The Viral Economy

[malchior]

While that's sort of interesting in a fun fact way. It obviously is a lot of money but at the CalPERs scale it obviously wasn't that much protection. That was a $1B blip in a $350B pot.

[LawBeefaroni]

While that's sort of interesting in a fun fact way. It obviously is a lot of money but at the CalPERs scale it obviously wasn't that much protection. That was a $1B blip in a $350B pot.

They were over $400B in February.

[Paingod]

I'm tickled that the stimulus checks rolling out are all stamped with Trump's name in the Memo field. He'd really like you to thank him personally for that money. Maybe with a vote?

[Smoove_B]

And of course now that he's been permitted to sign the checks, he supports doing it again:

The more generous stimulus checks would be part of a potential fourth stimulus package, which the White House is currently discussing with Congress. President Donald Trump signed the third recovery package, which also created loans, grants, and other support for businesses, on March 27.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if they knew letting him sign these checks would increase the likelihood he'd agree to do it multiple times - because he's a simpleton.

[malchior]

While that's sort of interesting in a fun fact way. It obviously is a lot of money but at the CalPERs scale it obviously wasn't that much protection. That was a $1B blip in a $350B pot.

They were over $400B in February.

This only reinforces my point. They had 'insurance' that would have protected for 2% of the drop. And we have no idea what it cost them to maintain that hedge.

[Holman]

Mnuchin thinks $1,200 will cover you for ten weeks.

Mnuchin replied, “I think the entire package provides economic relief overall for about 10 weeks. Hopefully we will kill this virus quicker and we won’t need it, but we have liquidity to put into the American economy to support American workers and American business.”

[Blackhawk]

Now I'm beginning to wonder if they knew letting him sign these checks would increase the likelihood he'd agree to do it multiple times - because he's a simpleton.

If it'll get him to save lives, I'll let him tattoo his name on my forehead. Let him have his meaningless vanity, as long as it is getting results.

[wonderpug]

Wasn't the $1200 amount arrived upon by calculating a month's worth of minimum wage?

[Isgrimnur]

$7.25 * 40 * 4 = $1,450

[wonderpug]

$7.25 * 40 * 4 = $1,450

That equation comes out to $1160, which I read they rounded up to $1200. I can't see this concept popping up anywhere in a search just now though, so maybe it's just an internet rumor.

[Smoove_B]

Wasn't the $1200 amount arrived upon by calculating a month's worth of minimum wage?

[Isgrimnur]

$7.25 * 40 * 4 = $1,450

That equation comes out to $1160, which I read they rounded up to $1200. I can't see this concept popping up anywhere in a search just now though, so maybe it's just an internet rumor.

Yup, screwed up the math. Somehow.

[LawBeefaroni]

Everything is fine.


Yahoo.

After three consecutive weeks of jobless claims in the millions, another 5.245 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending April 11. Since June 2009, the U.S. economy added over 20 million jobs. But in just the last four weeks, the number of unemployment claims have reached 22 million.

Economists were predicting 5.5 million jobless claims for the week ending April 11. The prior week’s figure was revised higher to 6.615 million from the previously reported 6.606 million claims.

[malchior]

My back of napkin math has us somewhere around 20% unemployment. These are Great Depression type numbers. Keep in mind that it ran between 15-25% for about 6-7 years but this is unbelievably bad.

[LawBeefaroni]

New housing starts down 22%.

U.S. home-building activity collapsed in March as the coronavirus spread, with housing starts tumbling 22.3% from a month ago.

Groundbreakings occurred last month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.2 million units, down from a 1.56 million pace in February, the Commerce Department said.
...

There was a 6.1% decline in the completion of homes being constructed, which means many homes are being left half-built. The drop was 15% of single-family houses, meaning that unless economic activity picks up soon there could be ghost towns half-built housing developments, a phenomenon last seen in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

[stessier]

My back of napkin math has us somewhere around 20% unemployment. These are Great Depression type numbers. Keep in mind that it ran between 15-25% for about 6-7 years but this is unbelievably bad.

My 5th grade teach at home history has told me that at the peak, the Great Depression hit 34% and was above 30% for several years.

[malchior]

I've got a partially-completed mansion between me and a tiny sliver of my lake view. That dried up about 30 days ago. At least it is roofed and sided.

[LawBeefaroni]

Round 1 of small business loans ends after funding is exhausted. But don't worry, some big fish got theirs though.

Major U.S. restaurant chains are starting to secure government-backed loans that Congress created to protect small businesses during the pandemic, fueling concerns that big corporations will siphon away rapidly dwindling funds.

