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OpenTable bookings had declined 70% before US restaurants were closed.

Swedish movie theaters are open but revenues are down 90%.

“When will government open up the economy?” is the wrong question. Open doors and no customers is not an economy! ImageImage
Pandemic Economics Rule #4: In a pandemic, the business of America is not business; it’s public health.

Without cash, people will die. Without loans, companies will die. Without a public health fix, people and companies will die anyway. google.com/amp/s/amp.thea… Image
That first graph is from this great @CharlesFLehman piece.

BOTH consumers AND govts are responding to public information about the virus. And, bc consumers act faster than legislatures, social distancing is coming before local shut-down ordinances.

freebeacon.com/coronavirus/la…
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Derek Thompson
@DKThomp
In the next few weeks, you're going to hear a lot about "test and trace" as a plan to get us from national quarantine to a semi-normal life.

I wrote about what tracing technology looks like in other countries—and what it might look like in the U.S.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Americans are about to learn about a number of tracing possibilities—like "Waze for COVID" apps, or a national network of Bluetooth pings—that will strike some privacy advocates as something harvested from their darkest nightmares.

I have three responses to that.
1. The worriers are right. We should be vigilant that programs designed to monitor a pandemic not become indefinite surveillance programs.

And South Korea's (extremely successful) anti-COVID efforts have relied on a level of invasiveness that might shock most Americans.
Read 5 tweets
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Derek Thompson
@DKThomp
COVID is a natural disaster.

National lockdown is a necessary response.

But 10 million unemployed in two weeks is an economic crisis of our own making.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
My 2-part plan to address the mounting jobless crisis, building on the govt-backed loan program in the emergency rescue package, which forgives loan payments to firms who can show they've maintained payrolls.

1. More marketing
2. More money
1) The admin needs to get the word out. Tweet it. Shout it at pressers.

The loud and clear message should be: "Our companies have a patriotic moral duty to hold onto their workers during this national crisis, and the government has a patriotic moral duty to pay them to do it."
Read 4 tweets
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Derek Thompson
@DKThomp
I wrote about the 4 new rules of pandemic economics.

Pandemics turn all economic logic on its head. Outdoor activity becomes viral pollution. Deep recessions are necessary evils. Willing workers must be paid to stop working.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
1. Without a healthy population, there can be no healthy economy. In the short run, the tradeoff between "saving GDP" or "saving lives" simply does not exist.
2. Once normal economic activity is effectively outlawed, the government has no choice but to pay millions of people—likely, tens of millions of people—a living wage to go home and do nothing.

Productivity? Forget it. We literally want them to be as unproductive as possible.
Read 5 tweets

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