The following are from the Washington Post and the New York Times.
WASHINGTON—Record-setting jobless claims and dire economic forecasts are giving fresh urgency to the debate within the Trump administration and across the country over how rapidly coronavirus-fueled restrictions should be pared back so the economy can begin its revival.
President Trump has expressed eagerness to move quickly, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on CNBC Thursday that he thought the U.S. economy could be ready to reopen by the end of May, “as soon as the president feels comfortable with the medical issues.”
Trump can’t actually restart the economy since he did not shut it down — most states have issued stay-at-home orders to halt the spread of the disease, and only states can lift them.
Nevertheless, the president has privately “sought a strategy forresuming business activity by May 1,” The Washington Post reports, and “in phone calls with outside advisers, Trump has even floated trying to reopen much of the country before the end of this month.”
Why is he looking for “a strategy.” The virus will do what it will do, and all Trump’s political “strategy” will not change that.
The “strategy” should have been to keep capable people and organizations designed specifically to combat mass infections, rather than firing the capable, hiring sycophant flunkies, and listening to flattering fools like Russ Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the FOX crew.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC Thursday he thinks the U.S. economy may be ready to reopen by the end of May, while Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said “most people expect” employees to be able to safely return to work “after the second quarter, which of course ends on June 30.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci told CBS News he could see public gatherings resuming this summer “if we do the things that we need to do to prevent the resurgence” of the coronavirus.
“Health experts say that ending the shutdown prematurely would be disastrous,” the Post reports, creating another spike in infections and forcing another shutdown “because U.S. leaders have not built up the capacity for alternatives to stay-at-home orders — such as the mass testing, large-scale contact tracing, and targeted quarantines.”
Pence said Thursday the U.S. has tested two million people, or less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, and Trump rejected the idea that mass testing is necessary to restart the economy.
Medical experts Donald Trump, Steven Mnuchin, Jerome Powell, and Mike Pence are confident the social distancing can begin in April, May 1, June 30 or whenever.
Trump says there is no need for testing, a vaccine, or an effective medicine. And don’t let the medical doctors get in the way.
Let’s just get out there and mingle, as soon as Trump “feels comfortable with the medical issues.
After all, he told us the doctors were amazed at how much he knows.
And Mike Pence agrees.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell
Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.
The most important problems in economics involve:
- Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
- Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity:
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
3. Provide a monthly economic bonus to every man, woman and child in America (similar to social security for all)
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
5. Salary for attending school
6. Eliminate federal taxes on business
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually.
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
9. Federal ownership of all banks
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9%
The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
I try to be very open-minded in my reading, viewing, and listening by alternating between “Liberal” and “Conservative” media outlets. I’ll watch Hannity on FOX and then watch Chris Cuomo on CNN.
I’ll listen to Limbaugh and then watch Morning Joe. I do the same with print. It is so difficult to find any news outlet that is trying to stay impartial. They all have a slant to their stories. But, during the past few years, FOX has far and away become the most out-of-the-mainstream outlet, almost to the extent of distraction.
FOX has become part of the problem and part of the story as opposed to just reporting from the sideline. But, it has become so obvious that credibility has been sacrificed. As sponsor’s drop off do to lower ratings, FOX will hopefully fall under new leadership and head in a better direction.l. They all have a slant to their stories.
But, during the past few years, FOX has far and away become the most out-of-the-mainstream outlet, almost to the extent of distraction. FOX has become part of the problem and part of the story as opposed to just reporting from the sideline. But, it has become so obvious that credibility has been sacrificed. As sponsor’s drop off do to lower ratings,
FOX will hopefully fall under new leadership and head in a better direction.
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Trump appeals to people who overlook facts and cling to a visceral hope that Trump will lead them to the promised land. They fundamentally fall into two groups: Bigots who hate others and the wealthy who don’t care about others.
Fox appeals to those same people.
