This is why you don't give a big tax cut when the economy is already humming along. You're supposed to keep your powder dry and pull it out for the inevitable downturn or crisis.
If this wasn't all so painful for everyday workers, as well, I'd say Republican power brokers are getting exactly what they should get. As travel falls off, I hope Trump's properties take the big revenue hit he richly deserves.
1640
@original
I seriously doubt it. When taxpayers' revenues will be raided to subsidize business losses (and they will), trump & co. will be first in line to get theirs.
176
@original
as the economy boomed (or didn’t if you were a Democrat) taxes should have been raised on the fat cats making the most money and this should have been put aside for the inevitable rainy day. But that would mean thinking past the next quarter which is never going to happen.
99
@original
Trump has used the U.S. Treasury as his personal piggy bank from Day 1.
Huge tax cuts to real estate moguls (Trump, Inc.) and all his backers. Pushing the Fed to use its recession-fighting interest cut powers to prop up "his" stock market. Running $1 trillion deficits in an economy that makes money like a casino. (oops - maybe too much like Trump Casino...)
Face it, folks - we're just Trump's 7th bankruptcy at this point.
242
Trump's activities this weekend consisted of golfing and attending his own fundraiser.
1610
@Jonathan
But, this week, he becomes "A Man of Action" as he watches Fox News for advice to say or do something, anything.
138
@Jonathan, yeah but...
Do you really want him to start being in charge of this? Do you think he would do a good job if he was?
The only thing missing from the first family's response has been Melania's "I don't really care, do U?" jacket.
216
@Jonathan, and a birthday party for Don Jr’s girlfriend’s 50th birthday.
Melania turns 50 this month, too. I imagine Trump will get her the usual “perfect card”.
72
silver lining ... if the economy tanks, 45th moves out the WH in January 2021!
1
What good will payroll tax deduction do when people will be losing jobs in the downturn?
2
Here we go again... socialize the losses and privatize the gains! Who's laughing this time?
4
@Taoshum - - - The rich getting ricvher was most obvious during the Obama years, because the smart people were very careful - NOT creating any risky jobs - and taxes were so high.
Trump comes along, and now the manual laborers are seeing faster pay raises than the white-collar suits funding the Democratic Party.
The report card arrives in 8 months.
1
Trump calls for a payroll tax cut to help deal with the coronavirus crisis.
When are Democrats going to wake up? This is a back-door conservative ploy to further undermine the Social Security and Medicare systems. Their long-term goal is to eliminate these government programs and such tax cuts, under cover of dealing with a current crisis, is part of the overall strategy.
By further cutting payroll taxes now it will add to the stress on the trust funds bringing further forward the depletion date.
Of course, proposing tax cuts in an election year is on every politician's wish list. So I expect the Democrats will fall in line on this proposal ignoring the long-term damage it will do.
2
In the book, “The Big Short”, a neurology resident made billions off of short selling tranches on the housing market bubble. He was much smarter than all of the financial wizards, and CEO’s.
The “Corona Bubble” this time was obvious as well to the many who have sold out for cash so far, and they were smart. This ain’t over yet, there will be a lot of lost retirements coming soon. I haven’t bailed as it would hurt my fellow Americans financial futures, but as time goes on there be less and less patriots. Last one out - turn out the lights, and I’ll see you in the bread line.
2
I might be completely off base, but didn't Obama work tirelessly to get us off foreign oil especially from countrys like Saudi Arabia and Russia? We were on a path of a Green Economy . We went through 9/11 and Obama understood where our vulnerabilities were. Now we have gone back before 9/11 and are jeopardizing our security... again.Forget about what this is doing to the economy, that we might be able to weather, we are destroying the fabric of our country.
8
President George W. Bush inherited a booming economy and budget surplus from President Bill Clinton, and then under his Administration it tanked into the Great Recession
of 2007. President Barack Obama cleaned up that economic disaster and handed off to President Donald Trump a healthy recovery and the longest economic growth period in U.S. history. Then President Trump idiotically repeated the mistakes of past Republican presidents and cut taxes for the wealthy and then went even further and imposed tariffs on China, India and other trading partners. Trump's incompetent handling of the U.S. economy -- similar to the incompetent way he handled his businesses -- ensured that we would descend into yet another recession. We expect a few bumps in the economy, but Trump's mishandling of it will make it worse and possibly another disaster a little over a decade from the last Republican economic disaster.
From the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Republican presidents have overseen the worst economies, and Democratic presidents have had to bail the country out of catastrophe after catastrophe. We need to understand the history of our country to avoid repeating mistakes. Mistakes like electing Republicans.
Let's hope we've finally learned our lesson and start putting Democrats in charge so we can make progress and even experience a renaissance.
10
Bloomberg site reports stock futures are up this evening.
The dead cat is about to bounce?
I can't believe Trump is considering more US debt after 3 years of debt with no justifiable excuse other than to juice the markets when they didn't need it. On top of the debt, Trump demanded the FED cut rates. Let us hope Trump doesn't leave the US economy worst than the stable economy Obama handed him. After all his bankrupcies, I don't have much confidence. Trump's bubble just popped.
5
It seems inevitable that at some point in the very near future, we are going to follow the path of China and Italy. There is no reason to believe a national quarantine of such proportions will not come to our shores as well.
Italian police, pictured in another NYT article regarding the virus, locked down a road out of the town. They were armed with MP-5 submachine guns for the task.
Our current reality will only last a few more days, weeks, if we are lucky. Our future is not anywhere near as bright as even the news media would have us believe.
Impossible not to be cynical about whether such a quarantine will be properly enforced and properly limited by our current government.... Hopefully it is not abused like everything else which is "power" in the federal government.
1
The reason there are so few cases is because so few people have been tested thus far for this virus. It's a false equivalence to compare Covid-19 to the flu.
The former WH administration dealt with Ebola and other outbreaks without the stock market tanking. What we are seeing is the lack of trust and confidence in the current administration. Sadly most of us knew something like this would eventually happen.
12
No one believes the serial liar anymore.
Trump's empty inside, his team's all amateur, and it gets exposed the most when we have a crisis on our hands, like COVID and financial.
We need a real president who has the expert team to tackle the crisis.
3
On one hand, businesses forced to a standstill are truly threatened, esp the smaller, non-essential ones, which won’t be getting any bailouts.
On the other hand, much of those billions in stock market ‘losses’ are due to a lot of overinflated values in the first place, money that only existed if you cash it out- and lost if you bought it high and need to sell now.
It has been hard for some time to know whether a stock’s price truly reflects its value. What is reality and what is illusion in these times, even when things seemed to go well ?
3
Temporarily cutting Payroll Taxes will bring forward the date when two trust funds are exhausted. The balance in the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund is currently projected to reach zero in 2026. The balance in the much larger Social Security trust fund (which pays retirement and disability benefits) is projected to be exhausted around 2033. Lower interest rates on Treasury instruments in which these funds are invested will also put pressure on them. The benefit of cutting these taxes will go to workers and their employees and help the economy to bounce back from any future recession, but if this is truly necessary, why not borrow money at near-zero interest rates to fund it?
2
If this administration really wants to grab the bull by the horns and show some leadership, it should immediately revoke the tax cuts and halt all discretionary military spending. Redirect those funds into an account that can act in concert with a FEMA-like mission to evaluate losses from individuals with either direct infection or loss of income due to business slowdowns.
If they direct the remedy to individuals, it should minimize the loss of income and increased debt as a result (e.g., home and car foreclosures, bankruptcies, etc.). A payroll tax cut or deferment is great for those who have financial buffer in place but I don't think an extra $50-100 will cover the mortgage or food costs.
There should be a separate cost accounting by hospitals and health care facilities of expenses associated with COVID-19 treatments or impacts and an ability to be recoup those costs. It could be handled by a parallel type FEMA funding or handled distinctly through HHS and CMMS. Ditto for the VA.
As for corporate businesses, they should be able to offset some of the losses through their tax write offs but the losses that are beyond that need to be recouped through a different mechanism (suggestions anyone?)
If we are looking at a global COVID-19 exposure that could last 12-24 months, then there were need to be long-term alternative revenues for diminished business and lost worked wages. An infrastructure bill would help too.
6
Feeling blue? See you in November. You know what to do.
14
Only curious to know whether circuit breakers also halt trading if the market goes up 8 % within minutes of its opening ??
2
@Jorge , it surprises me how many people seem not to understand what’s going on, but make comments anyway, for some reason. A severe stock market crash would harm the nation greatly, not just or even mainly the rich. It’s not a joke.
3
@jb I am firm believer of free markets and Adam Smith's invisible hand …..regardless of which way they cut......Halting trading is intervention ...not allowing the free market run its course.....
The Coronavirus was not Trump's fault but his incompetence exacerbated it. His lack of credibility has left Fox watchers in the dark but the rest of us are following the advice of the CDC. Airline travel is unsafe. I have a nice buggy horse for sale.
8
2017: Trump Bump
2018-2019: Trump Pump-and-Dump
2020: Trump Slump
Invest accordingly.
4
I blame the media for the crashing economy. Why don’t you interview people who recovered from the virus so that the American public can have confidence that most people will be fine? Ask the previously infected how they felt and what they did to recover. The media are causing panic and anxiety every where. It is almost like we are attacking ourselves from the inside, a social auto-immune disease. I love you, NY Times but shame on you for not rising above the rest.
5
Cecelia, information is power, despite the advice of dear leader. Don’t blame the messenger.
2
Message to Donald Trump: If you claim credit for the market rise, you own the market collapse. If you decimate the "deep state" cadre of civil servants, you own your Administration's botched response to the Coronavirus. If you hype marginal and dangerous oil drilling, you own the collapse of an unstable fossil fuel industry. If you run up the deficit to enrich yourself and your friends, you own the limit on fiscal remedies. If you jaw-bone the Fed to reduce interest rates, you own the limit on monetary remedies. About the only thing going for saving the country is that we have just nine months more of your failed presidency -- assuming we survive that long.
17
I'm beginning to think Trump might not know what he's doing. The 25th amendment would remove him until November, the voters will do the rest.
3
This situation screams for another tax cut for the rich, further investigation of Benghazi and the arrest of Hunter Biden.
Good work, Trumpistas! Your stable genius is really hitting his stride! How proud you must be!
Melania's "Be Best" program can solve this, no?
17
@Lou Good He also needs an investigation into the Mueller hoax... Why is Barr not on this?
Well.
Sen. Ted Cruz is on self-quarantine.
Does this mean he’a not buying that the COVID-19 virus is just a hoax?
Oh my!
If this continues, he might start defending his wife the next time Trump insults her as being “uglier than a dog.”
11
It's gone from the Trump Slump to Donald's Dive--while he plays golf.
10
I really do not get Wall Street! Shouldn’t these Masters of finance step up and coordinate solutions with governments to stop the frenzy? Why do they let the house burn and then go to the government for a bailout?!
I just feel like they are all a bunch of Hyenas.
5
@Hisham Oumlil , you should study the market a little; you could get an idea what’s really happening that way.
4
Nope !
I’m out and fast . This Thelma and Louise administration has broken so many rules , I can’t trust our institutions anymore. That’s what happen when people loose a real leader that scavenged our democracy and our trust!
Bye Wall Street !
6
The global economy is under duress, but, Trump's history of lying, his recent Fed moves, and his own recent words are having unintended consequences, he is spooking the markets; he simply can not be believed, and the markets are reacting.
13
My brother-in-law planned on retiring this summer when he turns 70. Now he has resigned himself to working until he drops dead.
10
The most important signal to watch in the financial markets is the bond market, not the stock market.
The bond market is telling us that we are headed for a recession, if we are not already in one.
There is an old saying that the bond market is smarter than the stock market. The 10-year Treasury yield has dropped to all-time lows, in the entire history of our nation. It briefly was below 0.35%. The 30-year Treasury yield is below 1.00%.
10-year Treasury Yields since 1871:
https://www.multpl.com/10-year-treasury-rate
8
With this chaotic administration, I can’t take chances with my retirement. I understand the global world feeling since the USA is finally becoming a banana republic...
8
I was in the San Francisco earthquake in 1989. I was working in an office downtown when it hit, at 5:04 pm, and I'm pretty sure we all thought we were going to die.
Afterwards, we all started down the stairwell and eventually got outside. And as all the people from all the various buildings filed out into the street, almost in slow motion, something amazing happened.
And what happened was that we all realized that we were still alive. That we were incredibly grateful for that fact. And that we were all, all of us, thinking exactly the same thing.
I have never felt so incredibly close to so many people on such a deeply moving and emotional level ever before, or since. And that connection lasted for sometime afterwards. For a few days at least. Maybe a week. And then, eventually, we all returned to out usual routines, and comparatively petty concerns.
In times of uncertainty, we look to those things that have provided us with consistency over the years to anchors us until the storm passes. And what are those things? Those things that will see us through?
It's not the stock market. Or our everyday business concerns. Or the myriad distractions we face everyday. It's our love, understanding, and compassion for one another that will. Commodities which have been far too scarce for far too long. But will become absolutely essential if we are going to weather this storm.
There's a war on. And if we don't all pull together, there's very little chance we will live to see another.
16
@Chicago Guy
HI Chicago Guy,
Love what you wrote its spot on and touched me-here's my NYT post---I think you might like it.
Brexit, Border Walls and Refugees
Perhaps this is just the remedy and "correction" the world needs to remind us all that we are all inter-connected and is a message to those who think that money, power and domination are the ultimate goals for the limited time one has on this place called to Earth.
Countries can put up walls to keep the unwanted out, cast refuges from war-torn countries to the side and vote to isolate themselves from others but in the end we are all one people living on this planet.
Kindness, fairness and compassion for each other are the true equities that we all need to be mindful of.
If it takes a small tiny virus to make people stand to attention and realize this and if it helps show that the "emperor has no clothes" so be it.
I only hope not too many people are hurt along the way.
2
Wall Street has no confidence in Mr. Trump. They have voted with their thumbs, firmly planted on the SELL button.
12
The corona virus is a global public health crisis. Meanwhile, our president only cares about the stock market.
Let that sink in. Our president cares more about money than people.
===
Ironically, if Mr. Trump actually showed leadership in addressing this crisis and helping people, it would probably help the markets as well, by instilling a sense of confidence and stability among investors. But Mr. Trump is incapable of this type of leadership.
10
@MidtownATL For how long have too many Americans cared more about money than people? Isn't that what we have been taught to believe in (money rather than people) since 1980? The last president who understood that we couldn't focus on the former without hurting the latter was James Earl Carter, and what happened to him in 1980 and his VP in 1984 convinced every candidate since then never to talk about living modestly. Even the Green New Deal is sold to us as a way to create new jobs in new industries, because it can't be sold to a sufficient number of the American people simply as the right thing to do for humanity.
4
the best possible stimulus is the Green New Deal...wake up, chumps
6
That's going to require a functioning government.
8
Hey Don, it's going to take more than a black magic marker to fix this.
11
Chaos and distractions is the Trump reaction to EVERYTHING. Maybe now folks will WAKE UP and vote for experience. NO MATTER WHO, VOTE BLUE.
14
Call in Obama
18
All I hear through all the hysteria invoking article titles and elegant assessments by journalists with prestigious educations is that earnings are going to constrict for rich people. Oh, and that I should wash my hands more frequently.
2
@WGM , you should learn more. Suffice it to say, as an African proverb puts it, “When elephants fight, the ants get trampled.” This will affect many of us, the poor not least.
10
The people voicing their optimism that this potential pandemic might usher in Trumps downfall have really not though things through. It's pretty disturbing to be rooting against the economy and for a deadly virus to spread as long as it takes Trump down. You fail to take into account the fact that pandemics always have a disproportionately higher impact urban population centers. I don't think I need to explain the population density/city dwelling coloration to democratic voters.
Anyone that's seen the turnouts at Trump rallies compared to Biden's "town halls" would be wise to further tone down their optimism. Trump has more support now than he did in 2016. Even if we factor in the higher percentage of people afraid to admit their support back then in fear of being verbally accosted.
A Biden/Warren or Biden/Clinton ticket they have planned will not be enough to overcome the moral/ideological fracture in the democratic party. Conservatives now see many democratic voters literally cheering on the suffering of our country for political means. I can't even begin to tell you the irreparably damage this well cause.
Many here profess their empathetic superiority and then go on to try to justify this kind of illogical thinking. Why aren't more people condoning this type of talk? Barring some catastrophic calamity that no sane individual would ever wish for, this election has already been decided. With no major wars abroad, why must we start one here?
2
@RSB
"Conservatives now see many democratic voters literally cheering on the suffering of our country for political means."
The corona virus is a global public health crisis. The Democrats care about people. Mr. Trump only cares about the stock market.
That is how most people see Mr. Trump right about now.
15
@RSB
Correlation and will... for those unable to digest the message over the errors.
@RSB Best comment yet. I agree 100%.
1
Some people seem to think that the US is better prepared to cope with the coronavirus because it doesn't have a national health system like Canada or the UK. They say that countries like Canada and the UK "ration" health care because some patients have to go on a waiting list. But we too have our own way of "rationing" health care. It's called the law of supply and demand, which regulates prices and thus determines who gets health care -- because they can afford to pay the price for it. People who can't pay the price are just out of luck.
8
I am sure Wall Street will be reassured after going to the White House on Wednesday and hearing Trump astound them with his 6th grade vocabulary and elementary school comprehension of the Markets. Warning to Wall Street executives this market fall will be your fault and Obama's by Wednesday afternoon.
17
We are in a full-on crisis - both public health and economic - and we have no leadership whatsoever, thanks to a totally incompetent, dishonest President who cares zero for other human beings.
This is a worrisome situation. Very.
8
Thanks NYT for leading with oil prices as the lead issue, feeds into DJT’s false narratives quite nicely. You are doing a great job at losing my subscription — today’s lead story one of many problems I have witnessed during the last few months. The Washington Post is looking better and better each minute.
1
@Fssandiego , I think you’ll find a 7% drop on Wall Street leads there, too. Not everything you see is a conspiracy.
4
Wall Street’s worst day in over a decade.
On Donald Trump’s watch.
5
@Cousin Greg
I'll bet he's re-thinking his one-trick-pony strategy.
2
Good thing Jared's bf MbS has got America's back, despite being rather busy imprisoning his close relations.
7
Putin must be happy to see how vulnerable North Americam markets are to his actions.
4
You really can't let republicans in charge of the economy.
9
I’m not saying it’s not going to be painful, but Coronavirus is looking a lot like Mother Nature saying “Basta!!! Enough!! Time for a reset!!”
If we are wise, we will heed her, for she ALWAYS bats last.
4
It all has to be one huuuuge conspiracy against Trump.
3
Medical experts advise that anyone who has been in contact with Republicans in the past three years should thoroughly wash their hands.
14
Trump finally faces a crisis not of his own making, and measures up as unfathomably deficient. I hate to say I told you so but....
8
It wouldn't hurt to explain to the average American why cheaper oil is apparently a bad thing. Apparently, the average person spends nearly $400 per month on gas for their car. All businesses rely on oil and gas prices, especially trucking, shippers, and airlines. Homeowners and businesses may use oil or propane for heating.
Oil prices were double a few month ago. So please tell us why lower gas prices for everyone are a bad thing, an not to be celebrated, as opposed to the injury to energy companies, Russians and OPEC.
1
States that rely on high oil prices now have less tax revenue as the businesses that extract American oil and the comianies that service the extraction of oil have lower revenues, default on loans and lay off workers. Does that answer your question?
3
@Dave
That implies that higher oil prices are a form of tax, paid by every American, for the benefit of oil companies.
2
If you think this viral pandemic is temporary as were MERS, Sars, Ebola and the like then Covid 19 infections will plateau and begin to noticeably decline. At that moment when public consciousness acknowledges that change in the infection curve
will be the best buying opportunity for both equities and debt securities in anyone's lifetime. Many people will become rich.
1
We are about to see if lessons were learned in 2008.
Until today, the risk was that a companies and countries carrying too much debt could be come insolvent as the pandemic grows and economies slump. If the losses to bondholders and lenders were high enough, I suspect we would see markets grind to a halt as banks stop dealing with each other. Since 2008 ,when this last happened, little has changed in terms of policing the derivatives banks create to insure lenders against loss. Nobody knows who is insuring whose lending and for how much. So fear will govern.
Now it looks like market volatility itself could precipitate a crisis for very similar reasons. Banks trade on their own account, but they also issue derivatives that are effectively bets on positions taken by other market participants. It may take a wobble from just one firm to cause trading and lending between banks to seize up again.
The difference this time will be that, whatever steps governments take to save the global economy, will happen in the midst of a a huge slump in demand and supply caused by the pandemic.
5
America is about to watch it’s illusion of a safety net crumble.
15
To journalists from the NYT, The Guardian, the BBC:
Pence will have another daily briefing in a few.
Kindly ask him if he too, believes that this COVID-19 virus is a hoax.
And whether praying and avoiding gay thoughts will make this go away.
Thanks.
24
Thank goodness we elected Donald Trump to so artfully bolster the stock market. Had we still been wringing our wallets dry at the market level of late 2016, our now robust economy would be ill-disposed to counter these blows.
While you’re still championing the Great Left Antitrump Stampede, remember this is America, so wash your hands and self-isolate if it’s warranted. And think of how much more fragile and at-risk you’d be if Biden or Sanders got blindsided by COVID-19.
