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Economic meltdown gives Democrats new hope in Texas

Davis countered that Roy’s approach to the pandemic would endanger public health and further damage the economy. Roy, she said in an interview, should spend less time on radio shows comparing mayors and judges to “dictators,” and “more time working to make sure Texans are getting the critical medical and economic support they need.” Other early flaps have involved statewide leaders who aren’t even on the ballot this fall. Abbott in particular has taken heat from Democrats and in the press for moving too slowly to stamp out the spread of the virus — positions his critics contend were meant to accommodate businesses in rural counties that form his voting base, but also where the virus hasn’t increased as rapidly. “We were leaning blue after O’Rourke ran. But people felt like that was t...

Why This Recession Will Be Different (and How to Keep It Mild)

The yield curve inverted again last summer, and Harvey called it a “code red” to financial markets that a downturn was coming in 2020. But the viral outbreak got here first, bringing commerce to a historic halt and throwing the outlook for the next year or more into radically uncertain territory. What can we expect next? And how can we mitigate the damage? In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, the 61-year-old Canadian-born Harvey made a new prognostication: This recession will be short, painful and very different from any that have come before. The subsequent recovery might be just as quick and historic—with tens of millions of jobless workers suddenly reporting back to their employers—but that will depend on yet another wild card, whether Washington’s policymakers can really get the bil...

Blank checks, taboos and bazookas: Inside the global battle to prevent another depression

The massive infusions of cash from central banks and governments around the world will help. But new approaches will ultimately be required, Rogoff argued, including possible global debt moratoriums for emerging-market economies such as India likely to be slammed by the virus. He also said central banks such as the Fed may be forced into unprecedented steps to revive growth — such as lowering interest rates below zero, a move the central bank has long resisted in part because of mixed evidence of its effectiveness. The big institutional players in this global economic drama are battle-tested veterans at spraying foam on the runway in the form of giant spending programs and an alphabet soup of lending facilities and central bank interventions. The U.S. Fed and Treasury just last week announ...

White House still has no road map for restarting the economy

Trump has said the White House will move ahead with reopening the economy even without the capacity to test every American for the virus. Roughly 328 million people live in the U.S., with only 2 million coronavirus tests completed as of Friday. Dr. Tony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said last week that the benchmarks might not be consistent across the country, since each area faces different challenges. “I would not want to pull back at all in New York until I was clear that that curve really was doing what we’ve seen in other countries — a very steep decline down — and we had the capability, if there was a resurgence, of having everything in place to be able to do the containment, as opp...

Fauci says ‘rolling reentry’ possible as soon as next month

“People want to get back to work. … We are setting up a council of some of the most distinguished leaders in virtually every field, including politics, business and medical. And we’ll be making that decision fairly soon,” Trump said in a Saturday interview on Fox News. Fauci on Sunday called for a “rolling reentry” and a solution “that is not one size fits all” to prevent a potential rebound in Covid-19 cases from a premature reopening. “It is not going to be a light switch that we say, ‘OK, it is now June, July, or whatever, click, the light switch goes back on,’” Fauci told CNN host Jake Tapper. “It’s going to be depending where you are in the country, the nature of the outbreak that you already experienced, and the threat of an outbreak that you may not have experience...

Mark Cuban on Trump’s economic bullishness: ‘I wish he was right but he’s not.’

“There’s something good going to happen. I really believe that. There’s something very good going to happen. We have to get back,” Trump said at a Friday news conference. Nearly 17 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment benefits over the past three weeks, already exceeding the total number of jobs lost over 18 months from the Great Recession of 2007-09. “People aren’t going to just venture outside, they’re not going to go to large gatherings, they’re not going to feel confident right off the bat,” Cuban, an investor and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, said Sunday. “There’s going to be a lot of trepidation, and that concern is going to lead to people holding back and not spending money.” The often provocative investor also opined on the $2 trillion stimu...