Potbelly Corp. — the nationwide sandwich shop operator — and Ruth's Hospitality Group, which runs a chain of steakhouses, are among the large companies that have disclosed receiving the government-backed loans. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, they reported employing thousands of people.

When Congress created the $350 billion "Paycheck Protection Program," it targeted the loans at businesses with fewer than 500 employees, because they are particularly vulnerable to economic slumps. But lawmakers also gave flexibility for larger restaurant and hotel operators to apply.

Both are publically traded companies, FWIW. They got a combined $30M (Ruth's split it under 2 subsidiaries to stay under the $10M max).

[malchior]

It's looking like 2008 again. Let's see if country survives a second round of this kind of rich get richer looting in 10 years. The first time got us the tea party after all.

[El Guapo]

It's looking like 2008 again. Let's see if country survives a second round of this kind of rich get richer looting in 10 years. The first time got us the tea party after all.

Well, I would say that it's more that the first black president got us the tea party.

[msteelers]

Our business hasn’t gotten approved, as of yesterday anyway. Frustrating because we put in the documentation before some of our friends who also own small businesses, and they got their approvals already.

[El Guapo]

Our business hasn’t gotten approved, as of yesterday anyway. Frustrating because we put in the documentation before some of our friends who also own small businesses, and they got their approvals already.

Did you remember to put "Donald Trump Best President Ever MAGA #1 USA!!!" on the cover letter?

[Grifman]

My back of napkin math has us somewhere around 20% unemployment. These are Great Depression type numbers. Keep in mind that it ran between 15-25% for about 6-7 years but this is unbelievably bad.

It's bad, but not unbelievable

[Smoove_B]

It's the end of the world economy as we know it:

It would be foolish, amid such uncertainty, to make overly confident predictions about how the world economic order will look in five years, or even in five months.

But one lesson of these episodes of economic tumult is that those surprising ripple effects tend to result from longstanding unaddressed frailties. Crises have a way of bringing to the fore issues that are easy to ignore in good times.

One obvious candidate is globalization, in which companies can move production wherever it’s most efficient, people can hop on a plane and go nearly anywhere, and money can flow to wherever it will be put to its highest use. The idea of a world economy with the United States at its center was already falling apart, between the rise of China and America’s own turn toward nationalism.

There are signs that the Covid-19 crisis is exaggerating, and possibly cementing, those changes.

[malchior]

My back of napkin math has us somewhere around 20% unemployment. These are Great Depression type numbers. Keep in mind that it ran between 15-25% for about 6-7 years but this is unbelievably bad.

It's bad, but not unbelievable

No one was talking 20% unemployment in 4 weeks. It has never happened before. This event blew well past the worst predicted models. The worst cases were something like 30% by end of quarter. That said, hopefully it'll level off.

[malchior]

One obvious candidate is globalization, in which companies can move production wherever it’s most efficient, people can hop on a plane and go nearly anywhere, and money can flow to wherever it will be put to its highest use. The idea of a world economy with the United States at its center was already falling apart, between the rise of China and America’s own turn toward nationalism.

There are signs that the Covid-19 crisis is exaggerating, and possibly cementing, those changes.

If we don't end up an autocracy and competent leadership emerges we should see a moon shot level project to build out capacity in American manufacturing. It'll have to be highly automated but we can't depend on China for basic materials after this. We also need to figure out how to get away from oil. They could go hand in hand if we play our cards right because what we learned is that we couldn't handle an actual crisis happening in real time. Not capacity. We couldn't face it. We can't hope that people wake up and face the slow motion global climate crisis without concealing it behind something else

[Formix]

If the end result of this is that we regain core manufacturing jobs, pharmaceutical manufacturing, etc, then at least there's some kind of silver lining. Helluva price for it, but still a silver lining.

[malchior]

If the end result of this is that we regain core manufacturing jobs, pharmaceutical manufacturing, etc, then at least there's some kind of silver lining. Helluva price for it, but still a silver lining.

Pharama manufacturing is still largely here fwiw. And here in the Northeast. It is a high tech industry and that isn't going to change so they couldn't cheap out on it. Now that this happened I don't see them trying to figure out how to move it to low cost nations. Oddly, they did send good portions of the research to China though and I expect that to come back too. If we were smart about this, we'd also set up a national pipeline to identify gifted and talented students with paid rides to keep up with China. They are building out an excellent education infrastructure that we need to match.

[Paingod]

It's the end of the world economy as we know it...

The moment China seemed to get it under control but it started spreading in the US I felt more than a little nagging doubt that when this was over the US would be behind China in the global economic scene and we'd never catch up again. NPR said this morning that China had their first constricted growth quarter, something like -6.25% ... but I feel like that's going to be peanuts to the shitstorm our poorly led government has prepared for us.