@J Brian What exactly is the Great Left Antitrump Stampede? The millions of voters who voted for HRC over Trump? By the way, do you know what SCE&G dumped in Lake Wylie before they fleeced us?
2
Tax all those who are now on the corporate welfare tax rolls, no zero tax businesses, none. Cut military spending while increasing veterans care. Eliminate the cap on the FICA tax, no cap, and eliminate the reforms that stole from the poor to give to the rich.
14
Want to gain the true measure of a President? Then ask, how will he perform in a national crisis? Well now we know, and it is not pretty. This one says the virus is contained and then plays golf while hundreds of new cases pop up each day. His VP so far, has performed his crisis management duties similar to the way a monkey might romance a football..fumbling incompetence in all its glory. On top of all that, the market sinks due to a pandemic plus poor timing between Russia and the Saudis over a petroleum pricing war. The mind reels....it makes one want to dig a hole and come out 30 days later to hopefully a better scenario.
8
@Vote Nov 3rd 30 days? how about 9 months if we survive until elections.
4
CDC/FDA failed us, personally I think CDC/FDA is just too big to react quickly, and in the meantime was given too big a power. Two examples:
1. After CDC produced faulty test kits, states are prohibited from designing their own without FDA approval.
2. When a scientist out side of CDC was trying to make his own test kits. FDA asked the test kit to pass a test so that it will return negative on SARS, only problem - there is no SARS virus in US right now and it will take 1 month to make those SARS virus.
Perhaps we'll be the new Venezuela. Oil profits gone, hospitals unable to procure supplies, money devalued. Some people there actually are using bitcoin because it can be readily traded, while the Venzuelan currency is worthless.
Congress should pass a law forbidding Trump or his family from any investments whatsoever, so they can't profit from this debacle they helped create. And in 2021 I sincerely hope they will all be in jail.
10
The irony about the tanking stock markets is the more Trump tries to downplay the coronavirus in order to pump up the Dow, the more the stock markets tank due to Trump's lack of leadership on the disease.
19
Fiscal stimulus? What happened, eleven years ago, to all those Republicans wailing “the government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers?”
Oh, there was a democrat in the White House then? That’s right...
22
The world is in crisis. This is the time we need a President who will speak to the people, who will try to calm our fears, who will assure us that the government is doing its very best to bring us back from the brink. who will speak to us with empathy, who will speak to us as a man who understands the anguish of the country's citizens. And all we hear is silence.
8
@gailweis
To be fair, that silence is probably damage control from his handlers.
Every time he has commented on the virus, he has bumbled monumentally, and his tiny, clouded brain is incapable of comprehending the scope of an epidemic.
4
Why are we still dependent on oil, Saudi, Middle East, and Russian? Let them play their games. There are new regimes and the new leaders want to play by their own rules. We need, as a Nation, to transform ourselves away from foreign oil, and oil (other then the immediate use of petrochemicals) as a whole for transportation utilization. Just another reason to start. We have and can develop any and all technology we need, so time to put our Nation and its people first, and not the business of oil.
5
Wow, it hasn’t been this bad since the last Republican President in 2008. You have to admit the GOP tax cuts and small government plan has very predictable results.
37
We don't have enough tests. The ones we have are not being made readily available.
We are also lacking a robust public program that would include comprehensive testing to measure the spread of the virus that already exists. Other countries have robust programs ( e.g. Korea's), that could be used as models. The Trump administration showed no motivation to address this virus until it affected the stock market. It is also evident that they are doing everything they can to hide the numbers of the infected, which is the WORST thing they could be doing in every conceivable way.
I fear that if the stock market was to recover, the Trump administration would politicize this outbreak even more than they already have, and continue with their desperately inadequate effort, without making any further effort to improve it.
7
So Trump's continual hassling of the Fed Chair to cut the rates was, of course, premature. Now that we have a real emergency there isn't much room left for correction. The very stable genius shows once again he knows nothing about the economy or government.
27
When Republicans get into office, wall street drives the market up to insane heights because they think everything will be so great. When Republicans don’t deliver, wall street looks for any excuse to correct their errors. It happened with Reagan/Bush, GWB and Trump. Only Democrats can deliver the consistency of a long running healthy market. Wall street doesn’t know what’s good for them.
21
An economic stimulus is not needed and won't accomplish anything just as the Fed's lowering of interest rates did nothing. There is no lack of cash available for investing. The issue here is the lack of confidence in the economy's growth due to the possible lack of demand. Unfortunately the price of stocks is linked to earnings growth, which makes zero sense as holders of stock only get appreciation in value and no real return based on company earnings. So we have a crazy system and crazy systems tend to act just that, crazy.
2
I won't speak for others, but if I lose every cent of my 401(k), if it also means trump won't be president after the Nov. election, I'll consider it a win.
25
It is a chicken and egg proposition. Is the US dragging the rest of the rest of the world down or is the rest of the world dragging the US down. It is called interdependence and does not really matter where it started. We are all in it together. The sooner the Trump administration figures that out, the better we will all be.
6
Who's going to win in this election cycle and whoever it is does the word 'win' fit in any of the solutions. It's becoming quite apparent that the Trump administration is finished after four years of abject failure in every aspect of leadership, but how will the Biden administration pick up the pieces and start anew. It's a daunting task but with a newly elected Democratic Senate and continuing House we'll get a sense of hope.
6
It seems likely this is going viral, no pun intended.
Everyone of us must practice hygiene as never before, avoid all physical contact, to the extent that such is possible, with everyone, wash hands constantly, ordinary soap and water is fine, cook food thoroughly, wash hands after unpacking foodstuffs before touching unpacked product, on public transportation do not touch any surface until you wipe it with disinfectant wipes, think, think, and think again, all the time ...
Most will survive this, at least 80%+, the exceptions being those who have chronic diseases.
Governments have no clue, other than mass quarantine of populations, possibly going as far as imposing martial law, if we begin to see mortality rates climb to 5% and above.
One other thing, governments lie, surprised ??, so a lot of what we are hearing about the dangers of this bug is sanitized before release; a good rule of thumb is to multiply the numbers we are hearing by 10, at least ...
1
Trump’s 7th bankruptcy.
America.
39
Good. We deserve it. Trump shook hands giving us hope, lots of hope.
4
For the win!
1
With no real president, and certainly no competent one, I'd still be a seller into this, if you were foolish enough to have any money in the market after "trump" finagled his way into the white house, there's still time to get out. There's lots more pain ahead.
10
No hold. In 3 years it will have more than recovered.
1
@Matthew Wrong! The time to pull out was 2 weeks ago. Now you will be losing 13% when you sell S&P 500. Better to wait it out if you have that luxury. Market will eventually come back in the next couple of years.
By the way thanks to all those who sold their shares. Because of you, we can now buy those shares cheaply.
1
@Indisk
I pulled out in early Feb.
Was just commenting for anyone that still hasn't. There's a LOT more to go down on this.
3
So much winning, you're gonna get sick of winning. Believe me. Believe me!
18
@Mua
Actually it was a typo on Trump’s teleprompter, where Trump was supposed to say Americans would get sick of so much whining....... from Trump.
4
Trump’s 7th bankruptcy. America.
18
The Times this morning headlined with the the stock market plunge and underneath that Trump's Twitters from Mar-a-Lago where he was undoubtedly overlooking his golf course - and playing all weekend - that the stock plunge was FAKE NEWS and the Democrats are to blame. OK - it's time - to turn Trump's famous bullying line back to him...Lock Him Up...and that would be the psyche ward, Americans - he is not, in any way, reality based!
13
Nor are 66 million Americans.
The virus will save us from our government and its corporate bosses.
2
Here’s what you need to know:
Trading was temporarily halted Monday morning. Here’s why.
Oil stocks cratered following crude’s plunge.
Bank stocks also fell fast.
Clorox and a handful of retail stocks rose.
White House invites Wall Street to Washington.
Trump plays down threat as politicians discuss economic stimulus.
The bull market for stocks may have finally met its match.
In conclusion my fellow Americans, this is what our economy looks like with Trump in control.
Now, how does that make you feel?
8
@Tim Love Clorox will tank too, as there isn’t any Purell or isopropyl alcohol anywhere on the planet.
1
I ride the commuter train with Wall Street bankers. I get off in New Jersey, as my Stanford degree renders me unqualified to be a "Master of the Universe"
Last week, I can see the fear in the eyes of these genius bankers. Sometimes you can smell the fear on the seats too.
11
Just leave it to the Republicans to tank the market. GWB 2.0. Happens. Every. Time.
17
True, but I overreacted and sold out when Trump was elected. A buying opportunity is in the future.
1
It certainly happened in 1929 during Herbert Hoover’s presidency. Wall Street laid an egg. The Great Depression followed.
1
@Merle Claremont
The Dow was at about 17,500 under Obama. That may be the entry point.
As I head into retirement, this loss hurts.
But on the bright side, I hope that Covit-19 is Trump and GOP's Katrina.
If Trump owns the market on the way up, then he owns it on the way down.
Of all the the things to take down this poor excuse of a president, it is ironic that it's a virus. Just like the president himself.
20
The markets wouldn't be tanking so dramatically if there was real leadership in the WH.
Trump and his people don't appear to be working for this country.
14
? “ appear?” Of course they’re not working for the country.
Anemic post.
1
@Merle Claremont
I use the word "appear" deliberately. Reagan/Bush family didn't work for the country either, but created the illusion in style and manners.
3
Many will like the virus to spread, the economy to crash, pretty much anything bad if it means eradicating the president. such type thinking is bound to harm those who think it first.
1
No. I’m out of the market. Anything that removes Trump is welcome including a stock market crash and a lethal epidemic. Trump is more harmful.
Stop spreading lies! That is completely insane. Nobody wants this to spread!
1
We will be harmed whether we think this or not. Trump was a known disaster the day he rode down the faux gold escalator. Anyone who voted for this conman, grifter, malignant, corpulent, petulant, venal, vengeful cretin put us in this situation. I am no inclined to have sympathy at this point.
6
Please, please I beg whoever takes over this mess to crush the GOP sham of a political movement/philosophy/party right out of existence, hold accountable those individuals who enabled it, and exact real consequences for those who have undermined our democracy for power, greed, and corruption. That’s you, Mitch McConnell, and you, Lindsay Graham, for enabling Trump and his buffoons.
America has never been weaker or more vulnerable.
17
Just when you need a competent president to have credibility, be able to calm people, and someone known for integrity and sound decision making, we have Donald J. Trump, backed up by the Republican Party 99.9% no matter how many disastrous decisions he makes.
So here is our perfect storm of an imploding economy again--compounded by a coronavirus epidemic and our stable genius, multi-time bankrupted president, who gave rich people and big corporations a huge tax break when there was no need to stimulate the economy. Oh, and Trump has already promised his big donors there will be another big tax cut when he is re-elected.
Not to worry, and just ignore all that misinformation our dear president has been supplying about the epidemic and that the surging economy he took full credit for is not tanking, which, of course, is the fault of the media.
After all, we have Larry Kudlow, Steve Mnuchin, and Wilbur Ross to advise Trump how to navigate this most recent economic crisis.
Here is some free advice: In 2020, don't elect persons and a political party that hates its own government and do all they can to weaken its regulatory powers so that the Wall Street dogs can have their lavish parties at the people's expense.
Oh, and guess whose job it will be to clean up the GOP's irresponsible decisions and mess and get the country back on track?
Vote Republican, I dare you!
3
It's been a decade of up, up, up. It had to happen. I'm no 'Trumper,' far from it ... but this is a correction loooong overdue.
I've also never seen "Frozen," but simply have to say ... 'Let it Go.'
1
I detest the guy, but it is simplistic to pin this mess on Pres. Trump alone. That's like the Right blaming any correction or during the last presidency on Pres. Obama. This bubble has been growing a long time with interest rates being held down, and so one little blade of grass is going to pop it easily.
4
All the more reason to want a competent person at the helm. Hey, if he had been smart, he would not have been claiming credit for the stock market in the first place. Because once you claim it, you own it-good and bad.
3
@John S. Surely you said the same thing when Trump was trying to take all the credit for Obama's flourishing economy.
1
The inventor of the 401(k) says he created a ‘monster’ [MarketWatch]
--Fed up with clients only interested in getting the maximum tax break for themselves while doing as little as possible for their employees, he began to feel he could either remain a workplace benefits consultant or a Christian, but not both.
Instead Benna, helped turn a little-noticed new subsection of the tax code into the least likely of household names: the 401(k).
Benna wasn’t the only one to see potential in section 401(k), but there were far more naysayers. "Many of the big consulting firms still came out and said it was all a scam,” Wright said. In fact, the original purpose of section 401(k) was to limit the use of executive cash-deferred plans.
--The 401(k)’s big regulatory hurdle, and perhaps its big marketing hurdle, was that administrators technically needed the IRS’s blessing to reduce employee wages in order to put money into the tax-deferred accounts. They were originally (and ominously) dubbed “salary-reduction plans.” ...
--But like many critics, in recent years Benna began to think 401(k)s might not be the right thing. He’d created “a monster” that should be “blown up,”
--The plans had grown so overcomplicated and so fraught with hidden fees and opportunities for bad decisions that they were better at enriching the financial industry than the actual savers — precisely the abuses that nearly drove him out of the business and to the Christian college back in 1980, he said.
4
Time for the grown-ups to handle this. Give Trump a month’s supply of burnt steak and ketchup, then ship him off to Mar-A-Lago. Utterly not up to the task of what’s ahead...
5
@Dudesworth And you think his 'yes' men are in any way capable of doing anything? The whole administration is wholly unqualified.
1
@Indisk good point.
President Trump will respond to this with something measured, reassuring, and, well, full of wisdom.
Just kidding! Hehehe!
6
This is really going to tax the notion of a "hoax".
3
The last hope is for the whole Trump Adminiistration and media mouthpieces to be quarantined, muzzled, put on a cruise ship and sent to sea. There are enough professional experts who care about our Democracy and know how to stabilize our governing process and start building a functioning governing body. Nancy?
4
Claw back those tax cuts.
They didn’t stimulate the economy enough to overcome this. We need that money back.
6
This demonstrates why it is cheaper in the long run for all of us, not just the top 1%, if we get off fossil fuels, have Universal Health care, and paid family leave. Follow the science and do the exact opposite of whatever trump says.
5
If the US economy was built on solid fundamentals this might be just a dip in the market. But instead it's a bubble propped up by corporate tax cuts intended to boost the stock market for the political benefit of the GOP and Donald Trump.
14
It seems strange to me how many of the comments on this story--and most stories that I read--focus like a laser on the political spin of an event rather than, you know, the actual events. I'm not one to try to diagnose a crowd (my specialties lie elsewhere), but it does seem that many people in this country suffer from a sort of mass hysteria. And each political leaning seems to have its own strain.
Trump is not the cause of everything good. Trump is not the cause of everything bad. If you take away his social media hype, he's a more corrupt that usual president that has a less than mediocre record--that's why he has to rely on the hype. He's nothing more than a skilled con man who figured out that some people on the Left love nothing more than "performing outrage" and some people on the Right love nothing more than seeing the Left "perform outrage". And so the wheel turns and turns again...
Meanwhile, many of us are able to see past this nonsense. One of the main reason that Biden is surging is that many people see past this nonsense. These people see Donald J. Trump for the Silvio Burlesconi type clown that he is. These people see Bernie Sanders as a force that will like leave a legacy similar to Juan Peron. And they reject both paths of instability. Okay, now that I've written all that...
This news is bad news for everyone except short-sellers. And even they will be unhappy with the news? Why? They don't get to be "right" for the right reasons.
6
@ no, we are seeing Wall Street’s vote of no confidence in this clown show of an administration. The average joe, is not selling off , rather we are trapped in our retirement accounts and can only watch as they spiral downward.
4
@Steve B I would disagree with your cause and effect as stated. From my experience managing portfolios, I would imagine that the managers are mainly attempting to mitigate downside risk in a period potential "pandemic," a major oil glut, and a likely forthcoming liquidity crunch. This downturn isn't "protest vote" or a "vote of no confidence" as, in general, money guys aren't incentivized to think and act that way. And since about 70% of the stock market's value is held by institutional investors that are managed by guys who have the fiduciary responsibility of "maximizing shareholder wealth"... Well, I think your comment is more of an example of what I was describing as irrational behavior rather than a clear analysis of the situation at hand.
Yes, I know you can argue for days and, yes, I know that there have only ever been two arguments in the history of the internet where someone acknowledged both that his position was wrong and another's position was right. I know those are the only two examples as I was a party to both of them: (1) in 1996, I got Kama to admit that he was wrong and I was right on a message board that has since been deleted and (2) in 2011, I had to admit to Samson that his position on Lebanese political economy and the evolution of Hezbollah was better informed and more correct than my own. As I can never hope to find a 3rd example of this behavior, I'll refrain from continuing this discussion any further. Thanks.
Really startling since in speaking about the response to the coronavirus, Trump said, "It was perfect. Like the letter it was perfect."
5
Prediction (going out on a very broad, powerful limb): President Trump will prove himself louder than President Hoover when and if we fall into a recession or worse.
6
As an emergency physician I fully expect to be exposed to this. I still dont know how my self quarantine will work. By the time I find out I will probably have exposed my family. where would I self quarantine? at home and expose my family? in a hotel for two weeks end expose the staff? I also dont know hoe the health care system will hold when half or more of the providers like me cannot go to work. This is going to get darker before it gets lighter.
9
@ME How many health care workers have been exposed? Died?
Stimulus money is going to be cash down the drain if the underlying concerns regarding health and safety aren't being comprehensively addressed. The market is anticipating disruptions in global supply chains and defaults on debts. It also expects that consumers are going to stop going to malls, restaurants, movie theaters, concerts and gyms. People may not just have to cancel vacations, but may be forced to stay home from work and school.
The stimulus will at best address firms' near-term liquidity problems so that they can pay their upcoming debts. Perhaps renewed trade negotiations will help goods flow across borders (fingers crossed - safely). But if no one feels safe to leave their homes, that spending, in weeks or months, will have been a waste. The same firms and banks will be back begging for more. With this expectation, markets may react hardly at all, believing rightly that the action is a bandaid on a geyser.
What we need first is a comprehensive public health solution. We need a national testing and containment strategy. We need quick and transparent flows of information. And we need a plan for medical facilities to get requisite materials for treatment.
Not only is it the morally right thing to do, but it's also the most economical.
10
This is what happens to the Teflon Don when the stuff really hits the fan.
After 6 bankruptcies, even Teflon wears thin.
16
Trump retweeted a photo of him playing the fiddle. About the photo he said, "I don't know what this means, but I like it."
He clearly doesn't know the phrase, "Fiddling while Rome burned." If we had a president who reads, who knows history, who recognizes that being compared to Nero isn't a compliment, and who surrounds himself with intelligent people instead of yes-men and yes-women, we wouldn't be in this fix.
Instead, we have a leader who golfs while the world burns.
32
Fear not! Those losses are tax deductible.
4
@ Chicago guy, for who? Not if your funds are tied up in retirement accounts.
1
@Chicago Guy
Only the first $3,000.....
1
I'm waiting to see some leadership.
Lies are not comforting. and cuts in interest rates and taxes are not helpful, in fact they are counter-productive.
Weathering this crisis will be expensive, and will require sacrifice by those who have not made any in last 50 years.
A wealth tax on top of tax cuts for those making over $250K is in order, if we are going to prevent a massive number of bankruptcies and save the economy with real investment in America and our future.
The Grand Old Party is coming to an end.
15
Clorox went up today. You can use Clorox to sterilize surfaces and if things get too bad, you can drink it.......
17
In a way, Corona virus slow down, gave an opportunity to Saudis and Russians to obliterate American oil industry. eventually this will pass, but American oil and gas companies finished.
4
Are Trump, Republicans and their propaganda network, Faux News, going to own this economic collapse or will they blame it on Obama, Sanders, the boogeyman and the Democrats like the lying hypocrites that they are?
20
This is going to be really hard to spin as “fake news”
22
@Brian So instead, Fox news has decided to ignore it altogether.
4
Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall in those executive studios right now?
1
You should be buying now, in the oil sectors, pharma, etc. Remember what you said in the Great Recession......well you missed out then and you'll miss out now.
7
Waiting for the bottom.
Humpty Trumpty, our self-proclaimed stable genius has been so quiet on the tweet front, because he can't find anyone to blame.
Now we are going to finally see what happens when the village idiot has to lead and run a country in times of stress. For those of you who believed he was "The Art of the Deal", you'll now get a front row seat to observe how the only business man since the start of the Industrial Revolution loses money in the Casino/Gambling Industry!!!
21
He continues to tweet. Blaming the media for the stock market drops. I thought he personally controlled the markets, lol
1
A crisis not of Trump’s own making that he has no control over, no understanding of, and no plan for containing. Finally, a total exposure of a fraud.
25
The Coronavirus was all a hoax by the democrats just a week ago according to trump. What a difference a week makes.
19
@sotomamoto "168 little hours,..."
Do not doubt our all-knowing leader. When everyone else said his casinos were losing so much money that they were bound to fail, he knew better. In time they eventually failed, but it was obviously due to the policies of Barack Obama.
10
TOMORROW HAS COME TODAY!
