New Jobless Claims

[Apoplectic_Objurgator]

Everything will open back up no later than June 1st.

Sell

 

[dorndawg]

I'll put $10,000 on the over, considering any major event scheduled into July is already shut down.

 

[Hump4Hoops]

Everything? Hard sell.

 

[Crazy Cotton]

Good white paper on the 1918 pandemic economic effects (675,000 US casualties). Obviously lots of differences to current situation. That flu killed mostly people in prime working age 20-40. There was also the impact of the end of WWI, Europe's relative productivity and war recovery, lack of economic data, etc. BUT, the takeaway is that businesses that relied on people congregating fell off a cliff, but recovered fairly quickly. The list of recommendations for a modern version (paper is from 2007) is interesting.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/...ment/research-reports/pandemic_flu_report.pdf

 

[blacklistedbully]

At what point does economic desperation outweigh the 1 in 400 chance that this thing kills us?

(I arrive at 1 in 400 by considering the true death toll is going to end up about 0.5%, with 50% needing to catch it for herd immunity)

I don’t know the point. But this shelter in place order can’t last 3 months.

This

It's about risk/reward. As it is, going to the grocery store is risky, particularly for the elderly or immuno-compromised. But when we run out of groceries, we make a run to the grocery store, accepting there is an increased possibility of getting exposed to the virus. The need to eat already outweighs the desire to stay as safe as possible.

 

[maroonmania]

i think yours is a correct assumption, but the unknown variable is what % of businesses won't be able to come back if weeks drag into months.

Yep, this metric is much more of concern that the actual immediate unemployment number. Everyone who goes on the unemployment can be rehired by somebody. But small businesses and industries that either go under or have no hope of coming back anytime soon (like travel and entertainment) will not be rehiring anyone anytime soon without some discovery of a miracle drug for this thing. Those are jobs totally lost for the forseeable future.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

I don't buy that. Unemployment is spiking because the government is forcing businesses to close and forcing people to stay at home. When those businesses open, people will go back to work.

There will be some inevitable slowdowns in areas. I doubt that everyone rushes to fill up restaurants until they are confident their risk of getting sick is low, for example. But I believe the economy will generally bounce back very quickly.

How long this last, possible recurring infection rate, creating a vaccine, and what kind of fear-induced slow down follows, all could keep it from being a quick bounce.... but, like you, I am somewhat optimistic.

 

[Barkman Turner Overdrive]

There are those who want this to be the death knell for Trump. They want the economy to crater and be bottomed out as long as possible. Bill Maher has said as much, several times. Virus deaths be damned. I fear a lot of suicides as well. Hold tight to faith and family is all my focus right now.

Yep. And there is close to a 0% chance Trump survives this. The Biden(or Cuomo since Biden could hide his own Easter Eggs) campaign has unlimited ways to attack Trump on this.

 

[dawgenstein]

Everything will open back up no later than June 1st.

Virginia already has a stay at home order and business closure through June 10th.

 

[ezsoil]

At what point does economic desperation outweigh the 1 in 400 chance that this thing kills us?

(I arrive at 1 in 400 by considering the true death toll is going to end up about 0.5%, with 50% needing to catch it for herd immunity)

I don’t know the point. But this shelter in place order can’t last 3 months.

this is true....we as a society have to decide what is the annual level of mortality are we willing to accept...

we have decided that 600,000 abortions are acceptable
we have decided that 60,000 deaths by flu are acceptable (and they stretch across all age groups)
we have decided that 35,000 deaths by car accidents are acceptable (even though they have plummeted in the last month)

Each of these causes of death are manageable, however, we as a society have said we are unwilling to give up our sexual freedom, or our freedom of mobility by car, or our freedom to ignore the risks of the flu because we have a vaccine...as we navigate theses waters at some point we will say enough is enough...we aren't there yet.

Most of us have decided that we are willing to suffer a little pain to beat this virus..and after three weeks, we are just starting to see the economic damage....in Just this short time, you have at least 10 million who have lost their jobs and millions more who are making far less..while some of us know someone who is infected and some may have lost a family member or friend....almost all of us know someone who has lost their job or had their livelihood dramatically affected...

time will tell ...it's a tough call but at some point we are going to have to make the choice of which pain is worse.

 

[GhostOfJackie]

A lot of those businesses will never reopen.

Well not if we have that attitude. A lot of people (my family included) are trying to spend as little money as possible because we have no idea what's coming next. But once the economy starts opening back up we will be using the same businesses as before. I hope that's the case with most people but we really don't know at this point.

 

[garddog]

Better be careful of all these forgivable loans. If you can't maintain the same employee levels you will be responsible for them.