Stocks Are Going Up!: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The lockdown is ending. And the stock market is going up. 

First, the lockdown is ending. Not because governments are opening up. But because people are. 

Elon Musk said, “Screw you!” to California and he opened up his factory and nobody stopped him. This is what government should look like. Power for the people except, of course, when breaking the law. 

These lockdowns were never law. They aren’t even constitutional. You know how I know? Because someone sued Wisconsin about the lockdown and won in court and the court said the lockdowns were not constitutional.

Wisconsin then opened up. And everyone was out, no masks, spitting on each other, whatever. 

Am I worried about more surges of the “needless suffering” predicted by Fauci? 

No. In this very newsletter in March, I said the peak for the virus in the U.S. would occur around April 15 (it did) and that, by the end of May, it would be nearly over (it will be). In NYC, for instance, new hospitalizations are right about… zero. 

And Georgia, the first state to reopen, also has about zero new hospitalizations, despite every pessimist saying it would be in the thousands by now. 

So… goodbye lockdown. 

STOCK MARKET

The good, the bad, and the ugly. 

The good news is that it’s going up. And it’s going up to where it was before. 

By the way, I’m normally optimistic. I was in 2002. And in 2009 I was on CNBC, where they pretty much laughed me off for being optimistic. I don’t care.

BUT… I haven’t always been so optimistic in this quarantine. Particularly being in NYC, I saw too many people get sick, too many people shut their businesses down forever, too many people — friends and family — lose their jobs. I think it got to me .

But when I take a step back, it’s pretty clear the market is going up. Two reasons: 

A) M2 – The money supply

Even though the stimulus was not how I would have structured it — and the stimulus being voted on today is a disaster — there’s still a lot more money in the supply than ever before. 

Hundreds of billions went to direct stimulus payments, unemployment insurance, and PPP loans, which have to be used to pay employees. 

What I said yesterday: You HAVE to give money DIRECTLY to people. So even though it’s less than it should’ve been to get things “back to where they were before,” it still increases the amount of money supply out there, and the market has barely baked that in. 

Plus, many industries never even suffered and will continue to do well. 

There’s also the “velocity of money” that will hit the economy — not this quarter but in Q3 — and will help the market. That’s why I think the S&P 500 could even see 3,000 again by the end of the year. 

B) This is where it gets a little ugly

My guess is about 5–10 million small businesses will fail. This is sad. Millions will remain unemployed. 

Here’s the problem: Most of those small businesses are “mom-and-pop” stores. For instance, I own a comedy club/bar. We have about a dozen employees. We’re a small business. I would give it, best case, a 20% chance of making it. We’ll see. We got the PPP loan (finally) and will use it but we’ll see if standup comedy comes back, we’ll see how nice our debtors are, etc. 

Many restaurants are in the same position. Small owners, not big financing, etc. 

There’s a Starbucks cafe one block away. There are three other cafes in between me and the Starbucks. 

Those three other cafes are all small, private companies. They will probably go out of business. I hope they don’t but a good chunk will. 

Isn’t that bad? Yes, of course. I said this is the “good, the bad, and the ugly.” 

But the thing is: Public companies are larger and better financed than small mom-and-pop operations. 

So the Starbucks that is one block away WILL DO BETTER because so many cafes and restaurants will close.

This is going to happen in every industry, and with almost every public company. They will scoop up more market share, have higher earnings, and the stocks will go higher than they were. Period. 

The ugly? People are going to lose jobs and those jobs are not coming back. Now is the time to reinvent yourself. Heck, I’m going to reinvent myself. 

So many things I’ve become disgusted by. The media, the intellectuals that try to dominate public opinion without thinking about the costs and consequences, the government that treated a real health issue like it was just a political ad campaign. Disgusting. 

And now millions are hungry. Yesterday, I was at the local church and there was a line two blocks long. Every ethnicity, every age. What were they in line for? Food. 

CHECK OUT MY NEW MORNING SHOW

“Not Your Morning Show.” 

Robyn and I break down the shitty news and give it to you as we see it. 

Here’s the YouTube channel for it.

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The Only Stimulus Package That Has Any Hope of Saving the Economy

Listen. We only have one more chance to get the economy working again. 

The last stimulus package and the one being proposed right now both seem to have decent intentions but both are missing the target. And they are missing it for stupid, partisan reasons. 

Here is the issue: This quarter, the economy will spend about $2–3 TRILLION less than was expected. GDP is normally about $5 trillion a quarter and will be about $2 trillion less this quarter (because of little to no consumer spending and all the ways that affects other businesses). 