Big Retirement Losses If The Market Crashes Tomorrow [Forbes]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2018/12/05/big-retirement-losses-if-the-market-crashes-tomorrow/#2fbdc2a07dab
It might not be a stock market crash -- conventionally crash mode is a 10% drop or more -- but it might feel like one. On Tuesday Dec. 4, the S&P 500 fell -3.24%. Based on estimates from Monique Morrissey of the Economic Policy Institute when one considers stock holding of $5.2T in 401(k)-type accounts and IRAs, the retirement savings for all Americans fell by $155 billion yesterday. About 55% of the 24 million older American workers, age 50-64, who had, generously, $100,000, their account balances fell by $1,620 in one day. That kind of hurts. If that goes on it can hurt more.
If the market falls like it did in 2008-2009, these 13 or so million older workers would lose over $20,000. And, they simply won’t have time to recover especially if a family member loses their job and they have to take Social Security early. As I have written before the morbid joke about the Great Recession was that it turned Americans’ 401(k)s into 201(k)s. Indeed, the nation’s 401(k)s and IRAs lost about $2.4 trillion in the final two quarters of 2008. In 2008, those aged 30-50 had a median return of -30%. Over half of people over age 60 with 401(k) and IRAs lost more than 20%, according to Hewlett.
5
Worst trading day in more than a decade.
Nah, must be fake news!
The stable genius hasn't encouraged Wall Street. But even worse, he hasn't encouraged millions of Americans looking at their 401K plans. And he isn't encouraging employers to hold on to their employees.
10
Bernie has it correct. It isn’t the working poor selling stock, it is the greed of the one-percent running for the hills. Vast income in-equality heads for the cliff. Lets hope that Trump doesn’t put the fix in with taxpayer debt. Keep Hank Paulson out of Washington!
6
Who would have thought that a failed 6 times bankrupt reality show star would be ill prepared to handle running the country? Oh yeah, more than half of America's voters. And now we all have to deal with the consequences of his ineptitude for years to come.
14
Of course, the Wuhan virus has stifled so much use of petroleum for transportation that its price dropped; the outbreak is like a minus war. since actual wars do the opposite.
But the only people hurt are the complete dolts who will be selling, and the damage from the mistake will be felt by their spouses and children.
1
Trump, Republicans and their propaganda network, Faux News, will never own this developing economic crises because their true nature is lies, deception and hypocrisy. Today’s right-wing Republican extremists aren’t the worst thing ever to happen to America.
4
Mr. President. Are you listening? Are you reading? "Stocks plunge in the worst drop in a decade?" That day has your name on it. You own it. It's yours. And it's right here in an election year, too.
17
Trump is desperate. He knows that if he loses he's looking at being investigated for all this crimes.
15
Is this still the Democrats or are we over that?
13
After reading today's NYT I find it impossible to believe that this country, the so-called USA, even has a government. Our so-called government has not clamped down on anything. Our so-called president lives in an alternative universe, which he cohabits with so-called Republican senators and so-called Republican representatives in a frame of mind that apparently allows them to think that just as Republicans did nothing to protect US citizens during the trump admin to date Republican senators and representatives will not have to anything to protect US citizens in the future.
14
From "Unforgiven" (1992)
"I was building a house - I don't deserve this !"
"Deserves got nothin' to do with it..."
6
President Trump has been criticized by Democrats, economists and the fact-based media for taking credit for the stock market. Perhaps it's time to give him the credit he feels he deserves. Actually, it's surprising anybody would give Trump a line of credit.
Not only will he not save your 401-k; unless a Democrat replaces him, you can kiss Social Security goodbye. The money has to come from somewhere, and it sure won't be from taxes on those who can easily afford to pay.
49
LOVE this comment; thank you, @JR!
13
I am more than satisfied , Rex Tillerson assessment of Donald Trump.
Move on people.
Elect anybody , any...
19
In America, anyone can grow up and become president.
Or they can just become president.
43
There's a reason why Trump once proudly referred to himself as the "king of debt".
When Trump's advisors warned him about the increasing deficit as a result of his tax cuts for the wealthy, Trump was quoted as saying, "I won't be around when the bills come due".
This self-serving reasoning applies to everything Trump does. Trump couldn't care less about the longterm harm he causes, whether it's to the economy, our environment, or people's wellbeing. He cares only about the immediate benefit to himself and his campaign to get re-elected.
And in the event that he is around "when the bills come due", trump will have already targeted someone else to blame.
34
@Roberta What does he care about the national debt he and his craven GOP blew sky high? He'll just leave quietly, lawyer up, and declare the US bankrupt, leaving the rest of us dopes holding the bag.
2
A small virus has changed the economics and lives of all the people in the world. China is to blame for this and the rules need to be established.
12
@faryam
blaming a nation for a virus is ridiculous.
2
This virus will affect more than a war in the world. Why should the people of the world be damaged because of the mistake of a country on health and inability to control environmental laws? This is not ridiculous.
This virus is totally overblown based on initial and faulty health care data from Wuhan that hugely overestimate the severity of covid19.
5
How is it overblown. The flu kills at least 30,000 (80,000 in 2018) people per year and that is with vaccines and generations of immunity. and now we have another disease that may do the same. That is not good and very dangerous for our society. Plus, we don’t know long term effects. Trump is downplaying it because it’s not perfect for his image, but you don’t have to buy into that, nobody’s perfect.
14
@Me
The WHO has given a mortality rate of around 3.4%, which is far greater than that of the already serious seasonal flu (0.1%). This virus is highly dangerous to the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. Back up what you say with sources and data or take your misinformation elsewhere (better yet, keep it to yourself).
58
@Me This comment gives a whole new emphasis to the term "tongue in cheek" but a little gallows humor may be appropriate.
5
9.The Chicago Tribune is read by people that are in prison that used to run the state, & would like to do so again, as would their constituents that are currently free on bail.
10.The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.
11.The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are gay, handicapped, minority, feminist, atheists, and those who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
12.The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
1
Not really funny and nothing to do with the article.
1
1.The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2.The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3.The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4.USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times.
5.The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could find the time and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8.The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
7
Compared to any other country in the world America is better positioned to withstand the crisis. The hot weather is already here, so, there is a good possibly that corona virus will fade away without spreading much further. But, people should take necessary precaution, especially old people and people with immune deficiency by listening to CDC. Trump's actions helped to prevent the virus from spreading further. His deregulatory actions may help to find a vaccine soon. His strong leadership is helpful to sooth the panic. He will definitely introduce fiscal stimulatory measures soon and ask Saudi and Putin to do responsible things regarding oil. Again Trump, the former CEO, will be the one leading the world to rescue.
1
@Alex K
the best satire written today.
19
Magical thinking will not save you....
11
@Alex K : I assume you're being sarcastic, right? Otherwise, I feel sorry for you.
16
Trump is right about this is not the time to panic or to weaponize the coronavirus outbreak as Dems and left wing media seem to be doing. Some investors, like me, will make money if they monitor their accounts and trade accordingly. For those invested for the long haul, our economy and stocks will do fine... as long as progressives like Sanders and Biden are not elected this coming November.
5
@MCH:
And he's not politicizing it? GMAB.
I'm not going to do anything with my money since this is to the time to panic; however, I don't believe a thing this administration says. They lie constantly. Maybe if POTUS would act like a leader, the market (and the virus) wouldn't be getting worse.
34
It’s precisely this sort of utterly self serving, myopic, greedy view of the world that will lead to our eventual demise. I trust you haven’t researched or truly understood the fall of Rome. You should. The good ole USA is not impervious to decline no matter how smart and clever you think you are.
12
@Jessie B.
MCH regards Trump as some sort of genius.
He can't be that smart and clever.
1
If you want to see what we now have as a so-called president, check out Shakespeare's Richard III. It's Trump exactly. "A horse, a horse. My kingdom for horse!"
10
So let me get this straight: When the market drops, those of us who had invested our earnings in it will take a hit and absorb that as part of our risk. But when the market does well, we will be taxed on the capital gains at the same rate as our largely risk-free salaries? I'm a life long Democrat, but this is why I don't support Bernie Sanders.
3
Hopefully, the 0.1% would still be plump by the time Bernie gets to them next year.
2
And there go retirement fund again, and the big banks play on.
Be careful who you vote for this year.
2
How are there no reports on why some universities and events are closing and not others? This question is central to understanding mixed reactions and worries about information. Is it purely a problem of uncertainty? Different models? Proximity? Evaluation of potential economic gains and losses?
1
Has anybody taken time to figure out who and how hospital costs will be divvied out for by the insurers or hospitals? Chinese numbers seem to indicate 14-20 day median recovery time, with many still recovering. This over the million hosptial beds with overfull ICUs, gowning costs, negative pressure room conversions, staffing overtime, extra staffing sick time... About 98% of patients will go home and file a medical claim.
Not to mention that in Wuhan there was no real hospital service for non-viral patients.
2
@Roba Use the malls because they’ll be empty for awhile.
Trump has made history. For the first time in this country's life, 30 year bonds do not yield 1%.
4
--Use to project future economics of US economy, the difference between Republican and Democrat governing. From: Politics That Work
--Change in Unemployment Rate by Party of President- Since 1945 Each party has held the presidency for the same number of years since 1945. During those years, the unemployment rate has risen 11.8% under Republican presidents and has fallen 7.2% under Democratic presidents. Unemployment has fallen during the overwhelming majority of Democratic years since 1949. Unemployment rose steadily under Republicans up until 1982, then fell during the remaining Reagan years, and then rose again under both Bush Presidents.
--Dow Jones Performance by the Party of the President During the most recent 15 years during which Republicans have held the presidency, the value of the Dow has increased by 42%. During the Democratic presidencies, it has increased by 609%- 14.5 times faster. The average growth in the value of the Dow under Democrats during this period has been 14.75% and under Republicans it has been 5.11%.
--Change in Disposable Income Since 1930 by the Party of the President In the 44 years that we have had Democratic presidents since 1930, the real per-capita disposable income has increased 271%. During the 40 years during which we have had Republican presidents, it has increased 44%. On average, it has increased 3.1% (after adjusting for inflation) under Democratic presidents and 1% under Republican presidents.
5
Stocks aren't "plunging." They are correctly doing what stock prices do in publicly traded electronic markets--they vary. Billions are being made by hedge funds, private equity, institutional managed trades, and rotation. The bond market has numerous opportunities globally, and private banking is soaring, while real assets are firm or appreciating in many categories. The writer doesn't understand the global money market, nor the extreme levels of liquidity, reserves, savings, credit, money flow, and central banking fitness. Sorry: you'll have to find another way to lobby against the president.
2
@Matt Andersson You mean the same president who took all the credit for the markets going up now does not want to take responsibility for the same markets tanking during his presidency?
14
But this president crowed to high heaven when the stocks were going up. So when they go up it is because of Trump but when they drop it is other things. Got it.
3
@Matt Andersson
The reality challenged Matt Andersson sounds like the pet store owner from a Monty Python sketch who trying to con a dissatisfied buyer that the dead parrot he bought is only taking a nap.
1
You think the money people are starting to think we have a lightweight running the show?
5
We live in an imaginary world of hubris and finance. Economy is supposed to be the wise management of resources. This virus, climate change, our reliance on global supply chains and fossil fuels are a reminder that our lifestyles do not match our resources or the challenges that Nature can throw at us.
11
@networthy
True, our access to technology may help to tame dangerous viruses in time. But our lifestyles including the ability to fly around the world are not slowing the spread of those viruses, and our disruption of natural cycles is a threat to natural biodiversity, food supplies, and physical security. Stress is also a killer.
1
For many months, the stock market has been like a kindergarten class on a sugar high with Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations and his mindless deregulation. Wall Street loved it.
This exuberant "Party On!" mindset long ago became overripe for the shock that would cause a big correction. Enter a major public-health crisis, stage right.
13
the markets are not down they are 5000 points above where they were on Jan. 20 2017 before the Trump inspired madness of red hat wearing crowds took stock price where they couldn't survive.
go to cash now and you lock in your gains from Jan. 20 2017 to now.
4
If there’s a silver lining in any of this it’s that this news could lead to the electoral downfall of a president who’s as obsessed with the stock market almost as much as he is with himself.
19
You are rooting for failure. Sounds like a winning formula champ
1
JK Rowling spoke about the importance of failure.
1
@Joesph King
The failing’s been done to a turn, for the last three years and change. The winning formula will be to be rid of the grifter, his spawn, and all the ghoulish hangers-on that comprise his administration.
We are seeing an already abnormal Administration in melt-down mode...If this Administration was normal, the President would be in constant contact with his counterparts in Europe and China (yes, China) soliciting advice and coordinating global responses, requesting assistance and providing help wherever needed.
If this Administration was normal, it would hold high-level daily (even twice daily) public medical and press briefings from medical experts, CDC et al to instill confidence in its ongoing actions, and to provide us with transparent updated information.
If this Administration was normal, it would coordinate economic and financial actions with other central banks, IMF and World Bank...rather than browbeating the Fed.
Enough already with this incompetence.
26
@Confucius - - - I love how the progressive commenters know they are supposed to act propagandized, so they turn around and try to sound like propagandists themselves.
I suppose if the virus took enough people out of the marketplace one or two might get hired here, since propagandists are as close to costing a dime a dozen as any class of worker.
All you are doing is throwing insults. Hope you feel better though.
One can't help but wonder what might instead happen to U.S. and indeed international markets were we to have an intelligent, rational, steady hand in charge of our ship of state.
Instead, we have ... It.
13
Why would you insult Pennywise like that?
If only we were given a sign that Trump cannot govern — say faking bone spurs to avoid the draft.
Or by cheating on his 3rd wife by having an affair with both a Playboy Playmate and a Penthouse Pet at the same time while she recovers from childbirth.
Maybe by even declaring bankruptcies on his casinos, the only business in the world where you are basically printing your own money.
We were really blindsided by this Donald.
Oh, wait...
22
For the good of the country, Trump should step down immediately!
14
Mr. President, you have reached the inflection point of your lies. The misinformation machine is dragging down the stock market.
Mr. Trump, your lies have stopped working. What now?
17
In a financial crisis, isn't it comforting to know we have a Fox talking head in charge of the Treasury Department?
17
Yes, I hope his properties go belly up.
12
Trump voters will love this because they can fill their fat trucks full of gas. They don't understand or care about the rest.
9
Just another footnote in the upcoming Trump biography, "All the President's Tantrums"...
14
For the last three years the administration has been telling us that continuation of a robust economy depends on cheap energy prices. Now, energy prices plummet and the stock market tanks. So which is it? The administration can't have to both ways and be credible.
Redirecting the US economy to an extraction based industry (oil and gas) puts us in the commodity economy set. It's always a dangerous position as farmers around the world could have warned us. Was the high price of energy propping up our extraction based economy?
5
Trump is inviting Wall Street Execs to the White House.
so he can tell them what "To Message"
If they go along with it, stocks will surely tank and this time it will be a global recession with no shovel.
Shoulda used the 25th Amendment.
13
We could have had a smart President who respects science and wouldn't have given the store away to the rich...don't let that happen again, Bernie should drop out.
5
People should know better than to attribute stock prices to Presidential policies. The three recent stock market crashes were caused by a dot-com bubble, subprime mortgages, and the coronavirus. Bull and bear markets are cyclical and tend to by caused by singular events having little to do with macroeconomic policy. Of course, none of this stops the President from taking credit and denying blame. But those who know better should not be fooled.
1
Of course, by the end of the week the president will be claiming that he’s never bragged about the stock market performance under his administration.
11
Gives new meaning to an old phrase: "I want my money back!"
2
Trump is completely unfit to deal with this situation.
6
The big question now becomes, Can our country survive another eight months of Trump?
5
and this is what Republican fiscal policy and leadership has brought us to.
4
Don’t you think it is odd that in an error with the most corrupt president we have had the most stock market swings.
It’s as if Wall Street knows that no one in the Trump administration cares about insider trading.
1
How much of the selloff is related to fears about unstable leadership in the White House?
5
I think the Keep America Great Hats are just ironic at this point. It just looks desperate and absurd, wearing one to the CDC. Really. What a juxtaposition-- reality versus fantasy.
7
Hope the Republicans are proud of themselves. Trump's still in office. Buddies with the Saudis and Russians. Gigantic tax cut for the rich. Ballooning deficit. Never, ever again.
5
Russia and Saudi Arabia are colluding to control the world's oil markets.
Is Putin controlling Saudi Arabia?
Controlling the world's oil markets means controlling the price of oil AND controlling the world's supply of oil.
Do you want petroleum products at a price you can afford?
You better do what Vladimir Putin wants you to do.
You better be nice to Vladimir Putin.
With Trump as president, we should be in good shape don't you think?
Don't think Vlad won't cut you off if you don't tow the line.
4
This C19 virus is telling us that we are in a world economy and that there has to be a solid and rational plan of action. Regional independence is over. Blaming President Trump for this crisis is too easy. Everyone already knows that he is a vulgar loudmouth and useless in doing anything constructive. What is real and will effect all of us is a massive loss of liquidity in world markets and banks inability to give low cost loans in local markets. A recession could become something worse if governments engage austerity when what is needed is Keynesian expenditure. World demand for consumer goods will not stop unless money is unavailable. The virus will pass, what will mater is rational action by government.
1
Is this enough? Truly, is this enough for the country that looked at itself after eight years of a competent presidency and decided to hand things over to a vulgar fool? Are the vacant airports and deserted subways enough? Will the empty arenas and ballparks be enough? Is the plunging stock market enough? When the ambulances start hauling away the old folks down the block, will that be enough?
How in god’s name can anyone vote for four more years of this, four more years of a wreck of a man who calls a press conference about a global health emergency and asks a reporter for Fox News how the ratings were for his last town hall?
How does that man carry a precinct, let alone a state, let alone the country?
17
They elected a self proclaimed business genius as president. Who couldn’t read, understand science - or do the business math. Sad.
8
Sometimes if the cat hits hard enough it bounces into orbit...it will be a biggly :-)
1
I want to hear FACTS from our government. To start with, how many test kits have already been shipped, not imaginary millions, real test kits.
Then how many local labs can do the testing and how many per day. Not soon -- today. Most doctor's offices cannot collect test samples to be sent to test labs. So how many samples can be collected today, not soon, and where not imaginary millions.
On NPR this morning I listened to an administrator from the Los Angeles County health services. She was sorta honest. She said that the local labs -- Quest and Labcorp, I think -- are in the process of getting ready to do the testing. She also said that it is not certain how many places can collect samples. She pointed out that "soon" is not "now".
I am nauseated with the pablum we have been fed by the Trump Administration. Hide behind Mike Pence and tell us that "soon" there will be millions of tests. Soon never comes.
Meanwhile, in South Korea they have drive through sample collection locations so that sick patients don't sit for hours in a waiting room ensuring that everyone in that room has Covid-19.
Facts! Cut the lies, we're tired.
24
@DGP :"
You are from liberal California.
Real America voted to cut government waste, to shrink government, and get government out of any kind of health care. Real, centrist places like Michigan and Pennsylvania voted for that.
Just tired of relying on government for everything. Conservatives know the Free Market will take care of corona virus faster than any government CDC. Trust the GOP and Capitalism, not mommy government. Conservatives do not need facts at all.
I'm no fan of Trump but I'll agree with him on this point, the news media is whipping the public into hysteria over Corona.
First, only a small segment of the overall population will get this virus.
Second, of those who get it and many already have and fully recovered they just don't know it, only a tiny segment are at risk. The very same population who are at risk every year from the flu. And of this last group, only a small percentage will have symptoms severe enough to warrant hospitalization and yes some will die just as many do each year from the flu.
You would think this is the plague the way some are reacting or should I say overreacting. I'm not suggesting in any way that this should not be taken seriously, but lets get a grip on the reality of what we're dealing with. Of those who get Corona, 98% will fully recover and I think the percentage is actually higher because this number is based on the cases that have been identified. There are many who have had Corona, thought it was the flu, never sought treatment and have recovered.
Today in Georgia, a single school employee in a single school tested positive, so they shut down all schools in the largest county of the state. Every school was shut down affecting thousands of students. Total lunacy.
Lets STOP the hysteria.
7
@Mark you write "only a small segment of the overall population will get this virus." On what can you base that assertion? It's highly communicable; I can't see any reason it wouldn't spread to almost everyone eventually.
Secondly, you write "Of those who get Corona, 98% will fully recover". The science is still in flux on that number, but if true, that means 2% will not. In the US, that would be over 6 million people.
In other words, there are very good reasons to take this seriously. Shutting down meetings, schools, and whatever else is rational; it's not hysterical at all. That's why national health organizations all over the world, which are apolitical and not at all prone to irrational panic, have done exactly that.
8
@Mark
Things would be less "hysterical" if Trump had any talent for calming people down. But his instincts are chaos and conflict.
As for the media, so far all I've seen is alot of information on what Fauci, the CDC, and the WHO are saying, along with ever growing numbers on who's afflicted and who's died.
Better that people prepare and do what's advised to slow down the spread of the virus, than people (like you) who have absolutely no bona fides, but insist on telling us to stop worrying.
You say that there's "only" so many cases in the US now. That's still twice what was reported on Friday.
You have not provided any viable reason as to why it won't continue to increase.
2
@M. The panic is not coming from health officials, they are urging just the opposite...calm and they are the ones constantly reiterating the points I made.
