With the possibility of a recession who would you want in charge?

Oh boy are you off base. The comment you responded to was about businesses that are shut down by the government and can't re-open until the government says so. That economic activity isn't happening regardless due to government fiat.

 

You didn't read my last paragraph, namely:

"To your specific question: businesses, as well as employees, can be supported by government eg, government can support businesses as required to maintain their employees on their books, so that they can quickly resume trading when the pandemic passes".

Which was a direct response to your point:

As to time, the government can support businesses for as long as necessary.

Understand?

Hence my explanation of HOW the government can support businesses forced into 'hibernation', for as long as is required, without massively increasing public debt to unsustainable levels.

IOW, let's say this total government support - to keep businesses and employees alive during the pandemic, reaches $10 trillion, while the economy is in lock-down.

I'm telling you that this debt can be written off by the government after the crisis passes, because the nation's productive capacity will remain intact, and resource use during the crisis is much reduced to the level required to maintain production of essentials.

Such is the money creation power of the sovereign currency-issuing government, which this pandemic may well finally expose to the general population.

 

Someone asked him how do you give hope to a worried nation. Trump told him to shut up because all of the problems are because of the "media". If we were struggling against some common problem and I blamed all of our problems on you, do I give you hope?

 

The GFC was caused by financial industry players, and the Obama recovery in 2009 was hobbled by neo-liberal balanced budget concerns, and the resulting austerity, eg people forced out of their homes, while banksters kept their 'bonuses'.

The NASDAQ tech-wreck of 2001 was mostly the popping of a huge bubble in which most ordinary workers did not participate.

The present pandemic is wrecking the ENTIRE economy - except that part of the economy which is required to keep us all alive until the pandemic passes.

All recessions caused by entirely different circumstances, in each case.

Depending on how poorly this present situation evolves, indeed central banks might literally have to buy the entire economies of their nations.

Remember the BIS declaration at Davos: "Central banks might have to buy the fossil fuel industry"?

Now those people who say we can't afford to save the planet ("who will pay for it", or "how can we pay for it"), whether it be from an avoidable climate catastrophe, or from a pandemic that has an average death rate of 5% around the globe, those people will shown to be irrelevant to the task at hand.

 

Your post exemplifies why I suggested creating a new economic system incorporating the best of both capitalism & socialism together, & avoid repeating the same mistakes.

 

Quite so…... and here is a blue-print for exactly how it can be done.

www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/mmt-overcoming-the-political-divide.569365/

 

I don't think it does at all and perhaps years down the raid we can developed this system you envision but for now we have to deal with what we have so....
The question is who best to get us through THIS economic turmoil

The Republicans of the pre-2001 recession, DotCom bust and stockmarket collapse, 9/11
The Democrats of the pre-2008 recession, Mortgage bust and stockmarket collapse

Which economic policies should we follow and why?

 

It's not about the cause it's about who would better handle it? Try again.

The question is who best to get us through THIS economic turmoil

The Republicans of the pre-2001 recession, DotCom bust and stockmarket collapse, 9/11
The Democrats of the pre-2008 recession, Mortgage bust and stockmarket collapse

Which economic policies should we follow and why?

 

That's not what the reporter asked nor how he set it up or framed it. He asked if being hopeful gives a false sense of hope. It was dumb and the reporter got panned by more serious journalist.

 

I watched the clip in full. I never got that impression. I got the impression of an easy question to answer and trump decided to attack.

 

He tried to criticize him from being hopeful and expressing optimism, as I said what is Trump supposed to do come out and say it is hopeless let's all go and die.

"Legitimate question my a**," Hume, a former ABC White House correspondent, replied in a tweet. "It was the kind of bullsh*t gotcha question which hack [White House] reporters have been asking for decades."

 

Yeah Hume. Isn’t that a Fox news personality? And I think it was a fine question to ask. He called Trump out on a cure, Trump deflected. and then he asked him to give people hope. Trump attacked because he got called out. Simple as that.

 

Then you want to put the Covid Virus in charge. You are getting your wishes. Nice virus, Good virus.
‘Holy crap this is insane’: Citing coronavirus pandemic, EPA indefinitely suspends environmental rules
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/ho...pa-indefinitely-suspends-environmental-rules/

 

Yes Hume one of the most respected veteran WH reporter and journalist. And yea Trump got called out for being hopeful when he should have been hopeless.......geezzz no matter what he does.......

 

Sure he is. And was he hopeful or peddling a false hope? Fauci didn't back him up as much as he could have now did he?

 

Hopeful, optimistic presenting the good news we were receiving and had he come out hopeless he would still have been attacked.

 

Has the drug been approved?

 

For off-label use to be prescribed for COVID yes why do you ask? What does that have to do with Trump being hopeful and optimistic about it? Aren't you hopeful it will prove effective for most cases?

 

"
On Thursday, Trump declared an anti-malaria drug called chloroquine a “game changer” in the effort to develop a coronavirus treatment and announced the drug had been “approved.”

Chloroquine, or hydroxychloroquine, has been approved to treat and prevent malaria since 1944. But no drug has been approved to treat COVID-19, and a vaccine is estimated to remain at least a year away."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fau...ps-declaration-malaria-drug/story?id=69716324

Has the drug been approved for COVID? No. if he is saying a drug exists and that it will work, but it doesn't exist, that's false hope.

 

All roads lead to MMT huh?

 

Your choices are too limited. There are better alternatives available for us to follow.

 

Well do you thing the Libertarians are going to have some surge in voter popularity. After the November elections either Democrats or the Republicans will be in charged and instituting their policies so again

The question is who best to get us through THIS economic turmoil

The Republicans of the pre-2001 recession, DotCom bust and stockmarket collapse, 9/11
The Democrats of the pre-2008 recession, Mortgage bust and stockmarket collapse

Which economic policies should we follow and why?

 

The past is no guide to the present in this pandemic, so the 2 central lines in your proposition are both partisan nonsense (eg I already explained how Obama was hobbled by mainstream deficit concerns) and irrelevant. Sorry.

The correct answer to: "Which economic policies should we follow and why?" is: those that would be adopted by Bernie Sanders, with Stephanie Kelton as treasury secretary.

We need the economy to be put on 'life support', and do "whatever it takes" to overcome the virus.

Money is not an issue - resources are the issue; and in this period of massive contraction in economic activity and under-utilisation of resources, people without work can be fed and housed, paid for by the state.....for free.

bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=44572

“We need the state to bail out the entire nation”

Alternatively, you can follow the mainstream macroeconomic approach and create a massive government debt that will be indeed be "a burden on future generations", the usual alarm cry mainstreamers raise when looking at government deficits.

Of course you can always let people starve...….

 

Well....yes, and this pandemic proves it!

"It's the economy, stupid!".

 

GEEZ you guys dodge and weave and can never give a simple straight answer. This isn't about the virus this is about an economic recovery and we have recent history on both Republican and Democrat economic policies and their results. No one is talking about letting people starve. It's about getting businesses up and running and people back to work. Sanders is NOT going to when so don't even got there it's specious.

Now focus, the choice will be between the Democrats and the Republicans and we have the history of their economic policies and results

The question is who best to get us through THIS economic turmoil

The Republicans of the pre-2001 recession, DotCom bust and stockmarket collapse, 9/11
The Democrats of the pre-2008 recession, Mortgage bust and stockmarket collapse

Which economic policies should we follow and why?