The Economy

...it's in my kitchen, and yours, and everywhere around us.

I thought maybe we could try a running thread to discuss the CNBC and FBN side of our lives?

For starters, I'll posit that the downturn is here to stay and it's useless to try and turn it around by sending more money no-strings-attached to small (or mid-sized or large) businesses. Instead, we may just need to take our medicine.

What say you? What is your assessment of our collective financial futures?

 

We’re fucked.

 

Have a feeling this one might last for a year or two.

 

1929 didn't really end until the late 40s, and it took a world war to really fire up the economy.

 

It figures to be a pretty long haul. I'd guess "normal life" won't be back for awhile. The bar/restaurant biz, especially in cities, is going to take a long time to rebound. The travel/tourist industry is going to be in the toilet years.

Hopefully it bounces back more quickly than I think. Some jobs will never come back, hopefully new ones we haven't considered will emerge.

I'm grateful to still be working right now. But my job will likely end up going away because of this. To be fair, it's been in danger for awhile, but this certainly figures to accelerate it ending. Like millions of others, I'll have to reinvent myself to get something in what will probably be a tough job market for a long time.

*All of this with the caveat of being different with a vaccine or great treatment plan arriving quickly.

 

Tax the rich back to the '50s. They've had their fun.

 

They had high marginal rates.

They also could deduct every penny of interest they spent. On everything. There were deductions and ways to avoid taxes out the wazoo back then.

What they actually paid the government in federal income taxes? Eh, about the same. 16.7 percent, compared to 14-15 percent today.

 

US business couldn't even survive a month of lockdown. What does that tell you about the economy?

 

There are deductions out the wazoo now and also low rates. What is the source that the paid 17%. That number can be generated today from the IRS data base. I have always wondered how someone came up with that number from the 50's.

 

The elephant in the room is how many additional deaths the country would accept to open up the economy again. While states are opening up would they stay the course if they turned into another New York?

 

Taxes on the Rich Were Not That Much Higher in the 1950s