As far as tiny. China has a population of 1.4 billion. They have 75K Corona cases, that's .001%. I would call that tiny.
Lastly. I never said nor implied this should not be taken seriously. It should, but the risk in no way warrants the reactions we're seeing.
Conservatives love Trump's policies. Trump is a billionaire businessman. He knows what he is doing. I wish liberals would just let him continue doing the excellent job, which is obvious to Conservatives. Especially Rich Corporate Socialists.
6
Maybe, just maybe, we don’t need fiscal stimulus proposals.
Maybe, just maybe, what we need is competent and trustworthy leadership from our Federal government instead.
Rock bottom prices for flights are not going to entice me to get on an airplane with sick people.
14
Would the market have crashed with a different President?
Very debatable.
Under a different President, would we have 1 trillion dollar deficits, at a time when we supposedly have the "greatest economy in our history"?
No, and not debatable.
It's Trump's plan.
He gets 100% blame.
31
Note that it was Trump's friends, Russia and Saudi Arabia, that set off the precipitous drop in oil prices occasioning the market plunge.
26
@Richard Patton
Maybe they are tired of him too and want him out !
@Richard Patton
Russian and Saudi Arabia are Big Oil's proxies.
The latest news is that Wall St. executives will meet with Trump tomorrow. Unless they are there to propose that the 1% give back their tax cuts in order to fund test kits, public health initiatives, and research for a vaccine, they are just looking for another handout.
61
@KS never fails... they are always looking for handouts. While some are upset at the farm subsidies enacted last year (due to the ongoing trade disputes), I think they should be focusing their rage instead at the fact that trump is openly floating ideas like cutting taxes for the airline companies, banks, and corporations. At least in the case of the farm subsidies the money is actually going to people who need it (hopefully... or maybe I'm just naive).
1
I'm just glad Trump will guide us through this. It will be tremendous guidance, really the best guidance this county had ever had. He will restore the stock market and destroy Covid19 with fire and fury, the likes of which this earth had never seen. Never in the entire history of humanity have we had such an able leader.
42
@InMn
Gee. I thought he was going to insult it to death.
1
World markets would probably enjoy a bounce back if Trump just shut his mouth for a day. rump is, by far, the most profoundly ignorant person to be a US President. He couldn't lead his way out of a paper bag. Having him at the pinnacle of government, during a worldwide pandemic, makes the misfortune twice as great.
48
@Joe Miksis That's what US elections are FOR. To locate the most brainless, dishonest and destructive man in North America and give him unlimited power. We do it over and over again. Now it has caught up with us. What a surprise!
Maybe a display of actual competence and effectiveness by this ship of fools would give us the confidence to keep the market stable.
31
HaaHaa....said in that annoying way of that kid on the Simpson's
6
Queue the next policies to privatize profits and socialize losses. If more companies don't start offering paid leave for illness and mandatory quarantines, I can see pitchforks coming out....
18
The US is in a mess and I’m not sure a 75-80 year old Biden, Sanders, Warren, Bloomberg is the answer.
That is not age discrimination. Age discrimination would be if they were 60-65.
2
That is literally age discrimination. ? I'm not necessarily saying I agree or disagree with your point, but you gotta at least call it what it is.
4
@Herschel78 : Is 74 year old Trump the answer?
5
Well, most certainly, an obese, wholly mentally unfit, 73 year old Trump is not the solution either!
5
Shameful that the saudis have been trying to jack up oil prices to keep their profits high during a world wide crisis.
Do these greedy people not have enough money?
8
@Oliver I believe it's the Russians who are the cause of jacked up prices; I read an article stating that the Saudis wanted to cut production in order to stabilize the markets.
1
Cuts in production keep prices up. The failure of oil producers to cut production has led to huge drops in per-barrel value: too many barrels chasing too few buyers. This is going to be bad for domestic oil producers and the people whose households include employees of those companies.
I don't know about you, but I just got so sick and tired of all the winning with Trump as president. Let's see, how about everybody gets sick and the stock markets crash?
Don't worry, America, when the going gets tough, Trump goes golfing.
42
@Lewis Ford : It took Bush Jr. almost 8 years to tank the markets. Trump did it in 3. He's the best at everything!
7
The GOP house of cards is folding like a Trump casino. Older Trump voters need to look at interest rates. 10-year Treasuries are at 0.5%. There is no place to turn now for guaranteed, low-risk yield. Why? Because your savior and his bootlickers in Congress cut taxes for the rich and corporations, and ballooned the federal deficit, and Trump stuck his big fat orange nose where it doesn't belong abusively bullying the Federal Reserve into cutting rates to help his election chances. And now he is looking for more economic stimulus for one reason only, the November elections. To save his own skin. I would love to see Trump's tax returns. We must see them.
41
@Jim
Well, the Fed could pay people to borrow money. That might work.
Best medicine for the market: Tie trump to a rail, coat with tar & feathers. Throw into the ocean near that ship.
23
Democrats of all stripes update your talking points: it's now the Trump/GOP economy...as well as the Trump virus.
20
YES YES YES!!! The best advice I’ve heard in a while.
7
I followed the classic advice when investing in stocks: buy low-cost mutual funds and hold on to them. Don't try to time the market. It worked out fine. No need for online help buying and selling.
2
It is 9am Tuesday, in NZ, and our stock market opens in one hour. If the Australian stock market is anything to go by I'm not optimistic. Though in saying that the Continent of Australia is closer to Asian Continent than NZ. NZ is closer to Ccontinent of Antarctica than Asia, and there are no coronavirus cases there, yet.
3
This is just the beginning.
We have a president who only cares about his reputation, not your investments.
19
Is it just me? Yes, we are going through a bad time. The Coronavirus is scaring the whole world but we have had big virus scares before. Remember the bird flu, Ebola, etc. etc. and we lived through it. This is the time to bring back the calm. Keep yourself safe, work on your immune system, do positive things and don't sell your portfolios when everything is DOWN.
7
@Barb the Lib
you are a lib and I'm the second coming...the markets are not down they are where they were before the Trump inspired madness of red hat wearing crowds took stock price where they couldn't survive.
go to cash now and you lock in your gains from Jan. 20 2017 to now.
Unfortunately. the huge deficits caused by the incessant tax cuts have left the Feds with no ammunition. Had Trump used the dollars to repair the infrastructure instead of squandering it on tax cuts, we would all be in better shape.
24
The Senate is controlled by the Republicans. Mitch McConnell controls the Republicans. President Trump controls Mitch McConnell. If all three had agreed to a massive infrastructure bill, it would have been done. Still waiting.... Waiting for more tests as well....
8
The Democratic Party has the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, one chamber of Congress. The Republican Party has the majority in the Senate, the other chamber, and the Electoral College-appointed president is currently a Republican. Ask Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Majority Leader where all the bills that have been passed in the House are. Ask Trump where his “perfect” and “beautiful” infrastructure plan is.
9
@Jackson Maybe because it would get lost in the stack on Mitch’s desk?
2
As much as I would love to blame Trump (as others here) I really don't think it's his fault. But it is responsibility to deal with it. Yes, you can fault him for his response (if any other than tweets) so far. That may be justified. Yes, he gutted the CDC, but I have no idea if what he cut was in need of cutting or not, or if that would have made a difference now. Well, it seems obvious it was a serios mistake. He does have a point (although a bit guilty of "whataboutism") when he compares death rates (so far at least) to the flu. Of course, that of little comfort for those have contracted the new virus. He might as well have compared the virus to the meteor that killed the dinosaurs (or at least did not do them a good deal of good). Maybe we should compare Trump to the meteor, or the dinosaurs, or the virus and see which could do the most damage in the shortest time. Yes, I know which you will pick.
In any case,on the plus side, people may actually have learned two things from this:
1) strive for better personal health practices
2) strive for a better leadership next time (if we all live long enough to actually have a "next time"
So long and thanks for the fish.
5
@Mark Shyres Any Coronavirus deaths are in addition to flu deaths not in place of (unless all this hand washing and self-isolation actually reduces flu deaths slightly). Old people all take the flu shot, especially those with other health issues. There is no coronavirus shot. So deaths could be very high amongst the old and sick, which could include some of your loved ones. A 50 year old lawyer in Scarsborough is in critical condition, is he old ?
The stock market would probably do a bit better if Trump just stuck to a script .. is there anyone who can take away his phone ?
8
While no one would welcome a pandemic, it may actually be the only thing that may enable us to rid ourselves of Donald Trump and his band of imposters and frauds . A crisis has an interesting way of showing the truth about an individual no matter how many times they may lie about themselves.
25
Most see the crisis as good news for Democrats. But don’t be so sure. The public bottom lines stuff like this and will reward Trump if the virus eases and the economy improves. So this gives him a chance to gain ground despite his incompetence — a chance to win based on pure chance. That’s anything but good news.
5
@michjas
Yes that is possible.
This pandemic may be exactly what the doctor ordered, for Trump.
He's once again doubling down and may get lucky again.
As the virus evolves it could become less virulent. It might slow down and end before summer causing the stock market and the economy to take off.
Trump would you say, “I told you so,” and he'd look like a genius as he gets reelected.
Trump does well with the concept of expected value. He takes the other side of truth which has a low probability but pays off big when it does.
There is always room to game truth because so-called truth is just a probability and is difficult to evaluate - what we assume to be true is mostly a best fit for our biases. Assumed truth can also be manipulated and that goes for science too.
And when he's wrong, he just randomly blames someone - guy's a genius. Heads he wins, tails we lose.
2
Instead of ignoring facts, Mr Trump needs to lead. Unfortunately, His constant lies and false claims have created no confidence in him and administration.
8
I'm pretty sure the economy is tanking because it no longer has Mike Bloomberg's ad buys to sustain it!
13
The drop is not from the virus--it is from the Saudi's flooding the world with cheap oil. The writers from the media needs to go to the WSJ and read articles from business specialists.
1
@Jonathan And last week's drop was caused by what...?
With friends like Saudi Arabia, who needs enemies?
4
So suddenly Trump the fear-monger (who invited to the State of the Union a mother of virtually the only person ever to be killed by an illegal immigrant) is now imploring us to be rationale in assessing risk ...
And he is doing so by comparing COVID19 to the Seasonal Flu, when COVID19 is the deadlier of the two.
4
Pandemics are destructive, without a doubt, but fear and panic are at least as destructive. Stock markets crash because of fear that something could happen, not because something has happened. The flu has still killed more people, month-on-month, since December than COVID-19 has.
Most commentary here gleefully trumpets the hoped-for demise of the Trump administration for its response to the virus. Most commentators praise China for its heavy-handed crackdown, because at least it did "something" and it "defeated" the virus. Even with China's draconian, surveillance-state-enabled quarantines of tens of millions, thousands still died. There is no reason to believe that we would fare any better.
To me, the most frightening thing about this whole COVID-19 issue, combined with the pending presidential election, is that there is a significant minority of people in this country who view the answer to all problems as "more government," and are willing to sacrifice any and all personal freedom or privacy for another handout or phantom security from mother nature.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin
2
So, @JAB, you are saying that Drmocrats and liberals favor surveillance of citizens by the state, and Republicans do not? If so, what evidence do you have for this?
3
@JAB I guess the only time 'more government' is a good thing is when it involves curtailing women's reproductive rights, correct?
@JAB
Well, if you can come up with nongovernmental solutions to our various large and chronic problems, please post them.
Trump just tweeted about flu statistics, while it is true that more people have died of flu but what about people taking a trip on cruise and falling off dead? Never heard of anyone dead after a cruise trip before.
If we are comparing flu and covid-19, we need additional statistical data. What are the demographics of the people died of flu last year? Are they in clusters?
3
@Raj CDC 2018-19...approx. 35 million Americans had flu, approx. 35,000 died...mostly age 65 and older. Thus approx. .001 mortality rate. Way less than Covid-19.
3
Selling will continue until we get at least a 50% drop, like in 2001 and 2008.
Just look at the pictures of empty shelves and empty public squares. That's not a decline in GDP, that's down to zero and then negative as revenue falls under break-even. Can't even fire sale assets when no one is buying. We will see loan defaults and banks going under.
Get ready for deflation. Better buy a wheelbarrow before they're sold out so you can cart your money around.
5
Actually, the wheel barrow analogy applies to INFLATION (too much worthless money in circulation), not to deflation (not enough scarce money in circulation).
2
@Dr Steve
Good point! With hyper-inflation the currency is devalued, not assets.
What he means is get a wheelbarrow or shopping cart now, because is about all the belongings a "middle class" family will have :'(
1
FDR famously told Americans ”we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Markets - are proving FDR right.
It's a total irrational behavior at its worst.
You would think these folks on the Wall Street who lecture us in normal times on investments - would look in the mirror and ask who is needing some advice.
Luckily, nothing affects me - even if markets go down to 1970's levels - but really, these folks need to get hold of themselves.
Like advised for Wuhan - they need to quarantine themselves from this herd mentality.
Sure, understandable to react to airlines and leisure industry showing strains - but to condemn American economy - to a 3rd world level - when February job numbers were more than robust.
But nothing any of us says here will help calm markets when fear has gripped it in it's tight embrace.
3
Markets are irrational by nature, to some degree. But like no one person is a statistic, no one person in the market wants to hold on to an asset while everyone else is selling theirs. In the aggregate it’s irrational, but to one person there’s no other choice! So it’s not really that irrational after all, is it?
2
Always interesting that the smallest blip--one of thousands of oul tankers being pirated, a s heduled "cleaning" of an oil refinery--always seems to make the price of gas at the pump rise immediately and as high as the public eill bear. But whst seems to be a worldwide crash of oil-company and crude oil prices doesn't quite seem to have the equivalent dramatic instantaneous decrease of gasoline, particularly higher grades. I would say it's curious, but one would have to have been git in the head by a hammer to actually find it so.
19
Interesting how governments can mobilize to remove incorrect and misleading information about the coronavirus from the internet but when it comes to political lies, hate speech and false “news” stories, it says it can’t be done. Just goes to show what is really going on and who is complicit.
9
One would think that with Trump's favorite countries he'd be able to talk them into making a grand oil bargain. Guess he was too busy getting out all the facts on the Coronavirus.
10
This is when the nation needs its leaders to show leadership. No outbursts by Trump lately - maybe the circuit breaker rule also applies to him as well!
They've got the circuit breaker idea from electricity. My power board has a circuit breaker on it. Rather weird that they apply this to trading in stocks - some could call it price fixing. Or it doesn't say much about humans application of buying and selling shares on the stock market. Lordy, and to think the whole worlds economic health depends on stock markets. It's a MAD world!
7
I'm not worried as our New Zealand government is prudent and has been saving for this rainy day. No tax cuts for the rich who now want Corporate Welfare to prop them up during a down turn n trade. There has been a social welfare set up to prop up businesses during this economic downturn in NZ as our government doesn't have trillions of dollars of debt like the USA government has. Our governments financial books are a lot healthier than the USA's. USA has no room to move because of irresponsible Republican government taking off banking and financial market laws that were there to stop this kind of crash from happening because of irresponsible borrowing; i.e. Dodd-Frank Act. (There was a Dodd-Frank roll back on small banks in 2018) You need financial controls on markets and lenders, to protect your nations economic health.
32
"Britain targets virus-related disinformation." Does this mean Britain will block our president from communicating to the British public ? Is there any way we can learn what they're blocking so as to protect ourselves from his misinformation ?
25
Ah yes, "options are expected to include targeted tax relief." How many times can one propose tax relief for every problem we have in America? For Republicans the answer is Every Single Time. How about instead the proposal include tax increases on the very wealthy and corporations. We then use that money in the patriotic fight to save lives?
26
@John L
It's called disaster capitalism or the shock doctrine.
You wait for - or engineer - a disaster then move in to take advantage of the confusion with money and a plan that favors your special interest group. The World Bank and CIA and multinationals have been doing this around the world for years. Happened with Katrina also:
"I watched hordes of private military contractors descend on the flooded city to find ways to profit from the disaster, even as thousands of the city’s residents, abandoned by their government, were treated like dangerous criminals just for trying to survive.
I started to notice the same tactics in disaster zones around the world. I used the term “shock doctrine” to describe the brutal tactic of using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock – wars, coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes or natural disasters – to push through radical pro-corporate measures, often called “shock therapy”. Though Trump breaks the mould in some ways, his shock tactics do follow a script, and one that is familiar from other countries that have had rapid changes imposed under the cover of crisis."
- Naomi Klein
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/06/naomi-klein-how-power-profits-from-disaster
4
03/09/20
Here’s the scoop:
There’s 4 forces interacting:
1.Global over-reaction to coronavirus
2.U.S. equities market-cap to gdp-ratio hit ~150% @ DJIA 29K
3.Oil prices tanking (coronavirus-slowdown + market-glut + pricewar + no consensus yet on prodcution-cutbacks)
4.Misguided ‘pundits’ / ‘experts’ requesting massive new stimulus.
Analysis / solutions:
1.The media must take greater-responsibility and in an immediate, concerted, globalized-campaign: communicate:
A)Coronavirus / covid-19 is NOT as severe as influenza, or many other common viruses, and the indcident-rate and mortality-rate is actually lower than common flu. People die daily from viruses, influenza, common flu, but it’s not widely reported
B)In perspective: within a week or so it’ll no longer be an issue on, comparable to the Y2K-computer scare, and the incident-rate in China has already decreased.
2.While it is true the last time U.S. equities market-cap = ~ 150% of GDP, it was March 2000 (just prior to the dot.com bubble-burst) the ‘froth’ in the March 2000 stock-market was due to no-revenue / no-earning ‘high-flying’ stocks. The March 2020 stock-market is NOT similarly over-priced: share-prices of companies are backed by real revenue & earnings, AND company balance-sheets & assets & growth-rates justify their multiples. Also, the March 2020 market-prices of total quantified-assets reflected in U.S. equities correctly-equate to share-prices (at DJIA 29K.) DJIA 24K = extraordinary buying-opportunity
@Fortitudine Vincimus.
Analysis:
3. Another case of Trump Cognitive Dissonance in not acknowledging inconvenient facts and blaming the Press.
The is how Democracy dies--by first attacking the bearers of bad news.
If the 2% fatality rate holds, just 1.71 million people in the USA getting it will cause as many deaths as the flu, which 35 million get--that's a rate 20x greater! If, somehow, Capt. Chaos is right and it's more like 1%, that's STILL 10x deadlier than the flu. That's according to the CDC's Flu numbers for the 2018-2019 season. It's simple arithmetic.
3
@Fortitudine Vincimus. Concerning #1, you are parroting Trump. The mortality rate of influenza is .1%. The mortality rate of Covid-19 (per the World Health Organization, not trump) is 3.4%. That’s more than three times as deadly.
2
Russia and Saudi Arabia made chumps out of stock traders. How could you let yourselves be duped so easily by this new tactic? I'm not even military and I figured this out at second glance.
2
So when Is the president going to address the nation from the Oval Office??
3
@freeasabird
What is the point?
Tell more lies?
He should just stop tweeting.
I know--in my dreams....
2
@freeasabird
What office?
You mean golf cart...
6
Of course Trump's first suggestion for coronavirus prevention was "close the Mexican border". I have even seen his supporters on here claiming Chinese are sneaking into America that way.
Hoo boy. I suppose Hillary's pizza parlor is delivering to them, too.
18
Not to worry, the brilliant and heroic Trump, Trump Jr. Jared, Ivanka, Hannity, Dobbs, Ingraham, Limbaugh, and the holdover Mensa members Bush 43 and Brownie have everything under control.
9
Rather ironic that it took the Black Plague to end feudalism back in the Middle Ages...
11
Trump finally reacts to Coronavirus.
He calls off the election!
5
Hey don’t joke. He just might, citing the risk of spreading the disease.
Such a sense of urgency from the White House! Where's the deal maker? Aren't Putin and MBS his best buds, his pally wals? Him and his scrawny son-in-law should be all over this by now and turning to the advantage of American oil companies because "deals are easy". One phone call is all it should take.
Where are they? Playing golf.
12
McConnell and company are mysteriously quiet. Is this an outcome that could have been avoided? Times up?
11
Just leave him out on the golf course--that would be doing us all a favor and give something toward making things better for the market and for the crisis that is Covid19.
(I know this is a rather foolish statement right now, and I mean no disrespect toward this very critical time, but I just had to say something that lets off the pressure somewhat from the frustration felt in response to the complete lack of leadership on the part of this president).
Trump's being so incredibly clueless is absolutely astounding.
8
@Cate Don’t worry about your statement. I got the giggles just thinking of trump WALKING all the way to the clubhouse. Just blowing off some steam.
3
Has Trump filed for Chapter 11 yet?
4
@Opinioned!
NO, but America is preparing its papers.
2
...cont...
3.There’ll be an approx 50% upside-retracement in WTI-crude-prices off the low. (i.e. @ ~ 3pm 03/09/20) from ~ $30 to ~ $45 pr brrl which is closer 2 near-term fair-market-value. From there, Russia & OPEC will work out the supply-equation, and then expect $2 upside gain for every $1 downside-risk til ~$55 per barrel.
