"Every aspect of modern life is being hit as sweeping measures are rolled out in an effort to stem the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump declared a national emergency Friday "to unleash the full power of the federal government."
"No resource will be spared, nothing whatsoever," the president said as stocks rose sharply, regaining some of their recent losses.
Hours later, the House overwhelmingly approved legislation to give direct relief to Americans impacted by the spreading virus. Central to the aid package are free testing and sick pay guarantee for Americans affected.
People who are sick with the virus and have to be treated or quarantined would qualify for the sick pay benefit, which requires employers to offer 14 days of sick leave at "not less" than two-thirds of an employee's normal pay. Others who would qualify for paid sick leave are those who need to be home to care for a child whose school or childcare center has closed, and those who need to leave their jobs to take care of a family member infected with the virus.
The legislation offers three months of paid family and medical leave. And small and mid-sized employers would be reimbursed through tax credits." CBSNEWS
---------------
What is being missed in this CBS piece is that the Declaration of National Emergency and the application of the Stafford Act make available to Trump's virus task force around $45 billion US in existing funding tucked away here and there and everywhere. The amount probably dwarfs the virus bill being bickered over in congress. and the $8.5 billion signed into law last week. pl
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-updates-cases-fears-deaths-us-latest-2020-03-14/
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1238518371651649538.html
UK strategy as per Ian Mcdonald Professor
Posted by: Terence Gore | 14 March 2020 at 12:06 PM
Looks like the COVID-19 caution domino effect is now targeting planned military exercises.
Finland withdraws from NATO 'Cold Response 2020'
U.S.- Israeli 'Juniper Cobra Missile Defense', cancelled.
U.S.- South Korea joint exercises cancelled
Defender Europe 2020 scheduled for April to May is still in play. 40,000 participants comprising 17 NATO members including Georgia.
Posted by: J | 14 March 2020 at 12:32 PM
Here's a link that I hope will be helpful to those wondering.
CoronaVirus.Gov
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
Posted by: J | 14 March 2020 at 01:10 PM
The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act appears to be in Title 42, U.S. Code, Chapter 68--
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title42/chapter68&edition=prelim
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/chapter-68
Posted by: robt willmann | 14 March 2020 at 02:40 PM
And don't forget the amped up Fed repo purchasing, the fed had been trying to pull back on these since late last year, but this means max power QE2 through 2020, for better and for worse:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/overall-fed-temporary-liquidity-rises-to-283-1-billion-11584021405
Posted by: ST Harris | 14 March 2020 at 02:57 PM
Elora Danan
Dance more! Dance More!
Posted by: turcopolier | 14 March 2020 at 03:50 PM
Terrence Gore, It seems much of Prof Ian McDonald's premise is written with the belief that eventually immunity will develop a
stronghold in the populations.
I've already read of cases of reinfection; to what extent those cases progress is unknown @ this time & therefore all cases of
reinfection must be fully documented & monitored.
Posted by: elaine | 14 March 2020 at 05:32 PM
Dear Colonel,
The Fed printed $1.5 Trillion dollars (yes TRILLION) and threw it into the repo market on weds. To no avail. this after throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into the Repo market last week and starting QE5.
$$ availability is not the problem and it is not the solution.
Posted by: ISL | 14 March 2020 at 05:38 PM
ISL,
Yeah, the FED, not reporting to Trump, should have bought the news media, then curtailed the infotainment panic broadcasts. On a completely unrelated question, does the Journolist team still get together to talk shop?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList
Posted by: Fred | 14 March 2020 at 08:18 PM
Elaine
"It seems much of Prof Ian McDonald's premise is written with the belief that eventually immunity will develop a
stronghold in the populations."
I agree that he believes that is the premise the UK gov't is working with.
I hope the coronavirus does not have the unusual ability to reinfect. I have read that where the virus may have not completely cleared the person in one article. I don't know what is correct.
Posted by: Terence Gore | 14 March 2020 at 09:37 PM
ISL
Don't confuse the Fed liquidity pumping and balance sheet growth with federal government spending on the fiscal side. They're two very different things.
The Fed is being "japanized". It's balance sheet will not only have Treasuries, MBS and all those Bear Stearns "Maiden Lane" assets. It will soon enough have all the junk-rated shale debt, BBB corporate debt which for all intents & purposes are junk. It will likely own airline, cruiseline and resorts & casino debt. It may even use the coronavirus to acquire Boeing debt. In addition to these credit instruments it will likely mimic BoJ who is the Top 10 owner all the stocks in the Nikkei index by becoming a Top 10 Owner of the S&P 500 ETF. Stocks should only go up. Never down!
Congress backed by the Trump administration could appropriate a few trillion to "restore confidence in American enterprise" by enabling big corporations to buyback their stock which is what they've been doing for some years enriching their managements while levering their balance sheets with all this debt, firing their American workers, shipping their manufacturing to communist China and cutting back on their R&D. Financial engineering is now what the C Suite excel at.
Who knows we may even see a major bi-partisan moment to create a new Resolution Trust Corporation to take on all the "bad" debt of corporate America and make their balance sheets pristine, once again to lever up for even more stock buybacks. Everything is possible when stocks decline precipitously and there's a bogeyman to blame it all on. Socialism for big business is what big government does best.
But providing financial relief for Average Joe is communism that we can't have in America the land of the free and brave.
Posted by: blue peacock | 14 March 2020 at 10:31 PM
ISL -- they've been feeding the repo market since September. The Fed has no choice; they need to make sure there is liquidity in the markets before it freezes and we have another 2008 on our hands. If somebody wants to sell rated paper, be it government or otherwise, there needs to be somebody on the other side of that trade and the Fed will do what is necessary to make sure that happens.
