Coronavirus and the economy. (1 Viewer)

My haircut got canceled
Yesterday we said eff it, my 3 year old cut his hair and mine. Lol didn’t turn out too horrible!
Talking to the bartender a few hours later. She was just let go. 30 days minimum without a job or paycheck. I tipped her $200.
Thank you to you, Dr Strange, and whoever else is trying to do this. I worked anywhere from your standard Mexican restaurant to five star chef tables, never once would I have been able to make it through a month or two with no work.
 
Talking to the bartender a few hours later. She was just let go. 30 days minimum without a job or paycheck. I tipped her $200. It's all that I had. These folks are going to be hit the hardest. The cost of the cure is going to be more expensive than the disease.

You're a Godsend, man. I gotta tip my hat to you. I didn't want to spill the beans but one of my favorite waitresses (actually in the top 3) had her appendix burst, then had a complication in the hospital, then came back to work after six weeks off only to end up unemployed like a month and a half later because of this. I had a little extra money and I told her I'd pay her $400 to go home and not work because of all the stuff that happened to her.

I'll tell you something, times like this we learn who the best characters are.
 
The hardest part is every Wednesday since I came back to California I would go to the Tilted Kilt and get me a plate of boneless wings and fries and it would be super cheap because they're half-price. This is the first Wednesday in 17 months that I didn't get to go. It makes me sad.

No bars in Saudi - try home brew and an air fryer ...not a good joke, I know
 
Airlines spent over 90% of their profits over the last decade on stock buybacks and now after a short but sharp three months of pain they need government assistance? Where the fuck are their boot straps?!

Eight suggestions for criteria to any government bailout by a US politician. I would personally want more but a good start.
  • Companies must maintain payrolls and use federal funds to keep people working.
  • Businesses must provide $15 an hour minimum wage quickly but no later than a year from the end
  • Companies would be permanently banned from engaging in stock buybacks.
  • Companies would be barred from paying out dividends or executive bonuses while they receive federal funds and the ban would be in place for three years.
  • Businesses would have to provide at least one seat to workers on their board of directors, though it could be more depending on size of the rescue package.
  • Collective bargaining agreements must remain in place.
  • Corporate boards must get shareholder approval for all political spending.
  • CEOs must certify their companies are complying with the rules and face criminal penalties for violating them.
 
Don’t know if this is really from GS but seems reasonable to me:

Conclusions of Goldman Sachs Investee call where 1,500 companies dialed in. The key economic takeaways were:

50% of Americans will contract the virus (150m people) as it's very communicable. This is on a par with the common cold (Rhinovirus) of which there are about 200 strains and which the majority of Americans will get 2-4 per year.

70% of Germany will contract it (58M people). This is the next most relevant industrial economy to be effected.

Peak-virus is expected over the next eight weeks, declining thereafter.

The virus appears to be concentrated in a band between 30-50 degrees north latitude, meaning that like the common cold and flu, it prefers cold weather. The coming summer in the northern hemisphere should help. This is to say that the virus is likely seasonal.

Of those impacted 80% will be early-stage, 15% mid-stage and 5% critical-stage. Early-stage symptoms are like the common cold and mid-stage symptoms are like the flu; these are stay at home for two weeks and rest. 5% will be critical and highly weighted towards the elderly.

Mortality rate on average of up to 2%, heavily weight towards the elderly and immunocompromised; meaning up to 3m people (150m*.02). In the US about 3m/yr die mostly due to old age and disease, those two being highly correlated (as a percent very few from accidents). There will be significant overlap, so this does not mean 3m new deaths from the virus, it means elderly people dying sooner due to respiratory issues. This may however stress the healthcare system.

There is a debate as to how to address the virus pre-vaccine. The US is tending towards quarantine. The UK is tending towards allowing it to spread so that the population can develop a natural immunity. Quarantine is likely to be ineffective and result in significant economic damage but will slow the rate of transmission giving the healthcare system more time to deal with the case load.

China’s economy has been largely impacted which has affected raw materials and the global supply chain. It may take up to six months for it to recover.

Global GDP growth rate will be the lowest in 30 years at around 2%.

S&P 500 will see a negative growth rate of -15% to -20% for 2020 overall.

