 Yeah, so how how are you thinking of this in terms of so it's obviously a short term Impact, but is it will it have longer term? Consequences so I think it I mean part of what you've been talking about in terms of in the financial realm and giving the Fed these kinds of Powers and so on it's very rare for government agencies to then say oh, yeah We'll give these powers back. We'll never use these again. It's okay. So in that said it expands the powers of federal agencies and In the end of power over financial markets in the economy I mean it it sets a precedent that the government can say we're gonna shut down things And it's highly I mean I we've talked about this in another webinar We will likely keep talking about this kind of issue on what basis they're shutting it down It's highly highly questionable, but but it's still I find it surprising to in America How much people are willing to say? Yeah, everything can shut down and I mean there are some voices saying And we need stimulus and so on but the I mean grinding production to a halt Should one think of that is just it's a short term and it hurts and it hurts a lot more than people think But that longer term it doesn't have that much consequence I mean, I'll say what I think and then Rob. I mean, I think it has long-term consequences because it's very hard to restart production Yeah, and you lose the price signal you lose You lose information you say shut down in a week. So what should I produce now? What do people actually want? Continue. I mean and again It's hard to completely conceptualize because of the complexity of the price signal and the supply chains and everything else But it's it's very very It's really hard to ramp up again to hire people again if you've laid them off This is why for example in Denmark and UK they're paying people the government is paying Because they excuses if if they if they fire them and then hire them then that's too disruptive So we'll just keep them on payroll and we'll pay you for it. Now. I think that has other problems, but There's a certain sense in which that makes sense in a Statist bizarre world that we live in right so I I think I think it takes a while for production to ramp up They don't know what to produce. They'll be now production. They'll produce the wrong things at the wrong times You'll see you'll see too much toilet paper in the supermarket suddenly because the last thing they remember is huge demand for toilet paper And that's gone already or things like that That's one But and I think I think what's you know, my view is what's going to happen in the short run is All this government intervention is going to quote work in a sense, right? So yeah, the Fed is going to provide liquidity which is going to ease certain pressures in the marketplace It's going to create other pressures, but it's going to ease the short term pressures The government writing everybody a check for thousand dollars is actually going to allow people to pay bills and do a few things And it's going to quote work in the short run and it's going to prevent people from really going on and how they do that I doubt I've got a bet with a friend of mine. I said no checks are going out ever It's too it's actually if I you know if I were mixed economist running the thing The the the one stimulus that actually makes sense. If you're going to do this Then just write checks to people Because then at least people get to use their values to determine how it's going to spend rather than politicians Doing the graph thing of just oh, we're going to be a lot bowing. Why not? It has nothing to do with coronavirus the fact that the bankrupt But we're going to bail them out anyway because now is our opportunity because we want the washington voters or whatever uh, so You know, I think a lot of this stuff will actually have some Short-term consequences and I think this will be a steep decline and I think we'll start rising but the rise So if in 2008 after 2009 everybody complained about everything was so slow in recovering Now it's going to be even slower in recovery And if growth after 2009 was two percent now we'll be lucky if it's one percent So my view is We might the world might not end in this crisis We might be building again at edifice for a much bigger one Right and it might be this is the way we we decline. This is the way we fail is through a series of these crises But the consequence are slow economic growth. Maybe negative economic growth for a few years Maybe zero economic growth for a few years, but it's going to be prolonged and and to go to points you made uncle It has expanded government power dramatically power that will never come back to the people Um, I think it's much more likely we get socialized medicine now I think it's much more likely we get socialization of a lot of other functions and we know where that leads that leads ultimately to authoritarianism and oppression and and and any economic complete economic Collapse and I think ultimately that's where we're heading. I'm just not sure it's going to happen in the next six months Yeah, I think I largely agree with what you're on is saying Um, you know the economy is not something you could just turn the switch off and then flip it back on um You know, maybe after a week things could you'll not be too too bad But if this goes two weeks three weeks a month and who knows how long it's going to go Um, there's there's just tremendous damage going on under the surface Um, and so it's not just an aggregate thing that you know either it's working or it's not working It's just all kinds of micro relationships All kinds of you know, just the cash flow issue. So you never know who's going to be stuck with not enough cash to pay their bills or um You know, so once things do come back For one people are going to be a lot more risk averse Which they should be part of the problem is that the Fed has caused people to be Uh, less risk averse than they should be and taking bigger risks than they should be and being more levered than they should be Um, but that as your answer is that's going to mean growth is going to be a lot slower to return um and Yeah, so I mean it's just there's just tremendous tremendous destruction going on I'm really still trying to figure out exactly where that all ends up In terms of the government powers. So yeah, so we see with the fed Um, you know stuff that was controversial and that they