Normally, that would be the WORST RECESSION IN HISTORY, as the headlines might say, or it might even be a depression. But “this time it’s different” is finally true because this is the first time in history the government has ordered us to stay at home and not work. 

This is not about whether that was right or wrong. Nor is it about the constitutional issues (which are interesting but not really relevant at the moment). Nor is it about that hot stock you have to buy right now. 

Knowing why the stimulus was structured in such a way and understanding how it needs to be structured is incredibly useful for figuring out, “What’s next?” and, “Are we OK?” Two questions we don’t currently know the answer to. 

THE LAST STIMULUS

Here’s the problem: If $2 trillion is missing from the economy in a quarter because the government forced the economy into a mini-depression, then this is perhaps the one time a stimulus program is called for. People need their money back. The economy needs to get back on track. 

I know mom-and-pop businesses on Main Street that worked hard for 30 years and now have seen their businesses, their employees, their families, in massive trouble — if not ruined in some cases. Yes, people should plan for the worst, but not everyone does. 

The last stimulus was $2.2 trillion because that’s how much economists estimated the economy needed, dollar for dollar, to replace the money that was lost. 

But that is not going to happen. 

$220 billion was sent out directly to consumers in the form of stimulus checks. And several hundred billion is being used for unemployment insurance directly to workers. 

This is the only good news. 

Another $450 billion, approximately, was sent in PPP loans to small businesses that are supposed to use it to rehire people. 

The rest was sent to large corporations, states, being used as emergency loans, etc. 

The money going into the PPP loans WILL NOT be seen in the economy this quarter, if ever. 

This money is sitting in the bank accounts of millions of small businesses and may never be used or spent. The economy has to reopen, the employees have to be rehired, the money has  to be spent. But all of these things are unclear. 

And all the money going in the form of loans to large corporations… Who knows how or when that is being spent? A lot of it might be spent on paying back the debts of these companies.

In other words, it provides some good but doesn’t succeed in the GOAL of the stimulus: to simply replace the money taken out of the economy. 

And this would have been fine… if the lockdown had ended in early April and we had gotten back to work. 

But with the average American having (pre-pandemic) $400 in savings and the average small business living month to month, this stimulus package has run out and most of the money has not been spent. 

Good intentions, but the economy will not benefit this quarter, or maybe even this year from most of it. 

THE NEW STIMULUS

Which is why they are now working on a new stimulus. And this one is important. Because there are only so many bullets in this gun. 

THE ONLY WAY TO GET MONEY BACK INTO THE ECONOMY IS TO SPEND IT! 

The consumer accounts for 70% of GDP spending. And the other 30%? That’s to build the things the consumer needs.

So why are they proposing $1 TRILLION FOR STATES?

The states don’t hire healthcare workers. Hospitals do. Consumers spend on healthcare. Consumer spending keeps healthcare alive. The states don’t buy food. The states don’t rent apartments. The states don’t buy clothes. Consumers do. Always… consumers spend the money. That’s just a fact. 

If you are worried about the states, do it later.

Make a clean bill that helps the people that need it. 30 million unemployed. Another 30 million suffering. Huge rises in domestic abuse, child abuse, mental health issues, collateral fatalities from the shutdown in healthcare. 

This is a real emergency. No time for partisanship. No time for Republicans. No time for Democrats. 

This is the time for consumers. 

You want to spend $3 trillion? And you want to get it into the economy so it matches the amount the shutdown has cost the economy? (Again, not debating the merits of the lockdown — just moving forward), you HAVE to give the money directly to the exact people who spend it: the people. 

All $3 trillion should go directly to consumers. Not a one-time payment of $1,200. Did that last? 

I volunteer at a food bank at a nearby church. Guess what? The line for food is longer than ever. And it’s not homeless people on the line. It’s everyone. 

Give $2 trillion to the bottom 100 million workers, ranked by pay. Divide it by six months so it’s spread out. That’s $20,000 per person. Or $3,333 per month. 

BOOM! 

• Massive spending in the economy
• Companies will have to work overtime to match the demand
• More people will be hired immediately
• Velocity of money will go up (i.e., you spend a dollar on a newspaper, the newspaper guy spends that dollar on coffee = $2 in GDP growth. That’s a velocity of 2). 
• States will gain tax revenues because of the higher velocity of money (than if you give it to companies) and because companies will be busier than ever. 

That’s it. That’s what the next stimulus should be. Why only $2 trillion? Because this is not a gift. This is to replace the money lost. This will do it. 

FAQ 

HOW CAN WE AFFORD IT? 

We can borrow it. And before you panic, it’s not a big deal.

A lot of people think if you have $100 and print another $100, then the value of the dollar just got cut in half!

