Thread by @jonrshell

This post I wrote yesterday has been viewed about 15K times and shared over 500. (Normal for me is my mom and 10 others) It's not because the ideas in it are that good, it's because people are facing economic collapse and don't see any help on the way. 1

medium.com/p/9-things-can…

People want to do the right thing and flattening the curve is real and critical. Social distancing is a must. But we need to appreciate the nature of the economic crisis it will create. We are effectively shutting down a big part of the economy. 2/15

It's like we are setting off an air raid siren that doesn't turn off. This will seem like a war. 3/15

Flattening the curve will mean a complete collapse of demand for any business with a physical location. It will mean most people without a full-time job will see their income temporarily disappear. Very few people or businesses can sustain zero revenue for very long. 4/15

Many successful businesses will suddenly go bankrupt. Many people will struggle to pay the rent. Meanwhile, the government is announcing interest rate cuts and additional loan capacity. This will not help and people know it. That's why people are so scared. 5/15

This is a very different crisis, and traditional government responses won't work. What we are facing is a widely distributed, short-term cash crunch. A complete and temporary loss of all income. We have never faced this before. 6/15

Sending people money usually increases demand, helping small business. It won't work this time. People will wisely hoard their cash and we are literally begging them to NOT go outside and spend it. The money will go to Amazon instead of local business. 7/15

Loans won't work for small business because they won't qualify. "Hey bank, my revenue is down 80% and I had to let most of my people go. Can I borrow 50K?" Please... 8/15

What we need are ideas that reduce expenses for people and businesses so they can string out whatever cash they have left until this is over. I have some ideas to that end in my post, and some countries in Europe have started using measures like this. 9/15

There are lots of good ideas to this end. The critical thing is recognizing that this crisis is different, and needs different tools to fight it. I will add two links here to other articles with good ideas. Some people commented on my LinkedIn post with terrific ideas. 10/15

We also need to appreciate the staggering inequality of the likely outcomes of this crisis. It will fall very heavily on non full-time workers and small business. 11/15

We need to shift the economic burden of social distancing from those who can't survive a total short-term collapse in income to those who can. If we don't, society will struggle with the justifiable anger of another crisis leading to even greater inequality. 12/15

Here's a link to a great editorial by @dskok of @the_logic that came out today. 13/15 thelogic.co/opinion/letter…

And here's one from the @globeandmail. 14/15 theglobeandmail.com/amp/opinion/ar…

Good luck everyone, socially isolate, and stay safe. 15/15

One final thought - I'm hearing some encouraging things. Several landlords are reaching out and telling their tenants they will waive rent for April. They are doing this voluntarily and this is wonderful and critical. Let's promote this! #waiveaprilrent. (I'm bad at hashtags)