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> Over the past couple of days the federal government has done more to try to fix the markets than they did during the entire housing crash, but compressing it
by pbourke 7y ago
> Over the past couple of days the federal government has done more to try to fix the markets than they did during the entire housing crash, but compressing it all into a weekend.
One minor point the Federal Reserve has pulled all of their levers to keep credit moving.
The Federal Government has yet to do any fiscal stimulus, which is what's really needed here. If the US government decided to go into $2T+ of debt over the next few weeks and directed that spending at individuals instead of industry bailouts, then I predict the economic consequences of this event would be much shallower than it would be otherwise. They can borrow this money at damn near zero interest right now.
> And here we are, staring into the abyss.
Just in the Seattle area, we've had 10's of restaurant closures announced. The Tom Douglas restaurant group has laid off a good portion of its 800 employees. So the Seattle area alone has probably lost >2,000 jobs already. That's probably seriously on the low side.
I truly think we're looking at a staggering number of unemployed in this country within a few months. Like, great depression staggering. The GFC was terrible, but every neighbourhood service business did not suddenly have 75% of their business disappear or were forced to close. This is much, much different. These jobs will go away in a flood and come back in a trickle. Without a vaccine, we will need to hold some level of countermeasures for up to 18 months - nobody will go out to eat, etc.