Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus • Hacker News Board

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#351

Post by thorwasdfasdf » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

aazaa wrote: post #51

For those saying the Fed is running out of ammunition, study what the Bank of Japan has done. It owns close to 80% of the Japanese ETF market currently, with no end to the expansion of balance sheet in sight. After buying long treasuries, it's not unreasonable to imagine the Fed buying stocks, either individual issues or ETFs. The President would be for it, and it would be hard to drum up any opposition to it in cong…

As he said, here's a chart that shows what's going on: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4253231-japans-stock-market...

This is devastating.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#352

Post by hurricanetc » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

op00to wrote: post #335

kickopotomus wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we know quite a bit about it at this point. The incubation period can range from 1-14 days but is 5 days on average[1][2]. The virus spreads through physical contact with commonly touched surfaces and through the air via droplets of saliva or mucus[2]. The deadliness of the disease is also becoming clear as time progresses. The current fatality rate is ~3% (likely overestimated) and most (almost all) deaths are e…

What do people get out of fear mongering? It seriously baffles me how many smart, technical people just lose their shit with this stuff.

Referring to the extreme uncertainty is not fear mongering. Read the links that were posted. They don't say what the individual confidently claims they do. We know little and what we do know are guesses with wide ranges.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#353

Post by kube-system » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

gdubs wrote: post #82

atq2119 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because the toolset is artificially restricted for ideological reasons. Fiscal responses (having the government spend actual money, either on things like infrastructure it by just handing it out to the population, which will then largely spend that money as they see fit) rather than monetary policy responses (reduce rates and hope that people will borrow more) are known to work well in most cases. The Corona vir…

Keynes famously said you could hire people to dig ditches and it would stimulate the economy. However, if we were to take aggressive action on Climate Change, there’s a lot of potential jobs there. A massive potential stimulus. Also, you know, public funding of basic research which could explore, I don’t know, pandemic response, new therapeutics, etc. Like you said, ideological barriers are what’s keeping us stuck. B…

Who do you hire when you're at full employment?

(The answer is you have to increase immigration, and hire those people)

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#354

Post by HenryKissinger » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

gzu wrote: post #143

mindslight wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inflation has arguably been far too low for far too long anyway... Do you not need a roof over your head, health insurance, a car, college education, etc? Inflation has been rampant, it's just not apparent in manufactured goods because the actual cost of production dropped rapidly with offshoring and technological progress. Without significant inflation, we would have seen a steady march down of consumer prices, as…

lewis turning point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_turning_point The inflation has been offshored. China's rural population has been lifted out of poverty. What happens to the world economy when china runs out of cheap labor?

Some countries will always have cheaper labor than others.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#355

Post by Brain_Thief » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #267

Brain_Thief wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when are sources required for basic observations on reality? Thanks to Republican opposition to providing first-world amenities to U.S. citizens (universal health care access, education access, childcare access, etc.) new generations of Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to start families. The evidence for this is multitudinous and moments away via any search engine...

Fertility rates are equally low in other developed countries that offer universal healthcare, subsidized childcare, etc. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate I plugged in Denmark and Portugal, and both show lower fertility rates than the US.

The unstated conclusion of your response seems to be that the absence of basic social service rights has no impact on rate of demographic change in developed countries; however, your comment appears to be focused on current measurements, and not rate of change. Keep in mind that the average American's economic position has been degrading for decades now, while the same cannot be said (to the same extent) for the citizens of the European countries you mentioned. Your source only has data through the year 2015, so I have supplemented it with projection data for the year 2020 from the CIA World Factbook [1] to more clearly illustrate the trend; the earlier date for each example I cite below is sourced from your link [2]. I've also included data for several other major countries (and the EU as a whole) that offer basic social safety rights to their citizens.

The USA fertility rate in 1990 was 1.98; in 2020 it is projected to be 1.84 (a delta of -.14).

The fertility rate in Denmark in 1990 was 1.65; in 2020 it is projected to be 1.78 (a delta of +.13).

The fertility rate in Portugal in 1990 was 1.52; in 2020 it is projected to be 1.41 (a delta of -.11).

The fertility rate in Germany in 1990 was 1.36; in 2020 it is projected to be 1.47 (a delta of +.11).

The fertility rate in Canada in 1990 was 1.66; in 2020 it is projected to be 1.57 (a delta of -.09).

The fertility rate in France in 1990 was 1.75; in 2020 it is projected to be 2.06 (a delta of +.31).

The fertility rate in Norway in 1990 was 1.85; in 2020 it is projected to be 1.84 (a delta of -.01).

The fertility rate for Europe in total in 1990 was 1.70; in 2020 it is projected to be 1.62 (a delta of -.08).

This is obviously not a thorough (or even statistical) analysis of the situation, but a cursory look at the data from the perspective of multi-decade trends does not lend credence to the notion that the availability of social safety nets has no impact on demographic rate of change in a developed country.

[1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#the-global-decline...

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#356

Post by woeirua » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

seganddr wrote: post #343

woeirua wrote: post #340

This is the start of the next Global Financial Crisis folks. It's not hard to see the pieces in motion now: 1 - The Q1 supply shock is going to be a temporary thing. They'll recover alright after causing some companies to miss their Q1 earnings. If this was the only effect, we would recover just fine here later this year, but... 2 - Coronavirus is just getting started in the US and Europe. If it spreads widely, and u…

Please don't spread FUD. Please do provide references for your claims.

This isn't FUD:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-a-blast-from-a-financial-cri...

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#357

Post by seganddr » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #130

throwaway5752 wrote: post #107

This is not solving the problem which is 1) the US is drastically behind in testing the population 2) it will not fix disrupted international supply chains 3) it will not fix liquidity crises at health insurers, hospitals, and life insurers and 4) it will not fix demand if people do not want to go shopping at any price because of non-financial concerns. I presume the Fed knows this, and what worse is this seems to be…

People have faith in the Fed? You are right though, this is political to slow a market correction to where it actually should be . We just keep spinning more plates. What we really need if fiscal policy plans, not monetary. We have so many zombie companies that are on life support and we need to let them die but it won't happen with 0% rates.

The US federal reserve are the best in the world at what they do IMO.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#358

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

Brain_Thief wrote: post #355

toomuchtodo wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fertility rates are equally low in other developed countries that offer universal healthcare, subsidized childcare, etc. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate I plugged in Denmark and Portugal, and both show lower fertility rates than the US.

The unstated conclusion of your response seems to be that the absence of basic social service rights has no impact on rate of demographic change in developed countries; however, your comment appears to be focused on current measurements, and not rate of change. Keep in mind that the average American's economic position has been degrading for decades now, while the same cannot be said (to the same extent) for the citi…

Data shows [1] educated, empowered women with access to contraceptives have less children overall, and defer having children until later in life, full stop.

I also argue it is a net positive, regardless of the underlying mechanism(s), that the fertility rate is declining across the world considering the unsustainable consumption rate per capita of the first world.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#empowerment-of-wom...

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#359

Post by katmannthree » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

muttled wrote: post #121

wonderwonder wrote: post #12

We are burning all of our fuel to ensure we are running at record levels and when a real problem rears its head, we are going to be dry.

The fallout will either fall on a second term or during someone else's first term. Either way the administration doesn't care.

November is still more than six months away. Given how quickly COVID-19 spreads I think our economy will likely be feeling the pain long before the election.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#360

Post by Donald » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #40

Does this mean the meeting on march 18th (where there was almost a 100% chance of a rate cut going through) is not happening anymore? [0] I can't tell if they've just not yet updated that page. [0] https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to...

The market is pricing in an additional rate cut at that meeting