There will be economic damage from the virus itself, but the real damage is driven mostly by market psychology. Viruses have been with us forever. Stock markets should fully recover in the 2nd half of the year.

In the past week there has been a conflating of the impact of the virus with the developing oil price war between KSA and Russia. While reduced energy prices are generally good for industrial economies, the US is now a large energy exporter, so there has been a negative impact on the valuation of the domestic energy sector. This will continue for some time as the Russians are attempting to economically squeeze the American shale producers and the Saudi’s are caught in the middle and do not want to further cede market share to Russia or the US.

Technically the market generally has been looking for a reason to reset after the longest bull market in history.

There is NO systemic risk. No one is even talking about that. Governments are intervening in the markets to stabilize them, and the private banking sector is very well capitalized. It feels more like ‪9/11‬ than it does like 2008.
 
7135D2D1-4148-4175-83B2-14B5CF29D6A0.jpeg
 
I love the people who hate tourists in a tourist based economy, not only hawaii but you get the locals with the same attitude down the jersey shore. Now after Sandy, they were all crying keep jersey strong come down and spend money....

Now this part may sound bit inhuman
One of my issues is that nothing is being said about\for landlords except for the information no evictions, i fear i will have to take some renters to court to get judgments for collections. Sure some folks will catch up on their rent but how long? My tax bill is due quarterly (will the city hold of penalties, interest and collecting), my school tax also. Anything goes wrong i need to make repairs immediately. What about general up keep of the property.

One case in point i am currently evicting a renter who refuses to pay rent (after 5 years of being a good renter) and leave the property, as of april 1st they will be 8900 behind. Case was to be heard march 17, courts were closed to public and the current time frame given is 2 months.... But i notice traffic cops still giving out tickets for stupid ass parking violations.

For those who are saying it deserves me right for waiting
first court hearing scheduled in December 2019, renter didnt show up to the hearing ... verdict in my favor. The next day, renter contacts court through renter protection agency and stated he was rushed to the hospital for chest pains, no major issues found but verdict was suspended. Renter given 30 days to notify court to get new court date. Renter drips tiny payments and contacts the court on the last day of his grace period and we get an early February schedule court date, renter protection agency claims renter is attempting to catch up and requests a 30 day delay as he is applying for a credit union loan to catch up. Few payments made but is only up to date till 2019. January, February, March unpaid, court date march 17 and now i may have to wait at least another 2 months until they let public back into courts. Will i ever see the money, minus the security ..probably not. For me its more about getting a paying renter in and him out. I will let collections chase him down for the owed money.
 
I love the people who hate tourists in a tourist based economy, not only hawaii but you get the locals with the same attitude down the jersey shore. Now after Sandy, they were all crying keep jersey strong come down and spend money....

Now this part may sound bit inhuman
One of my issues is that nothing is being said about\for landlords except for the information no evictions, i fear i will have to take some renters to court to get judgments for collections. Sure some folks will catch up on their rent but how long? My tax bill is due quarterly (will the city hold of penalties, interest and collecting), my school tax also. Anything goes wrong i need to make repairs immediately. What about general up keep of the property.

One case in point i am currently evicting a renter who refuses to pay rent (after 5 years of being a good renter) and leave the property, as of april 1st they will be 8900 behind. Case was to be heard march 17, courts were closed to public and the current time frame given is 2 months.... But i notice traffic cops still giving out tickets for stupid ass parking violations.

For those who are saying it deserves me right for waiting
first court hearing scheduled in December 2019, renter didnt show up to the hearing ... verdict in my favor. The next day, renter contacts court through renter protection agency and stated he was rushed to the hospital for chest pains, no major issues found but verdict was suspended. Renter given 30 days to notify court to get new court date. Renter drips tiny payments and contacts the court on the last day of his grace period and we get an early February schedule court date, renter protection agency claims renter is attempting to catch up and requests a 30 day delay as he is applying for a credit union loan to catch up. Few payments made but is only up to date till 2019. January, February, March unpaid, court date march 17 and now i may have to wait at least another 2 months until they let public back into courts. Will i ever see the money, minus the security ..probably not. For me its more about getting a paying renter in and him out. I will let collections chase him down for the owed money.
Slightly OT but if you want to be a landlord and make money you need to be an ass. I have a couple of rental properties and after over a decade of trouble I now only rent them to people who are reliable and nice and pay half the market rate and stay forever. Many tenets are c’nts who will abuse your property or your good nature and just take advantage of you. Having rented several properties myself and being what I consider a ‘dream tenant’ I’ve still been f’kd by landlords who extract the maximum so I understand the renters attitude. That’s why I don’t try and maximize my revenue - this is an add-on for me, not my main income so the less hassle the better. Just like any business, you only make big money if you rape your customers - I’m not that guy.
 
