I’m also far more open to the SME loans being offered than whatever the fuck is going on between the Fed and Wallstreet right now.
I don’t understand why banks were used as an intermediary for SME loans either, it just doesn’t make sense to me. Why not have the treasury do it directly?
Why not make a NAMA (Irish bad bank) organization to do this and manage these loans. Half of these businesses won’t see diddly if any large bank’s risk analysts have anything to say about it, which seems to defeat the whole purpose of the enterprise.
I’ve wondered if there isn’t some genetic switch that flicks on/off at a given time in a person’s life (as many do) and this disease, for what ever reason attacks the product or producer of what ever enzyme or process that switch controls.
Which probably leads back to the ace I and II receptors, but how do we stop that?
If it’s already spread regardless why are we destroying businesses and sending 30M people to the unemployment office? Particularly considering it looks like a lot of people have gotten the virus with no symptoms. It’s a half backed preventative measure at best.
Sure it is. If we didn’t randomly shut half of businesses down they would have customers and thus not need a bailout.
H1N1 had a far shorter gestation time and far less asymptomatic carriers. I’m worried about the economy too, but we have to compare apples with apples here.
I have no idea why, but that wasn’t really my point. My point was H1N1 was very contagious, at this point the data suggests far more contagious than COVID-19, and we didn’t shut the country down.
It’s not less people being sick though. It’s potentially more being sick and for longer. This thing has some nasty sucker punches that H1N1 didn’t have. I wish they were approximate, I really do.
Right now, we have very little idea what this sucker does. When we have a better idea and a better treatment plan, we can move forward.
There isn’t going to be much to move forward to if we don’t figure something out.
We don’t even know if or how much social distancing has reduced the spread of COVID-19. We certainly don’t know how much selectively closing businesses has effected the spread of the virus. Logically, it has to have reduced the spread, but we don’t know how effective it is with large box stores being packed every day (groceries, Walmart, etc…).
In all likelihood, millions more people have it than have tested positive. It’s hard to imagine, but possible I guess that roughly 20% of the population has had it at some point, which would put it roughly on par with H1N1.
Obviously, to prevent worse spreading. Look, this is an exercise in risk management - trying to do something now to prevent something worse later. But even if you don’t think these measures don’t change the spreading in the long run, it slows the spread to allow health care resources to catch up and deal with it - i.e., flattening the curve. That’s the other battle. If we don’t, we get an avalanche of cases all at once, and we can’t handle it.
These choices involve trade-offs. People can disagree whether they are worth it here and there. But government should be smack dab in the middle of it trying to help.
You’re talking about something else. I’m saying government measures or no, a pandemic is going to take its pound of flesh from the economy by reducing aggregate demand, and businesses have no problem accepting government assistance in that crisis.
No, it’s a prediction, one that make more sense that “we’ve got a rapidly spreading pandemic that is worse than the flu, but no worries, it won’t much impact people’s social and commercial interactions”.
Risk management involves looking at multiple risks. There are now 30M more people unemployed than there were a month ago. There are now protests in Michigan. How soon before we start to see them in other states as unemployment continues to skyrocket? Now instead of maybe getting COVID at work people are going to get it at a protest or a soup kitchen or the unemployment office. There goes mitigating efforts.
My understanding is the vast majority of hospitals outside of NY are not even operating at full capacity. Many are in financial ruin. Johns Hopkins is firing thousands of people as they’ve lost hundreds of millions of dollars this year.
We don’t even know what the real curve is as we have almost no idea how many people actually have it.
What tradeoffs? Some small businesses like Ruth Chris (lol) get millions. Tons of others get jack shit. Better luck during the next round of government support whenever that is.
Congress isn’t in session and there is no plan for that to change any time soon.
I’m saying the “pound of flesh” they need will be substantially less if it’s even necessary because they’ll still have customers. Government has completely eliminated a lot of businesses’ ability to earn revenue and in doing so forces them to take a handout if they can get it.
All the large “teaching” hospitals are going to need hundreds of millions. Yes, hundreds. They know it’s stupid to be effectively shut down now, but they’re fucked, because if they don’t follow the program, they won’t get the federal bailout money later.
Mayo Clinic is advertising (begging) for money on TV.
At this point, 6 weeks in, using #flatten the curve as a general description, rather than a selective one, means you’ve lost the ability to think for yourself.
