David Stockman on Coronavirus Hysteria and the US Economy
David Stockman pulls back the curtain on congress' recent multi-trillion dollar bailout package, which, although billed as emergency aid for individuals actually allocates most of the money to various special interests on both sides of the aisle, including millions for the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, Public Broadcasting and the Department of Education. Beyond the bailout, Stockman says this shutdown of almost the entire economy is a disastrous overreaction, given what he thinks is a hugely overblown level of danger from the virus itself. In New York State, the mortality rate is 70 times higher among the elderly and infirm, and poses very little risk of death or hospitalization to young people in good health. He advocates isolating the elderly but letting most people go back to work before it's too late to save the economy at all.
David Stockman is a former Republican congressman from Michigan and was President Reagan's budget director from 1981 to 1985. After leaving the White House, Stockman became a managing director at Salomon Brothers, and he later founded a private equity fund. David is the founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner, and he is the author of The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America