were scrambling to do in 2008 is now just oh, yeah No problem. Just turn them back on now. We'll start doing those programs plus a bunch of new stuff So now those will be part of their arsenal Um, you know in some extent it is the fed's job to provide liquidity to the market That's what they've said their job is that's what they said they thought that you will do Um, you know, so in some sense you can't say the Fed is the lender of last resort And that's their function and then you know all of a sudden today say oh, actually no We're not gonna You'll let it all crash So it's a some extent because they've said that that they need to make good on their promise and be the lender of last resort now Um, but then they should unwind that they should we should get rid of that function so that People don't rely on it and come to think okay You know the Fed will write to the rescue because they will provide liquidity. They'll bail us out They'll you know do repos so that uh, they'll be you know our positions and the market won't crash and so on So that you know, it's the Fed that keeps causing these problems and then they rise they have to write to the rescue to Um deal with the aftermath of these problems So if the Fed weren't standing there saying we're going to bail you out Then people wouldn't take so much risk that they needed to be bailed out So, you know, Jim Grant has this great comedy says you know the Fed gets credit for being the fireman But they never get the blame for being the arsonist in the first place. So Can I make one kind? I just want to make one comment about trade One of the things that's going to save us Is trade with China The fact is that China's ramping up right now production When we are shutting down Production so whatever goods we are going to be able to consume in the months forward We're going to be more reliant than ever on China and and by the way, Mexico Mexico There's no they haven't shut down the Mexican economy so they extend the Mexico's producing and people are going to work and creating stuff I mean, I think I mean Put aside Trump, but I think most people underestimate The huge benefit international trade globalization has provided the united states I think much of our economic growth over the last 30 years and maybe one of the reasons we didn't have inflation has to do with dramatic unprecedented increases in productivity on a global scale while productivity in the united states was was was moderate productivity increases globally they increased dramatically and I think that You know the insanity right now of having a president Who thinks trade is a bad thing and an economic advisor A pseudo economic advisor, I'm sorry By the name of pinon avaro, who is actually drafting legislation right now Or executive orders to try to restrict trade with china during this crisis even further To use it as an opportunity to bring back production to the united states Is so sickening because I actually think while the chinese are at fault to some extent about what's happened Because they they they didn't release information early on and they try to suppress it. They are also They could be not our saviors, but they could help mitigate a lot of the costs that are going to happen because they are still producing The fact that these guys are in charge is so sickening and so scary And and uh, we should you know We should as soon as this crisis has started lower terrorist I mean we should lower types to zero anyway, but as an emergency measure even lower tariffs to zero and say Yeah, we're not going to be able to produce for a while So please other parts of the world produce so that we can we still have stuff And instead the mentality is the opposite the mentality is build walls close borders don't allow trade You know lock ourselves in and It really is the what scares me more than anything other other the people running the asylum From powell who's a nothing and a nobody running the federal reserve And maybe that's a good thing because the guys who had PhDs were even worse To our political leaders who are worse than nothing and Anyway, I I I want to give a big plug for international trade because I you know, it's crucial in this context um, so maybe let's end with this general point so if Not a science fiction Optimistic scenario, but something that would be realistic if people thought about it and tried to learn some lessons Given their context of knowledge, which is very mixed and as it's I mean from We think from a philosophical perspective as all kinds of error person wrong Views, but still so I mean one thing I think some people could learn is Yeah, international trade is more important than we thought it is and are there other things that you think people could learn from a positive perspective from this christ now, I think mostly crises are There things go worse after a crisis not better, but you can find places that Uh, I mean if you take say japan after world war two, it's they learned some things I think actually learned some things about what was wrong about what they did before So to to try to paint Optimistic, but not fantasy thing. What what would you say that it if things go the best sort of that they can go Given the context what might happen. So and one is people could learn to appreciate International trade and the whole phenomenon of globalization Uh, that it's been an enormous boon to life. Not we need to shut it down You know, I I fear that people are learning exactly the opposite So because I I see on my feeds and everywhere I see people saying this proves now that we need to manufacture masks and ventilators and you know Now the list of emergency equipment in the united states so that we're not dependent on the chinese or whatever So I fear people have learned the opposite But I think you know, maybe and again, I think this is being overly optimistic because I think I agree with you crises Oh people people always We come out of crises less free than we answer them. I I can't think in american history Um with exception of the 70s with exception of the 70s because I think I think because of ein rand And and people like Milton Friedman. I think I think they changed the intellectual climate and there's nobody like that today There's not there's no intellectual voice out there. That is even A little bit, you know in that direction. There's no An institute that's it There's no way um, so, you know, maybe