This morning, stock trading was halted for 15 minutes for the third time. The Dow dropped as low as 2700 for a bit — nearly 12%. (The market is down around 1700-ish as I write this.) To keep that in perspective, the 1987 crash was about 22%. My mom was a cardiac nurse in 1987, and she told me her unit treated a lot of patients who had stock market-related heart incidents. On Black Friday in 1929, the market lost around 12% of value (on top of previous days of drops). Hooboy!
I’ll freely admit I don’t understand how any of this shit works. The losses in response to Trump’s disastrous Oval Office address made a sort of sense: a babbling moron in charge during a global health crisis is the worst kind of uncertainty. But why did stocks shoot up after the parade of CEOs on the White House lawn last week? Beats me. Trump lied about a lot of stuff, e.g., the Google testing website, the availability of testing, etc.
But Trump lies all the time, about everything. It can’t be a surprise anymore. Was it the Fed caving to Trump’s repeated demands to cut the rate to zero that pushed them over the edge? Again, I don’t know. But to the extent the economy rests on consumer demand, maybe the prospect of what shuttered stores and empty streets would mean is finally sinking in.
Anyhoo, Pence has a tall order today. He was scheduled to provide an update on the efforts to address the virus at 10:30 AM ET, but now his presser has been pushed back to 2:30 PM. Trump is probably screaming in Pence’s face right now, ejecting bits of masticated Egg McMuffin while underscoring the importance of calming the market, for the love of Christ, Mike!
One thing Pence, Secretary Azar, etc., could do right now to start clawing their way out of the credibility pits they’ve dug for themselves is to stop prefacing every goddamned update with slobbering praise for Trump’s leadership. But they won’t stop because they’d lose their jobs.
Each man — even the dullard Pence — is surely smart enough to know Trump is a blithering moron who has screwed the pooch here. But they’ve consciously traded dignity/credibility for power. In for a penny, in for a Pence, I guess.
Governor Cuomo of New York is doing a presser right now, saying that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are coordinating their restrictions but that the whole country needs to get on the same page. He just announced that gatherings that exceed 50 people are now banned and gyms, casinos and theaters will close at 8 PM until further notice. Bars and restaurants too, but they can still do take-out. Park fees are waived, and at least 50% of local government workers need to stay home.
CNN says the White House might announce nationwide curfews. We’ll see what Pence has to say, if he ever shows up. Maybe curfews are a measure that would be useful in containing the spread — I don’t know — but it’ll be interesting and instructive to hear the reaction of the Rand Paul types to such an infringement on their personal liberty. I predict it’ll be about as popular in red states as vape bans.
Open thread.
Patricia Kayden
trollhattan
This New Normal can go back to hell whence it came.
Ella in New Mexico
I have no real idea of how all this shit works either, but does anyone else feel like there’s some market manipulation or insider trading going on in addition to what would be expected heeby-jeebies?
What would be wrong with the government just halting trading for a week or so, until things stabilize and the legislation from the Hill gets signed and money starts rolling into the states?
The Moar You Know
Investors need accurate information to invest properly. The investor class has figured out that Trump – and on his orders, the entire United States government – is lying through his teeth at every presser he’s given in the last two months. The market slide you’ve seen over the last two weeks is the inevitable result.
Well, that, combined with (IMO) the fact that this market has been propped up on bullshit for the last five years, so a massive correction was coming anyway. But it didn’t have to be this bad.
JR
Banning gatherings at an arbitrary number of 50 is ridiculous and proves politicians can’t do math and do not understand the implications of exponential spread. If they want to stop this there needs to be a major lock down now, with no public gatherings. It only has to last a few weeks.
FelonyGovt
Sitting here at a medical appointment wearing nitrile gloves and looking forward to another long day at home since I’m over 65. I’m already tired of all of this.
MattF
IMO, the Fed cutting interest rates to near zero is a plausible thing to do in the current crisis. And it was possible because Powell ignored Trump’s frantic and ignorant demands to goose the market with negative interest rates.
trollhattan
@The Moar You Know:
I’m starting “Flash Boys.” It has me angry and in awe, in equal measure.
The Moar You Know
@Ella in New Mexico:
Fair Economist
@Ella in New Mexico:Oh, we know there is lots of insider trading in the Trump admin. Remember when Wilbur Ross got called by a journalist investigating Ross’ crooked dealings? Ross’ first action was to sell the stock. Lots more where that came from.
Jeffro
It’s almost as if The Market (praise be its name!) senses that rate cutting doesn’t solve the issue here, not by a long shot…hmm…
the investor class sure as hell better be glad Nancy Smash is willing to work with slimy Steve Mnuchin to try and keep this country afloat.