4.Calling for stimulus is a pathetic, weak & misguided panic. The American economy, global-economy, equities, bonds & oil are all in long-term secular upside pattern, as fundamentals justify. There’s already more ample liquidity & cash searching for investment. When the dust settles where’s it going to go? It’ll rush back into U.S. equities, which remain the most sought-after, most secure, and highest returning ‘safe’ asset class in the world. Bond-yields < 1% won’t last very long. Sell bonds buy stocks.
This has been the greatest over-reaction in recent times, the result of a very temporary self-fulfilling prophecy, partially due in part to program-trading and algo’s feeding off each other.
Through the lens of history this’ll be considered a text-book case of a global over-reaction, and those who buy when there’s ‘blood in the streets’ will be rewarded.
03/09/20
Based on: U.S. GDP, fed-funds-rate, the lack of attractive global-alteratives, U.S. energy-independence, U.S. employment-rate & per-capita-household-wealth and U.S. corp-earnings, low tax-rates and deregulation, U.S. equities can justify trading as high as 165% of GDP.
1
I can't wait to see how they blame this on Obama.
8
While Be Best crows about her new tennis pavilion on Twitter and the Orange Menace golfs in Florida for a few days, Americans are dying and losing their retirement savings. Why would anyone ever vote for trump again?
17
@John I ask that question every single day. A lot of people are driven by hate, fear, and incredible stupidity.
President Trump, be the leader and winner that you tell us you are!
1
I do not think any of us wanted a possible pandemic, as well as this kind of turmoil in the market.
On the other hand, if this will assist us in ridding ourselves of the current occupant in the WH, then it may well be worth it.
On the other hand, knowing the current occupant, he will find some kind of way to blame the lack of preparation on anyone but himself and his cronies and his mostly mindless supporters will just jump on board as they always do.
We are indeed living in the strangest of times and one must keep on asking; how in the world did we end up here?
15
@TE The erosion of our public education system is a good place to start.
How much has spending dropped in the past days?
While all of this panic is going on, I really have to wonder about the powerful and wealthy "Masters of the Universe" who are so afraid of their shadows that one just has to wonder about where their actual strength is.
And these are the people who feel that they, and only they, can tell the rest of us what to do, how to live, et cetera.
6
This is one of the best explanatory articles I've read in a while.
You did a great job describing all of the connections among the economic sectors and markets.
Thanks !
6
Tax the rich now and spend the money on infrastructure. That's the only way out of this mess.
20
Donald Trump fails to mention that the 37,000 deaths from flu were out of over 40 million cases and about 1 million hospitalizations. If we wind up seeing over 40 million Americans contracting the coronavirus, the current death rate of about 4% would translate into 1.6 million deaths and it would be the single greatest cause of death, more than a third of all deaths. This is not the common cold, folks. Quarantines are not going to work forever. There will likely be a period when quarantines become worthless - when community spread swallows up their boundaries - before there is a vaccine with which to treat people. Trump had better hope the summer heat slows the virus before it starts up again in the Fall. (Of course,, if it does, he'll probably go around claiming it has "just miraculously disappeared" so we can all forget about it; he never learns his lessons ....)
14
And what if there's a third shoe to drop?
N Korea, not a bad time to get spunky.
Russia? Putin would like to add to his portfolio of properties.
Turkey vis a vis Syria?
Assad's Syria wiping out any and all "threats"?
The UK's component parts and their plans to remove themselves from the union?
Keep your fingers crossed, things could get bumpy.
14
@JFR
Actually, I forgot the biggest shoe of them all ... Trump's
need to distract and divert blame may well lead him
to do something terribly dramatic and destructive.
8
Today, we are all Trump Casino bond holders.
We are all Deutsche Bank bankers.
Trump Airline employees.
Trump tower plumbing contractors.
Like it or not.
It's not as if we weren't warned.
32
I read that USA is the number one oil producer in the world and yet the USA government never paid down government debt. Totally irresponsible and reckless.
This could be an indirect war on the USA without using weapons as Russia refuses to cut back on oil production. Just saying!
11
@Jonathan I myself am wondering what will happen if (when?) the corona virus starts circulating at Mar-a-Lago.
11
So who is discovering the vaccine? Is it Trump all by himself, like his buddy Kim did it once? Or is a something tasked to Jared?
9
Trump wanted to own the rise of the markets. He's in full panic mode now, just like the markets themselves, because he knows that Americans will believe he owns the losses too. If there is any upside to this virus, it is that this Black Swan will take down the worst Black Swan of all.
9
@Rick Morris : No. After the events of the last three years, it is clear to me that Americans will not hold him accountable for anything.
4
@Rick Morris His voters will NOT blame him for any of this, despite his lies and obvious failures to contain the virus at the beginning.
These people have proven, over and over again, that they believe ANYTHING that Trump and Fox News tells them. Anything.
1
This is why I kept going to the bathroom to cry on November 9 2016. Something bad would surely happen and this so called man would be exactly the worst person to be in charge.
12
Bread and circuses used to be given away to folks in Rome so that they would "re-elect" the emperor. Today our folks get Fox News and our "nobility" get rich.
7
So Trump plays golf while the economy tanks and says, "It's not so bad, and if it is bad, it's the medias' fault." I'm sure the media have been making up ALL the news about coronavirus worldwide cases and deaths, and making up ALL the facts about worldwide economic downturns. Trump may well be the most ignorant American politician ever elected. He knows nothing, and wants to know nothing, of the facts, and views everything through his raging id-centric narcissism. He is a walking, breathing natural disaster, wreaking havoc on anything he comes near.
13
I don't want people's retirement plans to suffer; I don't want service industry workers to lose their jobs; I don't want the world's largest industry--tourism--to implode, but I really, really want to see Donald Trump crash and burn! What level of worldwide suffering we can withstand in order to free ourselves of Trump?
18
The Republicans talking about fiscal stimulus proposals?
That's rich.
18
@Adam I know. Anybody who still believes the GOP is about fiscal responsibility needs this bridge I'm selling.
3
I know many people who voted for Trump. EVERY one of them said his business acumen was one of the reasons. WHEN are we going to see any evidence of that alleged business acumen? Panic rate cuts and making believe that coronavirus is no big deal will not stabilize the Markets.
13
Time for the Fed to bail out the wealthy 10% of Americans who own 90% of all stocks.
After all, the Nasdaq is now Only up 27% from it's December 17th 2018 (less than 15 months ago) low of 6,304.
This is an unacceptable rate of return.
Time to penalize savers with negative savings rates...and bail out those 10 per-centers who own all the stocks.
16
@John : And for Congress to bail out the airlines and the oil companies.
1
Brexit, Border Walls and Refugees
Perhaps this is just the remedy and "correction" the world needs to remind us all that we are all inter-connected and is a message to those who think that money, power and domination are the ultimate goals for the limited time one has on this place called to Earth.
Countries can put up walls to keep the unwanted out, cast refuges from war-torn countries to the side and vote to isolate themselves from others but in the end we are all one people living on this planet and kindness, fairness and compassion for each other are the true equities that we all need to be mindful of.
If it takes a small tiny virus to make people stand to attention and realize this and if it helps show that the "emperor has no clothes" so be it.
I only hope not too many people are hurt along the way.
16
It would be nice if at least one of these articles contained an essential truth: markets do not believe that Donald Trump and his administration are competent to handle the situation. No one seems willing to mention this obvious truth. In a crisis, faith in government is critical. There really isn't any at present.
35
I guess they figured it was pretty obvious to adults. Which it is.
3
@Gene An "essential truth" only in your biased narrative pushing eyes.
Markets are crashing all around the world. Are they all being led by Trump? Did Trump create the virus?
Give the ugly partisanship a rest.
The most important thing is that the Fox News media bubble, at this very moment, has one single headline stating that the markets are collapsing, oil prices are collapsing, and a virus is spreading globally. For the last few weeks of this looming crisis, main headlines have included Trump’s nicknames for Democratic primary candidates and Bill Clinton apologizing to Monica Lewinsky (check your calendar: yes, it’s 2020 and they still call that newsworthy).
If anything is to change in this country, that’s where reality needs to punch through. And thankfully today it has, if only briefly.
16
So this is what it looked like when Rome burned and Nero fiddled. Trump seems incapable of understanding that this is not about him, it is about World Health, a pandemic. While his tax policies may be an issue, no one blames HIM for the pandemic. But he can't grasp that. To him it is about his pride - everything he does is PERFECT. Well, may be is right. We are now in the PERFECT storm, a pandemic AND a trade war between the Saudis and the Russians. Anyone have a violin?
14
Europeans are calling for a coordinated European response to the financial mess. For stimulus, they are already up against zero or negative interest rates. The most reasonable solution is (gasp!) ... spending!
Since Europe can borrow for almost zero interest, now is the time to update those hospitals, railways, universities, subsidise energy-saving renovations, you name it. Merkel's debt phobia has held Europe back this way. She's plenty smart but her PhD in nuclear physics is no help there.
Keeps people at work, earning, spending and paying taxes, rather than receiving benefits.
The intervening pain, as yes this won't be perfect, will be handled just like any country already does: in the USA, this would be turn blue or drop dead, and then a rocketing recovery for some survivors but only some who were well off already; in Europe probably much less damage and a less exuberant but less lopsided return to whatever normalcy might be these days.
3
@Groucho marxist "Keeps people at work" How do you keep people at work when they are under quarantined? We are in uncharted territory here.
2
@Tran Trong
Sorry to be unclear. I was referring to how recovery from recession and very low interest rates may work together. Coronavirus will pass as an acute and epidemic disease and was not the only cause for the market crash. There were and are other factors beyond it but others are more qualified to discuss them.
1
So, we're doing "economic stimulus" rather than proving everyone with health insurance, which, under the current system, would be a boon to medical stocks? And provide us all with health insurance.
Stop throwing money at corporations who do nothing but decadently buy back their own stock out of arrogance, let the business cycle play through, and make sure regular people can afford economic downturns through that "New Deal" we figured out 80-something years ago.
... problem solved. But wait, giving regular folk money is entitlements, but giving multi-billion corporations bailouts, which the act as if they're entitled to, is fine?
We really do have the best government money can buy.
28
The market (and health care) wisdom of Larry Kudlow, as of Feb. 25: “We have contained this, I won’t say airtight but pretty close to airtight,”
“The business and the economic side, I don’t think it’s going to be an economic tragedy at all. There’ll be some stumbles.”
“I just think people should be as calm as possible in assessing this.”
Looks like the market has a slightly different perspective. Kudlow has such a knack for calling the market so so wrong.
17
@jaco
Why would an increase in oil supply by itself crash US stock markets? Perhaps it's bad for the energy sector but for many other sectors it is good news.
The Saudi/Russia situation hurts today because it's a sign of an overall irrational reaction to a demand shock. It's more chaos piled on the other chaos.
@jaco
Who is Kudlow? Nobody...
2
So where is Trump in this? He's supposed to be the leader. Maybe he's crying over his fossil fuels investments.
13
Just a simple question, if the interest rates are low, why my credit card rates keep climbing up?
17
I’d like to know where the money goes when the stock market tanks. They say which companies, lost what amount of value but they don’t say who gained it- the money doesn’t simply dissolve, right? Someone must get it? Where did all the money for wages go?
2
You are correct. The money just moves around. Right now, scared money is moving into so-called safe assets, like government bonds and gold.
3
The rich come up with ingenious ways to grab it all back. Watch prices skyrocket for essentials.
1
This can happen far more easily when there is an absence of credible leadership in Washington. For relief the markets have to depend on the illiterate Trump or the uncaring McConnell.
6
Elliott: OK, he's a man from outer space and we're taking him to his spaceship.
Greg: Well, can't he just beam up?
Elliott: This is reality, Greg.
--- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Well yes people this is reality, except this time its name is Trump
and it's us who are being beamed away.
6
the Covid-19 prevention train left the station a more than a month ago and the mitigation train is starting its roll out of the station while Trump is struggling to understand what "mitigation" means.
19
Economic stimulus is economic engineering, a socialist intervention for Conservatives; as is paid sick leave.
10
Friday Larry Kudlow said 'Long-term investors should think seriously about buying". Go Kudlow!!
6
@C
Kudlow imagination cannot go beyond stock profiting, good luck running economy on that burroo....
@C
Kudlow imagination cannot go beyond stock profiting, good luck running economy on that .........
@C ...maybe buy when the Dow's down to 14,000 again...
1
If this is the price we must pay to rid ourselves of Trump, then so be it!
15
I think this qualifies as a crash. Time to play golf.
11
To explain todays stock market plunge, the Russian and Saudi Arabian oil price war, Donald Trump needs to convince his "cult" that all of this is controlled by Obama, the Democrats and the mainstream media. I know that 61 percent of non-college-educated white voters cast their ballots for Republicans but are these same people going to continue to believe what comes out of Donald Trumps mouth?
17
Should we be surprised about a market correction? No! But this steep a decline is the reckoning of the incompetent leadership of Trump. I honestly expected a significant downturn around now 1.5-2 yrs post another idiotic deficit driving Trump/republican tax cut. I assumed it would be because of the economic reality of the 10% increase in the national debt and the lack of economy improving policies like infrastructure spending etc. I was wrong-- it is simply because of Trump's failed leadership in a real crisis and there are surely more to come over the next 5 yrs.
9
New York Times et al are to blame. My Chinese counterparts are open for business. Factories re-opened. My emails tell me this, but the New York Times does not. So, who is to blame for manufacturing a financial crisis out of a bad flu? This is straight up crowd panic. Extra Extra! Read all about it.
3
@Brooklyn you do realize markets all over the world are tanking right? Not just in the US. I don't have time to address the bad flu stupidity portion. Please do your community a favor and educate yourself on this crisis before speaking publicly.
8
@Brooklyn You should go long on the market so when the common man finds out that information you’ll win big!
4
We have the wrong president for a situation like this. Let's face it; he's the wrong president for any situation but with this one in comes into glaring and upsetting clarity.
You cannot have a soiopthaic narcissist who insists he knows more than anybody, to lead during these times. We need somebody who instinctively listens to and acknowledges the experts expertise.
If I needed bankruptcy advice or info about Putin I would call Trump. Other than that, we should seriously consider Article 25.
13
Trump blames the media for the market plunge. Is it the parts that are reporting that he lies about the coronavirus that is to blame?
4
Surely the GOP Senate, Trump and company (friends, relatives, and other thieves, have stolen enough from America to bring back the stock market as well as have some leftover for some golf and chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago.
5
Hey maybe the federal government can invest a trillion or two in public works or new technology or public health......oh wait the Republicans already gave that money away to their millionaire and billionaire contributors.
Don't worry folks, public health expert Donald Trump says it's all a hoax. Unbelievably there are still people that believe him.
Vote out Trump and his Republican accomplices - every single one of them.
12
Trump wears this downturn. If he can ride it up then he will have to ride it down. It could not happen to a better charlatan! The Ides of March!
8
While self-aggrandizing Navel-orange Nero fiddles, obfuscates, lies, stumbles, fantasizes, the market goes into arrhythmia and an epidemic stalks. Democratic strategists, please assure us that at this most critical juncture, you are prepared to advise the remaining contestants to do away with the bluster, the heart-rending anecdotes and the hoary, too oft-used applause lines. There is no time for anything other than reasoned and achievable actions to be readied for implementation as early as possible. Our fates are truly hanging in a very unreliable balance.
7
@David The hate from the far left is unprecedented.
Maybe Biden's son can take his $50,000 a month do nothing job funds and buy stocks to prop up the market?
2
@MM
Sure, why not, as if that’s germane, or all the moment demands. Since Milken’s been freed to return to his rapacious ways and is full-on raking it in, why leave him out? Spawn-of-Nero are round-the-clock vacuuming up every piece of tender they can - don’t you think they’d be doing Daddy proud by redistributing their newfound horde?
The willing blindness on the right has no equal - I won’t live long enough to understand how so many have been more than okay with their health and wealth being put in such jeopardy.
4
I'm going to take flack for this, but this whole situation is fertile ground for Candidate Sanders.
9
Mark Meadows, Mr. Austerity, is chief of staff.
Welcome to the end of days.
Like Bush II, Trump has blown up a healthy economy and brought more dis-order to the world.
16
" Trump has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy for his companies six times. Three of the casino bankruptcies came during the recession of the early 1990s and the Gulf War , both of which contributed to hard times in Atlantic City, New Jersey's gambling facilities. He also entered a Manhattan hotel and two casino holding companies into bankruptcy.
Donald Trump Business Bankruptcies - List and Reasons
www.thoughtco.com/donald-trump-business-bankruptcies "
This is the Finale of Apprentice and Trump's 7th bankruptcy in the name of National Treasury under his watch.
I am concerned that we haven't seen the bottom yet as long as he is around.
17
a market correction into a bear market is NOT an entry point for deflation.
2
The recent actions of Saudi Arabia and Russia highlight serious deficiencies of the current world order. If there was ever a time for the nations of the world to cooperate and collaborate it is now. But instead we get confrontation and indignation. The US, EU and UN should censure and sanction both countries to show their resolve and disappointment.
14
Since The Donald is quick to take credit for a rising stock market I’m sure he will now accept the blame for a cratering stock market.
29
Mnuchin, Kudlow and Wall Street operators will meet at the White House tomorrow. Guaranteed outcome is that the big boys will net boatloads of cash out of this catastrophe and the little people will lose their savings, retirements, go broke in the process. It happens every time.
42
Mr. Trump, there is one very simple way to calm the markets. Just once, let someone else do the talking.
Just once.
20
I thought you were going to ask him to resign as of noon tomorrow.
Oh well
4
That would only leave Pence :/
There are three Trump-based factors behind this market meltdown:
1) The pre-virus market was inflated on Trump's sugar high caused by taking tax dollars that should have gone to roads and health and giving them to wealthier Americans who had nothing else to do but buy stocks, which I admit doing as well. This sugar high was bound to deflate as the bill came due.
2) Mr Trump's insanely incompetent management of the virus challenge.
3) Saudi Arabia's oil war. Mr Trump protected MBS over the murder of the Washington Post journalist, but MBS dumps this oil war into Mr Trump's lap. That's what friends are for.
47
The companies who lead in these stock market drops and very low yields in Treasury Bonds mainly are the same companies that adopted methods of computerized inventory management, the just-in-time coupled sometimes with first-in first-out buying and distributions. Now they are demanding bail outs from us because consumer buying has emptied their shelves, and their market values, prices, and profits are tanking, just as rational people would predict in circumstances like this. Japan, Ford, and Iacocca come to mind. For-profit healthcare companies and private sector health insurance companies also are complicit in their roll over of people for profits. Again, they are begging for the largess of the American people, so much so the proposal is that we pay for their greed, and for leave pay for their employees. This, when everyone knows they have more than enough currency solely in off-shore banks to handle leave pay with no problem. My concern is for workers who are having to navigate bungling corporate narcissism and insipid liars. As for me and mine, we will never forgive the corporate masters of the world for getting us in this situation. If it wasn't the virus, it would be something else that exposes American capitalism for what it really is, a tired old man shrieking, 'Its not my fault, Its not my fault!'
11
So, Trump's advisers are briefing him on a complex topic?
Sincere best wishes to them, and, well, to everyone else that his decisions might affect.
13
Am I the only one who thinks that people dying of a virus that has no treatment is worse than share holders having to sell some shares?
28
So, a lot of rich people lost stock value. And others who can afford it will gobble up those devalued stocks. Doesn't mean anything for the rest of us.
Oh, but stocks always make sensationalist headlines though.
6
@J.S.
do you have a 401k or ever hope to have one or any form of retirement income?
2
Many people have pensions and retirement money in stocks. But if you are retiring 10 years from now this is nothing.
2
I will error on the side of caution here and say if I remember correctly, over 60 percent of stock is owned by less than 10 percent of the population. The median 401k is 65 thousand dollars. Not even enough for 2 years of retirement. Soon to be retirees are going from less than 2 years to a single year.
Don't get me wrong, my sympathies still go out to these median(ish) or less 401k holders, but let's be honest here, the stock market tumbling has very little direct effect, and only minor indirect effects on American's writ large.
Yes, this is a deep slide.
But regardless . - you all know - our President will be reelected in November.
Biden?? Please.
5
@DB, Good luck with that! I hear Trump astounded the CDC doctors the other day. They couldn't understand how he knew so much. Good luck to your president and I hear he has some steak to sell you!
3
Amidst many ,Wall Street “ the luxury international trade “ shop sometimes forcefully using their open—closed sign hanging from the door .
Spinning periodically by the so called Real Economy [Supply and Demand ], however also by economic/financial “remains” of striving for national selfishness [ „Independence “].
If the far lefties think what is happening now is cute, funny, etc, they have serious issues. Very serious.
By the way, If a Democrat gets in office, the country will still continue its long slow slide. You are no better than the Republicans.
1
Oh, we’re way better than Republicans. We have a few things called empathy and moral integrity. They’re proud of lacking one, and confuse the other with evil.
10
@MM, how odd.
Do you not recall that President Obama took office during a recession, and left after a long economic recovery? Sure, the stock market took a jump after the tax cuts ... and now it is correcting for other reasons.
7
@MM, how odd.
Do you not recall that President Obama took office during a recession, and left after a long economic recovery? Sure, the stock market took a jump after the tax cuts during Trump's presidency ... and now it is correcting for other reasons.
If you think "he far lefties think what is happening now is cute, funny, etc", then you're imagining things, and you might have serious issues.
4
I'm waiting for Trump to blame the stock slide on President Obama.
