All: partisan flamewar is not welcome on this site, so please don't.<p>Pouring fuel on flames is an understandable but not a helpful stress response. The idea here is to do better for as long as we can.
I don't think monetary policy is going to fix this. There is a pandemic and the ostensible leader of the free world literally got on TV and said "I don't take responsibility at all" about it. People are freaked the eff out.
I don't understand the reasoning behind halting trade after significant drops in index value. If people significantly devalue a stock (or stocks), why would halting trade change that? Halting trade could contribute to devaluation, since it could encourage capital flight to exchanges that aren't halted or have predictable trading hours. If I knew I might not be able to trade tomorrow that's a new incentive to sell now and trade elsewhere.
I reckon the Dow (and the FTSE100) are down about 35% on a month ago.<p>After 9/11 they both fell about 10%.<p>In 2008 the Dow dropped about 40% in a month, and about 50% in 6 months.
No real solutions until credible leadership takes charge.<p>For example: <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/media-resources/press-briefings" rel="nofollow">https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...</a>
None of this really matters. What matters is when people (non-shareholders, non <1%ers) pass that tipping point which they already live so close to.<p>They won't get paid because they'll be home sick, or told not to come in; so they won't have "hours" on their timesheets. They don't have any safety net.<p>They will miss rent payments en masse. Small business property companies (landlords) will suddenly have a cash flow problem and won't be able to make their mortgage payments.<p>Enough little people will stop having any money and spending any money, and all that will be left is the imaginary money in the stock market and the quantitatively-eased-up banks - none of which does anything useful for the little people.<p>This will create a very interesting situation that truly will threaten the current way of things in certain skewed capitalist countries. What will come out of this will surely be a lot more socialist (or rather, gains being distributed more equally amongst the population instead of going to the top 0.1%). The top 0.1% will not suffer, because honestly what is the difference between 100M net worth and 1B net worth.
Strangely sending an autographed chart to a news organization celebrating a quick pump of the stock market 30 minutes before close has not fixed all of our problems.<p>There is no leadership on this issue. Health leaders are urging isolation while at the same time elected leaders from a certain party are going on TV and twitter and urging people to go out to restaurants and bars. The president has been telling his supporters that there is no problem in the US while thousands are dying in Europe. With no captain is anyone surprised the ship appears to be drifting? Pence appears to be doing his best but he is clearly handcuffed.<p>As the situations at airports are proving there is literally zero true planning going on. No one figured out that if you announce a major travel ban that people will come flooding home from virus hot spots. Thousands of people jammed together before being released back into the US.<p>Soon companies are going to be forced to start massive layoffs just to survive, especially the travel and retail industries. We are then going to have tens of thousands of our lowest paid and least resource secure people suddenly without jobs. The bills will continue though. The government though appears to show no regard for individuals and is instead focused only on stock market numbers. Not to mention many of these same people suddenly have kids at home with the schools closed.<p>We need to a massive stimulus for individuals, put a moratorium on mortgage and car payments, put cash in peoples hands or this is going to get out of hand fast. Due to our so called "rugged individualism" in the US, we have lines around the corner at gun stores as people fantasize about gunning down those rendered desperate from what is going on while our European neighbors are pitching in to help each other.