As things ramp up and people suddenly discover that one of the big constraints on ramping back up Are regulations employment and regulations. So for example, if you fired people in california now you have to hire them Good luck, right? Um, and maybe people start saying well Or the licensing laws for doctors, you know, they've loosened it up a little bit and they're allowing Across state license, you know recognition and allowing retire doctors to come back and things like that Maybe people start realizing that some of the employment regulations A massive burden to recovering from crises like this and maybe we should loosen some of that up But but I I still think that's being a little overly optimistic about things Yeah, that's probably the one thing I would point to too is potentially optimistic so there's stories out there like there was a a scientist in washington that was running some kind of a clinical study on uh, I forget what it was But you wanted to she was seeing these cases of the coronavirus showing up and she wanted to shift her study her research to That but you know, she didn't have fdga approval or she didn't you know, whatever She was asking for approval to you know, I want to study this instead So finally she just started doing it, you know illegally In a sense. Um, and so that gave us a good leg up that she was starting to provide information and so on So, you know, the more stories like that get out you can hope that people say, okay These regulations are really stifling us from doing the right thing and being allowed to do the right thing Um optimistically, uh, I hope but you know as ron says I doubt That's what's gonna happen. Um in terms of the fed I had been somewhat hopeful because in the few years going up to this I was starting to see more and more people Blaming the fed so in terms of wall street economists Academic economists are pretty clueless. They really don't understand how The markets work how the economy works in terms of nitty-gritty wall street economists are quite good Like they they tend to see the details of microstructure what the effects are Weird distortions and they're showing up and that kind of thing academic economists just look at the aggregates aggregate spending aggregate Demand aggregate investments and so on Um, so I was seeing more and more wall street economists questioning what the fed was doing and that that would lead to problems It would unwind But I mean the problem is I was hoping that the crash would come naturally from you know The economic distortions hitting a wall and finally having to unravel and then people would blame the fed Or at least a lot of people would Instead, you know the coronavirus comes along and pricks the bubble. So now everybody said, oh, yeah, it was a coronavirus So, you know, you could never predicted that that's just completely out of the blue And that's what's causing the economic downturn not the fed not their zero interest rate policies Not the huge over leveraged position the economy was in and so on so so that that Optimistic hope I guess is out the window now I do want to warn people about the economists that out there the investment advisors that out there that are fear mongering right now about I mean Stuff is really bad but that Basically with conviction and certainty saying dollar's gonna collapse The world is gonna end and same people who did exactly the same thing in 2008 because I you know and it's it's You know just try to think for yourself try to get information from a number of different sources Don't just rely on on a padcast podcast that says the end of the world is here It might be there's a probability that that actually does happen But it's nobody knows Nobody knows including us with certainty How this is gonna play out. Yeah anybody who claims certainty in this crisis Don't listen to them. You know, that should be the criteria Stemological criteria for who you should listen to certainty is not an option because As we said in the beginning it's way too complex way too many moving parts Way too many decisions being made along the different decision trees To be able to predict exactly how this is going to play out and for those of you thinking the dollar is going to go to hell It might but if it does so will you own so will the yen and so will you go on and it's not like there's some safe haven to go to other than gold You know, there's not like there's other currencies that are better It's it's the european central bank is just as bad as the fed or worse The central bank has been worse than the fed for decades Um, but uh, I do think we'll come out of this. I do think we'll come out of this worse I do think by the way to to end kind of optimistically. It is an opportunity For us all of us to advocate for the right ideas This is an opportunity to say told you so look at how government screws things up. Look at the testing Look at the things that the government did badly Um, look at how important production is people think consumption is everything Well, let's test this Let's let's stop production full at all and see what happens, right and and It's an opportunity for the more rational voices to be heard To speak up and maybe at some point. I think people will start listening. I'm not convinced it's now But at some point it'll be death or listen. There won't be any other alternatives There won't be a middle ground. So we need to ramp up our voice exactly in times of crisis like this What we need today what I called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason By the intellect not by feelings wishes wins or mystic revelations Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's Out of the spare cynicism and impedance and does not intend to give up the world To the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist roads Using the super chat and I noticed yesterday when I appealed For support for the show many of you step forward and actually Supported the show for the first time. So I'll do it again. Maybe we'll get some more today If you like what you're hearing if you appreciate what I'm doing Then I appreciate your support. Uh, those of you who don't yet support the show Please take this opportunity go to your on book show dot com Slash support or go to subscribe star dot com your on book show And um and and make a kind of a monthly contribution uh to keep this uh to keep this going. I'm not sure when the next