28
Oh man where is Obama when you need him the most? An intelligent, calm leader to lead the world through this crisis.
36
Probably off parasailing with Richard Branson. It’s fun to be a celebrity. He should have flung himself on the White House steps to prevent trump being sworn in. They all knew.
3
This is mostly because of Trump's little playmate, Putin. Refusing to accept oil increases in wake of pandemic kind of does this.
10
Will someone please call Obama to straighten this out?!
13
Criminal Trump as we know was bankrupt monetarily throughout his pathetic life as well as bankrupt morally.
Unfortunately for lower and middle class Americans his lies have hurt all of us.
15
My biggest fear is the headline Trump Announces US To Declare Bankruptcy
8
CNN Monday 3/9
General Election: Trump vs Biden Biden 53 — Trump 43 Biden +10
6
LOL. Life savings in the casino? Let me paraphrase the dotard: “Sad!”
5
The Obama recovery has had about all the Trump bumbling it can take.
16
Is the WH huge unpreparedness in Hurricane Maria and this virus pandemic almost solely how President Rump normally behaves - disinterestedly re we the people, and his minute to minute obsession with himself - or are his advisers only a bit less ignorant than he?
6
Time for a version of Yang's idea: Give everyone $1,000 to ease the coming economic hardships. Pay for it by taxing the rich. That's the best way to calm the market. Do that along with speaking the truth and having only doctors and scientists in speaking roles for the administration. Get the politics out of there.
12
@Mary yes, but rather than just "tax the rich," pay for it by taxing everyone proportionally. The rich will pay more, the poor will pay less, but everyone will contribute.
2
Maybe the message is that money is not important after all. What is in our hearts and how we treat others is.
In the end all we have is one another.
6
We will now see whether President Trump will meet the greatest challenge of his presidency and he will be measured (ironically) by what President Obama achieved with TARP.
There is a Hungarian novel entitled "They Were Found Wanting" by Miklos Banffy on how the Hungarian aristocracy failed in its leadership of Transylvania under Austria-Hungary.
I hope for all our sake this title does not prove apt of our leaders today.
3
@Stuart
TARP was passed during the Bush administration.
Don't get me wrong; I think Obama did very well at crisis management, particularly regarding the auto industry. But the Republicans in the fall of 2008, to their credit, did some good once they woke up to the crisis.
A big concern I have this time is the current crowd isn't capable of doing that.
1
Early in his administration, Trump initiated a tax cut for the
very rich, which has created an enormous deficit. That rules out fiscal spending, which might help. So now, we're like a sinking ship with nothing to throw overboard.
13
Financial adjustments? How about pandemic prevention measures?
5
When does a "plunge" become a "crash"? Nearly all the gains under Trump have just been erased! And, this is a world-wide economic crash triggered by an over dependence on oil and the global spread of the coronavirus; policies like our tax cuts that benefit the rich that do not invest in the overall economy leaving it even more vulnerable to a recession; over investment in defense; roll backs in financial regulations; and no or dis-investment in education, the environment, or health care. It looks like the perfect economic storm where the Trump administration failed to heed the lessons of 2008 and the Great Recession.
15
@Sarah via Bruce R: The exact quote (attributed to Peter Drucker and other management types) is "muddle through with a purpose." That makes sense if there's a true leader in charge, and a team that trusts her or him. The purpose of the crew at the White House, by contrast, is to get 45 to his next golf junket.
9
It's going to take Democrats to clean up another mess made by republicans.
26
Doesn't our president usually file for bankruptcy when he gets into this kind of trouble? Can the U.S. declare bankruptcy?
14
Over 50% of American has known that the Emperor has no clothes. When will the rest realize this?
21
I predict nowish.
3
Per usual, Wall Street and Financial markets take time to catch up. This is about the Saudi’s decision to flood the market with cheap crude. See you all at weeks end when the Dow will be up 1500...depending on how long the Saudis hold out...
Mortality of Corona...falling
Cases...increasing proportional to increased testing rates
We’ve done this before, especially with viruses that afflict mostly the old and compromised...we get used to it. 18,000-30,000 dead every year in this country from the flu, everyone goes about their business, all day, every day...
1
Stop hyperventilating. The Saudi's triggered this by affecting fossil fuels stocks at the same time fears of the virus are heightened. It's a conglomeration of emotions reaching a crescendo of disaster, possibly by design. Where is a leader to show the traders what is behind this? Why is Wall Street allowing itself to be manipulated by the Saudi actions? Are we that shortsighted and disorganized? It's obvious from the degree of decline that the stocks decline is mostly due to institutional investment companies, so instead of everyone reflexively trying to keep up with second by second moves in the markets, everyone take a few minutes to call each other and say hey!, we're being made chumps by the Saudi's and Russians who aggravated the fears that started this. You all saw how quickly China began recovering after just two months, so why the panicking? Stop instantaneous focus and refocus long term.
3
@PATRICK
I thought you called it day?
So in truth you don't live in a thoughtful state rather a confused state.
1
@Mary Elizabeth Lease
Uh? having problems? How do I attract you? Who do you represent? I'm curious.
Looks like Trump's plan to address wealth inequality is working out splendidly!
6
Right now, Trump is parading around the next neighborhood over as he heads to his fundraiser.
Helicopters above, traffic jammed. Supporters are lining the roads and cheering. This is happening as the economy might be collapsing and daughters in Seattle cry for their dying mothers in the nursing home.
The cult thrives, all the way to the grave.
21
Fear of the unknown. In this case, the system (including the NYSE) is outrageously ridiculous. In America alone, 90 people die daily in auto accidents. 830 people die daily from obesity. To repeat, fear of the unkown, (almost always).
1
@Easy Goer, thanks for putting this in perspective. Of course, no one needs to be concerned about "catching" obesity.
3
List of wars described as oil wars
Since humanity is so dependent on petroleum fuel, many conflicts have broken out over its production and consumption
During World War I (1914–1919), certain operations were planned specifically to secure oil resources.
Chaco War (1932–1935)
World War II (1939–1945):
Biafran War, also known as the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970)
Saddam Hussein wars
Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988)
Gulf War (1990–1991)
Iraqi no-fly zones conflicts (1992–2003)
Iraq War (2003–present)
Conflict in the Niger Delta (2004–present)
Heglig Crisis, South Sudan–Sudan border conflict (2012)
1
With global population aging and birth-rate falling a population collapse is looming in about 20 years give or take.
Better get used to deflation. You're going to see a lot of it in coming years.
2
@Darin Do you mean in USA? The world is well on its way to 9 billion population in 20 years. So, I really wouldn't worry human survival at this time.
Trump is golfing and goofing off while America reels from multiple crises.
Trump was denier in chief when the virus blossomed in China and now we are late with testing at home. His buddies Putin and MBS are feuding on oil market share and our shale industry gets clobbered in Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania.
And with all the unnecessary rate reductions and tax cuts he insisted on, we have no defense as our economy sputters and the stock market tanks.
For the second time in succession Republican Presidents have inherited an growing economy from Democrats and run it into the ground. Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on us.
Time to put Trump out to pasture and send McConnell and his Republican Senators packing in November.
20
Perhaps the folks composing the trading algorithms need to adjust their computations. Back in the good old days, it was nervous humans who caused market crashes. Now it's their computers. It appears they've managed to program panic into emotionless machines.
There seems a parallel between this frantic market activity and the ill-considered advice being promulgated by "experts" on how to respond to the coronavirus.
In this paper and elsewhere, we've been advised to lay in a 30-day supply of essentials. This is fine advice if you live in a suburb where there's only one grocery store and one pharmacy nearby. But it's inane advice to promote to people living in New York City.
A friend told me last week that the store in her block was out of toilet paper because apparently people are hording it. But it makes no sense to fill up your apartment with excess supplies because there are so many stores in New York that people need only shop as they normally do and there won't be any shortages. The only thing that creates shortages is stupid panic-buying. And if someone gets sick and has to self-quarantine, practically every store in the city will deliver.
Humans. What a concept.
6
"A senior Democratic aide said on Monday morning that discussions were starting among House committee chairmen, congressional Democrats and administration officials on what such a package might look like."
Recent evidence suggests that Democrats will give the White House whatever it wants in exchange for vague promises about accountability or some such nonsense, which the White House will break as soon as it can. And all good liberals will hail Queen Pelosi as a master strategist.
Trump is friends with both MBS and Putin.
Why can't he do something?
Where is his leadership?
4
Frankly I am a little bit surprised at all the glee resulting from this downturn. The facts of billions of dollars being lost combined with the outbreak of disease should not result in partisan joy. Shame on us and our devided citizenry. We need to come together, bot celebrate misery.
1
And to think after such a 'beautiful' job he did running his casinos people will think Mr. Trump isn't as good a financial manager as we all thought! I'm sure it's a member of his staff that's responsible for the stock market melting down. I expect a tweet about it any time now from our dear leader.
4
I think Trump should make an emergency trip to calm his two best friends MBS is Saudi Arabia and Putin of Russia who are wasting their national resources to settle the personal scores. Rather than playing golf and fund raising in Florida, he should join his friends and threesome can be in the isolation.
As Jean Paul Sartre once said that when the rich wage a war it’s the poor who die.
4
I know it sounds nuts but maybe this outbreak is a "blessing" in disguise: mankind needs to slow down, get back to what matters and stop obsessing over magical beans (money). Stop and study nature (what's left of it). Read a book about something new. Look at the night sky. Sleep for more than 5 hours. Watch Food Network. Donate to an animal foundation. Call someone you haven't spoken to in a long time. Do nothing. I don't know, I miss the world as it was before technology and greed. Before Apple, Google, the internet. I'm actually hoping my job and college tells me to stay home. Maybe then I can actually enjoy my time and not be stressed. I don't know, just a THOUGHT.
8
The Democrats must make sure any stimulus package must include help for people, not banks and be paid for by a repeal of the corporate tax cut phased in over a number of years starting in 2021.
6
A lot can happen within two years before a vaccine for the coronavirus is found. I don't own any stocks and if I did I'd be getting out while I've made a profit and getting back into the stock market when a vaccine for the coronavirus is available, legally, to Joe Public.
Our government is leading in this, and has passed emergency legislation to deal with the coronavirus. One such new law is they can ban ships from docking in our harbours.
Our government seems to have it under control and no cases in the South Island of NZ, where I live.
Our free public hospitals are government controlled and paid for, so our government is onto it, as hospitals and the drug industry in NZ is controlled and owned by the government.
This is why you need government in health and not private industry as their is a profit motive involved in privately owned businesses. People before profits.
7
Trumps presidency has been his Twitter feed, that’s his whole shtick...while the markets and economy purred along his supporters loved his takedown of the norms and customs long regarded as the cushion of a vibrant democracy...well Twitter will not help him now, in all likelihood a recession is looming...will his supporters stick with him, the hardcore will go down with the ship the marginal supporters will abandon the ship...the end result in November...Republicans lose the House, Senate and Trump gets his just rewards a historic defeat
8
The trouble with speed of light data trading is some get to see it milliseconds before everyone else and that is enough time for their algorithms to beat the markets.
So much for Adam Smith's "free market" replete with a level playing field and complete transparency.
4
We've been lucky for the past 3 years to have not experienced any serious global incidents.
Time now to pay the piper and suffer the consequences of an administration thinking governing was easy and that its POTUS knew best (even though he knew nothing - Sgt. Schultz).
8
The problem with the stock market is that has become a financial circus, not so much investing in companies and their long time growth but a playpen for speculators and gamblers.
Borrowing money (using your current shares as collateral) to speculate (gamble) by buying more shares is a recipie for disaster when "stuff" such as the virus happens.
The stock market needs regulating.
8
I have complete confidence in the Trump administration - whatever Trump does, it will be the wrong thing. Whatever he says, it will be a lie.
33
The stock market (the only objective criteria Trump uses to measure his own performance) is in free fall. Am I losing money? You bet I am. Does it bother me? A little bit, but not too much. Why? Because I know it's hurting the very stable genius a lot.
51
Uh? Now we need more masks for the dust being stirred up by the hysteria. I'm taking a break. I'll be back. It's best to stand up wind at this point. This is going to be dirty.
3
@PATRICK
so you have changed your mind about declaring war on Russia and Saudi Arabia.
an unintended consequence of Trump being Trump is his having placed Pence on point in the defense against the Covid-19 he has allowed Pence to show himself as a plausible replacement...now if only there were enough Adults Left In The Room to invoke Sec. 4 of the 25th Amendment.
6
Trump’s excessive tax cuts followed by huge deficits and the very low interest rates that have prevailed for over a decade mean that the Federal government has limited ability to stimulate the economy in anyway way short of printing money and risking hyper inflation.
17
What do you think of a Chief Executive who delegates a critical crisis to an inexperienced subordinate?
15
Crooks thrive in good times and bad. They especially shine in bad times.
2
How are we going to have an election during a pandemic?
How are we going to pay for missed work, feed 28m kids their school lunches, pay for anyone to get tested, pay for any isolation and quarantine--and announce all this now so people will do what they need to in order to stem the spread as much as we can?
There are about 1000 more apt questions few are even bothering to ask because it's so much more fun covering the horse race or assorted garbage. And the NYT is keeping its must-know covid advice behind a paywall, like most for-profit newspapers.
But Sanders is the threat. Not capitalism. I see.
5
The corona virus would be a challenge to any administration. But for trump, who has more than 16,000 documented lies in three years to his discredit, it is an impossible challenge.
Markets are giving trump the massive, unequivocal no-confidence vote he has earned through his shameless dissembling and boundless incompetence.
25
Trump has finally met his match with coronavirus. He can’t lie, cheat and steal his way out of this one. And his downfall can’t come soon enough.
19
The Coronavirus is just the catalyst for exposing an overvalued market and an incompetent administration.
18
The trouble with speed of light data trading is that emotions can't keep up with it and there lacks steady thoughtful strategy to guide investors. It's called panicking. People need to refrain from allowing their decisions to be driven as fast as the data flows.
Trump's solution will be what he always does....America will file for bankruptcy.
5
I thought the "stable genius," aka The Impeached One, had it all under control, as he alone is the only one who can do it.
4
The 2008-09 crash constitutes just the preliminary rumbling of what the 2020-21 crash will expose has been wrong with an economy built on runaway debt (including loads of toxic zombie debt) to finance the runaway greed of crony capitalist business frauds drowning themselves in tax cuts, corporate and ultrawealthy welfare and market extortion power.
We've been expanding bank, corporate, household and gov debt to unbearable and insane levels globally throughout the 21st century, foolishly enough not to smartly and environmentally responsibly stimulate and strengthen the economy at large but solely to further enrich the yachting class to the detriment of everyone else with bailouts, tax cuts and tax evasion vehicles and with corporate welfare and deregulation for them already privileged.
The Bank of International Settlements where all global data are collected and analyzed with meticulous rigor warned for a renewed superhigh global crash risk because of this slow-motion-tumble-straight-into-the-debt-abyss in a report from the fall of 2018, this time around practically without any functioning brakes or stimulus mechanisms left
Here's a good visualization of how we allowed the problem to get bigger unabashed throughout the GWB/McConnell/Trump era of R (shadow) government by granting the rich fool's freedom to steer us all into the abyss by the impetus of their greed:
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/visualizing-global-debt
5
Donald Trump@realDonaldTrump
2h
"Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down!"
“The fundamental business of the country, that is production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.”
President Hoover, in a press conference on October 30, the day following the Stock Market crash on 1929
12
Watch the industries and businesses that have gouged us (you know who they are) for years now go begging to the government for bail outs paid for by our taxes. Oh, wa
10
@Mark Shyres
Somehow got cut off. Meant to write:
Oh, wait. They are already lining up...and thinking about lining their pockets with the hand outs.Where do you think the money is going- right to CEO bonuses just like the Wall Street bail outs. You think fairs or seats will improve? What a clown circus. Well, it might be a plus for Boeing...giving them time to get their house in order. Any bets? Wonder how much they are asking for...for their self-inflected wounds.
3
Why is the White House drawing up the proposals, if its Congress that has the power of the purse?
4
He's unfit. He's infirm. He must go.
15
I'm imagine Trump will soon sign a presidential order to end circuit breakers. He will probably sign a presidential order to initiate coronavirus breakers where all news programming will halt if those infected reach a certain level.
People who go bankrupt 6 times generally don't make great leaders.
21
@J Anders Far left hate is as toxic as anything the Republicans have to offer.
You think Democrats are any better? If yes, you are way to far into your own narrative.
@MM Yes, in a situation such as this, Democrats have historically proven themselves to be better.
2
Costco here in Vallarta has extra pallets of toilet paper stacked to the roof while both Coles and Woolworths in Australia had to limit said product to one package per person to reduce panic buying.
What's this tell you? It's about to hit the fan - literally and metaphorically.
4
We now find ourselves at the vortex of a perfect storm: subject to an unpredictable and dire global crisis while being led by a president convinced of his genius. That Trump is wholly ignorant of his ignorance (ignorance squared!) and blindly incompetent will only make matters worse. We would come out ahead if he simply took the next month off to play golf.....
4
"To combat coronavirus-related disinformation on the internet, the British government on Monday said it has pulled together a specialized unit that will work with tech companies to identify and prevent its spread.”
First target >> The disinformation campaign emanating from the White House
11
The Saudi’s took Trump for the chump he is. They showered him with bright shiny gifts. The Saudi’s tricked Trump into sending them American troops, and called him friend. Now they have thrown him to the wolves. This is what America gets when they vote for a president that is grifter and a rube.
21
Hold on to your hats! Biden is completely in bed with Wall Street and Trump is incompetent. Things are going to get MUCH worse.
3
@David
Bernie Bros. rivaling Trump's fear strategies and use of mendacity.
3
@Mary Elizabeth Lease Biden is already assembling his Wall St. dream team, read the recent appointments he’s making ahead of his nomination.
Trump is a failed business man who became a failed policy maker. But he was born in wealth and unlike his very own middle and working class supporters he does not nor will suffer personally from the economic downturns he causes. It makes one wonder about the great system of government that allows such things to happen.
3
The only menu of options I would trust Trump with: ice cream or pie for dessert. I’d feel safer if he stayed on the links down in Florida.
8
trump's response to the unfolding calamity out there, eerily echos Hoover's stubborn insistence, that the markets will self-correct--no help from the government is needed.
This looks like a 1929 v2.0.
Just as FDR drew strength from his own personal tragedy, may Biden also follow suit.
9
Mr. Trump, the economy will slow because people will stay home in order to slow the spread of contracting a virus. I am not exactly sure how stimulus will revive the service economy. While it still won't revive the service industry. the best thing for continued spending by consumers in these circumstances is a social safety net that allow people to pick up their spending on services quickly once things pick up.
5
@Brian H.
Who knew that safety nets could be cheaper than walking the high wire without one?
7
So Trump says that so far there have been 22 deaths in 546 cases - that's a 4% mortality rate. According to the CDC's website the average mortality rate from seasonal flu is 0.1%. That meas that based on the current trends COVID-19 is 40x more deadly....Of course Trump didn't Tweet that, probably because the math was too hard for him..."Think about that!"
7
@Jeff "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as much as you please." - Mark Twain.
At least somebody read how to distort the facts. The Nazis did a great job too.
2
Except...the 500 /- cases are the only confirmed tested cases..in reality there are many 1000s of virus infected people with little or no symptoms. Lack of a test does not equal virus free.
6
"Some of the world’s most important financial markets crossed into, or flirted with, bear market territory on Monday. That could augur an ugly week for those holding the world’s wealth."
another solid argument for an aggressive regime of wealth redistribution moving control of the world's wealth to equilibrium between the few and the many.
9
My concern is that the GOP has swung too far right to even build Hoovervilles now.
20
Maybe universal health care is not such a bad idea.
20
yes, the question is how to get a government ( including Congress) that can make it happen...
6
@CollegeMom All civilised Western countries have universal healthcare. The USA is the odd-man-out. What many Americans agin universal healthcare don't seem to realise is that having it doesn't mean that you can't have private healthcare too. It is perfectly possible to have the two systems running side-by-side. But having universal healthcare does mean that everyone has access to decent healthcare when it is needed. It won't give those patients private rooms, private TVs, private phones or special menus, etc.; if they want those luxuries, they can pay for private care in addition. But at least the less-well-off have access to medical treatment. And that is good for the health of the nation.
10
@Mark Alexander
Germany has exactly the system you describe (universal public with private options).
Also note that life expectancy in countries with universal care is rising while America's is actually declining.
8
deflation ? stock market is bubble. housing is bubble. price of everything(service) is bubble except gas. wage is in deflation and soon will be no wage. this economic mirage need a reset. time to take care of the poor folks
8
Covfefe! What a day!
24
I look at it this way: if the Democratic establishment is too smug and stupid to get Trump voted out of office, maybe the Coronavirus will do the job. You say that will cost lives? Yes, sadly and inevitably. But so is Mr. Trump's and the GOPs reign of horror and incompetence.
14
So where are:
The tweets from the stable medical genius
Larry Kudlow’s sage advice
The Fox talking tushes unutterable utterances?
What to expect from a leaderless ship
Pathetic. Right wing extremists
Pathetic
18
@Adam S Urban Warrior
All of those videos of Rush and Trump and Kudlow saying the virus is nothing are Fake News.
