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Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

cnbc.com

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Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#291

Post by inferiorhuman »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #259
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight tangent, but the excessive focus on tests is misguided. The tests give us more data but make little difference unless they are used to rapidly trace outbreaks and quarantine entire areas, which just has not happened. And with something this viral, its only a matter of time before it spreads everywhere. The focus needs to be on slowing the spread and treatment. The treatment is about supporting the body while i…

Funny how many people think "they were too slow with testing" - do any of these commentators have any idea how long it takes to develop a reliable, sensitive and hopefully specific test for a virus that probably didn't exist in its current form until around 3 months ago . Oh, and then also to be able to make a production line capable of producing millions of them while maintaining quality - why not criticize them for…

Funny how many people think "they were too slow with testing"

They were.

do any of these commentators have any idea how long it takes to develop a reliable, sensitive and hopefully specific test

The CDC forbade King County from using their own home grown test.

that probably didn't exist in its current form until around 3 months ago.

The US CDC also declined to use the WHO test (and presumably the Chinese and Korean ones as well)... even as a temporary measure.

why not criticize them for not yet developing an effective antiviral treatment and vaccine for the condition too?

Because the tests were widely available, widely distributed, and non-CDC labs have already developed tests. The same is not true with a vaccine. IIRC antivirals are being tested in Seattle.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-de...

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing...

Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#292

Post by glitcher »

lbotos wrote: post #76
Frondo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fed does not set the budget, and is independent of the three branches of government, that's true, but... > The Federal Reserve System is an independent government institution that has private aspects. The System is not a private organization and does not operate for the purpose of making a profit. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_of_the_Federal_Reser...

Uh what? Fed = Monetary policy == Make sure money can flow "appropriately" Government = Fiscal Policy == "Who gets money" I don't know how your quote is relevant at all.

You seem to be assigning the values of boolean comparison results with that syntax. So Fed and Government are both false in this example.

Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#293

Post by glitcher »

undersuit wrote: post #261
jovial_cavalier wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fed doesn't pump stocks. It buys bonds and gives good deals on loans. It merely increases liquidity. It doesn't just give money to people.

No, it doesn't give money to people, these injections allow people(large companies) to save money, which is like giving money to people. Without the Fed providing liquidity, the market can and will, but the market has it's own ideas about the rate to perform overnight lending. The market and the Fed have been disagreeing with that rate for what over two years now?

Most people I know are not large companies. They live paycheck to paycheck, and some lost their work shifts for the rest of March _already_.

Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#294

Post by daxorid »

gdubs wrote: post #13

As the joke goes, a trillion here a trillion there and pretty soon you're talking about some real money! But in seriousness, the next week is a critical time in the world. I remember sitting in an airport when news of Lehman Brothers collapse was flashing on the TV screens. I'm reminded of that time. We learned later about how Hank Paulson got down on one knee and begged Nancy Pelosi to go along with is plan to save…

> We blew the past few weeks

No, "we" didn't blow anything. Plenty of us have been preparing for this for well over a month. And now, you want taxpayers, savers, the conscientious, and the prepared to bail out the people who were buying TSLA at $800 and selling VIX with a 10-handle with a pandemic on our doorstep, all while name-calling those of us who bothered to read the research "crazy"?

No, let them all blow up. They deserve to soak in their margin calls.

Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#295

Post by chrisco255 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #260
chrisco255 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea has 8,000 active cases, over 114 today alone. Singapore has a population of 5.8M. They've got 178 cases. The U.S. has a population of 320M with 1338 cases. That means their infection rate is nearly 10x higher than the U.S. Meanwhile, we are taking action. Shutting down European travel, Chinese travel, cancelling schools, cancelling NBA season, NHL season, etc, etc...We are taking aggressive steps.

> That means their infection rate is nearly 10x higher than the U.S. No, it probably doesn't. It probably reflects the fact that we're not finding folks, because we're not testing enough. Ohio's (Republican, incidentally) governor, for example, is stating that their five confirmed cases likely indicate 100,000 undetected in the community so far: https://twitter.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/1238177953126604801

Look, we can only debate about confirmed cases. You can speculate as to whether there are more or less undetected in one country or another but that's just going to be a bunch of hypothetical posturing leading nowhere.

Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#296

Post by pcjunkie »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #259
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight tangent, but the excessive focus on tests is misguided. The tests give us more data but make little difference unless they are used to rapidly trace outbreaks and quarantine entire areas, which just has not happened. And with something this viral, its only a matter of time before it spreads everywhere. The focus needs to be on slowing the spread and treatment. The treatment is about supporting the body while i…

Funny how many people think "they were too slow with testing" - do any of these commentators have any idea how long it takes to develop a reliable, sensitive and hopefully specific test for a virus that probably didn't exist in its current form until around 3 months ago . Oh, and then also to be able to make a production line capable of producing millions of them while maintaining quality - why not criticize them for…

This is not a complicated test to make or run. Most microbiology grad students could make it and every university lab could run them.

Lack of testing does not appear to have been a technology or supply chain problem, possible supply chain probs in future...

Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#297

Post by inferiorhuman »

tic_tac wrote: post #115
whatshisface wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FDA had a ban on tests outside of the CDC's tiny supply for a long time. That's whats being referred to by "denying testing." Not a political issue so much as a typical bureaucratic slowdown with very real consequences.

The comment I replied to was saying that the lack of testing was indeed a political issue with one side at fault.

It is insofar as the FDA and CDC are controlled by the president and both agencies could make emergency exceptions.

On a phone call the day after the C.D.C. and F.D.A. had told Dr. Chu to stop, officials relented, but only partially, the researchers recalled. They would allow the study’s laboratories to test cases and report the results only in future samples. They would need to use a new consent form that explicitly mentioned that results of the coronavirus tests might be shared with the local health department.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-de...

Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#298

Post by tomp »

gumbo wrote: post #289
tomp wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the way this works is this (as I understand it): I'm a bank, I need some cash to operate (people withdrawing money, trading, making payments, etc.), but I have no cash. I have $10B in US Treasury bonds, but - well, they're notionally worth $10B, but nobody want to exchange them for money, because noone else has money to spare (i.e. liquidity crisis ). So here comes the Fed, takes my $10B in bonds, gives me $10B o…

Genuine question here. Any data on the typical duration of these loans? How long typically the Fed holds collateral? I remember 2 years ago the market throwing a tantrum because of the fed unwinding it balance sheet. Doesn’t that mean that typical loans are never repaid and the Fed just let the bonds mature?

I think the "unwinding" was Fed stopping QE, which is slightly different - they were buying bonds on the market (not as emergency liquidity) to prop up asset prices (buy bonds -> reduce interest rate -> investors seek other sources of returns -> buy stocks -> stock prices go up... same with real estate). Bonds mature (literally disappear), so if you want to keep propping up asset prices, you must keep buying new bonds as the ones you own mature. The Fed was doing that for a while, then tried to slowly stop, ween the market off the cheap money (because if the patient is supposed to be healthy, s/he should be able to survive and thrive without drugs). Trump threw a tantrum (I guess he knew/suspected that Fed was the only/main thing propping up asset prices, without Fed the market would crash/stop increasing, which isn't good for elections because politicians always get the blame), the markets weren't happy either (basically NIMBY - you're invested so you want to keep the value of your assets as high as possible).

Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#299

Post by tropdrop »

Jommi wrote: post #271
llampx wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WHO already had the test.

Which test? What kind of distribution did that test have? What kind of distribution capacity did that test have? What kind of false positive rate?

Classic "the [solution] that exists isn't good enough, therefore we can't use it at all!"

A pandemic is not the time to be picky - if anything, a high false positive rate helps. Would you rather 10 people quarantined, of whom only 2 are sick, or all 10 released into the wild because no test kit (of any sort) was available?

Re: Fed to inject $1.5T to prevent ‘unusual disruptions’ in markets

#300

Post by fallingfrog »

Amazing how all this money can be summoned out of nowhere when it’s rich people who are in trouble. But paid sick days for restaurant workers? No way. I’ve been in a position where I was working at McDonald’s and literally running to the back of the restaurant to vomit in a trash can and they still didn’t let me go home, even without pay. Have fun eating out for the next couple months.
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