Uncharted waters ...

In 2008, it was the great recession, in 2020, it's uncharted waters with the distinct likelihood
a depression of unimaginable proportions looms. 

Greg Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, says the economy is assured of a recession — at least two consecutive quarters of economic decline — with output falling 0.4 percent in the first quarter and 12 percent in the second. That would be the biggest quarterly contraction on record, but Goldman Sachs upped the ante on Friday, saying it expected a 24 percent drop in the second quarter.

“This is not just a blip,” Mr. Daco said of the outlook. “We’ve never experienced something like this.”

No we have not. 

The proposed federal stimulus — which in a Senate Republican version would include checks of up to $1,200 for taxpayers — would be helpful, economists say, but it would probably only blunt the pandemic’s impact, not stave it off.

“A $1,000 check, or even a $2,000 one, won’t pay the rent in New York City, and I suspect it would run out pretty quickly in most parts of the country,” said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global. “It’s nice and it’s needed, but it’s just a Band-Aid.”

If the power elites get bailouts like in 2008, a revolution is nigh as it's now life or death with COVID-19 and financial destitution for main street and the middle class. The pols better listen up and do what's right as their future, along with the power elites is in play now. Just ask the French how that went down beginning in 1789. Food for thought, is it not?

Goldman Sachs says the next weekly total of initial jobless claims could be 2.25 million. Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times