Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

Eh, I actually agree with the penalty in theory -- like, people are getting a tax break on putting the money into a retirement plan because "saving for retirement is good" -- the penalty is there to reinforce that good and the fact it is saved for retirement as opposed to tax avoidance. ... I do think that expanding the exceptions to the penalty for "otherwise I would be starving / homeless etc" is needed.

Honestly, I wish they would decide on the stimulus package already, so that I can get around to explaining how it works to my clients and friends and then helping them understand what they need to do / not do.

Otm

i agree with the penalty in theory too but in practice it's not great. And yeah there do need to be more exceptions put into place.

the entire thing should be overhauled. it's going to be a completely new age.

401k's are dumb reason #1,872

someone on fb suggested they treat economic stimulus payments the way they do the APTC (the Obamacare subsidies that sometimes end up having to be repaid if you end up making too much money) , and I told that person, that is a really bad model. It's one thing to give someone an option for a subsidy and caution them, "you might end up having to pay this back" -- it's another thing to say, "here have some free money!" and then, "you might have to pay it back next year, depending on ... we'll figure it out." ... like, yeah, that's gonna make people feel less financially anxious.

just wandering around mumbling "stonks" and "means testing" while looking grumpy

start muttering:

Bulls make money
Bears make money
Pigs get slaughtered.
Dance like nobody's watching.

mh my new mantra is "haha money printer go brrrrrrr"

grim reapah
short sellah
they betta have my money when I come to colleck
brbrbrbrb

lol beat me to it

I do appreciate the money printer memes

Capitalism https://t.co/2b7CcN2RfV

— August J. Pollak (@AugustJPollak) March 23, 2020

This is precisely the type of crisis when you want the Congress to spend like crazy on every necessary program to protect ordinary people from penury and then have the Federal Reserve monetize most of that federal debt by buying up lots of the Treasury bonds issued to cover that spending.

green open: Trader!
me, bob dylan: i don't believe you. you're a liar!

actual bob dylan: there's vanilla ice in the conference rooom

The sun's not yellow, it's Corona.

some of you may have thought today's stock market rise was caused by the pending legislative deal.

turns out you're wrong. it went up because everyone is encouraged by trump's idea to just go back to work next week. that really soothed the nerves of a lot of nervous investors and they thought "oh yeah, makes sense! we'll just go back to work! what were we thinking of doing otherwise? staying away the fuck from each other for a few weeks to save a few million lives? that's silly." also, the president thinks that the stock market will be back to normal in 2 weeks.

I like the theory that Trump intentionally goosed it with BS just to boost his stocks to sell for liquidity.

the stock market will be back to normal in 2 weeks

news flash: the stock market has been behaving 'normally' all along. it looks at the incentives and goes where they lead. lately the incentive has been to gtfo. throw trillions of dollars at mega-corporations and the incentives may change again.

the people that seem to be trump supporters are calling that the bottom was yesterday. SIGH.

that was indeed the lowest point until the next lowest point

are they still planning on giving the airlines a shit-ton of money?

evidently

perfect time to start our own airline. It's not like we have to fly anywhere anytime soon.

I only know one thing for certain: Chief Kiev switched sides and made bonkers mutiples all over again, baby!

once in a lifetime trade.

If he's trading on margin and got on the wrong side of this market without taking his profits in time, he could be in serious jeopardy. I hope he is as canny as he says he is, bcz being wiped out on margin calls is just another shitty way to wreck your life and why wish that on a small fish like him?

hmm, weekly jobless claims seem to be up a bit this week (3.28 million)

https://i.imgur.com/x6eLMpo.jpg

Or is that in fact just a vertical wall denoting the end of all jobless claims?

I work for a small insurance company and we had a report yesterday from our investment advisor (which is also one of our two investors). FWIW, they seemed pretty bullish that all of treasury's efforts have gotten the credit market's liquidity issues unstuck and that things would be on their way back, albeit not anywhere near as quickly as they went to shit. I am skeptical, but what do I know.

My work just had a quarterly meeting for all employees, and they were similarly bullish about the market.

bodies? what bodies?

Tuchman has covid! https://nypost.com/2020/03/26/most-photographed-wall-street-trader-peter-tuchman-has-coronavirus/

god damn. that reminds me that i took this phone screenshot of him the other day (when stocks went way the hell up for the first time) and i meant to post it here

https://i.imgur.com/Gx2nNKw.jpg

stay well, peter tuchman. you're probably a crazy asshole, but i love your enthusiasm and i love how you wear your heart on your sleeve

when we hit the bottom of the shitbin will we be able to smell it?

This will be a big duh to anyone who has been paying attention to this longer than I have, but I look at the market today and am convinced that a) I understand nothing, b) it has zero connection to reality, and c) a few people who do understand are making billions. Historical (and then some) unemployment claims, mounting cases and mounting deaths, a train wreck in charge...and the market surges again. If this fund I took out ever gets back to par, I've made a promise to myself that I will cash it in pronto and return the money to the staid, boring bank and never think about it again.

Historical (and then some) unemployment claims, mounting cases and mounting deaths, a train wreck in charge...and the market surges again.

The market is not responding to any of the items you named. After all, dead and dying people contribute to the GDP, too. It is thinking that the Fed and Congress will be handing out several trillion in free money and how can that not be a Good Thing? By gawd they intend to be at the front of the line with hands extended.

die for the Dow

Boeing is the 51st US state.

Nationalize those fuckers yesterday (and give Washington state its own big chunk)

Statehood to be commemorated by celebratory airshow, featuring two 737s that crash into the bleachers

If this bounce holds, I'll be every bit as mystified. US just passed every other country in total cases, and we've barely even ramped up testing.

also, aren't we being told we're headed toward 25-30% employment by early summer?

i hope you mean unemployment

haha, whoops, i do.

the thing about veering toward 50% unemployment is that at that point, it doesn't matter whether it's unemployment or employment. maybe that's the equilibrium we're tapering toward, for simplicity

what's the temperature? same temperature it is every day: 100

every job pays $1
gas costs $1