Coronavirus dashboard for March 22 This is a new daily or nearly daily update I hope to post, including the most important metrics to show how controlled – or out of control – the cononavirus pandemic is. Hopefully the numbers will move ever closer to the tipping point where the epidemic is under control.In order […]
b7 New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for March 17 – 21 at Seeking Alpha A vignette…. Cognoscenti: “It’s impossible to forecast the economy.” Forecaster: “Actually, if you rely upon a tried and true series of long and short leading indicators, you ca-“ Deity: “OH YEAH??? TRY FORECASTING THE GIANT SCREAMING METEOR OF DEATH!!!!!” G.S.M.O.D.: [BOOM! […]
The best US solution to the coronavirus pandemic: SHUT.IT.DOWN — two weeks of China + one month of South Korea For the last few weeks, I have been screaming at the top of my lungs about “exponential growth.” That’s because so few people realized the impact such growth could have in a pandemic, over the […]
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 […]
Some Ideas for Pandeminomics The starting point for all of what follows is that government, if it has the will to act, is currently in the driver’s seat. Much of the private sector is facing a terrifying confluence of crunches: supply breakdowns, demand falling off a cliff for many goods and services, and a looming […]
The Coronavirus Recession has begun This morning we got two reports that confirm the beginning of the Coronavirus Recession: initial jobless claims and the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index. Initial claims rose to 281,000 one week ago. They are now 15% higher than their low last April, as well as almost 15% higher preliminarily on a […]
Given the Coronavirus crisis, there will be bailouts. Should there be bailouts ? If so how should firms be bailed out ? I think it is useful to look at the last round of bailouts from 2008-9 for lessons learned. First with the benefit of hindsight, does it seem that bailing out firms was a […]
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 […]
The Coming Fiscal Crisis Of State And Local Governments Yesterday my wife Marina and I met with our personal attorney, a close friend also, to fix some loose ends in our wills due to some recent family deaths, as well the current situation. He also happens to sit on the Harrisonburg City Council, as well […]
In the quaint, pre-coronavirus world of February, the economy was already very weak I have a post up at Seeking Alpha, taking a look at this morning’s retail sales and industrial production reports for February, and briefly considering their implications for employment in the coming months, even before the impact of coronavirus. Here’s a graph that […]