Cermet
The fall in the Dow makes perfect sense. The Fed has shot its last bolt of ammo and has only one power left – to print money. It said exactly that and intends to buy a few hundred billion dollars worth of gov bonds (hence, printing money. Normally, it sells bonds to create said cash.) This is THE greatest fear rich investors have – the Fed runs the printing presses and inflation might rear its ugly head.
Thanks to the orange gas cloud and his stupidity pushing the Fed AND their fear of losing that huge tax give-away, they’ll do anything to save his worthless, stupid ass. Even wreck the economy which they are fast doing. That is it in a nutshell.
Dorothy A. Winsor
It’s interesting to see that the market (whoever that is) can see through Trump more sharply than a ton of R voters and politicians. At least at the moment.
BroD
Thank God we’ve got some Governors who understand what’s going on and what they need to do–not the least of which is demonstrating what responsible and effective leadership looks like.
The Dangerman
Ding!
The economic carnage in my neck of the woods is going to be breathtaking. A whole buncha folks (me included) were barely hanging on to live here as it was; sure, there will be bailouts and benefits and heaven knows what else, but it’s going to be … staggering still. I can kinda see when this starts to end, roughly (8 to 16 weeks, maybe?), but I don’t see how we get from here to there.
Worse, where I live is basically designed to have bottle necks. You can’t really get from here to there without a circuitous path because there are mountains and shit in the way. Worse, one of the two main Hospitals in town (French) is hard to get to on a GOOD day; and Sierra Vista is doing major construction, so they aren’t that much easier. This isn’t even going places (or not) to get food because we don’t believe in drive through (this copies my comment from one floor down).
Oh, this is going to fun.
I’m going back to bed. Wake me when it’s over.
Jinchi
I’m sure Mnuchin has planned out how to build on his fortune, like he did during the last economic collapse.
The Dangerman
@Ella in New Mexico:
It’s almost a certainty.
Major Major Major Major
Just got back from the doctor’s office (I have intermittent asthma and decided I wanted a pneumonia vaccine). She said that they’re doing Coronavirus testing at another office and have had to get all their PPE from the hardware store—pesticide gear, basically.
Frankensteinbeck
It was the first time Trump sounded like the executive branch might do useful things, and they figured the CEOs were there to confirm it was true. Then Google publicly declared Trump to be a liar and they realized there will be nothing from the executive, ever.
Jinchi
I’m pretty sure that has a lot to do with the market collapse. It’s a pretty blunt way of telling everyone ‘You’re on your own’, there’s no one in charge.
MattF
@Ella in New Mexico: The amount of market trading by actual humans is a closely guarded secret, but is estimated to be around 10 to 20 percent. No one is controlling the stock market these days, it’s all AI and algorithms.
The Dangerman
@The Moar You Know:
This market has been hanging on by it’s fingernails not to have a major correction before the election (smoke and mirrors aplenty); a tremendous shit was coming and it finally couldn’t hold out any longer and, well, at that point, it was look out below. Long term, some people are getting rich on this overcorrection, but … it won’t be me.
schrodingers_cat
Capital markets hate uncertainty. Investors have finally woken up to the fact that the Liar-in-chief can’t be trusted and is in way over his head.
Kelly
Once the wingnuts realize COVID-19 is real Tom Cotton’s ominous “The Chinese let this loose on the world” shit will morph into “The environmental wacko’s bred the virus to reduce humankind’s environmental impact”. Coming to your AM radio soon.
E.
I’m watching the last days of my bakery cafe right now. None of my suppliers have flour because panicked fools bought it all. This is flour that comes in 50lb bags. We buy 1,000 lbs at a time. We have closed our seating area and only do takeout but we can’t be profitable in this environment so will likely close even if I do turn up some flour. I live in a very pro-Trump town (in California) and it’s incredible what I hear from people. “The Democrats will stop at nothing to destroy the President and the economy!” Meanwhile all other bars and restaurants and coffee shops in town are going full speed ahead and defying the Governor’s orders. In fact, loudly mocking him and proclaiming they won’t fall prey to this sissy hysteria. I’m so depressed about this.
patrick II
@Ella in New Mexico:
Because when they came back it will fall off a cliff. Tearing the bandage off a little at a time is not bad in this instance.
Jinchi
Trump finally seemed to be admitting that coronavirus was a problem and he appeared to be telling everyone that major drive-thru testing was about to begin. He also committed to dumping billions of dollars into the buying up stockpiles of oil and gas.
It seems like a long time ago but early Friday afternoon things looked like they were still functioning somewhat normally. At least from my perspective, the dramatic change in expectations happened later that day. They announced city by city that schools were going to be closed. For a month. Pretty much everywhere. Which means, lots of people won’t be able to work, or have to work remotely. Which means lots of businesses will start shutting down. So I headed to the store to get a week’s worth of groceries, and so did everyone else. The visual of stripped shelves made it real.