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That said, there does still come a point of diminishing returns where the damage to the economy becomes irreversible. The economy cannot remain on life support forever. Hopefully the virus will be under control by the end of April, then we can go not from red to green overnight, but from red to orange to yellow to green over a period of several more weeks or so.
At least states should give We the People our civil rights back (i.e. leaving one’s house and having small gatherings) by May at the latest. This free 30 or 60 day trial of Orwellian totalitarianism is really getting old fast! (And by “free” I mean costing us all trillions of dollars in economic damage.)
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Ajax, the economy actually can remain on “life support” for a long time, if you are referring to federal deficit spending. So long as food production (the key issue) continues, there really is no limit.
Social distancing is inconvenient, but in a war, the citizenry experiences inconvenience to stay alive. During WWII the Londoners essentially lived in the subway tunnels to be safe.
The trillions of dollars in economic damage — and the need for government compensation — is exactly what the post is all about.
Stay safe, my friend. In a few weeks, you’ll have stories to tell your grandchildren. Don’t let impatience cost you your health.
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Points taken. But I don’t want the technocrats to get the wrong idea and think they can somehow make the status quo permanent or semi-permanent and avert a long-term depression if only they just print enough money. The demand side can surely be fixed with money, the supply side on the other hand only so much to a point. Fortunately, most factories in the USA are still open to one degree or another, and no current shortage of food or energy right now at least. (Hoarding and panic-buying is really a demand-side problem.) Though there may very well be a shortage of farmworkers during planting and harvesting season if this drags on much longer, especially with the borders being closed, and that can cause some actual food shortages a few months from now.
As for how long the shutdowns and lockdowns will last, the technocrats seem to have a gazillion different answers. And more questions than answers, in fact. Some say that even after the virus is under control, we need to keep some version of these restrictions until a vaccine is available, but that can be up to 18 months away even if it is rushed (Pfizer optimistically claims 9 months, about a month longer than it took for the swine flu vaccine to be widely available to all). No amount of life support could sustain the economy that long, of course, so that idea is a non-starter. But while a vaccine would be nice–a game-changer, even–we don’t really need to wait for a vaccine in order to relax restrictions. All we need is widely available rapid testing and a treatment that works, both of which are currently in the pipeline, and then we can get back to (almost) normal fairly quickly.
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Ajax, this is the reality: http://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=f1c8b448-038e-4716-984d-32be578d3a3b
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Of course we won’t reopen with a bang, more like a whimper. It certainly won’t be a V-shaped recovery (except perhaps for Wall Street, and even that is being highly optimistic), more like U-shaped at best and in fact more likely L-shaped for Main Street even with the Fed’s very belated assistance. But there won’t be ANY recovery at all if we don’t take at least some steps to start gradually relaxing the restrictions in the near future, that much is certain. Even with all the helicopter money in the world.
The truth is far more nuanced than either side of the debate wants to admit. It is best to think of social distancing as a spectrum rather than a binary IMHO.
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Morgan Stanley’s latest grim predictions are something we really want to avoid: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/america-should-be-ready-for-18-months-of-shutdowns-in-long-hard-road-ahead-warns-the-feds-neel-kashkari-2020-04-12?mod=home-page
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See: Trump uses coronavirus to attack critics.
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The Federal Reseve is apparently doing more to save the economy than Congress has been doing:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/13/coronavirus-update-here-is-everything-the-fed-has-done-to-save-the-economy.html
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Interest rate cuts mean little, but other efforts will help. Like Congress, the Fed has unlimited dollars at its disposal. Yet, like Congress, they hold back as though dollars were scarce to them.
The single biggest economic problem in America today, is lack of money. Consumers lack money. Businesses lack money. States, counties, and cities lack money. Congress could and should give it to them.
Massive failure by Congress and Trump is sinking the economy, unnecessarily.
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This article calls it ‘Pandemic Insolvency’ and it paints a rather grim picture: https://medium.com/@BueRubner/pandemic-insolvency-why-this-economic-crisis-will-be-different-841d5bbfa737
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