President Trump’s attention has been captured by the historic opening plunge in the markets today. And he seems to be trying to tweet the market back to life.
Saudi Arabia and Russia are arguing over the price and flow of oil. That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020
So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020
The comparison to flu is a dangerous one because flu doesn’t spread exponentially, because we have decades of experience treating it, and because the worst cases of flu are not as severe as this virus. If we’re really going to judge public policy on the number of American deaths alone, then all our anti-terrorism efforts are even more wasteful and should be dedicated to getting Americans to stop driving automobiles.
My guess is that when it comes to coronavirus there is a psychological response mechanism at work in most people: Most of us have an instinctive opinion that the world is either too easily panicked or too difficult to rouse from sleepwalking. In this case, I fall in the latter category. Some people pass from one to the other. I noticed that a few people who scolded conservatives for their “racist” concern about the virus in Wuhan, China, have now converted to full-on panic.
I don’t think Trump’s sweet talk is going to work, and it may be having the opposite effect of what he intends. In part, the market is giving a judgment — maybe a hasty one — on Trump’s ability to address a public-health crisis. If he takes the market seriously, he should respond with more than a few tweets.