Wouldn't it have been much cheaper to proactively test the entire population back in January/February and then treat those infected as opposed to the $1 trillion figure being bandied today to bail out a bunch of companies? It seems a lot cheaper than the current quarantine effort, which is grinding everything to a halt.
I can already hear the excuse that others did not do this (not true, e.g., South Korea), but obviously when you disband your pandemic unit, the current ineptness is only inevitable.
Emergency stimulus to soar above $1 trillion
The Staggering Rise in Jobless Claims This Week
I can already hear the excuse that others did not do this (not true, e.g., South Korea), but obviously when you disband your pandemic unit, the current ineptness is only inevitable.
Emergency stimulus to soar above $1 trillion
The government’s economic stimulus is ballooning into trillion-dollar territory — the largest rescue in modern American history — as major industries flood the Trump administration and Capitol Hill for aid while huge swaths of the economy stall from the coronavirus crisis.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with Senate Republicans behind closed doors Tuesday to present options for aid to airlines, hotels, casinos and small-to-medium-sized businesses. The White House had been discussing a package of more than $800 billion, POLITICO reported Monday. By Tuesday morning, the Treasury Department was preparing to unveil a package of $850 billion including more than $50 billion for the airline industry, $250 billion for small-business support and $500 billion for aid to individuals through direct payments or payroll tax cuts.
The Staggering Rise in Jobless Claims This Week
Numbers released on Thursday by the Labor Department — as well as a preliminary analysis of even more recent data — provide the first hard confirmation that the new coronavirus is bringing the United States economy to a shuddering halt. The government reported that the number of initial unemployment claims rose to 281,000 last week, a sharp rise from 211,000 the previous week. This rise in initial claims of 70,000 is larger than any week-to-week movement that occurred during (or since) the 2008 financial crisis.