Trump spoke about the virus mid afternoon, turning a very bad day for Wall Street into a record rout of 2997 points on the Dow Jones Average. When I went out at 3 the market was down 2000 points. Then Trump spoke and the markets responded with a drop of another 1000 points by days end.

Americans should avoid gatherings in groups larger than 10 people and avoid discretionary travel, President Donald Trump said Monday. Speaking at the White House, the president said Americans should also school their children at home when possible, in another step to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

www.marketwatch.com/…

The Federal reserve cut interest rates to near zero on Sunday just days before a scheduled midweek meeting. This panic move by the Fed triggered a 2000 point drop at the market’s opening. The Fed is now out of options on interest rates unless they take the potentially destabilizing step of going to negative rates. The also announced a plan of “quantitative easing”, buying up bonds, which they did in the great recession to inject money into the financial system.

The Dow ended nearly 3,000 points lower on Monday, capping an ugly session for Wall Street that saw circuit breakers temporarily halt trading for 15 minutes, amid rising fears that fresh Federal Reserve stimulus won’t be enough to combat the threat of lost jobs and wages from the coronavirus outbreak. How did stocks perform? The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -12.92% plunged 2,997.10 points, or 12.9%, to settle at 20,188.52, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -11.98% declined 324.89 points, or 12%, to end at 2,386.13, and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -12.321% shed 970.28 points, or 12.3%, to finish at 6,904.59. www.marketwatch.com/...

The fundamental problem is this is not a matter that the Fed can fix by market actions. Federal leadership is required to address the impacts of the corona virus on main street. Federal leadership is required to get every American health care as required in this emergency, without consideration of cost to the individual. What happens to the poor and those that can’t pay affects us all.

People need money to pay their rent and to keep the electricity on. The Fed can’t do that. The problem now is that Trump is incompetent and Mitch McConnell is refusing to get the Senate to act on legislation to get money into the health system and Main Street. Trump’s plan for tax cuts won’t help people who have just lost their job and their health insurance. It is pure folly to tie health care to a person’s job. What happens in times like this when there’s a health emergency that causes job losses? A catastrophe.

The markets will continue to fall until there is national leadership to address the crisis. God only knows how many Americans will die unnecessarily because of conservative ideology and Republican control of government. And there will be hell to pay on the financial markets because of the corrupt GOP belief in that the market is God. Public health infrastructure is an absolute necessity in the modern world, but the GOP and Trump have decimated it with cutbacks and incompetent leadership. Market forces are now going to drive home the importance of public infrastructure and competent governance.