[Mick]

The layoffs we've seen are the tip of the iceberg.  The last Goldman Sachs estimate I saw was a 6% contraction in GDP.  If it's only twice that, we'll be exceedingly fortunate.  Kiplinger says a 4% contraction.  These are pipe dreams.

Consumers are to the economy what voters are to politics.  In sum, they are the only engine that matters, the lever that turns all business and government spending.  If people can't buy, we cease to function.  And if they can't buy for long, both the people who buy and the businesses who sell to them and build for them are well and truly f'd.

Every day we wait increases the odds of this country not being able to bounce back fully.  I don't think we have the resources, and based upon what I've seen from the millenials -- even though I have two of my own and 15 among my employees -- I'm not sanguine about their ability to restart the country, from any perspective, including financial, emotional, physical.

JP Morgan says 40% annualized drop in Q2, by far the worst in U. S. history. They also predict a 13% and 23% increase in Q3 and Q4, assuming that social distancing and all other social habits that avert the coronavirus are implemented.

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It was a topic of conversation at our big Christmas dinner. My sister was planning a trip to China and later to Europe. I knew there was a SARS type illness in China and I advised my sister that it might not be a great time to travel. I advised her again of the same in mid-January but she went anyway. In early Feb I was convinced it was going to be a major disaster in the USA and on Feb 10 pulled all of my retirement money out of stocks. I actually thought the stock market would tank more than it has. 

In retrospect, I believe we were seeing Covid-19 at work throughout January. A bunch of kids were coming in who appeared to have influenza but they had negative influenza nasal swabs. They all had prominent hacking coughs, fevers and headaches. We'll see if the Stanford Covid antibody testing confirms that.

My college roommate and his son (Tustin residents) both had an illness with those symptoms in January. I had an illness with those symptoms in December, laid me up for two weeks. Sickest I've been since 1992, the last year I didn't get a flu shot. There are two engineers (Chinese nationals) at my son's company in Menlo Park who had an illness with those symptoms beginning in late November. Probably just a coincidence. I'm still getting an antibody test.

[Mick]

The layoffs we've seen are the tip of the iceberg.  The last Goldman Sachs estimate I saw was a 6% contraction in GDP.  If it's only twice that, we'll be exceedingly fortunate.  Kiplinger says a 4% contraction.  These are pipe dreams.

Consumers are to the economy what voters are to politics.  In sum, they are the only engine that matters, the lever that turns all business and government spending.  If people can't buy, we cease to function.  And if they can't buy for long, both the people who buy and the businesses who sell to them and build for them are well and truly f'd.

Every day we wait increases the odds of this country not being able to bounce back fully.  I don't think we have the resources, and based upon what I've seen from the millenials -- even though I have two of my own and 15 among my employees -- I'm not sanguine about their ability to restart the country, from any perspective, including financial, emotional, physical.

JP Morgan says 40% annualized drop in Q2, by far the worst in U. S. history. They also predict a 13% and 23% increase in Q3 and Q4, assuming that social distancing and all other social habits that avert the coronavirus are implemented.

---

It was a topic of conversation at our big Christmas dinner. My sister was planning a trip to China and later to Europe. I knew there was a SARS type illness in China and I advised my sister that it might not be a great time to travel. I advised her again of the same in mid-January but she went anyway. In early Feb I was convinced it was going to be a major disaster in the USA and on Feb 10 pulled all of my retirement money out of stocks. I actually thought the stock market would tank more than it has. 

In retrospect, I believe we were seeing Covid-19 at work throughout January. A bunch of kids were coming in who appeared to have influenza but they had negative influenza nasal swabs. They all had prominent hacking coughs, fevers and headaches. We'll see if the Stanford Covid antibody testing confirms that.

My college roommate and his son (Tustin residents) both had an illness with those symptoms in January. I had an illness with those symptoms in December, laid me up for two weeks. Sickest I've been since 1992, the last year I didn't get a flu shot. There are two engineers (Chinese nationals) at my son's company in Menlo Park who had an illness with those symptoms beginning in late November. Probably just a coincidence. I'm still getting an antibody test.