just posting what I saw today, we want 30 days

Yeah I realize that...I also like when people have posters about save the animals and don't eat meat...wearing a leather belt and shoes at the same time...

No dig on you davin, just a comment about myopic thought
 
Yeah I realize that...I also like when people have posters about save the animals and don't eat meat...wearing a leather belt and shoes at the same time...

No dig on you davin, just a comment about myopic thought
There was a protest on MOLOKAI , outside the airport begging to stop travel to flatten the curve. Our industry of work will slow down but there’s a lot of work to catch up on since we are so behind, and it’s all in shop repairs / refurbish jobs
 
There is a roughly trillion dollar stimulus plan under consideration in the Senate. It is hard to grasp how much money that is. Let me put in more personal terms - this is $3,000 for every man / woman / child in the United States. In other words, it is an epic shit load of money. Most of this $3,000 per person is not likely to end up in your hands.

There will be some debate about this sort of spending. I think it is a bit distasteful yet absolutely essential. Of course, we could screw this up and waste the money too. How & when it is spent matters a great deal. I will say "principled" objections to a government handout to the general public will not age well { we didn't see to hold such principles the last years ago when we cut taxes and spent comparable amounts of money. } Nor will a huge bail out of business interests not paired with major help for the unemployed.

The need for this will be far more obvious in a couple of weeks. But if we wait till it is obvious, it will be another case of an opportunity not taken ends up being lost. The tsunami of unemployed is coming, not in months or even weeks. It is already begun. I picked tsunami with care - it is not like any other wave in the ocean. It strikes with ever increasing power, no crashing crest & it isn't over in a breath. And it leaves behind unimaginable destruction . . .

The number of unemployed could be astonishing, in less than a month not some far away someday. Lots of people have either gotten their last paycheck or will get it by the end of the month. These folks will need help pretty fast - say by April 10th, the day when many rents and mortgages are due. For far too many people, that will be a hard decision. Do we spend most of the cash we have to pay the rent? Or do we save it for the rest of our expenses?

I will judge this stimulus package by how fast we get money into people's hands. It might seem easy to disperse a fat check to everyone, but it isn't. If we see that the final bill includes means testing, that will require weeks maybe a month+ to match everyone's prior year tax return to the size of the check and even if they get a check. I do get that a family with a million + annual income doesn't need a $1,200 check. But the price for not giving the check to the very rich is we all have to wait - maybe as long as May or June.

The best outcome is just write checks ASAP. Pass a barebones emergency bill now. Fight over business issues and future payments later. The longer we dawdle, the more desperate the need.

Congress didn't make good decisions to go on recess. It was a failure of leadership in both the House and Senate. The optics are awful, but that isn't the core problem. The public is in far more trouble than they appreciate, but this will not last long at all. This will compound if the efforts to get help become bogged down in a partisan fight.

Speed is going to be essential. Let's hope we can pull a rabbit out of our hat!

DrStrange

PS my heart goes out to the young people who's life got interrupted by both the 2008/2010 recession and by what is about to strike us. These folks will be basically a lost generation, from a financial point of view. The only comparable people might be the few remaining depression era folk - but you'd need to be 95+ to have any memory of it.
 
Last edited:
A trillion USD of stimulus will fall far short of what’s needed when GDP is going to fall 20% (US$4 trillion).

A likely scenario I see is massive fiscal stimulus coming in the form of $3-4 trillion over time (after they find out $1T isn’t enough), and will be financed by the fed monetizing fiscal debt. This is called MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) or MP3 depending on who you ask. As the saying goes, there is no free lunch... hence a devaluation of the USD would come with this policy.

Search “Ray Dalio LinkedIn”... he has some good articles on there.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Back
Top Bottom