Trump says he’ll announce members of ‘opening our country council’ next week

The new group comes as the president has expressed his eagerness for several weeks now to shake the country from its self-imposed social and economic lockdown, though medical experts have warned that resuming business as usual before the virus is under control and widespread diagnostic measures can be implemented could have dire consequences. Trump indicated Friday that the new group would look further than reviving the sputtering economy. “This is beyond economic,” he explained. “This is really, I call it the ‘opening our country task force’ or ‘opening our country council’ so we don’t get it confused with Mike’s task force, which has done so great. And we’re going to have the great business leaders, great doctors, we’re going to have a great group of people.” In keeping with ...

For Once, Wall Street is Optimistic. That Might Not Be Crazy.

Markets aren’t infallible, and sometimes their read on the situation is wrong. But often when they’re wrong, they skew toward pessimism, reacting quickly and aggressively to negative news or even the hint of it. At the end of 2018, for instance, stocks plummeted 20 percent or more based on the fear, unfounded, that rising interest rates would cripple activity. It’s often been said, derisively, that Wall Street has correctly predicted nine of the past five recessions. In the past few weeks, however, finance-land has flipped that script and is reflecting substantial optimism. What’s going on? Usually market moves are at least partly in sync with real-world problems. When global markets teetered in the fall of 2011, it was because of legitimate concerns that Greece was about to leave or be fo...

Kudlow leaves door open to more small business funding

While banks have said they have been unable to send money to small business borrowers amid the chaos, Kudlow said there were “$50 billion in loan commitments” and 178,000 loans being processed. “If the demand is that high, which I would regard as a good thing because we just want to get folks through this tough period, why not ask for more money?” he said. The Treasury Department late Monday released new guidance in response to mounting questions from banks about how to issue the loans. The situation surrounding the small business rescue underscores the confusion coming from Washington about how to protect Americans during the outbreak and shore up an economy that has been forced to go into lockdown and shed millions of jobs. On another matter, Kudlow said he was un...

’Huge, unprecedented, devastating hit’: Warnings mount about economic damage

Though the ballooning economic destruction is largely being induced by the government’s efforts to combat the virus, consumers’ outlook for the economy is rapidly darkening as the virus claims more lives and shuts down a broad swath of the country. The growing number of job losses has been a central focus as Congress considers further injections of funds into the economy and as the Fed deliberates more ways to ensure that households and businesses can stay afloat until the pandemic is brought under control — a timeline that is anyone’s guess. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged more than 1,600 points, or 7.7 percent, on data suggesting that the spread of the coronavirus may have begun to slow, but that was based on very limited information, and it is still unclear when the number...

Dimon sees ‘bad recession’ after ‘bad planning’ for pandemic

Dimon, who just returned to work after emergency heart surgery, took a veiled swipe at the Trump administration and other U.S. leaders for failing to prepare for the outbreak. He said the pandemic “is only one example of the bad planning and management that have hurt our country.” “Sometimes extraordinary events in history can cause a change in the body politic,” he said. “As a nation, we were clearly not equipped for this global pandemic, and the consequences have been devastating. But it is forcing us to work together, and it is improving civility and reminding us that we all live on one planet. E Pluribus Unum.” As Washington looks at ways to ease banking rules to encourage further lending, Dimon said “we want our shareholders to know that we ha...

Dems find a rallying cry: Trump tanked the economy

The left flank is increasing pressure on Joe Biden, the party’s likely nominee, to adopt more progressive economic policies. Activists accuse Trump of prioritizing corporate America over low-wage workers, while many moderate Democrats are leery of drawing such distinctions, training their criticism of Trump solely on his initial mishandling of the pandemic. “This is not just about saying, ‘Trump is not doing a good job,’” said Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a prominent supporter of Bernie Sanders, who remains in the presidential race. “That is absolutely a piece of it, but it’s also about, what are you going to do? What is your vision? … We should be talking about a payroll guarantee, like a bold pay payroll guarantee program, we should be talking about canceling student debt. I me...