PenAndKey
Short of declaring martial law and physically stopping people from leaving their house how, exactly, would they enforce that? And if we’re talking a time-of-day curfew how would that help the situation at all?
Renie
I think the market went up Friday cuz once he declared a nat’l emergency funds were released. But as we know once he started to speak over the weekend, that all went to hell.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: let’s not buy the tech industry line that AIs and algorithms are somehow not controlled by humans.
Fair Economist
@E.: 50 lb bags of flour are bought out by market manipulators, not panicky people ar grocery stores.
trollhattan
@Jinchi:
On the heels of the ’07-’08 real estate crash John Paulson had a single-year income of over a Billion Fucking Dollars because he’d shorted real estate. He was applauded, of course, for being a really smart, self-made guy.
Feathers
The longer this is going on, the more I am thinking we will need Elizabeth Warren, either as Vice President, or as the head of a Post/Trump/Coronavirus Commission to untangle all the shit that has gone wrong in this economy (and country). Companies that will be in need of bailout have been taking out billions in loans while paying out billions to investors through stock buybacks. There needs to be some sort of limitations on stock buybacks, they are basically grift.
There also needs to be a use of this reset to point the country and the world towards a post-petroleum future. I don’t see where cheap travel is going to fit into that. I don’t want this to be a shock doctrine event, we need to figure out how to spread the wealth so that rural areas can share in it. Unfortunately, rural areas are probably just as, if not more, corrupt than the cities, it’s just local so no one notices.
sdhays
@Fair Economist: Those cookies and donuts won’t bake themselves.
ziggy
@E.: Very sorry to hear that. Hopefully you can find some way to sell items and make it through this difficult time. Failing that, some kind of financial help for small businesses such as yours. I’m seeing your story all around here (PNW) and it is heartbreaking.
E.
@Fair Economist: not in this case. I get it from a large restaurant warehouse that is open, unfortunately, to the public. They sold many pallets of 50lb bags, one bag at a time, to individual people.
trollhattan
@E.:
That has to be extremely frustrating. One hopes their murky promises to “assist small businesses” through this crisis come to fruition because you would seem to be precisely the sort of business that will directly benefit from a helping hand, ready to return the moment we’re able to get back to whatever the heck normal is. No community is helped by an empty storefront.
Major Major Major Major
@E.: no wonder I couldn’t find any yeast.
sorry to hear about your bakery ?
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: Fair point. Also, the AI and algorithms are designed to shave fractions of a penny off of every trade and I have no idea what they do when the market takes wild swings. That said, ‘market manipulation’ seems like an old-timey description of what’s actually going on.
EthylEster
BC wrote: Each man — even the dullard Pence — is surely smart enough to know Trump is a blithering moron who has screwed the pooch here.
I’m not sure that is true. I am noticing a new (to me) meme: those meanie lefties just cannot bring themselves to say anything positive about our fabulous president. Thus, Pence and colleagues supply the praise that they feel is so sorely lacking. IOW the criticism itself is proof of the plots against the Dear Leader. An article in WaPo today describes the same old story: the tariffs are killing the NC tobacco farmers but they are not about to abandon Trump.
different-church-lady
Buy on the dips.
L85NJGT
It was late in the cycle in any event. Knucklehead could have taken a mild recession early last year, instead we got a desperate Q4 shot of liquidity into the market. Since then you could watch the QE injections (particularly by the US and China) get eaten by the reality of a Corvid induced downturn on the global markets.
WereBear
Which shows that our Financial Insect Overlords have no clue how it all works, either.
different-church-lady
@Ella in New Mexico:
When is that not going on?
WereBear
@E.: I’m so sorry, that’s heartbreaking.
L85NJGT
Is Pence making the public appearances now?
How many folks down there at Mar-Lago are positive for Covid-19?
EthylEster
@JR: My clueless Florida relatives told me they were “practicing social distancing by limiting gatherings to 8”. CDC says keep 2 meters between you and other people if possible. Some people just don’t get it.
khead
Maryland is pretty much closed as of 5 PM.
Betty Cracker
@E.: That sucks. I am so sorry.
@PenAndKey: I don’t know what the point of curfews are, and maybe it’s all bullshit. Here’s the CNN quote:
In the meantime, Cuomo dumped on the federal response (don’t blame him) and didn’t say anything about curfews, so maybe Pence won’t announce any either.
I remember reading about China enforcing curfews by using drones to yell at people spotted outside. Hard to imagine Americans countenancing such a thing. The yahoos around here would shoot a drone like that down.
different-church-lady
This crash is like the equivalent of Tom Brady renting out three rooms in his 40 room mansion. But because the Dow is shorthand for our financial health, everyone watches the tote board and freaks out.
Fuck the market indexes, we ought to be worried about people like our baker friend above.
different-church-lady
@EthylEster:
Kinky!