Didn't you get the memo? Apparently Wall Street missed it, too. Try the spam box.
2
Will the moneyed Trump supporters finally take off their investment-portfolio goggles? Promote a con man with a history of fiscal mismanagement, add a tax cut for the most fortunate, combine it with a global health crisis, and you get...today's news. This isn't going to end well.
19
OMG
FOX NEWS website has no mention of the stock market plunge, but has plenty to say about Joe Biden’s family...
44
Clearly an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve was not enough to cure the Car Owner Virus.
A public health emergency such as this requires drastic action.
The tax rates for Bernie and anyone else worth over a million dollars should be cut to zero.
Corporate tax rates should be lowered to 5%
and all real estate taxes on properties over 50 million should be granted a holiday until November, 2024.
2
When government can borrow money at .05% it is a perfect time to fund a long delayed massive infrastructure program The covid19 is causing working people to act like richest 1% who spend very little of their wealth
6
The notion that the media is blowing the Corona virus story out of proportion in order to hurt Trump is misguided. I work for a multinational,... our supply chains have been a mess and our overseas employees have faced tight personal restrictions for over a month,... completely unrelated to Trump, more related to keeping healthy.
I’m really sorry to see the market take a dive, but that is a result of the virus and OPEC price wars. Our government’s inability to drive a consistent transparent narrative certainly doesn’t help.
11
@Jeff
It's called 'lack of foresight'. A common side effect of thinking with your gut.
5
545 cases of coronavirus in the United States.
22 people have died of the coronavirus in the United States.
As of a couple of minutes ago.
Does that mean that the death rate is nearly 4% (22 divided by 545)?
Does that mean that more people are infected than we have been told? If the death rate were 1%, then 2200 people have been infected, but we only know about 545 of them (22 is one percent of 2200)?
I don't know what I don't know, and neither do you.
We need a better plan to gather information.
That would help a lot to stabilize the stock market.
No better plan equals an unstable stock market.
Just wait until tomorrow if you think today is bad.
And today isn't even over yet.
9
@S Butler
In the infamous words of Donald Rumsfeld, this administration's response to the coronavirus had been to maximize Known Unknowns.
Because somehow our grifter in chief believes he can sell enough snake oil before the election to steal it again - as long as those Unknowns don't become Knowns.
1
Big Oil has made a tactical move to snuff out Tesla the biggest threat to their centuries old hegemony over energy production.
Carbon based fuel producers will be ruthless and remorseless as they unleash their proxies.
The movie "There Will Be Blood" was not fiction but a dire warning.
11
In terms of finding solutions for the coronavirus threat, I would vote for keeping Trump on the golf course 24/7, even at taxpayer expense. That way we minimize the damage he can do.
When he visited the CDC, he showed up wearing a MAGA hat, proving that to him this was a campaign rally.
27
What a great system we have. Just over 100,000 cases of an illness somewhat stronger than the flu and the markets collapse. This is a house of cards. I totally support "free" markets and the right of everybody to decide how they earn a living (a privilege not available in socialism) but I also think that we need regulations, essential safeguards (such as universal health care) and, yes, some degree of central planning. We cannot live in a system that allows the irrational whims of the stock market to turn every problem into a crisis. This can be avoided if we wake up and stop listening to the Republicans. Their arguments need to be forcefully challenged. Down with Hoover and down with Trump!
11
I think you're a little confused about the definition of socialism, but I get your point.
3
the target of the "price war" are the carbon fuel market disruptors like Tesla and all things wind, solar and not 'carbon based.'
Big Oil sees the increasing market based move to non carbon based energy production as an existential threat and they will be taking no prisoners with out a second thought for collateral damage to innocent by standers.
this "price war" is between proxies representing Big Oil engaged in a tacticto gain another few years of profit from an infrastructure suffering from terminal diminishing returns.
7
When the vicissitudes of coronavirus have run their economic course, Ummurica may look more like Argentina in 1944 did, on the way down the slope. Ineluctably headed for permanent decline and economic marginalisation. Trump has already set the stage for his chosen 1% to profit like leeches and to throw the rest of us to the wolves.
11
I am retired and never trusted the irrationally climbing market, so every time the Dow was having an exuberant day I sold a little. Now sitting on some decent cash to slowly re-enter. But I think it will drop further.
10
It only took three years for a disaster to come along requiring yet another democratic president to fix. Of course that president will endure pot shots and worse from republicans; the same trump defending republicans who allowed trump’s incompetent administration to survive and flourish.
15
So Trump avoided testing Americans to keep the markets from crashing.
Q. How'd that work out?
A: About as well as all the GOP's other short-sighted "What, Me Worry?" lemming run toward a cliff most of us could see coming.
South Korea has tested almost 200,000 people. The latest number we've been able to dredge out of our federal black box is around 1500 Americans.
15
Trump University. People thought they were getting one thing and were getting something else.
Similarly “anyone can get tested” became “anyone can get tested with a doctors permission”.
11
Thank goodness the “stable genius” is in charge. All will be well as he brings his deep understanding of all things to bear. I’m sure as I type this that he and his administration are holding deep discussions searching for numerous opportunities to determine how best to blame Obama for the stock market crashing.
20
When the Trump presidency began, we were warned by a number of Times Op-Ed writers that the president and his administration weren't up to handling a major international crisis. Sooner or later that day would come. Here we are.
32
[President Trump continued to play down the economic impact from the virus, comparing the number of deaths from coronavirus with the flu and noting that “Nothing is shut down, life&the economy go on.”]
Enough is enough! Donald Trump’s distorted view of reality has gone from bad to worse. These comments and others he has made show how completely unsuitable for the job he is.
Where is Congress? Mike Pence should quit singing Trump’s praises and start invoking the 25th amendment.
9
And another GOP-fueled bubble hits the wall. Who could have predicted it?
20
Keep on good terms with your bank manager.
4
they never halt trading when the market goes up.
Hoover said it,
“even when you legalize gambling, its still run by crooks”
9
So relaxed that stable genius is at the helm. We will pulverize the icebergs with laser lies! I watched the SNL cats do it!
1
The oil fight between Saudis and Putin feels staged.
Remember Putin and MBS being chummy with each other a few months back?
My bet is that they decided to bankrupt American shale producers - long a thorn in their side. And they see US in chaos with inept administration - easily manipulated and bamboozled. And they see the virus panic taking hold.
What better time to pull the trigger?
20
To take from Sam Kenison’s character in Rodney Dangerfield’s “Back to School” film...I like the way you think.
2
Stock market drops are normal when a Republican is President. Trump just wiped my retirement accounts faster than expected.
12
This seems to me partly a Putin machination - refuse to limit oil production in concert with OPEC, knowing that the price of oil and hence the American stock market will plummet. Low oil prices will damage US shale production, hopefully leading to less oil on the market in future. Heightened oil prices in future will help them recoup present losses while weakening the US.
As an autocrat Putin has the power to do this, with his grip on the oligarchs and his own henchmen who control the Russian economy. What’s a free market economic system to do? This manipulation is a threat to our democracy. Trump will possibly demand more power over the economy, using Putin as a model. This seems to reek of economic fascism, which is worse than democratic socialism in my opinion.
Please tell me reassuringly that my logic is wrong and how it is wrong.
5
"Saudi Arabia and Russia are arguing over the price and flow of oil. That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!"
Well, NOW I feel secure and happy.
3
I feel like I'm going insane! This problem will not be solved by fiscal or monetary stimulas. The white house needs to take on the disease. The rest, for the economy, follows.
4
As noted, fossil fuels stocks are leading the decline, so are you all really going to allow Russia and Saudi Arabia to drive our economy low? Don't all you financial experts see the timing?
5
What do you suggest?
from Bloomberg; March 9, 2020, 5:19 AM PDT...
"Some of the world’s biggest asset managers were shocked by the stock market’s collapse on Monday..."
they always are after the fact having ignored the writing on the wall for weeks and weeks.
"...but warned against hasty defensive moves in the belief that monetary support will eventually assist a recovery."
"...warned against hasty defensive moves..." so as to allow institutions, hedge funds and investment banks to get out of their ownership positions ahead of further collapse
"...eventually assist a recovery." and in the long run we are all dead.
the S&P dropped to the low seen 6/3/2019...seemed like a reasonable exit point then and more so now.
asset managers are not your friends.
7
First, grab every stock you can. Second, wait.
3
It’s not wise to try and catch a falling knife.
1
@Bill
"a fool and his money are soon parted"...said someone once upon a time.
oh look another contradiction of capitalism.
it's time for something new.
2
And all a round the world people are struggling to catch their breath while not touching their faces.
6
Living under the trump sovereignty, filled with lies, deception, chaos, and uncertainty has finally shown up in the numbers.
It makes it very clear that after this guy bankrupted most of his inheritance, he’s doing the same, (malgré lui) with our money and our country.
The pandemic added stress was the last drop of how incompetent and scary this administration really feels...
People are strongly reacting from this « Thelma and Louise » administration than the pandemic itself.
2
Cheney/Bush ran a Guns and Butter Economy for eight years fueled by Phil Gramm's derivatives scam that the global economy has yet to recover from.
We are still drowning in the dark pools of unidentifiable tranches of CDOs created by the Gramm-Leach-Bliely Act Senator Phil Gramm snuck into an omnibus spending bill under the cover of darkness in the final hour.
Republican Senator Phil Gramm joined UBS Investment Bank as Vice Chairman in December, 2002, after serving for 24 years in Congress, including the last 18 years as a Republican Senator from Texas.
6
Jay Powell should’ve ignored Trumps unwanted economic advice.
6
Compare Obama's strong, measured and intelligent response to ebola to Trump's erratic response to the coronavirus. And yes - the stock market drop is an indictment of the administration's handling of the crisis.
25
@Deedee
I don't remember an ebola outbreak in the US -- it was a few isolated cases. Nothing widespread...
1
main street has been suffering for awhile. and I'm supposed to feel bad about wall street?
9
Why is it that every time the perfectly logical consequences of their policies happen, Republicans stand there looking gobsmacked and stammering that "nobody could have seen this coming"?
12
"...while larger oil companies will be challenged to protect their dividend payments. Thousands of oil workers are about to receive pink slips."
well, as long as all Exxon has to worry about is protecting its dividend all is right in the world and those oil workers were on life support anyway.
6
A sort of rough justice here.
The corona virus epidemic is a very mild national "threat" with total American deaths, to date. amounting to what one sees in a couple of bad traffic accidents. But. the media -- desperate to sell copies/time -- have hyped the infection in order to boost sales and hurt Trump.
The result is a plunging world economy which will do no business, including the media, any good and will likely further radicalize the political right (cf Great Depression.)
2
Interesting. I didn’t realize that Italy’s massive efforts in closing down schools, factories, and a whole province was just performance art designed simply to make Donald Trump look bad.
27
so this is a conspiracy to hurt Trump?
3
So it’s the media fault and not the institutional investors and fund managers? I think you have it backwards.
2
Gee, after all this we come back to the fact that the planet doesn’t run on:FB, or the internet, or your new phone, it runs on oil. Oil and the Ponzi scheme of an ever increasing population and economic growth (both of which use gigantic amounts of resources) pretty dooms us from getting off oil or doing anything about climate change or anything substantive about the other environmental issues we face. Good to know.
6
Economists need to identify that the dependency on oil and on oil related stocks are an constitute an enormous vulnerability to the entire world economic system. Saudi Arabia and Russia playing politics with world supplies this week clearly illustrate the vulnerability to every nation's economy. It is time to acknowledge that oil dependency is neither sustainable nor ethical. Economic war, global climate crisis, oligarchy all are symptoms of oil dependency and market manipulation by people who own the oil. New markets can only thrive outside of oil dependency and must arise in conjunction with a transition to a non-oil dependent energy system throughout the world.
8
@EAP
But it's "too expensive" to address climate change before we all fry...
2
We truly live in an exceptional country.
Our working people have an exceptionally low cut of our GDP.
We have an exceptionally small number of people who get sick leave.
And, don't forget, we are the MOST EXCEPTIONAL developed country on the planet when it comes to lack of health coverage.
Tired of winning yet?
21
Don't worry everyone. Those short sellers, stock-brokerages, the felons that were pardoned by trump, and banks are doing quite fine working the other side of the down market!
17
Trump has trumpeted "his" stock market numbers as a measure of quality of his presidential administration. Well here we are. The virus is not his fault; but the unprepared, underfunded, understaffed CDC is. The lack of a competent, unified pandemic task force is. The incompetent response to the virus in the huge economy of America is a reason for stock holders to get worried because Trump did not use his leadership to get the country ready to meet this crisis. So Trump is getting what he asked for. "His" stock market is telling him they are terrified by his mismanagement and the effect this is going to have on the economy.
17
Unfortunately, lies, deflections and "I understand better than anyone" won't carry the day any more.
The President carries the entire executive responsibility (the buck stops here) for the several crises the US confronts, he having either made the missteps or having hollowed out the experienced support staff who were part of teams which used to advise or pick up delegated tasks.
The latest question he posed, "why is all this dropping on me" suggests ignorance of or refusal to bear the responsibility.
9
As the hysterical markets proceed with data at the speed of light, one should stop for a moment and slow down the fright.
3
@PATRICK
But, we didn’t have the same wisdom when speculators were pushing it up and up !
We should stop trading when markets go up also in a irrational exuberant manner !
Actually stock markets should be open for trading only on the last Friday of each quarter !
3
@PATRICK
Logical chickens are coming home to roost. Anyone who couldn't see this coming with Trump's policies needs the wakeup call.
5
This actually might spell the end for Trump and Co. Karma. It took a plague of near biblical proportions but he is now faced with a genuine, nature made, crisis. His response? He has denied, minimized, distracted, tweeted, misspoke, lied, and obfuscated. I guess that's okay when you're out on the stump but when you're running a country it doesn't work. Markets tumble, people fret, fear dominates, panic ensues. Ultimately, Trump will be blamed and forced out. It's only a matter of a few months before a new POTUS can come in and do a clean sweep. Kelly Anne Conway and her set of alternative facts will have no place anywhere after that.
17
The Stock Market is a fraud had been a fraud for the
longest time since Dividends seem not to matter anymore.
Those who daily manipulate the market for the own ends -
that is pushing the prices rise and fall - are making even
more money than they usually do - ask yourself what do
all those "brokers" actually do for the economy ?
As for the slow down in the economy, it is being exaggerated
by the misled and misleading media. It will slow a bit as
the Coronavirus infection rate rises and then falls, but
no structural change has occurred, think of people going on
their Summer Vacations.
As for Oil Prices falling and thus stock prices falling - well
that benefits the consumers.
Parimutuel Betting is what goes on in the Stock Markets
now 24/7 - that is the real threat to the economy -
though you will never hear the Brokers saying
that simple truth.
2
"Free market is correct," said no one, ever.
Conservatives never said that.
Free market proponents never said that.
Free market is exactly that, free. No government interference.
Just like free speech, some reaction can be irrational, but correction always rules.
@MM
Free markets do not care how many citizens die in the process of profits.
What is the point of having a ginormous GDP if your people can't cover a $400 expense?
We've tried serfdom before. It didn't end well then, either.
11
Don't worry folks! Any significant losses will be externalized and offloaded on to the less fortunate! (Just as they were after the last collapse) So you can all breath a big sigh of relief! The rich are going to be just fine. (The rest of us, not so much, but when was the last time that really mattered anyway?)
6
But what if the adults in the room actually do buy now when stocks are low? You know all great creatures adapt, and Humans will quickly just as China did and is succeeding as they work towards recovering. Don't let your reflexive disdain for Trump cloud your judgement. It really may be a good time to buy. A profit is not guaranteed, but you're gambling all the time anyway, right?
3
@PATRICK
China has tested hundreds of thousands of people. America has tested less than 2000.
Adaptation also involves survival of the fittest. And we've been self-harming our country with "smaller government" for decades.
China is not "smaller government".
11
@J Anders
Uh, I'm trying to stop a disaster here. We are the greatest nation on Earth, and China is trying to catch up to us. We have terrific medical infrastructure and I anticipate that if Americans are accepting of their duty to save the nation by readily and quickly complying with Government orders and requirements, we will emerge from this quickly just as China did. We are a divided nation politically, but impending doom has always focused all Americans on a common goal.
1
Inevitably it was going to be something that tanked this remarkably manipulated market. The stock market has in recent years become decoupled from underlying corporate earnings growth (in 2019, overall corporate earnings growth was close to zero but the S&P 500 still clocked in with a 30% gain for that year). The Federal Reserve's monetary policy appears to solely revolve around the stock market barometer not the actual economy. Their recent emergency 50 basis point cut occurred despite their assertion that the "economy is strong." Alrighty then, I guess you can have it both ways: the economy can be strong AND you can apply more stimulative monetary policy at the same time. Makes perfect sense. We've been in a giant "everything bubble" for a very long time now. That's why retirees are getting next to no interest on their savings. House prices in nearly all large urban centers have rocketed into the stratosphere. The stock market was, until very recently, a one-way ride upward. These grossly distorted markets were eventually going to get monkey hammered back down. The hammer should have been sensible fiscal and monetary policy. Instead, we had to rely on a black swan event: the Coronavirus. Welcome to America in the 21st century. We don't have rational planning here. We instead keep the accelerator to the floor until the car careens right off the cliff.
9
@Paul
Very well said. Markets have been divorced from reality from a while, plunging us into a mirror-world in which negative economic and geopolitical news yields new dollars via the reflexive Fed put.
Unfortunately, that one-trick pony seems to have caught a bad case of Covid and is currently being shipped off to the glue factory.
The manipulation is horrifying and sets the markets and economy up for catastrophe. Who's the Fed working for anyways? The common men and women? Right.
We need to move to an honest, sound monetary system and an audited Federal Reserve.
@Paul
Regulation is all "fraud and waste".
DIdn't you get the memo?
It’s all temporary. Once this COVID-19 virus goes away stocks will bounce back. Good buying opportunity. Unlike the the credit crisis there is no single real financial issue underpinning this. It’s all panic and emotion. Hang in there.
8
@Hjb
There are more financial issues underpinning this than there were propping up stock prices.
Most of that bubble was built on using the Fed's recession-fighting ammo and giving away the Treasury in a tax cut that was touted as bringing 6% GDP growth. How's that working out?
6
@Hjb
You are right about there being "no single real financial reason underpinning this."
There are a number of them, not the least being the ridiculous proclamations of the guy in the White House.
Panic and emotion are not why we are where we are. "Hang in there" is not good pubic health advice.
Where is our leadership? Oh, that's right, he's on his golf course.
2
Every day is a new low with DJT.
26
Somebody better try to convince the "stable genius" that we have a problem.
Or does his "gut feeling" trump everything?
13
Trump is where Bush was in 2008 when the housing market collapsed: clueless.
So conservatives were happy with Trump's gut, let's see where that gets them now. FOX and Limbaugh are helpless and as Charles Blow said today, you can't gaslight a virus.
20
What you take credit for can come back to bite you: it’s now the Trump market, the Trump deficit and the Trump virus. Thank goodness the Fed didn’t cut interest rates as much as Trump wanted and therefore has at least a little ammunition left. But it’s now likely we will also have the Trump recession. What a disaster!
14
I'm viewing this as an attack on our economy by Russia and Saudi Arabia coming at the same time as the disease fear to hide it.
4
@PATRICK
and of course by saying that you recognize that Trump's largest financial backers are in Russia and the Saudi Kingdom.
5
my comment a week ago was a guess of a Dow low of 18,000-24,000...maybe we'll have to adjust that to just that lower number...perhaps sliding to the Dow high before the 2008 crash (14,200)?...
4
Jim Bakker Show!? Who would have thought ‘good christians’ like those supporting 45 would THINK to profit off this crisis. Grifters, just like the rest of the right. I hope that one positive outcome from this difficult crisis is the utter collapse of the right. None of their models took into account something like this — play with fire get burned. Either of the Democrats will be steady in this crisis, just like the transition from Bush to Obama.
9
Trump has a solution for this, just wait: Big Tax Cuts for everyone "to stimulate the Great American Economy."
2
So this is how Trump gets removed. Happy to take my retirement account take a big hit not due for recovery until mid 2021 if that helps remove Trump. It's now or never.
16
With Bullock in Montana added to the list of Democrats running for the Senate, it looks like we may take back the Senate with a many as five seats. It also looks like the day after St. Patrick's day, Sanders will be out of logical options and will give it up.
To me, everything pales against getting rid of trump. The stock market and everything else, except for the virus of course, is a side show.
24
First (and only) thing the GOP has passed is the tax cut. It served to funnel extraordinarily large sums to the 1% and corporations. Corporations and the 1% used this government money to buy back stock rather than increase worker benefits both in paychecks and medical insurance copays. The absconded tax funds went primarily into corporation stock buybacks that increased stock prices without increasing profits. The wealth gap grew but that was the plan. Now that those stockholders are being asked by the market to take the fall (lets remember they own most of the US stocks) they are again asking for government pump priming to save their ill gotten gains. Perhaps its time they think of using some of their ill gotten gains to set up testing sites at the workplace and granting employees paid sick leave. Thats what a normal society would do but it's the farthest thing from their minds. And for the rest of us RIP.
39
History certainly does repeat itself because human nature causes history and human nature does not change. Human nature is a constant of human existence. Rational people realize this and do not try to beat the odds.