Not true. VALUE is a function of both SUPPLY… AND DEMAND. So if we increase supply but demand is not there, then inflation will result. BUT, the demand is huge for the U.S. dollar. Where else are wealthy Chinese (and there are more billionaires in China than the U.S.) going to put their money? The euro? No. The yuan? No. Where? 

This is why the U.S., even in great times, doesn’t have inflation. The demand for the dollar is DEFLATIONARY. 

But since there is massive deflation right now because of zero spending, we NEED INFLATION. It won’t be hyperinflation (which mostly occurs when a country’s debt is in a different currency, e.g. Germany in the 1920s, Argentina in the 1980s, etc.). 

WHAT ABOUT TESTING AND TRACING? 

Fine, add to the stimulus with money needed for testing and tracing, although I think this needs to be thought out carefully as to policy. It’s not as easy as people think. 

BUT WE CAN’T REOPEN!

This article is not about that. If tens of millions of people are suffering, then, as a government, as a society, we need to figure out a solution. 

WHAT ABOUT RENT? 

Again, that’s a different problem than getting the economy back. What good does it do society if you can pay your back rent but can’t afford food next month?

WHAT ABOUT THE STATES? 

What about them? It’s time for everyone to just be rational and calm and SOLUTION-ORIENTED. State by state, let’s solve problems. 

For instance, NY has $137 billion in debt. 

It also owns a public university system (the SUNY system) to subsidize student tuitions. This is a good intention. But it’s costing the state money it can’t afford. 

And at a time when online schools are better than ever at teaching hardcore skills that are useful on the job for much cheaper… why spend $150k when you can spend $10k to learn a new skill that can get you hired?

The evils of college or “college: good or bad” is another topic. 

But when I looked at the balance sheet of the SUNY system I see: 

• A very profitable hospital system
• A slightly unprofitable school system that can easily be made profitable 
• And valuable real estate.

Again, perhaps a topic for another article but I can easily see selling the entire SUNY system for about $140 billion. Then… NY would have ZERO debt. No stimulus needed. 

And guess what? NY wouldn’t have to lose money every year on an inefficiently run school system. 

BUT WHAT IF THE SCHOOLS FALL APART? 

So? Then the cheaper online alternatives will work and employers will value them more. That’s capitalism at work. I’d rather take a Masterclass.com course on cooking from Wolfgang Puck than whoever teaches cooking at SUNY X. 

BUT… BUT… HOW WILL KIDS SOCIALIZE? 

I don’t want to get into the pros and cons of college. But if you put a 19-year-old anywhere on the planet, trust me (as the father of five), they will socialize. 

THE JAMES ALTUCHER STIMULUS PACKAGE

$2 TRILLION goes to the bottom 100 million workers (out of 128 million workers). 

$3,333 a month for six months. 

Only then, I truly believe, will we get back to something resembling normal. 

Check out my podcasts with Tyler Cowen, Mark Cuban, Jim McKelvey (founder of Square and deputy chairman of the St. Louis Federal Reserve), and Congressman Tim Ryan for more economic details. 

ALSO, I’m starting off a new show, Not Your Morning Show, with my wife Robyn, analyzing the good, the bad, and the ugly in each day’s news and giving ideas for businesses, etc. Each day. 

Find it at my YouTube channel.

If you have any questions you’d like me to answer on that show tweet me @jaltucher #Morning.

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Don’t Believe the Hype

I’m so sick of all the epidemiologists on Twitter. One of them, my friend Robert, called me and said, “You know, if the viral shedding is below [blah] then you can’t get it. But depending on the generation of mutation in your region you might have a higher Ro.”

I said, “Rob, you’re a JANITOR. And nothing against janitors because I know  you work hard, but what is going to happen to your epidemiology career once this  lockdown is over?” 

“I don’t know, man. I got really into this stuff. It’s all I read about night and day. I mean, I’m even reading some of the research coming out of the Epidemiology Department at Wuhan University. It’s pretty good!” 

And I appreciate that. I get obsessed with things. Heck, I’ve been obsessed with this virus also. We all have. I think a lot of people don’t want to go back to work because this entire time they’ve been medical doctors and scientists and soon they will go back to being paralegals. 

BUT… is opening going to be straightforward? What’s going on in Georgia?

Georgia was the first state in the U.S. to reopen. 

I finally saw a news story yesterday that mentioned the reopening. 

Apparently two women were fighting in the parking lot, on the ground, just beating on each other. And, of course, someone who was a few feet away decided to videotape it instead of actually helping them. And the video has 5 million views. Congratulations! 

