Coronovirus politics from the Boston Globe:
There are indeed two ways in which Trump’s handling of this crisis are being viewed. Where most Democrats see lying and stupidity, most Republicans see optimism and hope. As the virus races around the world, mainstream Democrats see proof that we live in a global connected world — while Trump Republicans see proof that we need tighter borders. Where Democrats see presidential messages shifting daily as unclear and inconsistent communication, Republicans see frequent and authentic updates and genuine effort in the face of uncertainty.

I just received this as a text from an ICU worker in a medium size hospital not in NY, CA, Washington, Illinois, nor Louisiana.
Mobile morgue

In case you missed it, here’s the recent ad from Republicans for the Rule of Law featuring President Trump’s own words on the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/mExr5eGqhr
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 22, 2020

Coronavirus dashboard for March 24
Here is the update through yesterday (March 23)

In order to succeed in containing the pandemic, I believe that the US needs 2 weeks of China (nearly complete lockdown) followed by at least a month of South Korea (very aggressive and widespread testing). At minimum, that means at least 50% of the US population under lockdown and a ratio of 15:1 in tests to results showing infection. The recent exponential growth of about 35% per day must be stopped. Those three most important metrics are starred (***) below.
Number and rate of increase of Reported Infections (from Johns Hopkins via arcgis.com)
Number: up +11,226 to 46,450 (vs. +8,477 on March 23)
***Rate of increase: day/day: 32% (vs. 34.6% baseline and vs. 32% on March

Meanwhile while we are pre-occupied with corvid-19 comes this news from  Rolling Stone:
The Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally-protected rights during coronavirus and other emergencies, according to a report by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan.
…
The DOJ has requested Congress allow any chief judge of a district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation,” according to draft language obtained by Politico. This would be applicable to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest,

By Joseph Joyce
The True Owners of Foreign Capital

Explaining the sources and destinations of capital flows is a key focus of research in international finance. But capital flows between countries can flow through financial centers before they arrive at their ultimate destination, and these intermediary flows distort the record of the actual ownership of investments. Two recent papers seek to provide a more accurate picture of the true sources of foreign finance.
Jannick Damgaard of Danmarks Nationalbank, Thomas Elkjaer of the International Monetary Fund and Niels Johannesen of the University of Copenhagen differentiate between “phantom” and “real” foreign direct investment in their 2019 IMF working paper, “What Is Real and What Is Not in the Global FDI

B7 New Deal democrat
Weekly Indicators for March 17 – 21 at Seeking Alpha
A vignette….
Cognoscenti: “It’s impossible to forecast the economy.”

Forecaster: “Actually, if you rely upon a tried and true series of long and short leading indicators, you ca-“

Deity: “OH YEAH??? TRY FORECASTING THE GIANT SCREAMING METEOR OF DEATH!!!!!”

G.S.M.O.D.: [BOOM!

Forecaster [poking head through rubble]: “Y’know, Deity, that really wasn’t very fair.”

Sigh. At least, the high frequency indicators have been the first to show the economic impacts of the coronavirus, as opposed to waiting around for monthly data. The Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.

Clicking through and reading will bring you as up to date as possible on the economic carnage, as well as

In the quaint, pre-coronavirus world of February, the economy was already very weak

I have a post up at Seeking Alpha, taking a look at this morning’s retail sales and industrial production reports for February, and briefly considering their implications for employment in the coming months, even before the impact of coronavirus.
Here’s a graph that didn’t make it into that post, showing the past 25+ years of real retail sales (red), jobs (blue), and real aggregate payrolls (green):

For the past 11 months, real retail sales in February were only up +0.9%. We’ll never know for sure, but it is entirely possible that, even without coronavirus, real retail sales might have turned negative YoY this month, suggesting that job growth might screech to a halt in

The San Francisco Chronicle reports “shelter in place” restrictions.  My daughter lives in Santa Clara county, where schools are closed till April 13.

