[Mick]

I think we're looking at a self-inflicted Depression, not a recession, based upon the four emergency calls on which I participated today.  We're looking at a reduction in demand by 25% to 40%.  Doesn't feel like a recession to me.  Feels like a Depression.  And it will be too late when everyone else wakes up.

Can you elaborate on these emergency calls and what specific demand is reducing so much?

All the calls were internal, but involved information gleaned from other firms.  Collectively, we feel that businesses will reduce demand and hold on to cash.  Or to put it another way, I lived through the 2009 financial disaster, and this feels much, much worse.  At the time, we laid off 30% of staff, reduced comp for the remainder of the staff.  Our largest client told us they would buy nothing from us for six months.

The calls today were in that same vein...not that they were going to happen, but that we should be "prepared" to take "drastic measures" and they will "try to protect people's jobs."  I don't think this will be a severe recession.  I think it will be worse.

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I think we're looking at a self-inflicted Depression, not a recession, based upon the four emergency calls on which I participated today.  We're looking at a reduction in demand by 25% to 40%.  Doesn't feel like a recession to me.  Feels like a Depression.  And it will be too late when everyone else wakes up.

Is your definition of self-inflicted that we should be not taking such precautions because the virus isn't as bad as people are anticipating, or self-inflicted insofar as our leadership seemed to be several weeks to a month behind where they should have been in terms of being able to identify, isolate, and contain the spread of the virus?

I guess I ask because "self-inflicted" suggests it could be avoidable, but I don't see how without either a time machine or a societal conclusion that we'll take our chances and risk the loss of several million lives.

it has nothing to do with the speed of our leaders to anticipate and/or react to the pandemic.  As a society, we went from basic preventable steps to shelter-in-place in very short order.  And I question whether it will have a material impact on our loss of life.  This country has very few hospital beds, and about 70% are taken up at any one time.  Whether 70% of the population gets infected in six months or 18 months, the numbers needed to be hospitalized will be a strong multiple of our capabilities.  And the Elites are absolutely willing to destroy our economy to go down that path.

[Mick]

I think we're looking at a self-inflicted Depression, not a recession, based upon the four emergency calls on which I participated today.  We're looking at a reduction in demand by 25% to 40%.  Doesn't feel like a recession to me.  Feels like a Depression.  And it will be too late when everyone else wakes up.

Can you elaborate on these emergency calls and what specific demand is reducing so much?

All the calls were internal, but involved information gleaned from other firms.  Collectively, we feel that businesses will reduce demand and hold on to cash.  Or to put it another way, I lived through the 2009 financial disaster, and this feels much, much worse.  At the time, we laid off 30% of staff, reduced comp for the remainder of the staff.  Our largest client told us they would buy nothing from us for six months.

The calls today were in that same vein...not that they were going to happen, but that we should be "prepared" to take "drastic measures" and they will "try to protect people's jobs."  I don't think this will be a severe recession.  I think it will be worse.

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I think we're looking at a self-inflicted Depression, not a recession, based upon the four emergency calls on which I participated today.  We're looking at a reduction in demand by 25% to 40%.  Doesn't feel like a recession to me.  Feels like a Depression.  And it will be too late when everyone else wakes up.

Is your definition of self-inflicted that we should be not taking such precautions because the virus isn't as bad as people are anticipating, or self-inflicted insofar as our leadership seemed to be several weeks to a month behind where they should have been in terms of being able to identify, isolate, and contain the spread of the virus?

I guess I ask because "self-inflicted" suggests it could be avoidable, but I don't see how without either a time machine or a societal conclusion that we'll take our chances and risk the loss of several million lives.

it has nothing to do with the speed of our leaders to anticipate and/or react to the pandemic.  As a society, we went from basic preventable steps to shelter-in-place in very short order.  And I question whether it will have a material impact on our loss of life.  This country has very few hospital beds, and about 70% are taken up at any one time.  Whether 70% of the population gets infected in six months or 18 months, the numbers needed to be hospitalized will be a strong multiple of our capabilities.  And the Elites are absolutely willing to destroy our economy to go down that path.