9
Most of us knew Wall STreet was for grifters, years ago, and that insiders made all the profits. So, I'm calm, not having lost, directly, even a dime.
11
The Trumps say this is good: buy on the slump.
"Let them eat cake."
7
It's time for the Feds to create a sort of UBI stimulus. If this continues, it's inevitable that corporations, small businesses, retail etc will start laying people off in a panic and those people will NOT be able to afford basic needs. Time to start putting in place a stimulus bill that guarantees a weekly check from the feds into the pockets of Americas affected by the Virus. China is already paying people, who are stuck at home, $80 a day.
12
in my opinion, index and exchange traded funds (ETFs) combined with the lack of a specialist system charged with maintaining orderly markets are largely responsible for the volatility behind the recent and continuing large swings in the markets.
there is no research and no emotion except for the buyer and seller. when the orders are executed, a button is pushed and the trades take place with good stocks pulling bad ones up on buys and bad ones pulling good ones down on sells.
ETFs, in particular, are constructed to bring fees to the sponsor but the small holders are at the mercy of the others. does there really need to be a vehicle to trade a basket of stocks with exposure to space? the internet of things? marijuana? does having a basket of these risky companies really provide anything to the investor? ETFs are registered as investment companies, but there is really nobody to suggest that the operators know anything about the companies in the funds they have constructed.
leveraged ETFs are even worse. holders can profit handsomely when the components go up, but they get chopped up when things are headed down.
i wonder if a dartboard method ETF would outperform the others. hmmm.
maybe i should set one up. i'm sure there are some juicy fees just waiting for me to collect from the suckers that are born every minute.
Well, the GOP can bloviate all they want about being the party for economic prosperity. But the fact is that the last two significant financial downturns this country has experienced occurred during Republican presidencies. Their ability to lead us through crises is suspect.
42
The more I read comments in newspapers about the economy, the more I realise that many young people have no idea what sound economics is. We have had extremely low interest rates for more than a decade now and the authorities have been engaging in quantitative easing for just as long. As a result, young people have been raised to think that banks not paying interest to savers and just conjuring up money out of thin air in the form of QE to shore up asset prices is normal. It is not! The sooner we get back to running our Western economies based on sound economic principles, the better. Ultimately, we all gain when the growth in our economies is real, not illusory. The Germans can show the world a thing or two on how to run an economy based on sound economic principles. That’s probably because of the German experience in years past with hyperinflation and a collapsed economy. We need to heed the lessons of history.
11
@Mark Alexander Well, the boomers are still in charge, bud.
1
@nickchop I'm a boomer, but I think differently, it seems.
Why is there is not the same front page news coverage when the market is soaring ahead?
The fact is there is a lot of money to be made on a down market. Patience is the key.
Once the market levels out, unwarranted panic ends, and the virus goes by the way side there are many investors who will quickly earn a handsome profit.
3
Completely agree patience is key in the market, as with most things in life. As for the coverage, incremental increases in the stock market over time are not as newsworthy as abrupt shifts that cause markets to shut down.
2
@David Weiser The majority of people don't have $400 in emergency savings!! Who is buying in the downmarket????
1
I'm trying to find a reason to dispute Trump's tweet that thousands of people die of the flu all the time and nobody panics. Why are we panicking now? Also, I like seeing the price of a gallon of gas drop a nickel or dime. That adds up in my small budget. Just saying.
2
@Tony Bickert Covid-19 is a new virus, and it appears to have a fatality rate at least 10x that of seasonal flu. If the same number of people who become infected with the flu every year become infected with Covid-19, the healthcare system will be overwhelmed, and the total number of deaths due to Corona will exceed that of the flu.
I don't agree that people are panicking, but to the extent they're concerned, that's why.
8
Why do we panic about anything? Because it’s new, unexpected, and scary. Also consider that deaths from seasonal flu are baked in - we know it happens every year. Despite this, particularly bad flu seasons still get a lot of attention. Lastly, there’s no vaccine for this virus yet. Flu isn’t as bad as it could be because plenty of people do get vaccinated, providing herd immunity for the many that don’t. If you cannot protect against it through vaccination and the only remedy is “social isolation,” that has far-reaching implications for how people live, how institutions handle it, and how the global economy operates.
3
I’m morbidly curious: do you have the slightest notion what those couple nickels do to Alaska’s economy, let alone your annual check from the state?
4
Calm. Cool. And Collected.
I'm sure that people's faith in Donald Trump's leadership skills and deft mastery of difficult situations will assuage all financial fear to come.
Either that, or we are all going to pay an extremely hefty price for his complete and utter lack of them.
Of course, either way, it doesn't really matter, as long as Trump himself comes out OK, right?
11
The system in beyond broke. Obama allowed the Fed to print Trillions for QE2, it’s come home to roost. A republic and free market as the founding fathers envisioned is dead, states are insolvent, our parties corrupt. This national emergency should be a wake up call that a Democrat isn’t an alternative or solution either.
2
@C
Cheney/Bush ran a Guns and Butter Economy for eight years fueled by Phil Gramm's derivatives scam that the global economy has yet to recover from.
2
@C
What, like you think the current crop of *Republicans* - including the president - are a viable alternative/ solution?
This is so NOT on Obama.
Welcome to the Trump economy. He has left the Fed without tools. Just wait, corporate welfare is next. The virus has proven how fragile his economy is, and has been.
When everything collapses will he still wear his red hat?
12
Wal-Mart stocks in the green. Traders think that cheap gas is going to spur people to Wal-Mart stores to possibly subject themselves to the virus and buy all those Chinese goods that aren’t being shipped. Once again, brilliant long-term thinking by the non-thinkers.
M-Kay.
9
The health czar, Azar, is on tv now, during the stock plunge, telling us what a strong economy we are in.
How comforting.
12
If I were president right now, I wouldn’t be on the golf course. I wouldn’t be tweeting about fake news and Fredo. I wouldn’t be planning tremendous rallies. I’d be sitting down directly with congressional leaders to work out a fiscal stimulus package. I’d be on the phone with Italy, China, Washington state, California, New York to hear for myself their concerns and plans. I’d be hands-on 24/7 trying to learn everything possible about the science of coronavirus and the history of pandemics.
But, of course, I am not president. Mr. Trump is.
37
Has it occurred to any of the numerous commenters laying this all onto Trump's incompetence, that the gyrations of the stock market are completely meaningless and irrelevant to a large proportion of Trump supporters? They won't have any reason to connect the dots.
8
Oh but they do care - witness Trump caring. He cares about nothing but his popularity.
They care because they view it as a measure of American supremacy. If the market crashes we’re no better than those other countries.
But don’t worry, blame will be squarely on President Obama within 24hours.
1
It's unfortunate the the financial fate of so many millions depends on the financial fate of so few. Then again, that's the system we have, and have allowed to continue unabated, since the dawn of the industrial age.
Like a majority of Americans, I don't own any stock, and never have. Yet my quality of life is inextricably, and inexorably, linked to the financial vicissitudes of a bunch of filthy rich gamblers.
If that isn't the definition of insanity, let alone inequality, than I don't know what is.
6
Let's put perspective here. POTUS Trump asserts, the COVID 19 is President Obama's fault. POTUS Trump asserts the economic growth is the greatest ever greatly eclipsing the effort by Obama to pull the nation out of the deep recession in 2008-2009. POTUS Trump promised he would be the hardest working president ever, with no time for golf, unlike President Obama who was constantly accused by FOX News as playing too much golf. POTUS Trump promised American voters his Administration would be staffed by the greatest minds and talent ever because everyone of high caliber talent would want to work for Trump.
America, have you ever watched the movie Wizard of Oz?
With markets tanking, oil sliding towards record lows, and response to COVID 19 catching Trump and team totally unprepared with an absence of sufficient testing kits, Trump and Pence can't just click their heels and utter words, "There's no place like home, There's no place like home."
Instead, Trump and Pence keep uttering "It's Obama's fault." Larry Kudlow keeps whistling through the graveyard telling us how strong the stock markets are as the data screams "NOT". Republicans are so wedded to Trump they can't be counted upon to develop meaningful policies.
America, you elected Trump and the warnings were broad and copious. There is a solution: Get rid of Trump-Pence.
23
I can't help think of last Thursday's episode of the Rachael Maddow show where Senator Warren predicted exactly this...
I just have to say I wish she were still in the race. She would know how to turn this around.
13
At least with plunging oil prices, gasoline should be under a dollar per gallon by Memorial Day.
Obviously Hillary is behind this. All to make the president look bad. Sad!
5
OK everyone. I remember a DOW of around 3 to 4,000 just a few decades ago so you are all still way ahead. Everything has steadily grown, so like they say, everyone got a haircut.
But what about Saudi Arabia's action that occurred right now? Where are the concerns about that? I'm thinking, maybe the coinciding crash in the oil markets, as welcome as they may be to consumers, were somehow timed to cripple our economy. I could believe Russia would do that, and what about Saudi Arabia? Behind a price war in the Eastern Hemisphere, could be a crippling of our Western Hemisphere. I think this should be explored considering the timing.
2
"Just imagine how bad off all those land owing banks are going to be if half the population is killed off? Mortgages will go unpaid, and rents will plummet! This could turn into a real nightmare for a bunch of filthy rich investors!"
The cost to financial capital has surpassed almost any notion of the cost to human capital. Such is the disgusting nature of a society dominated in all aspects by money, greed, avarice, and self-absorption.
The only upside in all this, is that the poster boy for all these despicable human traits may finally get what we humans were unable to deliver - and that's a true and full reckoning for a lifetime of venal self-serving egoism, crassness, compassionlessness, arrogance, hatred, and the worst kind outright criminality and usury.
8
Welcome to the white house Mark Meadows.
Enjoy your stay, however brief.
starting right nnnnnnnnow !
4
Paraphrasing Tom Petty - Now we're free fallin, Yeah, we're free fallin...
5
Check out Trump's twitter feed this morning and tell me you are comforted that an adult is in charge of the situation.
9
With every tweet, the fraud in the white house shows just how ignorant and lacking he is in even the most fundamental understanding of both economics and epidemiology. What an absolute scam the rabid right and their leader in Moscow, with great help from FOX and Sinclair, have perpetrated on the American people-- foisting a bankruptcy hack onto the world as the fake leader of what was once the most powerful country in the world.
6
What if climate change was important enough that we shut down forms of pollution like cars, ships, planes, farms and factories? Wouldn’t that also hurt the stock market? Seems to me that there Is no way out of this untenable situation other than panic, hoarding, fighting and war.
Stupid us.
2
Is there a leader? Anywhere?
6
When one is not only unable, but actually forbidden, to sell an asset, isn't that the end of capitalism? Not the end, perhaps, but it may be the beginning of the end.
So maybe Bernie is right.
1
@archer717 :
A western tourist in Moscow once famously asked his Intourist Guide (Watcher!) what exactly was the difference between Communism and Capitalism.
The Intourist Guide rubbed his Leninesque chin whiskers, , thought for a minute and replied:
Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man!
Communism is the opposite!
What is the problem! Not to serious the world's greatest genius spent the weekend playing golf with members of the World Series champs the Washington Nationals he only plays with winners. The virus no big deal, oil prices no big deal, Kim firing rocket after rocket they are only small ones that only reach into South Korea, bombing in Afghanistan no big deal with have a deal the Taliban can kill as many as they want no limit as long as they don't attack US soldiers. Hey, it will get me the Nobel Prize. No problem get my underlings at the Fed to cut the interest rates again and with the campaign I will get another tax cut since the first one worked so well. I drove five businesses into bankruptcy so an entire nation no big deal. Yes, reelect the world's greatest genius. Whose fault maybe some in the famous Base should look in the mirror the bills are coming due and guess who is going to pay. Jim Trautman
3
The stock markets around the world dropped, and Trump blames the media. What else is new?
Incompetent fool and huckster. That is what we have for a president!
18
Trump's emergency aid package will most likely, and firstly, include measures to ensure his corrupt business enterprises--such as Mob-a-Lago and hotel chain/money laundering--not only get taxpayer bailout but significantly increased quarterly returns based on delusional/fabricated annual financial growth trends. Wait for it.
2
Markets are poised to fall dramatically further. Again.
SXSW cancelled.
International game developers conference cancelled.
Indian Wells (Int'l tennis tournament) cancelled.
Google convention cancelled.
Etc...
And the incompetent liar-in-chief brags about "perfect tests", "perfect transcript" and his medical "genius" while in a campaign cap at the CDC on Friday.
What will today bring?
I'm not normally one to panic, but this is bad, friends. Listen to your local health experts. Ignore the lies coming from the criminal liars in the White House. Take care of yourself.
6
Russia and Saudis crater the oil markets to force US refineries to shutter capacity then what? We’ve been here before. Ordinary Americans are going to get a haircut while The Captain and crew of the USS Agent Orange are handing out tax cuts and windfalls to all their BFF’s . Coved19 may pass but the damage is going to take a while to clean up.
3
Markets rise and markets fall. This was as inevitable as the rising of the sun each morning. Trump had taken credit along with his Republican enablers for the past two years for the steady rise which they claim was due to their tax cuts and other fiscal policies. Of course, as with everything else claimed by Trump, the real evidence that the longest "expansion" in history was in any way related to Trump is not really there. Nevertheless, he crowed that he was responsible, like the rooster crows he is responsible for the sunrise. Now the markets have plunged to 2016 levels wiping out all gains made during Trump's "reality show" administration. Will he take credit for the market decline, which, except for the ineptitude of some appointees in handling this coronavirus pandemic, he really does not own??
3
Trumpers and Bernie want to see our system burned to the ground. Here's their opportunity to deal with it.
1
am no trump fan, but blaming trump for all of this is like shouting at the team mascot when your team is losing.
5
@nufio Yes, obviously Hillary is behind it.
7
Stop panicking! “Only thing we have to fear is fear itself” Remember FDR. Have faith and strength in self and your fellow Americans. Hold steady.
The media and panicked public is over reacting as usual.
2
@Melissa
Overreacting? The Dow is down 2000 points.
You obviously don't own stock or mutual funds.
He claimed the power of a king. Now he's been "corona-ted."
5
Capitalists will save or help investors and people with significant wealth, but do the bear minimum for poor people. This system is terrible.
2
Trump said " Test are beautiful"
Last time I heard such words, I was in elementary school.
with Trump , I am feeling everyday is doomsday.
He is horseless men of apocalypse.
3
You can’t blame Trump for the virus. You can blame Trump for the disorganized way the US health care system responded to the virus. Trump cut funding for public health and laid off scientists. The testing kits were faulty. Trump is anti-science so he’s antagonistic to scientific news that is contrary to his beliefs or his need to spin and control information. And most importantly, Trump is anti-globalist. So he fails to see the repercussions of the spread of the disease worldwide. He refuses to acknowledge the inter connectedness the US has to countries like China (supply chain) or energy (his pal and murderer, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia or his pal and murderer Putin). Obama would have immediately recognized the threat of the spread of the virus and would be working with world leaders in addressing the danger this virus poses. Obama would have been a leader not a tweeter.
20
Nothing surprising here. We have been telling investors for at least 4 years about this negative trajectory. The effect of QE and excessive monetary policy will eventually manifest itself unlike what govt will have you believe. There are a host of triggers ready and the Corona just happen to be the soup of the day. Saudi is taking forced leadership while they still can. Right now, capital controls will be the next step to stop the bleed and have exchange rate move within a govt "comfort' level but we know that's a fallacy but they are gonna try it anyway.
So we expect the the drain on stock market valuation to affect real world valuation on assets and that will force a credit crunch which will not be addressed and it in turn will spiral into unemployment, deflation and social unrest. The Corona seek to catalyze this by injecting fear and magnifying the situation. The death rate at least is real enough for certain type of the population. we are talking 10-50% for someone with a pre existing condition and those in a weaken healthcare system.
The upside is nature will force efficiency in markets and industry. The poor, the old, the weakened as per all history will be eliminated to make way for a leaner, stronger populace. The world see the best growth in quality of life and economy after a sustained major death and catastrophe. Politician cant decide who get to live, nature will choose. we are simply re balancing.
we need to short the indexes together now and algo will join
Oh my god...run! So, there’s Roosevelt on the radio calmly explaining (all we have to fear is...) what’s happened and what his government is doing to get the situation back under control. Here’s Trump...totally clueless, surrounded by “advisors” who are equally clueless, arguing over how much to tell a public that can’t believe a word he says. If the country manages to get through this somewhat intact, these people, all of them, have to go.
5
Meanwhile, the Mar-a-Lago resort returned another record profit this last weekend, courtesy of the US taxpayer
4
Facebook is only making things worse by allowing more disinformation to flow
3
Our Businessman President Trump is up, Now we are going to see his real success like all his previous businesses.
How to Bankrupt America with the help of Virus Pandemic.
He may write a new bestseller book.
and explain us.
How I did it, how you can do it like guidance .
We will appreciate his stellar success story.
The virus has proven that the Trump is only half a president, if that. He and Pence are only interested in and only take responsibility for what is going right. They could care less about anything that's going wrong, any crisis. Republicans like to compare government to a business: imagine a CEO who'd been running a business for 3.5 years and who proclaimed that any problem in the business and any negative information and facts were not his responsibility. He'd be fired in short order. This is on the Republicans: if they'd cared about the country and reality, they would have listened to all the testimony and facts and would have done their duty and impeached the criminal running the government.
3
Let's be honest here, many stock prices were wildly inflated over the last year. Everyone except the most foolish investors knew this and we also knew that at the first sign of uncertainty, the market would drop like a rock. If coronavirus hadn't come along, something else would have triggered a correction. It was bound to happen no matter what.
So calm down folks. Wait a few weeks and get ready to pull out your wallets. There's no underlying reason for a recession, so it seems likely that once the correction stabilizes, we'll start to see gains again. The only difference is perhaps this time investors will be more likely to look at stocks with caution and stop overvaluing companies that haven't a hope of living up tot he hype.
2
Once again we’re reminded there’s no logic to Wall Street. Purely emotional response to rumor and worst-case scenario. But a good chance for some investors to now, or in a short time, reap rewards for depressed stock prices.
Soon to come from trump: "this is markets reacting to the likely democratic nominee selection of Biden or Sanders and their agenda..."
7
Short seller here leverage on SPY puts (50k leverages into the millions of dollars of shares).
%500 + gain in one day. Historic. Blood in the streets. I can officially not work for the next 10 years.
2
Funny, I can't ever remember the markets closing when the rich were making money very quickly.
I guess their status needs more protection than I thought.
19
I blame fragmented media outlets for creating a crisis where one does not exist. Gone are the days of responsible journalism where many reporters and correspondents competed for very, very few positions. In that era, only the best of the best news writers and correspondents were able to speak to the public and were evaluated on their ability to convey objective, factual information. Today, anyone with a pulse can write an article, become a talking head, or write a tweet. Further, each of those promoters of news in today's environment are competing for a fragmented audience in order to earn revenue. The result is sensationalized garbage news reporting.
9
Amid the stock market crash, media properties are doing very well. Sensationalism sells. If it bleeds, it leads.
4
@RCS I blame hate filled right wingers for supporting greedy;hate filled GOP and Trump; "Russia is our buddy". Putin refused to work with OPEC to cut production; Saudi Arabia said "we want more money". Oil Wars that pushed the World over the edge. If you do not want the truth;read only FOX and RT
4
Could you give an example of “the media’s,” doing this, please? Something specific?
1
Trump is postponing my retirement. What is he doing to my 401k?
17
I don’t tend to panic about much of anything. Some anxiety? Yes. But panic no. THIS??? THIS is causing me to panic.
Not only do we have a health crisis on our doorstep, but also an economic crisis knocking on the door.
How much better I would feel if our president was competent and listened to his advisors. Even countries with able leaders are in a bad way. Where does that leave us with only a stable genius?
32
The Trump administration is trying hopelessly to keep the markets afloat and downplay the effects of the virus. The response to the virus has been less than adequate.
Meanwhile, market speculators across the globe see the very real economic realities and consequence of the virus, thus the markets continue to plunge.
The tragedy is that in Trump's futile effort to keep markets afloat, ultimately the less-than-adequate response will cost this nation human lives.
16
Hey Donald Trump,
With friends like Putin and MSB, who needs enemies?
Neither one of them ( exactly like Trump) is interested in being a good global citizen.
Putin sees this as a way to sow more discord and disruption in the world economy, which today is in total disarray.
MBS (Jared’s good buddy) is too evil and selfish to care.
Any half sane and responsible leader would not unleash an oil war at this time, when the entire world is reeling from a pandemic.
23
The global market collapses are not surprising, but the Russians and Saudis made the situation a lot worse by causing a meltdown in the oil markets. Supply chain disruptions, weak demand and swooning markets make this a perfect storm.
The state of the world economy is most concerning. Sure, we might see lower gas prices, but that won't help much if you lose your job or business.
8
@Mark McIntyre Will the low price of oil hurt the Russians a bit more right now? Perhaps a little bit, but not a lot. They know, by going into a tail spin with Saudi Arabia, they will reap more in the future. This oil price decline will have one certain loser: the American shale oil production: Abandon it, baby, abandon it!
Are you tiring of winning yet? That is, of course, if you're on Putins team... He plays eight dimensional chess, while somebody else is just twiddling tweets with his really little hands...