Coronavirus links
From Adam Levitin, a summary of the Senate economic rescue package. Recommended. Why can’t the news media provide information like this? Don’t answer that.
Via Cowen, a discussion of bankruptcy. Some kind of bankruptcy reform is quite possibly the best way to preserve established relationships, but apparently not under active consideration.
Some economic charts from WAPO. FWIW, I think the Goldman prediction of a sharp bounceback in the third quarter is optimistic. Could happen, but there is a real chance we will not contain the epidemic, with geographically uneven measures allowing the virus to continually resurface in new locations and reinfect areas where the epidemic is brought under control.
From TPM, the view from Thailand and Nepal. Grim. As noted, spread in Thailand suggests rising humidity may not save the day.
Well there it is:
delay of employer payroll taxes.
this is stupid, unnecessary, and dishonest.
AB is the only place i have seen this stealth payroll tax holiday mentioned in the context of the coronavirus bill being voted on as we speak.
SS would make a much better contribution to the economy by the opposite of a payroll tax holiday: the FICA tax should be increased by one or two percent of payroll… so workers who still have jobs could continue to contribute to their future benefits in the absence of income lost to SS by the high rate of unemployment. If that is not enough to pay for current benefits, the government should lend money TO SS… money that would be paid back from the Trust Fund when the economy recovers This preserves SS solvency without destroying the “we paid for it ourselves” feature which has saved SS for 85 years from “dammed politicians who would take it away from them.
It would also do more to stimulate the economy that the tax holiday will do.