Once again, I just don't get how the president gets to take complete responsibility for the economy good or bad. There's clearly many other factors at play that they don't have any control over. Sure, take credit for the hard things you've pushed and the result of that, but it goes back to 2009. The R's skewered Obama for the deficit, which was the direct result of the continuation of the economic direction that Bush II started, and those numbers were as a result of decisions that had been made by multiple predecessors, yet somehow he took the brunt of it resulting in the 2010 elections and Tea Party bullshit. I guess I'm in the minority. trump being able to drive an economy straight, that was handed to him straight, and all he's done is goose the gas pedal isn't exactly earth shattering. Him failing to react in an acceptable way to a crisis is completely his responsibility, but the economy finally taking a long expected dump as a result of said crisis, really doesn't come to him, unless, like said, the choices he made by stepping on the pedal directly or indirectly hurt the countries ability to handle said crisis. He would get full ownership of that.

I know that isn't how it's played out for the masses, and it's big in scope and understanding, but fuck all for those people who would rather have that emotional soundbite on something to get worked up over, than try and understand the actual mechanism of function.

DOW is in Bear. S&P and Nasdaq are about 1% away. Not sure what the measure is for the record books. Need that shallow recession next to get the cycle (e.g. bull market) started all over again.

He'll blame it on the unexpected coronavirus. I do think he has an out here.

His vulnerability is how well (or not) his response is to the pandemic and the impact to the economy. It has started off poorly but he still has time to do a save (or obfuscate) by November.

I'm pretty sure he's handled it perfectly so far.

Dow futures currently down 1000+ after Trump's speech.

Disney, hospitality, airlines must really suck right now.

Here is the speech that the country *needed* to hear from the President tonight:

"My fellow Americans, the next few months are going to be hard. For many of us, harder than anything we've faced in our lifetimes.

— Jeremy FLATTEN THE CURVE Konyndyk (@JeremyKonyndyk) March 12, 2020

The beginning of what the President's speech could have been. It's really good and would have calmed the nation.

alas, we didn't elect a functioning adult

As if there wasn't enough shit hitting the fan, Iran has attacked and killed Americans and a Brit in Iraq.

I had to look this up. Didn't see it mentioned on the news at all. Weird.

Europe major indexes all down 5%+. Dow down 1,231 or 5.22%. Just saw Boeing down 18% yesterday, wow. Disney down about 30% since Dec, I would have thought more by now.

Surprisingly the China stock market is not doing near as bad which I attribute to their government-enabled-pseudo-stock-market.

And we retaliated.

Good way for Iran to distract their population from the coronavirus I guess.

The company is off about 50% since November.

Wow stock halted again. Not good.

Smart of Biden assuming he can pull it off. But not sure what he can say without sounding too self-serving. I suggest he doesn't "attack" Trump and the lackluster response right now

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/mee...trump-n1156456

Holy shit market is down 2100 (9%)

If I'm Biden, I give the speech as if I'm POTUS. I don't mention Trump, reference Trump, reference Republicans, take shots at anyone, any country, etc.

I just give folks a strong unifying message.

Yes agree.

That might have to be considered a loss for Trump

Apparently stopping some travel isn't seen as an effective startegy for containment.

Not even going to look at my 401 K, standing the course until it bottoms and then pumping in more money and hope for a good rebound.

This is a good move, I'm all for a short delay of 2-3 months.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/how-...ax-filing.html

Brazil: President's press director Fabio Wajngarten is suspected of having coronavirus, days after returning from trip to Miami, and meeting President Trump and VP Pence pic.twitter.com/aJbX4h09RE

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) March 11, 2020

The guy on the right, next to Trump.

Umm, no? It is just a delay, it will still have to be paid.

The money's already paid for most. The vast majority of people I'd say are planning for a refund or to have no taxes paid at all.

The tax delay is a givaway to the rich people/businesses who pay as late as possible. It won't do much of anything for the economy.

Trump speaking now. Trying to preempt Biden my guess.

If Biden can pull this off, it'll be a great (and remembered) differentiator.

yeah this would suck as I am counting on a big refund in the next month.

From what I can gather refunds will still be processed as normal. It is just that if you have to pay anything extra, Apr. 15th won't be the deadline to pay.

Hope so.

I'm curious. Why haven't you filed and gotten your refund already? We got ours about 3 weeks ago.

It wouldn't make sense for them to withhold refunds if they are talking about extending the deadline to file as a 'stimulus'. But then again, we are talking about this clusterfuck of an administration.

I'm lazy.

Also, who offers the most inexpensive tax software/website? I moved to a new state last year and withdrew some mutual funds. I'm afraid of how much it'll cost me to file.

I know for my tax refund, it's because my wife hasn't actually sat down and done the work to calculate everything from her home business. Which I gently reminded her she has like a month to do. I have entered everything involving W2s into TurboTax like a month+ ago.

