psuhoffman

Printing money can’t solve a supply shortage. We don’t have a supply shortage. Not all economic situations are the same.

See my post to Yeoman. We can offset the imbalance later. During this crises you won’t see rapid inflation because of offsetting negative economic pressures. Supply shortages could become a bigger issue but most essential products will continue to be produced and the supply chain is operating for now. A disruption in that would be devastating but that’s a different issue. Other products won’t run out because there is a drop in demand with everyone on lockdown. The “print money = inflation” analogy is 100 level Econ. I’m talking advanced “real” policy here.

I teach economics. And the good old more money means more inflation example is true on a general level and I use that in my basic Econ classes but it’s not really that simple. We don’t spend money from tax revenues. We print it. Then the following year we remove the excess needed to prevent unhealthy inflation either fiscally by taxing or monetarily through open market operations or tinkering with interest rates. The deficit is just an estimate of the imbalance between spending and estimated taxes at current levels. But the economic imbalance caused by an infusion of currency isn’t equal in all circumstances. The negative destabilizing effects will be offset by the downward pressures on wages and consumer spending right now. We can spend much more recklessly in this situation without the negative consequences. And ultimately if everything were shut down and we HAD no choice inflation is much preferable to no money at all. Bottom line is my point that the government cannot run out of money to assist in an emergency is valid. The details are debatable if you really want to argue economics.

You’re points have some validity but you don’t convince anyone by always saying it in the most abrasive obnoxious way possible. You’re worried the gov ability to assist is invalid though since they literally print the money. They can never run out of it.

Yea but that just meant you’re due to have back to back awful years!

It’s not just die...as people with this publicize how nasty it can be even if you recover I think that has an impact. Look at Cuomo. No one sees that and thinks “yea I want that”.

Thanks for your efforts

One last thing... wrt to the "phased" opening of the economy. All I have heard lately are the same very shallow hollow talking points from every interview on this. There are some VERY important details that no one is even mentioning. So....if we return the less vulnerable to work and order the people at higher risk to stay in quarantine.... possibly for a year or more, how does that even work. First of all do people realize how many that is. High risk isnt just people over 60 its also anyone with diabetes, asthma and other lung diseases, heart conditions, cancer, anyone who had chemo, various immune system deficiencies, anyone who smokes....we are talking about a LOT of people. How do businesses function missing that many people? Some key contributors will be gone. And most importantly...what about those groups? That is tens of millions of people. Who pays their bills? Do businesses have to retain them and pay their salaries even when they aren't working for a year? If not...what happens when they run out of money? Do we give them all unemployment? What about the people who live in a high cost of living area and unemployment won't cover their cost of living? They have to then "move" during a pandemic and suffer that loss because they are forced to isolate for a year? And even if we take the "conservative" approach of "well that is their problem" no it isnt..because if that 30% of the economy suddenly is destitute you really think that wont trigger a depression? Then what was the point of opening back up anyways? And if you force that group to choose between their health or losing their homes many will take the chance and go to work and get sick...and then we crash the medical system and we end up with the result the "plan" is trying to avoid and we might as well have just done nothing. Maybe there is some brilliant plan that no one is talking about to deal with all the issues that kind of policy would entail...but forgive me for being skeptical on that. Yea a scalpel type policy towards this would be better...in a vacuum...but we suck at that kind of societal level details collective actions. We would likely not even be able to agree on what kind of assistance the high risk in isolation should get. I don't have the answers either...just pointing out the "plan" I keep hearing about is more of a vague un-fleshed out idea than a plan.

Even if yesterdays spike was partially due to the observed "Tuesday bump" each week...it is apparent we have not made much progress down the curve yet. We may be slightly past the peak but still very early in the decline and that decline is likely to be slow not sharp. That said (and I do not want to get into a political argument with anyone, I have mostly been avoiding that but this is my personal take and yes its biased because EVERYONE is biased by their own experiences in life) I find it ridiculous that we are suddenly talking about a quick opening and relaxation of our societal covid preventative measures when we are just now very close to or only slightly past the peak of the pandemic. IMO the discussion is being driven by some people's impatience and frustration and economic concerns. I have not heard one shred of evidence from a virologist that inclines me to think opening everything back up soon is a good idea medically. And I am suspect that an early opening which could lead to another spike in cases would have any economic benefit. We are over a month into this now...and we are going to just throw all that way and go in a different direction? Then we might end up back at square one and have wasted all this time and be starting all over again. Plus if a significant number are sick the economy won't be "fine" no matter what the policy is. This just seems crazy to me. And I am NOT coming at this from a place of not wanting to work. I am working. All my classes are online. I have collaborate sessions with my students everyday, I am posting and grading work daily. I am contacting students by phone and email daily. My work load is pretty similar to what it was before. My concern is 2 fold.... this sucks and I do NOT want to have wasted all this time and have to start all over in 2 months...and if the economy is going to suffer anyways we might as well save lives.

I would take yesterday's numbers with a grain of salt wrt to declaring it a "SIGNIFICANT" jump up because for several weeks there has been a repetative pattern of lower reported deaths over the weekend and then a significant spike on Tuesday. The only logical explanation is that changes in how they are reported and issues with contacting family before they are made public wrt the weekends causes a backlog that then hits the reports as "new deaths" on Tuesdays. That makes more sense that the virus cares what day of the week it is and suddenly becomes more lethal every Tuesday. We will have to see what the numbers look like today before drawing any larger conclusions about the trend. That said the numbers do suggest (even taking into account the Tuesday bump effect) that while we may have flattened the curve that flattening happened at a fairly high level and we have not yet seen a significant move down the backside of the curve.

It was snowing when I went to bed. No accumulation though.

We could have. But so much has to go right this late. Need a rare cold airmass. Then need rates. And likely need it to be at night. We got 2/3. Oh well

Problem is that initial slug comes before the low level cold filters in. That was always rain on guidance. Our windows was late night early morning with the frontal wave. That now looks to stay southeast. That trend had been apparent for a while. We could mix with heavy enough rates this evening but the potential for accumulation is pretty low.

We will be cold enough but latest trends keep why heavy precip south of us.

NAM and GFS on their own with the heavier precip. I’m actually thinking my fail will be due to lack of heavy rates not temperatures. It actually looks cold enough overnight if we get heavy rates up here. But the wave looks more and more pathetic each run.

True but it’s actually because the euro is weak sauce with the wave. If it had heavy qpf like the NAM it likely would have higher snowfall also. Not saying I buy any of it but the guidance is very cold for this late. Runs that have enough heavy precip to mix out the boundary layer warmth carry snow east of the mountains. Euro was doing that to.

Just wish predicting the weather was as easy as predicting that model.

@showmethesnow sorry what I was trying to say was that I am skeptical of the virus being here in December because with absolutely no containment measures in place it likely would have spread rapidly out of control then.

@showmethesnow I have no doubt the episode began in China prior to their reports. What I meant is we didn’t see that type of spread here that we likely would have absent any measures at all to contain in December. When this hit various areas it wasn’t something that went undetected. China then Iran, Italy, Spain, NYC...places this hit before they were ready to contain it spread rapidly and was easily apparent something was wrong. I haven’t seen evidence of that kind of thing here back in December.

Maybe but then why didn’t we see what happened in China in other places until much later?

But it was windy yesterday

If this survives as a threat long enough to get NAM’d that’s a win imo.

Right now the gfs op is suppressed. Given it’s extreme cold bias not shocking. Im not kidding that I expect at some point it will come around and tease us with some epic ridiculous snowy solution before it realizes its mid April.

My 5 year olds been outside all afternoon. Can’t convince him it’s not nice out lol.