done via cheap borrowing), but only if it's combined with visibility into an "end" to this thing.; 3/17/20, 12:37 PM
Stephen said...: Airlines makes sense. Tax cuts, not so much. A ton of people are about to lose their jobs, their income and their purchasing power. The first step should be to make sure those folks have the means to survive, both as a matter of basic decency and because they will pump those dollars back into the economy directly, preventing the economy from falling off the cliff, or at least slowing the descent. Tax cuts don't help people with no income, and the evidence is that they don't feed back into the economy in that direct way.; 3/17/20, 12:45 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Just give us all a huge tax break, and we'll handle the rest much better than a bunch of sticky fingered bureaucrats and politicians.

Aren't you one of the ones here who is constantly bitching about how too many people don't pay taxes, and it is the poor rich who are unfairly burdened.

Course this meme is complete and utter bullshit. But it doesn't stop a lot of people from repeating it.; 3/17/20, 1:06 PM
Rick said...: Aunty Trump said...

We need the airlines.

We will always have airlines. If they go bankrupt new investors will buy the assets and continue operations without skipping a single day.; 3/17/20, 1:09 PM
pacwest said...: Low interest loans doesn't seem very effective. Demand is going to go down. Any smart business is going to decrease production, not borrow more money to keep production up. In other words, lay off workers.

Immediate and increased unemployment benefits seem best if we are going the ftc (flatten the curve) route.; 3/17/20, 1:40 PM
pacwest said...: Low interest loans doesn't seem very effective. Demand is going to go down. Any smart business is going to decrease production, not borrow more money to keep production up. In other words, lay off workers.

Immediate and increased unemployment benefits seem best if we are going the ftc (flatten the curve) route.; 3/17/20, 1:40 PM
bagoh20 said...: Tax cuts may not be the best targeting of money, but the government NEVER hits the target. The idea that you will take money from taxpayers at this time and send it to connected people seems not only bad policy but immoral. The money you are asking to be sent to some specific need will get diminished by at least half on the way. Tax cuts can't be stolen, and we know that a disaster is a great opportunity at theft. That money could have stayed with the people who worked for it instead going to opportunists.; 3/17/20, 1:41 PM
bagoh20 said...: "Aren't you one of the ones here who is constantly bitching about how too many people don't pay taxes, and it is the poor rich who are unfairly burdened."

Other than the rich being poor, what part of that is untrue?; 3/17/20, 1:42 PM
Michael K said...: Demand is going to go down. Any smart business is going to decrease production, not borrow more money to keep production up. In other words, lay off workers.

How about rent and insurance ? If you've run a business, you know that fixed expenses are a big part of your monthly nut to crack.; 3/17/20, 2:48 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: After you carve out what goes to the children of prominent insider government whores - what is left?
After you carve out tax breaks for google - what's left?; 3/17/20, 3:31 PM
Krumhorn said...: This is the first step to a guaranteed income. Yang is already talking about a payment to every adult of $1,000/mo. Let's say, just to pick a number, that there are 150 million adults. That's $150 billion A MONTH. And would that be citizen adults?

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. - Winston Churchill

- Krumhorn; 3/17/20, 3:44 PM
Qwinn said...: "The short seller is giving the buyer of the stock a better price than he would have gotten without him."

Uh huh. And then the short seller keeps selling, and keeps selling, and keeps driving the price down, until that buyer he supposedly "helped" and every buyer after that and every poor slob who was just holding the stock the entire time is phenomenally screwed.

Not to mention famous "short sellers" who, when faced with a stock they short that goes up in price on good news, take to Twitter to outrageously slander the company on absolutely no valid basis whatsoever, causing the stock to crash by 70% and unleashing a wave of lawsuits against the company. See Inovio and "Cintron Research" last week for an example of that bullshit.; 3/17/20, 3:59 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Why it's almost as though running massive deficits during times of peace and prosperity might be poor preparation for inevitable hard times.; 3/17/20, 4:05 PM
rehajm said...: Short sellers mitigate bubbles, provide price discovery, act as a check to corners and price manipulation, and are important for the creation of synthetics used in risk management.; 3/17/20, 4:35 PM
Michael K said...: Why the House bill is still held up in the Senate.

A much-discussed coronavirus aid package hung in limbo today as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin tried to reach a bipartisan consensus on measures that are meant to provide relief amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the House passed the bill on Saturday morning, Pelosi and Mnuchin returned to hammer out a series of technical corrections.

Its current iteration includes free coronavirus testing, additional funding for food security initiatives, bolstered unemployment insurance, and a temporary paid leave program. Under the latter provision, those who have coronavirus, who are acting as caretakers for one or more family members with coronavirus, who are quarantined, or whose schedules have been scrambled by widespread school closures are entitled to two weeks of full paid sick leave and three months of paid medical leave, where workers would collect no less than two-thirds of their wages. The government would reimburse the cost with new tax credits.

But there's a catch: The text currently exempts businesses with more than 500 employees from having to comply—a possible example of corporate cronyism, likely introduced by Mnuchin.

Reason doesn 't like it.

Democrats are no strangers to inserting incongruous measures of their own. Just last week, an earlier version of Pelosi's coronavirus appropriations bill contained a permanent paid family leave program, including for victims of stalking. One can't be sure what that has to do with combating coronavirus.

But at least they are non-partisan.; 3/17/20, 6:30 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Earnest Prole said...
Why it's almost as though running massive deficits during times of peace and prosperity might be poor preparation for inevitable hard times.

Nobody knew not going bankrupt could be so complicated ...; 3/17/20, 8:21 PM
rcocean said...: Handing out hundreds of billions. And you can be sure the politicians friends are going to get quite a bit. Deserved or not.; 3/17/20, 8:40 PM
rcocean said...: Of course the Democrats are inserting crap in the bill. Why aren't the Republicans? Oh that's right, its because they are noble men who just want to work for the good of the country, and be true blue upright Republicans.

BTW, McConnell is always talking about "Bi partisan" and how happy he is the "Senate put aside our differences...blah blah". Schumer NEVER says that. Ever. Its only the R's who pat themselves on the back for "reaching across the aisle". I think most of the R's don't care about anything except pleasing their rich donors and C Of C.; 3/17/20, 8:45 PM
Bunkypotatohead said...: I'll take my $1k in Charmin extra soft, if you don't mind.; 3/17/20, 9:15 PM