Before the ink dries on the 2020 election results, 77-year-old President-elect Joe Biden is already throwing cold water on Wall Street’s post-election optimism with his Covid-19 expert Dr. Michael Osterholm talking about new lockdowns. Whether you liked or hated 74-year-old President Donald Trump, you knew where he stood on future lockdowns: They wouldn’t happen on his watch. Now that Biden’s gotten in the door, he’s ready to put “scientists” in charge of the sputtering U.S. economy that’s can’t take another shock without crippling repercussions. Osterholm, head of infectious disease research at the University of Minnesota, told Yahoo Finance Live that lockdowns might help gain control of the nationwide outbreak. Talking about new shutdowns sent Wall Street into a predictable tailspin.
Whether Osterholm’s authorized to talk for Biden’s transition is anyone’s guess. One thing’s for sure, Biden won’t be president until Jan. 20, 2021 and shouldn’t be telegraphing what he intends to do on anything. “We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the lost wages for individual workers, for losses to small companies, to medium-sized companies or city, state county governments. We could do all that,” Osterholm said, talking like he’s Treasury Secretary. When to medical experts or “scientists” go out of their lane to talk about the economy, it spells trouble. Talking about how the government’s going to replace income for the vast majority of folks affected by lockdowns is preposterous, showing Osterholm’s incredibly bad judgment. Since when do medical experts run the economy?
Voters now get a taste of the likely insanity under a Biden administration where Joe relies not on his own judgment, if he has any, but on “scientists” to determine how to pay for the expected economic calamity coming from lockdowns. Taxpayers witnessed the economy lapse into recession after the shutdowns in April and May, driving the unemployment rate from 3.5% to over 12%. What’s Osterholm trying to do, panic financial markets before Biden’s inauguration? Voters were warned that Biden would be controlled by everyone around him because he’s not fit to manage the big picture of the presidency including domestic and foreign policy. Osterholm’s statements about what Congress should approve in terms of new stimulus are outrageous, going way beyond anything from a Covid-19 expert.
Osterholm, whose on Biden’s 12-member Covid-19 task force, penned an op-ed with Minneapolis Federal Reserve Board President Neel Kashkari arguing for more targeted lockdowns around the country. Osterholm let his op-ed get to his head advising Congress how best to spend taxpayers’ money when a lockdown crashes the economy. Biden’s said in the campaign that you have to stop Covid-19 before the economy can recover. Whether he heard that nonsense from Osterholm or not anyone knows. But as Trump has said in the past, the country has to learn to cope with Covid-19 without trashing the entire U.S. economy with more shutdowns. Trump’s new coronavirus spokesman Dr. Scott Atlas has said the time for economic shutdowns has long past their utility. Lockdowns offer no guarantee about stopping Covid-19.
Osterholm should stick to his limited medical expertise, not opine about how Congress would deal with more economic hardship. More shutdowns could plunge the U.S economy into another Great Depression. There’s zero evidence that the lockdowns in April and May did anything other that toss American workers into more unemployment, homelessness and street violence. Osterholm worries about hospitals, like in El Paso, Texas, hitting overflow capacity due to escalating Covid-19 cases. Osterhold assumes that shutdowns would slow the spread of the virus, reduce hospitalizations, but doesn’t consider the collateral damage driving more U.S. citizens into unemployment, insolvency, bankruptcy, homelessness and despair. Osterholm should stick to his expertise not tell lawmakers how to spend taxpayer money.
Signaling what’s to come after Inauguration Day, Osterholm gives a free X-ray into the kind of outrageous thinking by so-called “scientists” that prefer to lecture elected officials of how best to spend taxpayer money. Osterholm has no clue how more shutdowns would affect the spread of the virus or the catastrophic damage on the U.S. economy. It’s easy to say shut everything down, when much of the country never fully reopened form the April and May shutdowns, certainly in California and New York. “We need FDR moments right now. We need fireside chats. We need somebody to tell America, this is what in the hell is going to happen,” Osterholm said, show a blinding arrogance that could push the nation into the next Great Depression. No one in the country will find Biden’s memorized talking points reassuring when it comes to shutdowns.
