[eshyong]

While I agree with some of your points re: online companies doing well, I don't see how you can take anecdata about local grocery stores and extrapolate it to the rest of the economy. Also, don't forget that 16 million (that's 5%!) Americans are unemployed right now. Can you imagine the damage that's going to do to businesses across the country?

If that isn't a sign that a recession is coming, I don't know what is.

[axegon_]

The US is a very different beast altogether. I'm a bit far away from there but as a spectator, I'd say the US had the absolutely __WORST__ reaction to this situation. Given that about 40 to 45% of all confirmed covid19 cases are in the US suggests that to put it mildly. As a matter of fact, most of the world's reaction was nothing short of appalling. But there are exceptions to the rule: as an eastern European myself, most of the countries in Europe, east of Germany have managed to contain the situation really well. It might have something to do with considerable experiences with crisis(of different nature in all 1 billion instances over the past 100 years), but let's hope that's been to our benefit for once. Again - only time will tell

I never said average Joe won't be affected by this. What I am saying is that the big players will still be big once this is over but there will be new players as well. Also China will likely lose ground in the global production lines, and companies will likely look at alternatives, even if they have to make a compromise with scale and price. Investors like safe bets and what the current situation has taught is is that China isn't a safe option. We knew that already but the nets around the foxconn factories are a bit... Out of sight, out of mind.

16 million is a horrific number and I sincerely hope they pull through without paying a heavy price. But put your mind in a different mindset - 16 million is an incredible amount of manpower. For the 16 million - that's a tragedy but for the people with deep pockets - that's a once in a lifetime opportunity if they play their cards well. And I'm more than certain that many out there will.

[AWildC182]

Best I can tell, the stock market is trying to look mid-term and investors are assuming (read speculating) that his whole thing will blow over and life will resume its normal cadence.

Obviously this isn't reality but if you have enough money to be considered an "investor", the 16 million unemployed aren't the people in the forefront of your mind. They're also probably watching the covid task force briefings while wearing the same rose colored glasses that our mango unchained has.

[ardy42]

> Also, don't forget that 16 million(!!) Americans are unemployed right now.

It's actually worse than that. The 16.8 million figure is for new jobless claims over the last three weeks [1]. There's additional people who were already unemployed before this, and there may be even more who've lost their jobs but haven't been able to successfully file a unemployment claim yet (due to the systems being overwhelmed).

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/business/economy/unemploy...