EthylEster
@MattF: IMO, the Fed cutting interest rates to near zero is a plausible thing to do in the current crisis. And it was possible because Powell ignored Trump’s frantic and ignorant demands to goose the market with negative interest rates.
I don’t understand your reasoning. Trump will continue to make frantic and ignorant demands.
Brachiator
The stock market doesn’t really matter, except as one indirect measure of the economy. Yeah, investors want to make money. But the stock markets try to factor what the future Economy might look like, and here nobody has any idea.
Trump focuses on the stock market because he is a stupid man.
We are undergoing an economic contraction in which a lot of economic activity has been slowed, halted or disrupted. But things will recover, although some business sectors and people may be affected in unexpected ways. All we can do for now is to try to get through it as we fight this virus.
The Dangerman
@trollhattan:
I assume he was “The Big Short” Dude. OK, confirmed it (kinda), with this line from Wikipedia:
4 fucking billion, one trade. I can’t wrap my feeble little mind around that … I don’t like champagne that much, but the realllllly good stuff would have been flowing.
Gin & Tonic
Ukraine will be banning essentially all inter-city travel starting Wednesday, and limiting intra-city to 10 passengers on buses and mini-buses and 20 on trams and subways. Not sure how they plan to enforce the later, but I’ll find out once they begin.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker:
Absolutely nothing like a 50s dystopian sci-fi novel, nope, not a bit.
Have the drones deliver take-out food and game controllers and American skies will be black with them.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Ella in New Mexico:
When the new administration (or revolutionary junta, take your pick) assumes office, I want Tom Barrack’s short positions to be gone over with a microscope and compared to a timeline of Trump tweets that moved the market.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: I remember reading about Chinese drones yelling at people who weren’t wearing masks… wouldn’t be surprised if they extended that to curfew violations.
Aren’t CDC guidelines just guidelines? They can recommend curfews and banning gatherings > 50 but I have no idea if the federal government actually has that power, short of martial law/patriot act shenanigans.
Ella in New Mexico
@The Moar You Know:
@Fair Economist:
@Jinchi:
@The Dangerman:
@MattF:
@patrick II:
@different-church-lady:
The more you know…I’ll just stay in my lane until I can educate myself on how the markets work. :-D
sdhays
@WereBear: The thing about the market is that reality doesn’t matter, at least not directly and not immediately. They’re all trying to game out how each other with respond to this or that event – whether they think something is objectively confidence-inspiring or not is irrelevant. Things are getting real here because that gap between the game and reality is getting narrower and narrower.
Gin & Tonic
@The Dangerman: Dude also donated $400 million to Harvard for its Center for Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Sure, he made a lot, but he made a very risky bet in the teeth of very widespread opposition.
MattF
@EthylEster: If Powell had cut interest rates when Trump demanded it, he wouldn’t have had the ‘room’ for cuts now, when there’s an actual crisis. Powell, apparently, doesn’t view Trump’s re-election problems as an existential crisis.
NotMax
Betcha the number assembled on the White House lawn (reporters + crews + whatever gang is is there to wind up the Pencebot) is more than 50.
trollhattan
@Kelly:
Clancy, after he ceased being interesting, wrote a whole damn book that revolved around Radical Enviros who attempted mass population reduction by releasing a disease bug, then running off to watch Gaia heal herself. Or something like that.
Stupid enviros.
PenAndKey
That’s what I thought, but I’ve definitely been wrong before. All I know is that, short of the interstate being shut down, it would take an active case in the plant for my place of employment to be shut down. Unless the government can actually enforce a quarantine curfew my boss is going to expect me to make the drive, and will pay according to that expectation.
@trollhattan:
That’d be Rainbow Six if I remember correctly. It was an entertaining popcorn-quality book, but it was definitely steeped shoulder deep in anti-environmentalist propaganda and scaremongering at about the level I expected to find in a Michael Crichton novel every time something interesting made the science news circles when he was still alive.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Hope they’re all carrying their new Social Distancing Sticks.
Mike in NC
The only speaking that Pence is allowed to do is in praise of the divinity of his master, Fat Bastard.
jonas
I was reading somewhere not just a few weeks ago that heavy investment in stock index funds (along with automated, algorithm-driven trading) over the past several years, while cheap and easy to manage, had the potential to make wild tanks and upswings more likely in the event of a situation like the one we’re now facing. Not sure if that explains everything, but it was eerily prescient imho.
The Dangerman
@sdhays:
…no one really has any idea where this goes. Sure, Trump says he has the best Crystal Balls …
…actually, Trump’s line yesterday about how the Government had this under tight control (or however he said it; I may only be close) must have freaked the market the fuck out. You listen to Trump and then you look out the window and you realize … it’s all bullshit. That might work for a building in New Your or a Golf Course in Scotland or a TV show in America, but it’s like the biggest fucking Peter Principle event EVER, it doesn’t work at this level.
