The Congressional Budget Office is bullish on the economy in its latest report. Here's their forecast:
Real GDP expands rapidly over the coming year, reaching its previous peak in mid-2021 and surpassing its potential level in early 2025....Labor market conditions continue to improve. As the economy expands, many people rejoin the civilian labor force who had left it during the pandemic, restoring it to its prepandemic size in 2022. The unemployment rate gradually declines throughout the period, and the number of people employed returns to its prepandemic level in 2024.
There is, of course, a chart:
At its current growth rate, CBO projects that GDP will be less than potential GDP for three years, after which it reaches its full potential. This compares to nine consecutive years of below-potential GDP following the Great Recession.
If you trust the CBO, this is a good argument that we don't need any further fiscal stimulus. However, it says nothing about whether we need to continue helping those who have suffered the biggest income losses from the pandemic shutdown.¹
¹Hint: Yes, we do.
Democrats would be politically stupid not to run the economy as hot as they can. They now need to win the popular vote by better than three points to win the Electoral College.
Wow, yes, that last paragraph.
Both politicians and the press have routinely conflated "economic stimulus" with "unemployment support." Dropping bundles of cash indiscriminately puts more money in circulation and stimulates the economy. That doesn't do much for people who are out of work because of lockdowns or other Covid restrictions.
I'm retired and receiving Social Security. I already get a check from the government every month. I don't need additional support, but if stimulating the economy is what you want, I'm glad to help out. But if you want to spend money wisely, don't give it to me, give it to folks who are struggling to get by.
What he said! Me too!
Who the heck thought of calling this latest round of aid "stimulus?" That's almost too dumb to imagine. It ain't "stimulus" our conutry needs now, it's help for the people who need help.
The Republican Gang of Ten has created the perfect opening for that. They want to cut the "stimulus payments." Go ahead and give them that, in trade for some more help with unemployment benefits.
Economists have never been able to predict the future and employing them in the CBO does not give them magical powers. If someone can assemble all the past projections by the CBO and show how their predictions came true I might change my opinion on this.
One thing that economists usually get wrong is neglecting recessions due to financial crashes or other causes. Economies actually follow a sawtooth pattern. A period of recovery, which has been very slow in the last few recessions, followed by a sudden drop. This pattern is clearly present in Kevin's graph, except for the future, where the CBO projects that the economy will reach full potential and then stabilize. What will actually happen is that there will be another crash. The recovery or expansion periods have been getting longer (and slower) so the next crash may not happen before 2030, but it will happen eventually.
Here's an interview with two researchers who convincingly describe why the coronavirus is an escape from a lab and why it's likely to evolve in the direction of greater lethality and virulence,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGWLLDSA3c
The CBO projection is without the virus or any further viral outbreak.
Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying can indeed be quite convincing, but they are also, unfortunately, neither experts in virology or epidemiology nor correct on the facts about SARS-CoV-2.
The "Wuhan virology lab" thesis has been examined in detail by scientists who are experts in virology, and they have concluded that SARS-CoV-2 is natural in origin.
If you prefer to read the scientific article itself, you can find it here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
If you'd rather read a less technical summary of the theory and why it's not supported by the data, here's a review from this year: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5
Thank you.
The first one is from March and the other is about debunking wingnut conspiracy theories.
Like it's just a massive coincidence when people around Chernobyl get cancer.
Until investigators can actually get into that lab and examine whatever it is they were doing, and be confident they have the real story, assuming that lab is the origin of it is the most reasonable point of view.
I'm not disagreeing that it can be entirely natural, but it can be natural and still have escaped from the lab.
***assuming that lab is the origin of it is the most reasonable point of view.***
Your assertion is not agreed with by most (the vast majority, really) actual scientists.
You're not thinking about it.
Show me the investigator who has been to that lab.
If you found an abnormally high amount of cancer surrounding a Soviet nuclear power plant would you argue that cancer is natural and well understood and that clusters by random chance are statistically inevitable and this is completely in keeping with the incidence of clusters in the Soviet Union and this is sufficient to dismiss the Soviet era nuclear power plant as a source of cancer here entirely?
The first one is from March 2020 because this theory has not been worthy of serious discussion for nearly a year.
The relevance of the second is left as an exercise for the reader.
The relevance of both is zero because no independent investigators have been to the lab in question.
If I am the only person in town with a gun and a bunch of people in town get shot with the same caliber gun but you're prevented from examining me or my gun is it reasonable to assume someone from out of town did it?
Peer-reviewed research reports (a) none of the hallmarks of genetic manipulation in the viral genome (the tools to do that genetic modification are mature and well-understood, and leave unmistakable traces), and (b) mutations in the virus which match similar mutations in zoonotic viruses prior to increased infectivity (i.e., this virus's evolution matches what has been observed in other related viruses in nature).
If you believe that is not relevant to the question of "how likely is it that SARS-CoV-2 is natural in origin?", then you and I have very different ideas of likelihood, evidence, and how to draw conclusions from data.
I think I will leave things here. Take another look at the data, and ask yourself if you might be arguing backwards from something you want to be true.
"At its current growth rate, CBO projects that GDP will be less than potential GDP for three years"
Why then do you see an argument for no further fiscal stimulus? Three years of below potential GDP is no problem? This is a real question, I'm not arguing it is a problem, although it sure looks like it to me...
That depends--how fast do you want GDP to get back to "normal".
Of course Biden can call their bluff--put in only a 3 month unemployment extension, but include an automatic trigger--if unemployment still high, continue extension. For the direct aid, $1400 to 50K, gradual decline after that so it's $1000 at 75K and perhaps a faster drop after that. Alternatively, $1000 now to $75K, then automatic triggers of $400 to $50K, $200 to $75K every two months. Keep aid to states and localities, and money for vaccinations. Not sure if that can be setup at a lower level with a trigger as well.
Figure package will go from $1.9 trillion to a range of 1.2 to 2.4 trillion depending on recovery.