Sadly… now is when political leadership REALLY matters.
It will now take good political leadership to keep the economy on standby until we can reopen.
If this feels you with a sense of dread in the USA it should. Trump doesn’t know what he is doing and his team has screwed this up again and again. Even worse, some of his latest tweets indicate he and his team might overwrite health officials and reopen the country before the quarantine has time to work. Thus leading to massive ongoing economic destruction instead of one super painful period and a reboot.
Imagine if he tells the country we don’t need the quarantine after 15 days against the orders of the CDC and medical experts. Now you have the President saying one thing, health experts another, and states left trying to protect themselves individually. And, it becomes a partisan issue. Meanwhile, the economy can’t restart because Covid is still here and growing again, leading to the collapse of the medical system in some areas, and the ongoing fear and panic that create a long term economic depression.
The gov has the ability to make this a short term crisis and one that has 1/50th the impact on our economy. Now let’s hope they do it :).
I am cautiously optimistic. Why?
Because it has to get through a Democratic house and a Republican Senate. The Democrats won’t let the workers of the USA down, meaning payments to people and boosting the shit out of unemployment payments. They might have to back down on some of the corporate controls because we need speed, but I think both sides will try to find a way to bailout SMBs fast with blank checks. And, Congress as a whole has a ton of institutional experience with this due to the big financial crisis. And, because this is artificial I’ve seen comments on both sides that they might be more willing to use some more abstract funding strategies that won’t add to debt (distant hope they mint a $2 trillion dollar coin).
Because State governors are for the most part competent. And, already taking steps the Federal government should have taken weeks ago. They need money and support, but their leadership has so far been far better than Trump.
Because the Fed is run by super smart people who know what they are doing and have a ton of institutional exp given the last crisis. Just listen to a quarterly briefing, they know what they need to do and just need Congress to approve a few things outside their mandate. Amazing people.
Because we have an election in November. Americans are going to vote Trump out of office. He is one of the worst presidents we have ever had. And, he is responsible for this failed response to a pandemic. I despise Joe Biden, but hopefully, he announces Warren or Sanders as a VP and a team to rally the entire left around.
Recent Comments