The General Economics Thread

Inflation is still a non-issue.

Even if it was a real problem a free income stimulus wouldn't affect anything because it's replacing lost money.

Everyone just effectively lost their jobs at once and still need to pay for food. They're not getting extra money on top of their normal income.

Perhaps all those billionaires could donate a few hundred million dollars each? But clearly they'd rather spend it on doomed election campaigns.

I don’t think that’s a bad idea, an emergency tax on the rich could be useful right now.

Market Watch has an article of the appearance of a "death cross" in the Dow's chart, though it isn't entirely clear just how bad this would be. The name suggests it is very bad, but the article points out that three previous crosses were followed by a quick recovery, and stops short of drawing any conclusions.

The shift in production to ventilators seem to slowly come off the ground, but information about what companies can do what and how seems to come from the companies themselves. There doesn't seem to be any centralized plan or knowhow from the government.

The US has done this before, but seems to have forgotten how they did it.

Trump fired everybody in command who had know-how. In most critical and crucial departments.

Heck, he hasn't even placed anybody in most of those positions. Not even useless sycophants and fraudsters.

And when you don't have a commander, you find it rather hard to do things that aren't autopilot capable. Even day-to-day tasks break down after long enough with bupkis getting done up top. -_-'

Edited by Euodiachloris on Mar 24th 2020 at 12:54:59 PM

Yep, this is a great example of a top-down command structure breaking down.

It looks like EU austerity rules are dead. The cause of death was a fatal COVID-19 infection.

Their passing is being mourned by few, although successors may come to some countries in the future.

Is like a pandemic forces governments to spend more in cases of emergence

Apparently Trump's idea of using the Defence Production Act is to have states enter bidding wars over supplies.

Basically, Trump is applying zero sum economics to disaster management. Only the rich and powerful have a right to win, as far as Trump is concerned.

This is what you get when you elect a ruthless businessman as president.

sounds like the US needs to elect a president that has never been on the side of Wall Street and big business

The problem isn't just that Trump was a businessman, it's that he was a bad businessman and an even worse manager. That, and he's surrounded himself with yes men.

Even worse, a bad businessman who has convinced himself he is a brilliant one!

Trump is the poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect. He believes he knows more and understands more than he really does. He has illusory superiority, overestimating his own abilities. He is overly confident about his own judgement. And he thinks he already knows everything there is to know, which means he thinks he doesn't need to learn anything new.

Trump is not just unintelligent, he is woefully unaware of his lack of intelligence.

I've been waiting years for his incompetence to bite him in the butt, and although I regret the pain and suffering the pandemic is causing, this might finally do him in.

It is indeed likely that this will do him in, and I think he knows it. Trump has closely tied his fate to the economy, not necessarily because he believes so strongly in it, but because it has been a convenient plus for him the past years, and it can be summarized in a manner he can understand: economy good, Trump wins. Economy bad, Trump loses.

Remember that Trump is not a complex man, nor particularly subtle. You don't need to read much between the lines to find out what he really thinks. More often than not, he will blurt it out on Twitter.

I don't actually care all that much what Trump thinks. The conservative donor class supports him because he makes a convenient distraction from the real action, which is happening behind the scenes. The attack on progressive values started long before Trump, and will continue after he is gone.

Still, watching him leave office will be a vindication.

Edited by DeMarquis on Mar 25th 2020 at 8:54:16 AM

He'll have some big crowds to brag about then.

Regarding culture, I always keep saying that Trump is the drown man's last straw, he is the political equivalent of a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum

Ford, GM, and other companies are starting production on ventilators.

There are some complicating factors, though, mainly with sourcing materials and ensuring safety.

Another issue is ensuring that these ventilators will get bought, and companies will not suddenly find themselves with huge investments in technology they cannot sell.

All of which are issues that could be resolved via the Defense Production Act but...

Its not US specific, though. Like the article notes, all governments need to place orders to ensure companies don't break the bank on investing in this, which is after all a rather risky and costly investment to make independently. These things cost 50.000 a piece, and that's not even going into other costs a company would need to make.

Pretty much. He's the equivalent of a brick through the window from a lot of people whose way of life is dying out.

Edited by Ramidel on Mar 25th 2020 at 11:25:10 AM

I remember a conservative writer saying that Trump basically was the Conservatives going full Then Let Me Be Evil in a act of desperate stupidity ("Ultimately Trump will be merely be a blip on the Liberal narrative")

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 25th 2020 at 2:35:57 PM

Trump is like a dark mirror version of Reagan, they share quite a few similarities:

a rich racist that doesn't want to pay taxes, is friendly with dictators and committed treason to get elected

to paraphrase a Karl Marx quote: Reagan was the tragedy, Trump is the farce

Conservatives ideologically has being basically on decline with the current debates among Cons being "Stick to the libs, no matter what" and the ideological equivalent of "How to accept your death"