Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Mnuchin Goes Full Economic Idiot


Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Republican Senators on Tuesday that without government intervention the U.S. could hit 20 percent unemployment because of the coronavirus, reports Bloomberg.

This is about the dumbest thing a US government official has said to date during this period of COVID-19 panic, when a lot of dumb things have been said.

The reason unemployment is going to soar is because of government interventions such as shelter-in-place orders that are preventing Americans from going to work. Americans under the age of 70 are at no serious threat from the virus other than suffering for a week or so of flu-like symptoms. Why are these people prevented from working (and partying)? The elderly, especially those with chronic health problems, must be careful, but that is about it.

Printing money to hand out is not a solution, it will just create more dollars bidding for the goods and services that exist. And without allowing workers to go back to their jobs, the amount of goods and.  services available is going to shrink. Fewer goods and services being chased by more Fed printed dollars, how can this do anything but lead to accelerating price inflation?

-RW


3 comments:

  1. Yeah it would clearly be better to just tell people to be careful and carry on as normal. Instead they have opted to forcing people not to work, just like the communists in China.
    Seems like this is all a plan by design to give the central banks even more power.

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  2. If I were Bernie Sanders, then I would be taking a victory lap. Socialism is here, and he didn't even have to get nominated, much less elected.

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