
Job losses could total 47M, unemployment 32%, St. Louis Fed president says - uptown
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/coronavirus-job-losses-could-total-47-million-unemployment-rate-of-32percent-fed-says.html
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treyfitty
Bullard has always been extremely bearish, and is consistently a dissenter in
FOMC meetings FYI. While his number is very high, I would take it with a grain
of salt. It will be high, but not that high

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jdkee
"During a CNBC interview last week, Bullard said the jobless number “will be
unparalleled, but don’t get discouraged. This is a special quarter, and once
the virus goes away and if we play our cards right and keep everything intact,
then everyone will go back to work and everything will be fine.”

Nothing is going back to business-as-usual after this event.

1\. Companies that successfully transition to work form home will shed tens of
millions of commercial real estate square footage.

2\. The online shopping/home delivery will accelerate the collapse of the
retail shopping environment. The U.S. has too much already, see
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058852/retail-space-
per...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058852/retail-space-per-capita-
selected-countries-worldwide/)

3\. This will accelerate online learning, especially in higher-ed. We are
already planning our summer courses to be fully taught online as of this point
in time.

4\. Tying healthcare to employment in the U.S. will likely become unthinkable
as a public health hazard.

EDIT: spelling

~~~
PragmaticPulp
This pandemic has an amazing ability to make everyone more confident in their
personal preferences and pre-conceived notions.

Is it safe to assume that before this pandemic, you:

1\. Preferred WFH to being in an office. You wished more jobs would accept
remote employees like you.

2\. Preferred online shopping wherever possible. When visiting retail stores,
you wished a tech company would disrupt that industry so you wouldn't have to
visit a store.

3\. Prefer to learn on your own, at your own pace

4\. Assumed that anyone who disagreed with your political leanings was just
misinformed or morally bankrupt.

What's fascinating is that my social media feeds are full of people who are
convinced that this pandemic is proving their pre-conceived beliefs to be more
correct than ever. It's making it more difficult for people to see differing
viewpoints, or understand why someone could have differing personal
preferences.

The dust hasn't even settled yet, but my friends are either declaring WFH to
be the way of the future or wholly untenable. I have numerous friends with
children at home who are more eager than ever to return to their offices and
go back to normal. My manager friends are all fretting the productivity drops
as people struggle to get work done amid a 24/7 news cycle of impending doom.
Yet the WFH champions are convinced this will prove WFH to be superior.

Personally, I think the long-lasting changes from this pandemic are far harder
to predict than people are suggesting.

~~~
jdkee
Let's see how accurate YOUR predications are:

1\. I teach in higher-ed. In a classroom. Working from home is the last thing
on my mind as it would be detrimental to the teacher-student relationship.

2\. I enjoy shopping. I browse bookstores, record shops, try on clothes at the
mall, enjoy selecting my own produce and wine at the grocers.

3\. I prefer learning in seminars and I use the socratic method with students.
I do not let them use technology in the classroom unless they have a
demonstrated need.

4\. Not sure how you inferred this from my statement. It is reasonable to
assume that persons in the U.S. who are unemployed or have limited access to
healthcare will make less use of it, thus contributing to conditions that
allow pandemics to spread. That is not a political statement.

Thanks for your input.

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ThrowawayR2
For comparison, a quick Google shows the unemployment rate in the US during
the Great Depression was around 25% and during the 2008 recession was around
10%.

If this situation lasts too long, we'll all be saying hello to Great
Depression v2.0.

~~~
generalpass
> For comparison, a quick Google shows the unemployment rate in the US during
> the Great Depression was around 25% and during the 2008 recession was around
> 10%.

> If this situation lasts too long, we'll all be saying hello to Great
> Depression v2.0.

The most troubling is that there is no analysis being performed to determine
what a proportionate response is, and I tend to think most people do not
understand how interconnected the economy actually is.

At this rate, the deaths from draconian government responses will far outweigh
the deaths from the Corona virus across all age demographics.

~~~
aplummer
> At this rate, the deaths from draconian government responses will far
> outweigh the deaths from the Corona virus across all age demographics.

A reminder money is a paper money game and in contrast to the 30s, we easily
produce more resources, food and abundance than we need to live with 30%
unemployment.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
But that's exactly why people are scared of the recovery. The phenomenon
underpinning the economy isn't money flowing through accounts; it's networks
of trade and service provision, and most of those networks are being snipped
by the lockdown. We won't starve and we won't lose Netflix, but those networks
can't be restored solely by financial stimulus and we can't recover our
standard of living without them.

~~~
thepangolino
There's a simple solution to that. Just remove regulations. Remove lockdowns.

~~~
Gibbon1
You really think the rabble will continue working as the infection rate rises
into the double digits.

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blackrock
No worries, the Fed just printed 4 Trillion dollars, that they’ll hand out to
the rich companies.

The stock market will go into super drive. It will double in another 10 years.
So load up on stocks as soon as this crisis is over.

And get a house and property if you can. The value of your dollar is going to
get cut in half.

The rich oligarchs wins again.

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kenshinsoul
My argument is that the national security mechanisms of western nations are
not so fragile to be brought to their knees by some people eating bats and
snakes.

In WW2 the Japanese threatened to destroy key infrastructure using biological
agents. the militaries of the world have had almost a century at the very
least to prepare for this contingency. I don’t buy how unprepared they are.

I am curious to hear the thoughts of some smart people who hang out here.