But I read the article about it and the article says, “An official says, ‘Perhaps we ended the quarantine too early.'” 

Excuse me? 

I forgot that we were doing a lockdown of the entire economy to “flatten the curve” on people fighting each other in the parking lots of malls across the country. Mall fighting was becoming an epidemic and we needed to make sure the hospital system didn’t get overwhelmed. 

So, yeah, look what happens when you open up too early! People just go straight back to pummeling each other right outside the local mall. Shame on you, Governor! We need more testing of violent tendencies before we open. When will those tests be available?

Amid all the B.S. headlines is something more. 20 million unemployed. This is very sad. As is almost everything about this pandemic (even the two people fighting, because people are stressed and we can see this). 

The prior record was 15 million in 1932. Can you imagine? We just crushed the record set in the middle of the Great Depression. That is terrible. 

BUT… the idea is that many of these people are furloughed and will hopefully get back to work.

Some of them will, some of them won’t. The unemployment rate is about 15% now. My guess is after a full reopening of everything (let’s say by September 1) the unemployment rate will be 9% and will stay around there for a few months. 

I do agree with people who say we need another stimulus. I would, however, hold off on a “New Deal” sort of stimulus. These are the reasons why:

DID THE NEW DEAL WORK? 

 FDR, in his first 100 days in office, basically created a whole bunch of new government agencies to hire people to work on dams, tunnels, bridges, infrastructure, etc. Eight million jobs were created.

So why didn’t it end the Depression? In fact, there was another mini-depression INSIDE of the Great Depression in 1937.

Eight million jobs is a lot. And it was important because those eight million people were able to feed their families, have improved mental health, etc. 

But the government has to pay for things and the way FDR paid for the New Deal was to create sales taxes on cigarettes, movies, radios, even soft drinks. 

When you have a sales tax like that, it doesn’t affect rich people. It hurts poor people. 

So the exact money you are taking from them at the cash register is the money you are paying them as a part of the New Deal. 

Or, if the excess tax deters them from buying those products, then those companies do worse and hire fewer people. 

Additionally, FDR froze wages and put other items in the New Deal agenda that all had very good intentions but ultimately led to fewer people being hired in the long run. If you keep wages high in a period of deflation, people will simply hire less because there’s no way for them to make profits if prices of the products they make are going down. 

There were many other issues but those are a few. I don’t think the New Deal was necessarily bad but it did not solve the Great Depression and I think a lot of thought needs to go into it. 

WHAT WILL ACTUALLY STIMULATE THE ECONOMY? 

The reason Congress passed about $2.7 trillion worth of stimulus is, again, because that’s the amount of money the Federal Reserve thinks is going to be missing from the economy because of lack of spending during the lockdown. 

The problem is this: Money that went to specific industries (like airlines or colleges) is not coming back into the economy so fast. They are going to be using the money to pay back debt, or simply put in the bank and get ready for a second wave, etc. 

For a stimulus package to work it needs to increase what’s called “the velocity of money.” If I spend a dollar buying a newspaper and the newspaper guy buys a coffee with that same dollar, then the velocity of that dollar is $2. 

If money stays in the bank then the velocity is $0. 

So a BIG, TRILLION-dollar problem with the current stimulus is that it actually will do nothing for the economy in the short term. Hence my feeling that unemployment will stay high and that we won’t feel the full effects of the stimulus until 2021. 

There are other issues: Not everyone got the $1,200 stimulus check. Not everyone got a PPP loan (for many reasons). And for companies that got a PPP loan, that money is frozen until employees come back and even then it might not be used if business is slow, which it will be. 

SO THIS IS WHAT WE NEED TO DO

Another $2 trillion stimulus (because spending between March and August will be down more than $2.2 trillion — more like $4 trillion) needs to be passed. 

And this time it needs to go directly to people. 

Someone said to me, “But jobs hire people. Shouldn’t it go to the companies?” 

Yes, ideally, but that just didn’t work so now we need to help people directly. There are many people who are hungry. I volunteer at a local church and help manage the enormous lines of people who need food. It’s getting serious and will only get worse. 

Ultimately, 70% of spending in the U.S. is consumer spending. People buying food, clothes, shoes, movie tickets, etc. 

If you want it spent in the economy, you just have to give it to people. 

I spoke to Congressman Tim Ryan about this. He thinks a six-month UBI (universal basic income) of $2,000 / month / person would be a direct plus to the economy and I agree. With 100 million workers (approximately), you can do that for six months and spend about $1.2 trillion. Then use the other $800 billion to inject money into hospitals that are failing because they’ve been empty in anticipation of coronavirus patients. 

THEN you will see money being spent. 

