Nothing is actually preventing people from buying cars right now. My local Ford dealer is promoting 0% interest, 3 months of $0 payments, and another 3 months were they make the payments. Buy now and they drive the car to you, disinfect it in your driveway or by the side of the road, and drop the keys off at the front door. The prices don’t look like they have been jacked up either, although I don’t know exactly what the prices were say in Jan/Dec.
If Ford actually made a car I wanted, and if I wasn’t looking to actually reduce the number of cars we have from two to one this year already I would have taken a much closer look…
…so yes, I doubt “opening up” before people feel safe will actually result in any useful economic impact.
It will actually be worse because it may make places ineligible for assistance so they will need to choose between going bankrupt for sure vs. putting people in danger for a modest reduction in the chances of going bankrupt.
And cheap casket manufacturers; few will be able to afford an expensive one.
I’m hoping no amount of pressure will force Canada to reopen the border until the infection rate and deaths from COVID-19 debacle in the US sorts itself out in a year or so.
Well, I wasn’t arguing with you, but agreeing and adding what I thought was a mere clarifying statement on the point that the right wing (really, in my thinking, the entire Federal Reserve system) has a choice, save the economy (the asset holders) or save the actors within the economy (the actual people engaging daily, hourly…etc. in the real economy).
As far as the Wealth Effect, it is engineered to prop up asset holders in order to engage animal spirits (Keynes). By propping asset prices, this is supposed to make wealthy investors (but in reality, credit dependent capitalists) just foam at the mouth to start investing MONEY! (realistically borrowed, and at unbelievably cheap interest). This is actually what the Fed under Bernanke stated over and over. Entice the asset holders and they will invest.
Well, look at what was going on before governments issued “stay at home” orders. Things were already shutting down, movie theaters had no patrons, restaurants didn’t have enough business to stay open, there were mass cancellations of travel, etc. Some people are going to be idiots, but as soon as there’s another spike in infections, even most idiots won’t want to be out in public if they can avoid it.
It’s amazing how few people need to die (or, in the case of something like covid, get put flat on their backs for a few weeks), to shut down a whole industry. Or how many people need to get sick in a workplace before it gets shut down…
Also: bereaved survivors take time off work and make for poor, distracted workers, etc.
After the 1918 flu pandemic, the areas of the US that were more cautious about opening back up, and took more time, actually recovered faster (and more strongly).
That does seem to be Brian Kemp’s motivation in Georgia.
ETA:
And now we’ve got things like the $100 billion in loans keeping fossil fuel companies afloat that they can’t pay back because it turns out that fracking wasn’t economically viable under normal circumstances, much less with oil prices going negative.
I believe, with current time distortion, that’s about 30 years.
Let’s be brutally honest; the Chinese that have been relentlessly pushed to a clear status will be back on their feet churning out tons of garbage products for us again in no time. And Der Cheeto will be sucking their dick to get it, too.
I wouldn’t be in a rush to buy a car right now. There is the continuing wave of expiring vehicle leases that will crash over the manufacturers and dealerships (without anyone buying them up as used cars). There is also the massive wave of expiring rental cars that will be hitting the markets as well, again with no buyers.
This will cascade into dramatically cheap used (and then new) cars as dealerships try desperately to clear inventory.
If something will be dramatically cheaper later, wait until later to buy it. This is how economies crash, but it is how households survive economic crashes.
That’s been my concern as well. This guy says that can’t happen. But of course Trump has been good at getting away with shit that no one thought was possible. so who knows at this point.
From your comments I see we are both arguing caution.
So just for the record, to the benefit of a possibly cursory reader:
The problem is that it’s already to late when people generally that there is another spike in infections: when they are affected (i.e., they, their families, their neighbours, their peers get severely ill), the infections has already spread further. Nearly half of the infections happen before the person infecting others has any symptoms.
I personally didn’t notice anyone being ill at the time the contact ban was put in place around here. Right now, if I ask people, some in their surroundings have been ill or even died. But I would not know if I would not be actively asking for that information.
Yes. I know we need deep systemic change around the consumer economy. We need a more thoughtful and sustainable approach to consumption that aims for sustainability. I know that. If you can show me a quick way to do that, with the whole world on board, that isn’t based on a pandemic or a global war, I’m all for it. It seems to me we could embrace this as a moment to make those changes we need. But we see what’s happening, with re-opening the economy. And as long as we have an economy based on consumerism, many, many people depend on those jobs to put food on the table.
Right now, though I’m having a hard time seeing the end of the week, much less the month. I don’t know how much hell is about to be unleashed because my governor wants to up open services that involve close contact, to “save” the economy.