[malchior]

It's the end of the world economy as we know it...

The moment China seemed to get it under control but it started spreading in the US I felt more than a little nagging doubt that when this was over the US would be behind China in the global economic scene and we'd never catch up again. NPR said this morning that China had their first constricted growth quarter, something like -6.25% ... but I feel like that's going to be peanuts to the shitstorm our poorly led government has prepared for us.

China is going to be ahead of us. It was inevitable. Where we were going to compete with them was on morals/ethics/positive vision. Now that is gone too. At least not without some major, major rehabilitation. The next 50 years are going to be fairly dramatic. Heck the next 10 might be extremely rough.

[stessier]

If the end result of this is that we regain core manufacturing jobs, pharmaceutical manufacturing, etc, then at least there's some kind of silver lining. Helluva price for it, but still a silver lining.

I don't see this happening and I don't think we'd like it if it did. Things would be too expensive and it ultimately wouldn't change anything in situations like this as we don't have all the raw materials we need to become completely self reliant.

I think, through fits and starts, we'll get a more unified WHO type organization and we'll get better at listening to it.

[Holman]

China's economy has taken a serious blow from the virus, and this affects everyone.

NYT: China’s Economy Shrinks, Ending a Nearly Half-Century of Growth.

The coronavirus outbreak has brought China’s extraordinary, nearly half-century-long run of growth to an end — a stark reminder of the enormous task ahead for world leaders trying to restart the global economy.

Chinese officials on Friday said that the world’s second-largest economy shrank 6.8 percent in the first three months of the year compared with a year ago, ending a streak of untrammeled growth that survived the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the SARS epidemic and even the global financial crisis.

Now China is trying to restart its vast, $14 trillion economy, an effort that could give the rest of the world a much-needed shot in the arm. The coronavirus’s spread to the United States and Europe, which froze the economies there, has led to forecasts that the world’s output could shrink far more this year than it did even during the financial crisis.

That global halt will, conversely, hurt China’s efforts to get back on track, creating a difficult economic puzzle for top leaders in Beijing. The pandemic and attempts to contain it have sharply cut the world’s appetite for China’s goods, which could lead to factory shutdowns and worker furloughs even as the country tries to get back to business.

[LawBeefaroni]

Neosporin, here I come!

Got this from my FSA administrator:

Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act Update:


On March 27, 2020, the President signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act into law. A number of provisions within the Act may benefit you and eases the restrictions on certain qualified medical expenses.


Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Medical Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) can now be used to purchase over-the-counter (OTC) drugs and medications without the need for a prescription. Feminine hygiene products have also been deemed qualified medical expenses and can be purchased with funds from an HSA or FSA. Both are permanent changes to the eligible expenses list, and includes retroactive purchases made after 12/31/2019.

Too bad I don't have any receipts for all the previously non-qualifying stuff I've bought at B&M stores since 1/1.

[malchior]

Good to know. At the very least my wife's Aleve habit is now newly tax-free! What a tax break! Meanwhile...the future is either Elysium or bloody revolution. I'd bank on Elysium at this point.

Alan Viard of the American Enterprise Institute thinktank said the change should be made permanent. “The tax relief gives businesses badly needed liquidity during the coronavirus pandemic while also reducing the tax penalty on risky business investments,” Viard wrote in a blogpost.

[malchior]

This is horrible. Disney apparently went into cash preservation/disaster mode over the last couple of weeks as many of their revenue streams dried up at once. But still 100K from one company are going to be furloughed?

[Zarathud]

That's a corporate decision that the parks aren't going to open soon. Ugh.

[LawBeefaroni]

There is no way they can open US parks until at least the winter season. And that's probably when everyone will be wary of COVID-19 coming back around, if it ever diminishes. Wonder how the Shanghai reopening is going.

Iger has taken the reins back from Chapek and his retirement is probably postponed now.

[El Guapo]

We were scheduled to have a family trip to Disney World last week (in the alternate timeline we arrived back late last night). As of now we're rescheduled for August. Not sure what the odds are of that happening.

[LawBeefaroni]

RCN appears to have throttled our internet connection down. Daily average was 710Mbps in early March. On March 22, it went to 91. Google Wifi does a test daily so I have every day for the last 30 days and it goes from a tight range between 696 and 723 to a tight range between 89-93.

No notice, nothing on their home page. We noticed some degradation but nothing major so I'm not going to make a case of it unless it becomes a problem but I assume it's because usage has skyrocketed.

[Holman]

I just saw a story (too lazy to look it up) that internet infrastructure isn't getting overloaded because working hours were traditionally a slack time. There aren't that many more people online at night than before. It's just that daylight usage is now matching evening usage.

You know, because of how you all never used to check OO at work.