A Ghost to Most
If things get desperate around here, I have a .22, and a rabbit warren about to be destroyed by a pipeline. Bad time to be a rabbit here. Good luck all.
WereBear
Never Enough is true crime set in the ex-pat community of ultra-rich banking executives in Hong Kong. More than the murder will have your blood run cold.
These people do nothing but make money and spend it, all for baubles and high status purchases that they compete with each other about.
No wonder they are clueless about anything else.
different-church-lady
@trollhattan: Sticks? What, just snarling at people doesn’t work anymore?
dww44
@Gin & Tonic: After the Bush Administration left office, Paulson and his wife bought the entire island known as “Little St. Simons Island” with the aim of preserving it from future development. They’ve an inn and cottages but going there is to go back in time. That was a good thing they did, albeit that it was his Goldman monies that allowed them to do that.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@trollhattan:
An older couple had come to their granddaughter’s domestic violence court date (one of the few allowable hearings after the emergency closure order). The bailiff freaked out over their masks; they explained they wanted people to stay away (we all laughed).
They came for no reason – no audiences are allowed for anything right now.
patrick II
@PenAndKey:
It’s the appearance of doing something that’s important. The actual reality of doing something helpful, like having millions of tests ready for everyone early on instead of calling it a hoax, is not. Appearance, Reality. We live in TrumpWorld now.
RobertDSC-Work
@trollhattan:
It was decent, but the beginning of the end of his ability to write well. Every book he wrote was worse and worse until he passed in 2013. The writers who continued on after his passing couldn’t get his style down until True Faith And Allegiance by Mark Greaney. That book, published in 2016, matched his page-turning tension and grip. I haven’t read much past that point.
jonas
I was reading somewhere not just a few weeks ago that heavy investment in stock index funds (along with automated, algorithm-driven trading) over the past several years, while cheap and easy to manage, had the potential to make wild tanks and upswings more likely in the event of a situation like the one we’re now facing. Not sure if that explains everything, but it was eerily prescient imho.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Leave us give the briefest of nods to The Nasty Rabbit.
;)
WereBear
You have put your finger directly on it! PEAK PETER PRINCIPLE
middlelee
I’m flat out amazed at a few of my friends. One told me yesterday he would still go out to breakfast and lunch with friends. I did attempt to explain abut wiping the table, his chair and the salt and pepper shakers with alcohol wipes, and to maintain a six-foot separation from other humans. We may not be friends much longer.
A retired nurse friend told me she is still going to workouts but not the gym.
WTF is it about human-to-human transmission needing to stop that these people don’t get. There are few alcohol wipes left around here. I found out Lysol and Clorox wipes will work and I have Lysol so I’m prepared for my apartment to smell like a run-down boarding house for awhile.
I’ll now go back and read the comments. Please forgive me if everything I wrote is redundant.
kindness
Trump announcing nationwide curfews…..Hmmmmm…. What could go wrong with that?
Baud
sdhays
@RobertDSC-Work: Did he really write anything worth reading in this millennium? I think I read something after the book about the stupid Japanese-Chinese-India alliance (which was fun, but stupid and frankly kind of racist as I look back on it, although the commercial plane crashing into the Capitol looks different after 9/11), and it was so bad I never looked at another Clancy book again.
Fleeting Expletive
@Brachiator: Maybe the real role of the market is just to be a barometer of the Mood of Money. The constant measure of some rapacious and insecure monster requiring attention and gratification, and when unsatisfied? You don’t want to know.
Feed me, seymore!
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: He just lost my vote; I demand fealty to science fiction!
different-church-lady
@jonas: Some day an algorithm is going to kill us all.
Fleeting Expletive
@The Dangerman: Biggest fucking Peter Principle Event Ever ought to be a rotating tag line.
SiubhanDuinne
@A Ghost to Most:
Watershit Down.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@RobertDSC-Work:
One of the things that happens with best-selling authors is that they get less and less editing. They don’t like it. And why should the publishing house spend time and money when the book will sell better than anything else they put out that month anyway?
Subsole
@trollhattan: That guy really slipped his last gear after the cold war ended, didn’t he.
Wasn’t there another one about earth plunging into another ice age b/c all those wonnerful greenhouse gases were the only thing holding it off? Different author, same general message? I seem to remember reading it in the early 90’s. Seemed to be a common theme in sci-fi at the time.
NotMax
@kindness
So much for overnight crews getting to and from jobs working to restock shelves.
different-church-lady
@Fleeting Expletive: Point of order: Trump is quite a few degrees above where the Peter Principle would put any other person.
Subsole
@trollhattan:
We call them cattle prods, here.
Baud
I wonder if I should cancel my group Brazilian wax party.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady:
Haha, true!
