Not surprisingly, many business owners are upset to discover that their business interruption policies do not cover losses due to pandemics. Although it is easy enough to understand their frustration, it is important to understand the underlying economics. (Full disclosure, I worked in the property casualty industry for many years.) The main business of insurance […]
The Senate economic rescue package contains $500 billion for bailouts of large corporations. Much commentary has focused on the lack of accountability, but the bigger issue is simply the massive waste of taxpayer dollars. From the WAPO: In a Tuesday interview on Fox, Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun said he would not be willing to […]
The recent insider trading by members of Congress (notably but not exclusively by Senator Burr) is appalling. One policy response – advocated for by Elizabeth Warren – would prohibit MOCs from investing in the stock of individual companies, requiring them instead to invest in mutual funds. This would prevent the type of corruption evident in […]
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 […]
On Sunday, our war time president: “We’re a country not based on nationalizing our business. Call a person over in Venezuela,” Trump told reporters. “How did nationalization of their businesses work out? Not too well.” Trump administration officials pointed to voluntary actions from companies, such as 3M announcing more masks are being shipped to New York and Seattle. […]
I am still trying to wrap my head around the coronavirus disaster. Here is some current thinking . . . The immediate cause of the economic slowdown is a collapse in both demand and supply due to social isolation. This will have at least two knock-on effects. First, the initial collapse in economic activity will […]
We do not know how severe the covid-19 epidemic will be or how much economic and social pain it will cause, but it clearly has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans, and the economic consequences could include a deep recession and even a financial crisis that will cause misery […]
Good overview from the CDC.
I want to weigh in briefly on the Biden/Sanders debate that’s been going on here over the past few days. No links, this is a quickie. There are two issues for Democratic primary voters to consider: 1) who will be a better president and 2) who is more electable in a race against Trump. Both […]
The HuffPo has reported on a minor dust-up between Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over the politics of Medicare for All (see here, here, here, also Paul Waldman here). The tl;dr summary is that AOC suggested that it is good politics for Sanders to insist on MFA, because this will give him more leverage in […]