We owe like 700 bucks. It has been sitting in the software since early February, ready to go. I was just waiting until the last minute to use their money for as long as possible. So if they extend it, I might get to earn an extra 2 or 3 bucks off of it. Suck it, big gubmint!

My shit is being held because (I’m assuming) of some idiot in accounting who didn’t submit my wife’s 2nd W2 on time to the IRS. I knew this was going to be a clusterfuck when I saw she had 2 separate ones(payroll company switched mid year).

I work all of the driving gig stuff, so I’ve been hoping for this money so I can ride out the next month or two. Hoping for some clarity within the next several days. Normally St Patrick’s day would be a $5-700 day but I’m really not feeling good about working right now.

I’m just going to make a bold guess that it’ll be announced that Trump has tested positive on Friday evening.

We owe 15k because we fucked up in calculating our RRSP contribution amount when my wife changed jobs this year and her pension commuted. I also changed jobs, going out on my own as a consultant this fall with what appeared to be a minimum 18+ month gig. However the company contracting me got purchased in early February and the new CEO turfed all contractors. Now I'm looking for a new gig just as the world collapses. Oh and we are in the midst of building a cottage.


Needless to say I haven't slept very well the past couple weeks.

There's no doubt he'll have it. There's no doubt they'll never tell us.

You don't think this man has taken every possible precaution?

This made me chuckle

Thank God we have Trump to do what the scientists won’t, build that coronavirus wall

Yep just like every other announcent that would make them look bad so the regular media won't report on it until Monday. By now I would think they would know better. But like Flasch said doubtful he'll ever tell us unless to get his base praying for him.

Hell, the only way we find out that he has it is if it kills him. That way he can't prevent anyone from talking.

Have you ever seen the movie "Dave"?

Alec Baldwin just shows up in the White House on Monday and never breaks character.

I think Alec Baldwin as Trump would have a better chance at winning the 2020 election than Pence.

The GOP can dump him afterwards.

Hate to hear that. Hope the search goes well. What field are you in?

I have a simple return. I did freetaxusa and creditkarma. I plug mine into two separate ones just to make sure they both spit out the same numbers to kind of audit myself. Credit Karma I think does free federal AND state but I got an error towards the submission part so I did freetaxusa that is free federal and $13 for state. I make middle class money, though, so I am not sure if the higher earners have to pay.

Let’s just keep pumping money into the economy instead of directing as much funds as possible into healthcare. You know seeing how this is a healthcare crisis.

That would be ironic. I'll be sure to tell my Trump extremist colleague "must have been God's will".

I owe like $17k..plus a penalty for owing too much.
New payroll/benefits company and I apparently didnt click a button right to hear them tell it...oh well shit happens.

But I will enjoy sitting on this a while.

Hey, I just want you all to know:


President Trump is taking unprecedented action to protect Americans



{from the WH email blast of the day; yet another all about trump and nothing else headline}

When things get tough. blame Obama!

.... Their response to H1N1 Swine Flu was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now. The changes have been made and testing will soon happen on a very large scale basis. All Red Tape has been cut, ready to go!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020

:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

I'm still shaking my head at some of my FB friends who honestly believe that this is a Democratic media conspiracy to make trump look bad so they can win in November. Again, how is the media in charge of the steps that the rest of the world take? Let alone here in the US.

I've gotten to the point where I don't even talk about this stuff with certain people any more. I am afraid if I really look at them based on what they are saying about this shit, I can't continue my relationship with them and vice versa.

Somewhat related.

When I drove my daughter & friend to early voting yesterday, she actually said we can't talk politics during the trip. They were going to vote for Sanders and me for Biden.

I just block those idiots now

Unfortunately I guess in the age of social media the two had to collide. I'm in the non-partisan opinion (certainly not a Trump supporter here) that the media has jacked this up 1000% and loves themselves a mass hysteria story where they can then later back away and wonder where the mass hysteria comes from. (See terror attacks, disease outbreaks, mass shootings...) However much like the tea party movement the GOP has seemed to take this one over and make it about Trump.

IMO this won't have a good end. Because either...
1) A lot of people will end up dying.
2) Relatively few people will die

Clearly 1 is awful so why is 2 so bad? Almost certainly guarantees a Trump reelection and ramps up the us vs the media rhetoric.

I quit Facebook back before Christmas. It was a good decision.

I am close to doing the same thing with Twitter, but I use it for news concerning sports, college and local softball news. So, I'm not sure I can go without it.

He tried shouting FAKE NEWS at the virus, but that didn't help.
He tried travel banning the virus, but that didn't help.
Now he's blaming Obama for the virus, and that won't help.

Those are the only three moves he's ever needed.

I'm honestly scared over what his as-yet-unseen fourth move will be.

Twitter allows you to mute tweets that contain certain words. That should let you curate your list to more sports focused news. You will miss the occasional softball tweet that also happens to mention Trump or Biden, but that seems like a small price to pay.

I'm guessing he'll do nothing and wait until the pandemic is over and then take credit for eliminating the virus.

