$916,000,000,000.
That's the price of S&P 3,700 as the Trump Administration proposed just under $1Tn in additional stimulus including another $600 per person in direct checks. The new stimulus does not include $300/week unemployment compensation and that's still a big sticking point with the Democrats. Crafting a liability shield for businesses, schools and health-care providers facing coronavirus-related lawsuits has been a priority for Republicans throughout the negotiations, while Democrats have pushed to send more aid to state and local governments.
Along with state and local aid, the $908 billion bi-partisan framework at the center of the current negotiations would add $300 to weekly unemployment benefits, provide $82Bn for schools, $16Bn for the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines and $288Bn in relief for small businesses. Both the White House and some lawmakers are making a late push to include the new round of direct payments in the next bill. One of the most popular parts of stimulus legislation Congress passed in March, the last round of direct payments sent $1,200 per adult and $500 per child to many American households, at a cost of nearly $300Bn.
Clearly we need the stimulus. We are still 10M jobs down from where we were in February and job growth has ground to a halt and the virus is raging out of control with 215,000 new infections yesterday as we now top 15M cases in the US, adding more new cases every day than the country had TOTAL at the beginning of April. More cases every week (2M) than we had TOTAL at the beginning of June and more cases for the month of December (8M) than we had TOTAL through the middle of October.
That is how fast this problem is accelerating and Mitch McConnel and the GOP have been blocking additional virus relief for over a month now playing games to time it so they can look like the good guys just ahead of the Georgia Senate elections, where voting begins next week to decide if we're going to keep McConnel as the Senate Majority leader to plague Biden the way he has been a literal plague on this Nation.
Here's a chart of the 10 WORST countries on the planet and the number of confirmed new cases per day. India has 1.35Bn people, more than 1 Billion (4x) people more than the US and they have 1/4 the number of infections which makes us 16 TIMES WORSE than the 2nd worst country on Earth. Actually 3rd now, as India has slipped behind Brazil. India was giving us a run for our money in the summer but their Government was capable of learing from their mistakes and changed their policy and got thing back under control. We did none of those things. We are STILL doing none of those things.
Donald Trump and his Republican cohorts are a clear and present danger to our lives and our freedom. Our very Democracy is under attack by Trump and the GOP while 3,000 American lives a day are being sacrificed on the alter of Trump's ego and where is the outrage? Where is the spine of the Republican Senators and Congresspeople – 90% of whom have still refused to acknowledge Joe Biden's election victory? How do we let them continue to entertain the Madness of King Trump while 2 more people die of Covid-19 in America each and every minute of the day?
Is another $916Bn enough to buy our complacency? As big as that number is, it's nothing compared to Japan, who just authorized another $708Bn in stimulus for their $4.9Tn Economy. That would be like the US announcing another $2.8Tn for our $20Tn economy – now THAT's a Stimulus Package! Japan has already spent $2.2Tn in stimulus this year so the total is now $2.9Tn or 60% of the country's GDP is now stimulus.
Nonetheless, like the US, Japan's economy is still 10% short of where it was last year. We're very US-focused when thinking about the market but what happens when Japan, who are over 250% of their GDP in debt, has to stop the stimulus? What about China, Canada, Australia, the EU, India? We're still teetering on the verge of a Global Economic collapse yet, like complete idiots, we are paying record-high prices for equities. This is just stupid – there's no other way to describe it.
TARP was passed on October 3rd, 2008 and, at the time, it was the largest fiscal relief program in US history. It bought us 4 months of relief before the market continued its fall from 10,000 to 6,400 on the Dow – another 33% drop AFTER the largest stimulus bill ever recorded – until now.
This all happened 12 years ago. Have we learned our lessons? Certainly not!
Not learning our lessons is what the Conservative movement is all about. The Constitution is not a living, breathing document to Conservatives, but more like the will of God written on stone tablets even though the man who actually did write the constitution has the following words inscribed in his own memorial:
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” – Thomas Jefferson
Trump and his ilk are indeed our barbarous ancestors. Unfortunately, they not only still walk among us but they also hold undue sway over our lives and our laws and the only way to progress (yes, that's why they call us "Progressives") is to vote them out of office utterly and completely in Georgia on January 5th but that voting starts on December 14th and it is VITAL that we make our voices heard.
Please do what you can for our country – money can't fix everything – citizens have to take action too.
