Totally agree. The bailout of the banks has started with 0% rates and massive QE, which at the end of the day while I think necessary to prevent a credit crisis will do nothing to help the real economic situation; demand is dead for a while because of the health situation.
We should consider more radical measures like temporary rent/mortgage freezes.
> The bailout of the banks has started with 0% rates and massive QE, which at the end of the day while I think necessary to prevent a credit crisis
Well, no, if you bailed out businesses and consumers directly, there also wouldn't be a credit crisis.
Structurally, though, that's fiscal stimulus, which isn't the Feds job, and good luck getting much of that through Congress, and by that I mostly mean the Senate Republican Caucus.
> We should consider more radical measures like temporary rent/mortgage freezes.
While not that particular measure, a number of states and localities have adopted or are considering eviction and/or foreclosure bans, which leaves mortgage/rent technically due but limits nonpayment consequences.
The gap between the rates on the 30 year treasury and the 30 year mortgage increased from ~1.5% to over 3% and getting worse, before QE4 was announced (and this was already pricing in some fed action). This indicates that investors stopped buying mortgage-backed securities which would have eventually resulted in home buying activity stopping and a housing market crash. I don’t think any bailout for restaurants and bars or mortgage/rent holiday would have helped with this. I’m not saying such stimulus isn’t necessary, but it doesn’t replace fed policy.
HN's culture against partisan political statements looks particularly like sticking one's head in the sand these days.
Coronavirus is not a political thing, but our (partisan) elected leaders had an enormous amount of power over how prepared we were, and their agendas shape the on-going response. It's impossible to talk accurately about the problem or solution without mentioning parties and politicians by name.
This is crazy. There is nothing any party could do to have prevented the virus from reaching the United States, aside from a complete shutdown of the borders, including for American citizens. It is too transmissible, too undetectable, etc, to prevent it. Containment is the only feasible option, and America is actually ahead of the curve. Unlike Italy and France and Europe, American states are shutting down before hospitals have yet to be overrun.
However, no administration could have prevented it from reaching the US. Trump's closure of the Chinese border is more than almost any president would have dared done.
China? China is why we're in this mess. They were unable to contain it, which is why it's now a pandemic. Their actions to shut down society (which the US is now taking, well before our hospitals are overrun) came way way way later.
Japan, I don't know about.
South Korea is doing a good job, however it only took one rogue patient (patient 31) to go from 'well-contained' to 'nation-wide' epidemic. This is why containment measures are doomed to fail if the goal is to prevent the spread entirely. It only takes one person to screw it up.
I did not say anyone could prevent the infection from reaching the US. The damage can vary wildly once it's here. Containment is not a binary outcome.
Among the tools govt has: funding science, appointing competent officials at CDC and State Dept, travel bans, quarantines, financial relief, effective messaging, targeted testing, subsidizing tests and treatment, restrictions on gatherings, anti-smoking campaigns, regulations to reduce air pollution, not telling people that it's an exaggeration or a hoax, inviting the other party to discuss a compromise on life-saving measures, acting on the CDC's recommendations, sending govt workers home, enforcing anti-gouging laws... it's a long list.
As has been discussed here and elsewhere, many of Trump's behaviors and much of the Republican agenda has pulled us in the opposite direction of where we needed to be to deal with this. In the CDC, many people are "acting" roles because Trump refuses to fill vacancies. The same is true of the State Dept.
Do you realise that you are defending someone that tried to buy a German company that is working on a vaccine to give it exclusively to the US once it was ready?
Most likely, given that both the White House and the Speaker agree that there should be a financial package aimed at those individuals affected, this is one of those times when both banks and individuals will be given relief.
We should consider more radical measures like temporary rent/mortgage freezes.