Of course, there aren't many sports to talk about at this point.

Sell all your stocks before 3 pm. Trump just announced another news conference.

I have done this and it does seem to work. I have stopped seeing tweets where Trump is mentioned.

A friend of mine (not a Trump guy, just someone who thinks people get overwrought by everything) just sent me an article by an orthopedist (but he's a doctors!!1!) saying people are over panicking because the actual mortality rate is probably going to be 1% which is the same as the mortality rate of people who are over 75 who get the flu... So it's the same. I about bit my friend's head off for that one.

:lol:

The market had a pronounced drop immediately after this was announced.

Jesus, can he shut up for 10 seconds?

Good leadership would have been nice. But we don't have that. Bad leadership is so much worse than just nothing.

Just shut up and let us try to protect ourselves.

I have been fighting the temptation to wish the virus upon the handful of idiotic old people on my feed who--even as their Dear Leader is declaring a national emergency--continue to post about Obama, the media, hoax, etc. etc. etc.

I'm hopeful that he will say the right things, in the right tone, and without BS blaming others. He can still save the situation if he changes.

If I was him, I would say "I am accountable and will take charge of the response now".

Here's are the things that we are working on and by when.

1) Met with 3M etc. and they are ramping up n95 production. We will have X by Y date
2) Met with P&G etc. and they are ramping up sanitizer, bleach, toilet paper, whatever production. We will have X by Y date
3) Met with Food companies etc. and they are ramping up food production, bottled water
4) Met with Fed, SBA, Banks etc. and they are ready to do X, Y, Z
5) Met with Democrats and will have a plan for sick leave, tax deadline etc.
6) Met with our European & Asian colleagues and we have setup a task force to coordinate globally
7) Met with small-med-big business representatives, I heard what they need etc.
8) Met with Governors, I heard what they need and we agreed to do X, Y, Z
9) Met with Pharma's and here is their progress on vaccines
10) I have formed a focused task force with Fauci etc. They will report directly to me and I will listen to their recommendations
11) I have setup a Reddit AMA (or like) and we'll have a FAQ created for all your Q&A
12) I have met with all news networks, we have agreed to do X, Y, Z
13) I have met with hospitals, nursing homes etc. and we will ramp up and do X, Y, Z
14) etc.

There is just so many things he can do to help calm down the situation. He may have done some of it already but all people are seeing right now is lack of coordination and seemingly oblivious half-truths.

Well, word is leaking rapidly that he'll invoke the Stafford Act to release emergency funds to state and local governments who might be able to do something with it. That could end the day on an up note.

I'm all but sold already.

The man is 73 years old and has never muttered this phrase in his entire life. You'd do better investing your 401 K in lottery tickets than expecting him to take any personal accountability.

Edward, sometimes you forgot who you're talking about, man. :D

Yeah, I know.

Maybe I should run against Tarcone for President. Cabinet positions available, let me know which ones you want.

EDIT: You can pick DHS but I'm reserving the INS sub-cabinet (?) post for myself.

Sports Minister please :)

#NeverEdward64 :p

Just kidding, but I'll take an ambassadorship to some vacation country please.

Depends on the contribution to my PAC. $1M get you to most of SEA, $2M gets you Caribbean, $10M gets you UK, Japan, China & UN.

Good to know he's memorized it, and there are things in it people don't even know about. JFC

Now that's settled, we can get rid of those pesky elections and he can move forward with his perfect plan to fix everything.

I wonder if someone was smart enough to delay this until four.

Uh oh....

No teleprompter in the Rose Garden for Trump at this Coronavirus news conference. Doctor Anthony Fauci was alerted to make his way down to WH for the event, I’m told.

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 13, 2020

That was my thought. I'm actually planning on taking a picture of the dow when he starts to speak and follow along as it drops. Sadly this delay may squash that as I have to go to the bus stop.

Right off the bat he says we closed the European border a "while ago." It is still technically open until midnight tonight

Reading from paper, but talking on his own, too. "I'm declaring a National Emergency....two very big words"

960 down to 604.

Needs a teleprompter.

Giving us a lecture on tele-health now?

A child could read this better.

He's got more details which is great. Unfortunately, not sure I believe him.

Unlike websites of the past.

Thank God the President, last week, solved the testing problems.

Still shocks me to see good, accomplished people spend so much time licking Trump's arse.

Now that Dr. Burkes know how to give a speech.

Market is back up to mid-800's

Backpedaling on the whole "anyone can get a test" pretty quick.

Did he really invite Walmart and Target CEOs to an address on Coronavirus?!

Nice touch bringing up Walmart, CVS, Target, Google etc. Not sure we needed to have each one talk but better than hearing Trump's painful reading.

STOP SHAKING HANDS!!!

Now he's got more scapegoats.

Dow was down 300 while Trump was talking. As soon as the good doctor took over it went through the roof.

Nah, he has the CVS guy there. I'm sure he brought some hand sanitizers