Pouring fuel on flames is an understandable but not a helpful stress response. The idea here is to do better for as long as we can.

After 9/11 they both fell about 10%.

In 2008 the Dow dropped about 40% in a month, and about 50% in 6 months.

For example: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

They won't get paid because they'll be home sick, or told not to come in; so they won't have "hours" on their timesheets. They don't have any safety net.

They will miss rent payments en masse. Small business property companies (landlords) will suddenly have a cash flow problem and won't be able to make their mortgage payments.

Enough little people will stop having any money and spending any money, and all that will be left is the imaginary money in the stock market and the quantitatively-eased-up banks - none of which does anything useful for the little people.

This will create a very interesting situation that truly will threaten the current way of things in certain skewed capitalist countries. What will come out of this will surely be a lot more socialist (or rather, gains being distributed more equally amongst the population instead of going to the top 0.1%). The top 0.1% will not suffer, because honestly what is the difference between 100M net worth and 1B net worth.

There is no leadership on this issue. Health leaders are urging isolation while at the same time elected leaders from a certain party are going on TV and twitter and urging people to go out to restaurants and bars. The president has been telling his supporters that there is no problem in the US while thousands are dying in Europe. With no captain is anyone surprised the ship appears to be drifting? Pence appears to be doing his best but he is clearly handcuffed.

As the situations at airports are proving there is literally zero true planning going on. No one figured out that if you announce a major travel ban that people will come flooding home from virus hot spots. Thousands of people jammed together before being released back into the US.

Soon companies are going to be forced to start massive layoffs just to survive, especially the travel and retail industries. We are then going to have tens of thousands of our lowest paid and least resource secure people suddenly without jobs. The bills will continue though. The government though appears to show no regard for individuals and is instead focused only on stock market numbers. Not to mention many of these same people suddenly have kids at home with the schools closed.

We need to a massive stimulus for individuals, put a moratorium on mortgage and car payments, put cash in peoples hands or this is going to get out of hand fast. Due to our so called "rugged individualism" in the US, we have lines around the corner at gun stores as people fantasize about gunning down those rendered desperate from what is going on while our European neighbors are pitching in to help each other.

There is an abundance of leadership: however, in many instances the leadership is unnecessary and/or ineffectual. One underlying problem is that those of us brought up as political science majors think they should, indeed, _must_ do something, anything! Better that they wait, watch, proceed with caution and steer within their legal limits.

wonderwonder says> "Health leaders are urging isolation while at the same time elected leaders from a certain party are going on TV and twitter and urging people to go out to restaurants and bars."

Here you paint with a broad brush, smearing all Republicans because of the statements/actions of a handful. Shame, shame. And if those few truly believe that the situation is not as bad as you believe, well then, what would you do? Incarcerate them? Is it not better to merely correct or chastise those who are wrong rather than use them as an instrument to slur millions of innocent people?

wonderwonder says> "thousands are dying in Europe".

It is about one and one half thousand dead right now. More will die of course. "Thousands"? Why exaggerate so? The situation is bad, by why alarm when alarm does no good, indeed harms?

wonderwonder says> "With no captain is anyone surprised the ship appears to be drifting? Pence appears to be doing his best but he is clearly handcuffed..

Vague, poetic, and simply wrong. All those who know what to do are doing it ASAP. Pence is handcuffed because he is the vice president and has no assigned tasks other than what the President allows. He's a backup drive for the President: if the President dies Pence will be plugged in and powered up. Until then he'd be foolish to take a pro-active role.

wonderwonder says> " there is literally zero true planning going on. ".

Everybody who _can_ plan is planning. There is likely too much planning and not enough paying attention to what is in front of us. You are not privy to the planning (probably for good reason - people will take advantage of such situations to make themselves rich or even, dare I say, gain some obscure political advantage!-). "*

I could go on but I've made my point. Better to condense your political views into a post 1/5 the length, omitting the misleading and/or false parts. Sadly, when i reread the post, I find little that does not mislead. You are clearly literate; you can pen a sentence well; you can do much better.