Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

how would you make it better? (the early withdrawal in the bill)

Not shocked at all, but they shut down the businesses, they didn't force those businesses to lay off workers. I don't know what to tell people that don't believe executive compensation, stock buybacks, and general need to run businesses as ruthlessly efficient as possible to pump the stock price aren't factors in those businesses having insufficient reserves to weather a shutdown for even three weeks.

This is a weird thing to say here? Idk most of the affected workers I know work for small businesses and non-profits. Meanwhile, a lot of the big retail chains (for example) were still open (and their workers still employed) when the small businesses had closed, such that our state government had to make even stronger rules about essential businesses to get them to close their stores.

one could easily imagine obama handling this crisis a million times better than trump even before we get to capitalism vs socialsim.

― Mordy, Friday, April 3, 2020 12:10 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

obama would’ve been more competent with executive stuff but Obama with republican congress would probably not have passed any stimulus and it would be Great Depression x10

It maybe shouldn't be a surprise, but it's a completely unprecedented jump, and we have no idea how it will play out over time.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Friday, April 3, 2020 11:15 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it’s unprecedented nationally, but not at subnational levels for large natural disasters. compares similarly to Louisiana post Katrina. look at the chart here https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/mobile/hurricane-katrina-a-look-back-at-employment-and-unemployment.htm

especially since there is a prerequisite of having a 401k in the first place

― silby, Friday, April 3, 2020 9:44 AM (one hour ago)

You aren't a parent, are you? (I'm not either, but ...)... Another fatuous "leftist" gripe about retirement plans and jobs that have them tends to be unrealistic about the economic and uh, personal responsibilities of people with kids. Like, being 35 years old without health insurance and benefits could be fine, but once you factor a kid into the equation? So many of my friends went from under-employed hipsters without benefits and insurance to "full-time with retirement and family health plans" once they became parents.

I mean I'm not, but I do have substantial savings in various defined-contribution plans (403b technically for my current employer).

I'm pretty sure poor parents exist though!

if I had a kid I would have even less money tho lol

if you have kids and savings you are the monopoly man to me

Canada has p generous refundable credits, you’d probably come out ahead jim

Someone added the GameCube intro to my unemployment graph & it’s significantly better now. pic.twitter.com/c35hS74sok

— Dorsa Amir (@DorsaAmir) April 3, 2020

omfg

now do it with the marimba one

Worth noting in comparisons to Katrina, that property owners in NOLA were practically swimming in insurance payouts for the first 2-3 years thereafter. The country through the insurance and Federal grants, subsidized a local remodeling and real-estate boom, in which shotgun shacks got new wiring, flooring, plaster and paint, and were converted to Air B&Bs, even though the underlying tourist driven economy wasn't much improved. Contractors did really well. Early RE investors did really well. Renters that didn't land permanently in Dallas or Houston, all were screwed by a near doubling of housing costs.

This model of "recovery" doesn't really apply when the whole country is suffering at once, and when 30% of workers at restaurants, hotels, taxi service, massage spas etc see no recovery for a year... One can throw money at a city at get a real estate boom, but throwing money doesn't change new patterns of social behavior.

it’s certainly true that it’s harder to insure a nation-wide shock than a regional one. but luckily US can borrow for free right now. the relevant constraint seems more congress’ willingness to spend (so far it’s been compliant) and institutional difficulty of getting cash out everywhere quickly (this one is more binding). the biggest factor that will contribute to a slow recovery imo is the virus lasting a really long time

i don’t think real estate is going to be super important to the recovery from this; there’s no destruction of physical housing stock as in Katrina and construction seems to be continuing apace (at least where i live)

the point of the analogy to katrina is that the labour market recovered quickly; it shows that it’s not the case that the length of the recovery is necessarily proportional to the size of the shock, as seems to be the case with “normal” recessions

Capital gains cut! Therse people are grotesque parodies. https://t.co/ZSaSXQe6ui

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) April 6, 2020

I'd like to know where folks think they're going to be earning any capital gains rn

Meanwhile, coronavirus accelerates the death of retail, and things are so fucked up atm that it doesn't even make sense to file for bankruptcy
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/04/coronavirus-retail-is-used-to-existential-crises-but-bankruptcies-wont-save-it-now.html?&qsearchterm=retail%20bankruptcy

infrastructure week!

Instead, landlords are in their own pain and facing their own uncertainty

pobrecitos

There's some shorting stocks who've racked up sizable short-term cap gains.

so much for that story stock
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/peloton-halts-live-classes-employee-182923624.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kNMIPBO-oQ

lol

I'd like to know where folks think they're going to be earning any capital gains rn

I would think people who have held stocks for a long time and are panic-selling are making capital gains (that stuff is still worth a lot more than it was 10 years ago) and a capital gains tax cut would presumably encourage more panic-selling, which sounds bad to me but what do I know, I'm not a Dow 36,000-level economist

i bought stock in a couple airlines a few days before they formally announced the bailout of airlines, figuring, the administration of this country is venal and corrupt, of course they are going to bail out the airlines. Once they formally announced the bailout, those stocks went up significantly. I almost doubled my money. (n.b. I think I made about $500 profit, but damn, it sure required less time and labor than working for $500) Capital Gains aren't only for stock profits -- they also apply to sales of real estate, for one.

arthur laffer to the rescue!

Tax non-profits. Cut the pay of public officials and professors. Give businesses and workers who manage to hold on to their jobs a payroll tax holiday to the end of the year.

“If you tax people who work and you pay people who don’t work, you will get less people working,” Laffer said. “If you make it more unattractive to be unemployed, then there’s an incentive to go look for another job faster.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-laffer/cut-salaries-taxes-to-reopen-u-s-economy-says-laffer-conservative-fave-idUSKCN21Q3AT

That guy should be shot into space.

should have put an economist on the Challenger instead of a schoolteacher imo

now that there are three little vertical bars on the right, it's time to update:

https://i.imgur.com/ajKS6iW.png

the market has gone up like 20% in the last few weeks so clearly that's not bothering it much

it will be hilarious if the market makes it back close to its ATH's despite...reality. Everyone should be able to print their own money.

Yerac Monetary Theory

my printer would go "brrp brrp brrp brrp another one bites the brrrp"

Printers sold out worldwide, income inequality now based on who got to Best But the earliest

*Buy

Best Butt is funnier

Taking a cruel pleasure in yahoo finance comments like "Time to load up on cruise ship stocks, they haven't been this cheap in years!" Yup folks, expired milk on sale!

omg Best Butt: your source for technology, appliances, video games, and butts

Yup folks, expired milk on sale!

not a good metaphor tbh, unless you believe no one will ever go on cruise ships ever again.

Cruise ship patrons often are repeat customers, so their business won't dry up entirely. Newcomers will probably be wary for a few years to come.

It's a matter of if someone is investing for the short term or long term.

stocks tend to go down for good reasons most of the time they go down. If it was as simple as "buy stocks that go down a lot" it would be fairly easy to get rich.

This was the best week for the S&P 500 since 1974. https://t.co/d0PZfnCuVH #HelpIsOnTheWay #BailoutWorking https://t.co/02GoSyOMVb

— David Dayen (@ddayen) April 9, 2020

stonks.jpg

lol what a champ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAt7Rg1u2l8

My bad, it was already posted in the US politics thread. Still bears repeating, though.

it's okay, I avoid the US politics thread!

if anyone wants to talk about the CARES Act -- I made this thread

US Politics and Economics - They CARES a Lot!

bookmarked!