@Brachiator: I agree the stock market is a poor measure of overall economic health. But consumer demand is the real thing that keeps the economy afloat, and there’s plenty of good reason to worry about the long-term effects of the pandemic on that.
Major Major Major Major
@Subsole: Are we getting Clancy and Crichton confused?
Clancy just wrote standard CIA agitprop, amusing if thin.
NotMax
@Baud
Have seen no mention of mandatory cancellations of pubic gatherings.
:)
artem1s
Official declaration of Federal Disaster signaled funds for stimulus and relief were coming soon. Of course Moscow Mitch can’t wrangle the R’s to get a clean bill passed so there’s that – now we are down again. Also, the parade of CEO’s seemed a lot like W’s solution of ‘go out and shop’ edict after 9/11. Of course since the W administration was soooooo good at disaster management, I think most people are looking toward their governor for guidance on what the real plan is. Also, ‘not my fault’ sent the message that the states are on their own. Some took that as a hopeful sign that at least some of us may get to have nice things once the apocalypse is over.
Eunicecycle
@SiubhanDuinne: my first thought too.
Mike in Pasadena
@E.: Right, this is all about those darn liebruls trying to bring down the president. Then the same people rush out to hoard everything they can grab from the grocery store.
Better yet, “The Democrat party is politicizing the virus.” The accusation is itself politicizing the virus.
Baud
JMG
Some Wall St. types have said that the market went way up late on Friday not because of anything Trump said or did, but because speculators who had gone short (borrowing stocks at a higher price to sell them and hopefully repay the loan with stocks worth a lot less when bought again) were unwinding their positions before the weekend.
Subsole
@kindness:
Nothing. Curfews are only ominous when Democrats declare them.
I really wish I was joking.
dmsilev
@sdhays: _Rainbow Six_, which was the “envirowhackos try to kill all humanity” book, was awful. The villains’ Cunning Plan was to go to the Sydney Olympics and take advantage of a water misting system installed to keep everyone cool during the heat of summer to spread their supervirus. Only, 5 seconds of research would turn up the inconvenient fact that the Sydney Games were held in mid/late September, which is to say early spring in the Southern Hemisphere.
Jeffery
The market was overvalued and was due to tank. I was hoping to make my annual IRA withdrawal before it did. The date I set to do it was the 24th of February. I had a feeling something would happen before I made the withdrawal and it did.
After the CEO meeting there was a dead cat bounce when people thought they saw a buying opportunity with record lows.
Then governors started to close venues down. Today lots of people woke up to find they didn’t have a job. Usually the market likes unemployment but this type isn’t the kind they like. It tanked again.
Now we have to wait and see just how bad the epidemic becomes over the next week or so. That will decide where the market will go. If the worst is over or contained it will go back up some but not to where it was.
WereBear
@middlelee: I ran out at what the Google business graph told me was an uncrowded hour and speedshopped for vital stuff. They have an insta-cart, but it’s heavy on the prepared foods and that’s no good for Mr WereBear’s special diet.
I wore clothes, someone else wore gloves, but everyone else had no flippin’ clue about social distance. I tried to body-language give them one.
Governor Cuomo’s daily press conference had the chairs for the press six feet apart from each other.
Mnemosyne
@Ella in New Mexico:
If people are hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer for profit, I GUARANTEE you that people are trying to manipulate the market for profit. Greedy assholes are gonna asshole.
But I don’t know enough about financial markets to know what we can do to root that out.
trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
Maybe back in the day, but snarling is how modern Republicans flirt.
middlelee
@E.: I am so sorry to hear this. I live close to Nevada City and Grass Valley, CA and all their businesses are small businesses. My biggest anxiety is thinking about the owners and the employees and how any of them will survive this. How many GOFUNDMEs can we do to keep them alive?
NotMax
@trolllhattan
Sneer goggles.
:)
jeffreyw
@Baud: Who the fuck needs that many waxes.
Betty Cracker
NJ governor announces an 8 PM to 5 AM curfew:
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
We don’t know how long the pandemic will last. It may slow down in the spring and summer, only to come back hard in winter, until a vaccine is developed.
So yeah, you are right that we cannot predict the long term impact of the epidemic. But the world has recovered from every previous pandemic, even if there has been a terrible impact on some people and nations.
All we can do is hold on, and do the best we can.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: As the second paragraph notes, this is a three-state deal for NY, NJ, and CT.
gvg
@RobertDSC-Work: IMO his writing went down the more famous he got, so he stopped being ruled by an editor. His books got longer, but less well written, less crisp or whatever. I’ve seen that before in really “successful” writers.
BobS
@E.: In other words, all the Trump-loving assholes who think this is a hoax are hoarding food.
Major Major Major Major
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
Lots of people are going to try and profiteer. Most of them will find out the hard way that you can’t profiteer from someone when your profiteering drove their business into bankruptcy and they don’t have the money to pay you for what you’re hoarding.
