Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Trump Team’s Economic Response.
Do you want to see how an external financial shock becomes a depression?
Just take a look at the Trump team’s plan and their communication thus far.
This silly plan to give $1,000 dollars to people is a terrible idea. People are not spending money because they don’t have money, they are not spending money because there is a virus and they are staying home.
That aid should be targetted to people affected, either boost unemployment to 100% of your salary/1099 or make a new program that guarantees every business their people cost if they are affected. You have to stop the panic and get people less worried about money. You have to create time to tackle the virus so that you can reopen in 60 days.
We could easily see 1 million PLUS people laid off in March. Restaurants and retail are shutting down for 1 to 2 months and if you don’t give the people laid off support this is going to keep rolling downhill.
And, you need to help businesses, you could push all rent/mortgage payments for 2 months to start. At least their bailouts are looking decent. They need to keep industries afloat so there are jobs when we get back to work.
My biggest worry is not the virus, nor the fundamental economics underlying our economy, it is the inability of Trump and his team to respond and communicate a response. If this thing is going to really IMPLODE it is because his team isn’t listening to economists and targetting aid where it is needed. These plans take time to implement, but you can announce them now, and start opening up credit lines to the big businesses to staunch the flow. Then work on helping the smaller organizations that are going to be harder to scale a response too. And, I like modifying unemployment because it is already in place and states just need money to bump up minimum payments ASAP.
That said, I don’t know shit, but I do know we have a TON of people already unemployed in restaurants and retail. And, they are not all going to instantly get jobs with Amazon or pizza delivery. And, you need them to come back to the restaurants that had to let them go as soon as we get the virus under control.
Recent Comments