Europe
When Can America Reopen From Its Coronavirus Shutdown?
5th April 2020Social Distancing Saves Lives. So Do Recessions. If you’re weighing a recession versus a pandemic in terms of lives lost, there’s no contest. Contrary to popular belief, deaths go down during economic downturns.Anne Case and Angus Deaton are economists at Princeton University. They are the authors of the recently published book Deaths of Despair and […]
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Trump’s biggest 2020 pitch disintegrates
4th April 2020The impact of his chief legislative achievement — a big tax-cut bill heavily focused on corporations — is now moot after mostly delivering stock buybacks and dividend payments rather than a boom in corporate investment. Perhaps the big increase in corporate investment would have eventually materialized. But now we will never know. Economic growth is […]
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The corporate bailout doesn’t include the limits Democrats promised
3rd April 2020“Congress left a lot of discretion, a lot more than people realize,” one former Fed official said. The half-trillion-dollar corporate bailout amounts to a quarter of the $2 trillion emergency relief package that Congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan support last week. Washington is still scarred by the intense political backlash against the $700 billion Wall […]
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How Congress will keep an eye on $2 trillion in coronavirus money
2nd April 2020Here is how those protections are supposed to work: 1) The Congressional Oversight Commission Who’s in charge: Congress’ main oversight tool is a new, five-member panel that is charged with monitoring a $500 billion fund for distressed industries operated by Mnuchin, in partnership with the Federal Reserve. The four top congressional leaders each get an […]
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Economists pan Pelosi’s proposal to lift cap on state and local tax deductions in next bailout
1st April 2020Such a change would definitely be a windfall mostly for top earners, experts say. And lifting the limits retroactively, as Pelosi has suggested, would only make matters worse, while not offering many benefits to state governments that are also getting hammered by the current crisis. “This is not a good idea,” said Michael Linden, executive […]
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Big banks brace for coronavirus-related onslaught
31st March 2020“You’re going to have massive defaults as the economy turns down, and a massive amount of dumping of the worst debt as certain investment vehicles like mutual funds are getting out of it,” said Dennis Kelleher, who heads the financial regulation advocacy group Better Markets. “You put those two things together, and there is an […]
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Fears mount of a coronavirus-induced depression
30th March 2020“The longer it takes, the deeper the ongoing slowdown will be,” said Pantheon Macroeconomics chief economist Ian Shepherdson. “Fed data shows that 40 percent of U.S. households would not be able to come up with $400 for an emergency expense, and data from 2019 shows that 53 percent of U.S. households don’t have any emergency […]
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‘Just damage containment’: Cost of the coronavirus shutdown keeps rising
28th March 2020“The Federal Reserve and Congress are helping avert for now a massive self-feeding economic and financial decline that threatens a devastating combination of a 1930s-like depression and a 2008-like global financial crisis. That’s the good news,” said Mohamed A. El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz. “There will definitely be a need for a phase four.” […]
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House passes $2 trillion coronavirus package — but not without last-minute drama
27th March 2020The eleventh-hour drama in the House comes after days of frenzied negotiations among Senate leaders to secure a deal and an intense behind-the-scenes lobbying effort by House leaders to ensure none of their members tried to delay the bill. “People will die today as a result of this virus,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) […]
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How the $2 trillion deal came together — and nearly fell apart
26th March 2020Ten days later, the price tag for the Senate’s coronavirus economic rescue package has ballooned to more than $2 trillion, twice what Kudlow initially suggested, making it by far the most expensive spending bill in history. The legislation — which passed the Senate by a unanimous, 96-0 vote late Wednesday and is expected to easily […]
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