NotMax
Occurred to me this year could well see a record number of summer camps go belly up.
UncleEbeneezer
@WereBear: Ugh, that happened to me at Rite Aid the other day. Dude was standing right on top of me at the Rx line. Like, now is NOT THE TIME for that shit!
Mr. Mack
Been out of the business for quite awhile…but one market that was already poised to collapse is the sub prime auto loan industry. Anybody here know anything about how it is faring at the moment?
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
Mitch McConnell basically saying that the Senate doesn’t give a fuck about the deal Mnuchin and Pelosi struck at the end of the week doesn’t help matters, either.
glory b
@EthylEster: This is true. I have a relative who works for ThermoFisher (formerly Fisher Scientific, HQ in Pittsburgh). She works with a bunch of white Repub males. Even those guys, who work for a company providing equipment for the outbreak (albeit, not on the tech side), are minimizing it, saying it’s not even as bad as the flu!
Zzyzx
What is the point of the night curfew? It’s not like the virus is a vampire.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Those who cited “Rainbow Six” have better memories than I and are correct–while it can be purported to be about US Super-Special forces it’s an anti-environmentalist polemic decorated with guys who very carefully clean their guns.
His dialogue became a thing of special horror, like a less disciplined Ayn Rand. And then he died.
Subsole
@Major Major Major Major: Possible. The book I’m thinking of wasn’t Crichton though. Yeah, some of his work could be a little heavy on “what has science DONE?”, but I almost never felt like it was straight bludgeoning me over the head. And it was usually factualish enough to be enjoyable whether I agreed or not.
This was not that.
Mr. Mack
@NotMax: AirBnB hosts as well. Especially those who bought the property for that purpose. I was booked solid through June…in the last two days i have received several cancellations, in three years, I’ve only had two prior. While we don’t depend on the income, it is a hit and we will curtail spending appropriately.
trollhattan
@Mr. Mack:
Not only subprime auto loans, payday loans secured with people’s cars have exploded. We don’t need no stinkin’ usury laws.
Kent
The market will bottom out and start going back up when enough algorithms determine some stocks are underpriced and there are bargains to be had. That’s how the 2008 crash ended. When folks like Buffet started to wade back into the market.
Ultimately when this passes the entire world infrastructure will still be standing. This isn’t a war or national disaster that destroys stuff. Once people begin buying and doing stuff again it will spin back up. But there will be endless wreckage and probably lots of small firms getting bought out and consolidated.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@middlelee:
They can all learn to code and write apps.
Subsole
@Mnemosyne: Not to mention profiteering in the land of the 2nd Ammendment seems like it could go sideways awful quick.
jimmiraybob
…resign the Trump presidency, Pence vice presidency and entire cabinet after appointing Obama to build a nation for the next 9-10 months.
Your welcome. Apologies if this has already been put forward.
different-church-lady
@Mr. Mack:
Those people can go fuck off. It’s the dark side of AirBnB.
Kent
This. You better be fucking certain what you are hoarding is actually scarce and not temporarily scarce. Something like flour? We have MASSIVE overproduction of grain in this country and there is surplus wheat stored all over the place. It isn’t going to take the flour mills very long to catch up with whatever temporary shortages there are at this moment.
Major Major Major Major
@Subsole: I was thinking of Chrichton’s last book, which was anti-global-warming hooey, but it looks like there was a Clancy I wasn’t aware of too!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kent:
The only thing this rate reduction accomplished is to make piles of cash available to the already liquid in order to buy up assets at low prices.
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady: Just because landlords are the literal definition of nonproductive rent-seekers doesn’t mean you can just… eh, carry on.
Ksmiami
@jonas: The algorithms that read signals then amplify them across multiple trading platforms as such swings are more extreme.
trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
I won’t be a bit surprised to see a lot of Tahoe Basin homes and condos up for sale later this year. It will be a blessing to the service industry folks who have seen the rental housing pool dry up the last few years.
different-church-lady
@Kent: But in the meantime the little guys who are already near the edge are going to have the cliff erode away under their feet.
We really need Departments of Punching Awful People at the state level.
glory b
@Jeffery:
@Gin & Tonic:
Yep, I read an article about him a while back. He was aware that it was almost the equivalent of hitting the lottery, he knew he was going against ALL of the current market wisdom.
catclub
@Gin & Tonic: yeah the bet only looked like a sure thing after it paid off.
Also, if his company made $4B that was at least partly other investor’s money.
catclub
Those guys have remote car disabling technology. They will get paid. There was no remote house disabling techonology.
Roger Moore
@Ella in New Mexico:
In another sign the apocalypse is upon us, Megan McArdle has a reasonably well-written summary of why the market is so bonkers right now. The basic problem is that there’s so much uncertainty that nobody wants to buy or sell. That leaves people forced to sell driving the market, and without a similar number of people forced to buy that makes the market tank. It will keep falling until either A) the uncertainty clears up and people on the sidelines jump back in or B) prices crater so hard bargain hunters start buying to take advantage of others’ distress.