Six Bay Area counties announced a “shelter in place” order for all residents on Monday — the strictest measure of its kind in the country — directing everyone to stay inside their homes and away from others as much as possible for the next three weeks as public health officials desperately try to curb the rapid spread of coronavirus across the region.
The directive begins at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and involves San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties — a combined population of more than 6.7 million. It is to stay in place until at least April 7. Three other Bay Area

By New Deal democrat
Weekly Indicators for March 9 – 13 at Seeking Alpha
My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.
There is no clear evidence yet of a drop-off in consumer spending due to the coronavirus in the series I have been tracking, although there is evidence on the producer side.
After I posted, I ran across this chart of daily reservations made at OpenTable for various metro areas:

There has clearly been a big decline that began about March 2nd.
As usual, clicking through and reading will help bring you up to date, and rewards me a little bit for my efforts.

(Dan here…another  of David Zetland’s students Hanna writes on regulation…a reminder of what also matters during this heated political climate, and from a younger generation. The first mention of water wars at AB was 2007 I believe.)
Poor regulation causes scarcity
Hannah writes*
In 2014, Flint was plunged into a water crisis. However, this was not the result of over abstraction or drought. Instead, the city’s water scarcity which continues today was caused by poor regulation. The tragedy in Flint demonstrates the critical role that regulators play in ensuring both the quantity and quality of the water delivered to communities.
Over the last five years, it has become clear that senior officials were aware of the water quality issues in Flint but continued

By New Deal democrat
Weekly Indicators for February 24 – 28 at Seeking Alpha
My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.
What happened in the past week certainly fits the definition of a crash – a loss of more than 10% in just five days – in my mind anyway. Not just stocks, but commodities also crashed.
Perhaps surprisingly, in the “hard” data of actual production and consumption, there doesn’t seem to have been much of an impact. In any event, clicking over and reading will bring you fully up to date, and put a penny or two in my pocket.

(Dan here…another  of David Zetland’s students Johanna writes on groundwater…a reminder of what also matters during this heated political climate, and from a younger generation. The first mention of water wars at AB was 2007 I believe.)
Atlanta and downstream friends
Johanna writes*
This post offers some insight into the problems of water management in Atlanta (the capital of Georgia) and the effects of those problems on its downstream neighbors Florida and Alabama. These problems are part of a 30-year water allocation drama in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (AFC) basin.
 (Map source)
In Atlanta, population growth, legal disputes, and droughts result in water scarcity. Atlanta is one of the fastest-growing urban cities in the US, relying only on

(Dan here…one of David Zetland’s students Lenaide writes on groundwater…a reminder of what also matters during this heated political climate, and from a younger generation)
A threatened groundwater source
Lenaide writes*
Imagine living in a city located on top of the largest groundwater source and longest river in France, but to also have both of these sources be under the threat of scarcity. That it is the current state of Beaugency, France.
Beaugency has two water sources: the Beauce aquifer, which I will focus on in this blogpost and the Loire river, which I will only briefly mention at the end.
The aquifer, covering about 10 000 km2, is referred to as the water tower of the department, as it provides water to about 1 million inhabitants. Since the

By New Deal democrat
The impact of coronavirus on my slowdown vs. recession forecast

 For roughly the last half year, my forecast has been that a slowdown without a recession was the most likely scenario, *IF* the economy were left to its own devices.
Well, given the horror scenarios possible with the coronavirus outbreak, the economy is certainly not being “left to its own devices.”
I took a look at how that intersects with my forecast over at Seeking Alpha.
As usual, clicking over and reading should be helpful to you, and rewards me a little bit for my work.

By Joseph Joyce
The Long Reach of U.S. Monetary Policy
The spillover of U.S. monetary policy on foreign economies has become an active area of research. Analysts seek to identify the channels of transmission between the policy stance of the Federal Reserve and foreign interest rates and credit extension. The usual account is that an expansionary Fed policy leads to capital outflows and an appreciation of foreign currencies as investors seek higher yields abroad. Two recent papers have focused on different aspects of this linkage.
Silvia Albrizio of the Bank of Spain, Sangyup Choi of Yonsei University, Davide Furceri of the IMF and Chansik Yoon of Princeton University investigated the impact of monetary tightening on cross-border bank lending in an IMF

By New Deal democrat
Weekly Indicators for February 10 – 14 at Seeking Alpha
My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.Several of the coincident indicators that turned positive one week ago turned right back to negative this week. The bifurcation between the producer and consumer sides of the economy continues.
As usual, clicking over and reading should be educational for you, and ever so slightly enumerative for me.