Congress created this monster 100 years ago, and we've all been paying for it since, but it's the system we have.
Posted by: eakens | 15 March 2020 at 01:56 AM
Well Elaine, like you I am not an expert, however there are many top experts in Britain advising the government, with access to the very latest data on this virus, provided by others battling this virus across the world. I would assume it is not unlike other coronaviruses, once infected one can still be exposed again but the impact will likely be far less, depending on the level of immunity built up and the strain you are exposed to again. Myself I have been very impressed by the approach of the government and the advice they have been given, I look at other countries and the mess they have made and am very thankful.
Of course if there is no immunity to reinfection then what difference does it make anyway, it would be unstoppable then and maybe not even eventually dying out like most do due to mutating in to a less dangerous form. Pretty unlikely though, even with Spanish flu there was immunity. Of course many have been praising St Louis's quarantine methods then as compared to Philadelphia, reality is Philadelphia wasn't hit nearly as hard when the second wave hit.
Posted by: LondonBob | 15 March 2020 at 06:57 AM
Colonel,
For us Retd. types, we can always shop the Exchange online and have our stuff delivered to our doors via the Postal Express.
It's too bad that the Commissary doesn't do grocery delivery for us folks who live in the boondocks far away from the maddening crowds.
I've often thought about harnessing up a mule train with a bunch of pack mules like the pictures on the boxes of 20 Mule Team Borax. The only problems with that are frozen items that would thaw too quickly by the time you got it home.
Posted by: J | 15 March 2020 at 09:23 AM
LondonBob,
The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918, my dad and his folks lived in a half-dugout way out in the middle of the prairie. They had all their necessaries, meat, milk, eggs, vegetables grown in the gardens, etc.. My mother's folks lived in the backwoods far away from others. 1918 was the year my mother was born. Both of their isolation saved them from the pandemic that rocked the urban areas of the U.S..
Posted by: J | 15 March 2020 at 10:22 AM
The White House has said that POTUS has tested negative for COVID-19. I hope he tested negative,
He's one man with a lot on his plate, so-to-speak.
Posted by: J | 15 March 2020 at 10:27 AM
LondonBob,
You are right, numerous cases of re-infection suggest developed immunity lasts only a few months at most, and it will sweep through the population no matter what.
So Why Care?
The goal is to prevent the health care system collapse.
If the hospitals are overwhelmed, and all beds full, then the things that hospitals normally save become fatal.
Meanwhile:
Italy, France, Netherlands report half ICU patients under 50 (matching Chinese data). Italian version of the virus seems to kill 50% hospitalized patients with a health care system that is about to collapse, with 15-17% of positives requiring hospitalization.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/not-just-seniors-french-doctors-report-50-icu-patients-under-60-years-old-netherlands-under
Posted by: ISL | 15 March 2020 at 11:12 AM
Pentagon has gone to minimal staffing from what I understand.
Posted by: J | 15 March 2020 at 11:31 AM
https://medium.com/@ra.hobday/coronavirus-and-the-sun-a-lesson-from-the-1918-influenza-pandemic-509151dc8065
Talks about outdoor hospitals during 1918 influenza epidemic. Could be the wards in the indoor hospital were optimum breeding grounds for other opportunistic infections but it brings up a theory about the sun and the immune system.
Posted by: Terence Gore | 15 March 2020 at 12:00 PM
blue peacock,
Fed acquiring shale energy, airline, cruise line and Boeing debt is another bailout for Wall St as they’re the one’s selling the impaired credit to the Fed. Of course that means pension funds, hedge funds, private equity, bond ETFs and insurance companies get to unload their losers for full price. Nice deal!
Posted by: Jack | 15 March 2020 at 12:47 PM
blue peacock,
How’s your Bloomberg terminal looking? The Wall St central bank put is being exercised.
https://twitter.com/business/status/1239298882766614528?s=21
To all the petrodollar and Yuan takeover hysterics - this!!! There’s a reason why USD is global king. It’s got nothing to do with oil priced in dollars or the trillion dollar annual expenditure on the military.
Posted by: Jack | 15 March 2020 at 06:05 PM
Jack
We ain't seen nothing yet. Think a $10 trillion Fed balance sheet. And even a couple $trillion fiscal spending. The scale of the bailouts of Wall St and big business is going to be epic. Trump especially is a hostage to financial markets as he has claimed credit all the way up. Jay Powell has given him what he wanted and now has passed the buck back to him. He's going to own all the volatility.
$700 billion QE + $1.5 trillion repo is a drop in the bucket. $7.5 trillion of non-financial debt was added just in the last 2 years. We have "solved" the debt problem each time by adding even more debt over the last 50 years. This is not coronavirus. That was just a pin. This is leverage that has ben built over 50 years. In each episode when a pin arrived over this period we've inflated the credit structure to plug the bigger hole. Now the hole is that much bigger so the scale of the credit inflation has to be commensurate.
We'll see how this time the coronavirus will be used as the excuse once again to socialize Wall St speculative losses and paper over the destruction of capital by managements of big business who enriched themselves handsomely through financial engineering. When the CEOs of UA & Boeing claim how corona has destroyed their business how much do you wanna bet that the CNBC anchor will not ask them how much they spent over the last 10 years on stock buybacks and how much they personally made from that and what that did to the company's balance sheet?
Posted by: blue peacock | 15 March 2020 at 10:40 PM