Mike in NC
Tom Clancy made an appearance years ago with General Tony Zinni to promote their latest book. About 50 or so people attended at the Navy Memorial in DC. They took audience questions and comments. One whacko asked if it was advisable to ban Muslims from entering the country. Clancy chuckled and said, “No, this is America”.
We’ve fallen quite a bit since then.
middlelee
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Oh, right. Why didn’t I think of that?
p.a.
Will there be ? at the Dense-er? Q1) Where is the president?
Any tweet activity today? Fetal position, or grownup took away the phone?
mrmoshpotato
Ewww, but probably true given what a pile of shit manchild Dump is.
mrmoshpotato
@Zzyzx:
Quiet! It’ll hear you and develop a taste for blood!
A Ghost to Most
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve been thinking about that book alot. The warren is old, and will be totaled. Our house is in danger of foundation damage.
LuciaMia
This to the Nth degree. But like ya said, aint gonna happen. It literally turns my stomach when Pence starts his puckering up.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
And uncertainty is not going to clear up anytime soon, so, as I suggest, most people should just ignore the market and go on with their lives. Except of course, for those traders just trying to make money on market swings.
The Pale Scot
Stock Market??
It’s all program trading, all computers all the way down. No sentient being is going to be selling into this market. Until the margin calls start, then everybody who borrowed money to gamble with is in deep shit
PenAndKey
@Major Major Major Major: I was a big reader of Clancy as a teenager. At the time he was a popular military fiction writer and I’m a sucker for the genre. As for Crichton? I was a small boy when Jurassic Park came out and the movie got me into genetic engineering. The original novel was good, but the “sequel” was a direct sequel of the movie and not the book. If you’ve ever read the original you understand how disappointing that is.
It was only after I got further into my education that I realized Crichton’s shtick.He’s a scare-monger and his work was effectively luddite propaganda. His work may have had a small hand in popularizing the biological technologies, but I would argue it’s done far, far more damage to the reputation of GMO technologies than almost anything else. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to talk people down from the “if GMOs were safe there wouldn’t be entire movies about people eating dinosaurs!” rhetoric.
Mike in Pasadena
Our California dunce, Devin Nunes says we should go out to a pub. I guess this means we need to board an airplane, fly to Great Britian, and go to a pub.*
*Yes, he said, “local pub,” but that doesn’t exist here in California because we have bars. And, I’m making fun of someone who is an asshole, that’s all.
Back to my taxes.
WhatsMyNym
@Mr. Mack: They will just take back the cars until you agree to a refinance with terms in their favor.
– – – – – – – –
DOW indexes – folks, please don’t be selective in the financial indexes that you follow. Most of the indexes are still above the Dec 2018 low (surprisingly). The Dow 30 and 50 are a handful of the largest companies.
RobertDSC-Work
@sdhays:
No. The last “good” book, IMO, was Executive Orders. After that, it went downhill in a hurry. The authors who have carried on his work haven’t carried the ball well.
I liked all his books up until Executive Orders. After that, not so much.
Dirk Reinecke
@Subsole: You are thinking about Fallen Angels by Larry Niven en Pournelll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Angels_(science_fiction_novel)
Subsole
@PenAndKey:
That is a real shame given some of his stuff like Timeline, Congo, Eaters of the Dead…when the guy just sat back and had FUN with it, he could be damned fun.
Subsole
@Dirk Reinecke:
THANK YOU ! That was driving me batty.
Brachiator
@PenAndKey:
He’s a fiction writer. Anyone treating him as an expert on technology or anything else is making a big mistake.
ETA: I remember him mainly for the fun scare of “The Andromeda Strain.” Good movie, too.
Roger Moore
@Mike in Pasadena:
You should know that California has pubs. At the very least, it has places that advertise themselves as pubs, like Kings Row and Lucky Baldwin’s.
Karen Potter
Central Maine; grocery shopped, needed coffee, peppercorns and milk. Also wanted a few canned goods to spice up rice and beans. Not only were there no paper goods, but cleaning supplies and baby wipes were gone. What I found funny was all the white pasta was gone but whole wheat and veggie pasta hadn’t been touched, same thing with brown rice vs white rice, then there was cereal’s still good supply of old fashioned rolled oats while nearly out of processed cereals. Over all convenience foods? empty shelves. Staples good supply, white sugar gone but raw sugar in good supply. Lots of fathers with children in store, I shop when most people aren’t around but it was full today.
tam1MI
@Zzyzx: The curfew is to keep people from going to bars.
TriassicSands
Nonsense! The world’s foremost authority on everything just gave himself a 10/10 rating for his performance on the pandemic.