By Denny Gulino
WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – Whew, that was brutal but it’s finally over. After all, Amazon hit an all-time high, and Apple, Google, Tesla finished strong. The markets look into the future and the markets are telling us it can’t be all that bad, right?
Or should we be bracing for the Second Wave? How many waves will it take to get the point across the fight is with a virus that is only being fenced in, not neutralized. Open the fence. It’s got you.
Remember the triple “N?” Listening to the cheerleader in chief Tuesday evening, who but those “nattering nabobs of negativism,” in the words of a certain vice president, would keep naysaying?
“The day will be very close … maybe even before the date of May 1,” President Trump said of some states reopening their economies in the evening briefing.
Only he and some business guests spoke, not any members of the Corona Virus Task Force.
“I will be speaking to all 50 governors very shortly,” Trump said. “And I will then be authorizing each individual governor of each individual state to implement a reopening, and a very powerful reopening plan of their state at a time and in a manner as most appropriate. The day will be very close.”
“Very powerful” are among his favorite words, present in nearly every briefing and six times in his latest.
After all, those medical experts only know what they were taught in medical school and in years of fighting infectious diseases in Africa and around the world. Just because they wear white smocks you’re supposed to think they know everything.
What many of them keep saying are those words that never seemed so important or so stubbornly distant, testing and tracing. Until there’s enough testing, how can anyone know it’s safe to go back to the restaurant, the stadium, the workplace?
Somehow, Trump said, they’ll be back there soon, elbow to elbow
Until there is enough contact tracing, how can the newly infected be isolated before any symptoms show up?
“Eventually we’re going back,” he said. “Restaurants that had a hundred and fifty seats are going to have a hundred and fifty seats, not fifty seats because they can’t make it at fifty seats. But more importantly the atmosphere is even better.”
On stadiums, “We have to get our sports back,” he said. “I’m tired of watching baseball games that are 14 years old.”
If only the virus got tired, like totally beat after infecting a confirmed 1,981,200 people, killing 126,500 of them. It only jumps to new hosts whose cells do all the work, replicating billions of copies.
Demonstrating again that consistency is only for the small-minded, the president Tuesday backed off his Monday claim to be what Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier in the day called “a king.” He said he would in fact be working with governors on reopening and they will be working with him.
If the reopening in any state goes badly, though, it will be the governor’s fault, Trump said. Then, “We’ll have to maybe close them up and start all over again, but I don’t think we’re going to have to do that.”
Tony Fauci, the veteran of 32 years of anti-infectious-disease wars, keeps slipping into what his admirers call truthfulness. He told The Associated Press during the day the nation does not yet have the capability to do the testing necessary to know where to reopen.
“We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on, and we’re not there yet,” he said.
The president did not call him or his Task Force colleague Deborah Birx to the podium Tuesday. She said Monday that only half of the 18,000 Abbott Labs 15-minute test processing machines are being used.
Gov. Cuomo during his daily briefing asked who is going to pay to have the necessary millions of Americans or even New Yorkers tested.
There are only six commercial testing firms and their services are being sought by all 50 states, bidding up the cost, he said, just as happened with ventilators, masks, gowns, gloves, face shields and swabs. “I’m broke,” he said.
The S&P is up about 12% in a week. Amazon reached it’s all-time high Tuesday having risen 24% this year. Apple rose 5% just during the day. It slipped a tiny bit in after hours trading. Google/Alphabet rose 4.5% Tuesday. Tesla finished up 9% and tacked on another 5% early in the after hours.
Once again the market is sending a signal, the president said, that it’s time for America to get back to work.
“Really, what they’re really seeing is how we’re doing. If we weren’t doing well the market wouldn’t be at a level that it is today,” he said.
Investors and analysts and hedge funds have some of the brightest minds. They are assumed to know the difference between a peak and a plateau. N.Y. Gov. Cuomo sees a plateau for mortality and some decrease in new hospitalizations for a few days. He’s already said the “worst is over.” Of course he added the worst could be back “in a week” if social distancing is relaxed but that’s just hypothetical.
As the president said, 50% of the counties in the nation have no virus. As many as 29 states are candidates for reopening. A reporter piped up and asked if that were not because of social distancing and couldn’t they get hit later?
So many questions to be batted away, and the president cut off several of them.
He spoke for a long time about suspending U.S. contributions to the World Health Organization, but just for 60 to 90 days while its performance is examined to see if the cutoff should be permanent. Too “China-centric,” he said, then diverted his way past questions why he tweeted effusive praise for China’s transparency in fighting the virus early in the outbreak.
It was time to remind that China has “paid the United States billions and billions” in tariffs, always a mystery to the American importers who actually pay the tariffs.
The day included another “gaggle” as White House economic policy coordinator Larry Kudlow told reporters on the White House driveway that he can’t comment on the “aggregate numbers” of people being retained or brought back to payrolls by the flood of government money so far.
Meanwhile the ever deepening effects of the economic shutdown are getting more and more expensive, in earnings and jobs. Many forecasters are no longer uncomfortable seeing an unemployment rate heading to 20% and more.
The auto industry, auto leasing agents, auto mechanics, the used car market and the banks that finance the auto loans all watch the days pass, the storage lots fill. Those loan defaults won’t really sting for another couple of months. Autos and maintenance are just about 8% of consumer expenditures. How important is that?
The major airlines Tuesday signed on to the CARES Act infusion intended to keep their staff on payroll through September. Treasury gets some warrants for a small percentage of their shares that may or may not be redeemed someday and some of the money may have to be paid back.
The flood is already running dry, however, for the Paycheck Protection Program. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi keeps insisting on directing some of the additional $250 billion needed to “refill” the fund, using the president’s word, be directed to hospitals, state treasuries and the smallest businesses. She says she’s not going to budge and the president said he doesn’t want Democratic wish-list items included so, as usual, the process grinds on.
Kudlow said with $250 billion committed in the past few days, the money for that program could run out by the weekend.
Finally, notable among the day’s interviews was that on CNBC of the CEO of Unilever, the British-Dutch competitor to P&G, who said it’s only the Americans who are hoarding toilet paper.
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com
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