How will we pay for this? 

The difference between the U.S. now and the U.S. in 1933 is that the U.S. can borrow money at almost zero percent interest. And every country in the world wants to lend to the .US. I bet you can even do 100-year bonds at zero percent interest. That means the U.S. will owe the money in 100 years but essentially make no payments until then. And if the economy comes back. there will be inflation (but mild because of the demand around the world for the dollar) and in 100 years the money we owe will be discounted by 3% inflation every year. 

THEN, I do think we need a real New Deal but not in the usual way. Here is where I agree with Mark Cuban. Let’s incentivize people to take online courses in “the new skills.” You don’t need to be a computer expert to get basic skills in AI, Big Data, robotics, drones, and many, many other areas. This sort of skill transition needs to happen but it won’t happen if people are bus drivers. Extend UBIs to people signing up for “accredited” online schools. 

What about the states? 

Require every state to start selling off public land, public highways, public colleges and other public services. These are services that either are, or could be, very profitable and run much more efficiently. The states get money to pay off their debts and the federal government makes money by taxing them. 

Then any extra money can be used to invest in building other public services or assets. 

Money has to come from somewhere. There’s no such thing as “printing money out of thin air,” although people use that phrase a lot. If the U.S. bails out the states, the states will be in big trouble when they can’t borrow anymore and the U.S. has to borrow to pay the bill. 

Let’s help the people first. The states can be run like businesses and start selling assets. And then, finally, let’s do a New Deal based on taking our workers and teaching them valuable new skills for the next century. 

Meanwhile, I am making use of this valuable lockdown time to learn new skills. Tomorrow is my second class on LessonFace.com for beatboxing.

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Now Is the Time to Focus on Making a Living… Not a Killing

Here’s the thing: 

The U.S. economy is going to spend about $2–3 TRILLION less this quarter than it normally does. That’s the largest downturn in history. In the history of any country ever. 

The U.S. has passed about $2.7 trillion in stimulus spending so far. If you want to know how they got that number, it’s because they figured that this was the amount of spending needed to balance out what was lost. (Listen to my podcast with Jim McKelvey, deputy chairman of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, to get more details). 

The problem is: is it enough? And did they allocate it correctly? Should it all have gone to the workers? Should any have been used to bail out airlines and other industries? 

Who knows? What’s done is done. My guess is: we need more to truly balance out the spending, and also, things could be worse than they appear. We don’t know. 

Every day we get a little more clarity and can start making more deductions on what a new Abnormal will look like: 

My guesses of the day (and that’s the best we can do until we start narrowing in): 

• 40–50% of restaurants will go out of business. That’s about 7 million workers. 
• Most of the tourism industry is in trouble. Let’s say that’s another 4 million workers. 
• Clothing retailers in trouble: I don’t know how many workers. Let’s say 4 million.  But here are some bankruptcies or bankruptcies-to-be: J. Crew, J. Hilburn, J. Jill, JCPenney (clearly not good to have a “J” as a first initial in the clothing business), Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Brooks Brothers, and on and on. 

So we could be looking at 15 million of the 30 million unemployed that might be unemployed for longer than this lockdown. 

Which is a shame. Eight weeks of lockdown and it turns out we were a bit more fragile as an economy than we thought. 

Some of these people will instantly rotate to new jobs. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers will be hiring. 

Since we know the money that was lost will hit the economy, it’s not like spending will be down much, so industries that survive will have to hire to keep up. 

So (and this is how super scientific models are constructed), let’s just cut the number in half: 7.5 million workers. 

That’s almost 6% of the 128 million workers in the U.S. Add that to the 3% unemployment rate we were already experiencing before this started and you have a 9% unemployment rate. 

So my prediction for the unemployment rate on August 1 or September 1 is about 9%. 

With so many unemployed, it’s not like interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve will help so quickly (as I mentioned in a prior letter, this is the “long-term stimulus”), so we are still relying on the direct stimulus. 

A 9% unemployment rate seems high, and it IS high. BUT… unemployment and PPP loans and direct stimulus checks will buffer many of these people. In fact, some people on unemployment are right now making more than when they were employed. 

AND, factor in the fact that there is another $1 trillion or so ready to be spent by businesses as soon as the economy reopens and we might be able to stabilize but it will be a rough landing. 

A lot of people are going to find themselves going from a steady job to a very uncertain future. Eventually the unemployment runs out and we have to see which industries will survive. 

• RETAIL will move almost entirely online. Storefront retail is basically mostly gone. 
• RESTAURANTS: About half the restaurants will survive (more in some areas, less in others). Opportunity here lies in making virtual restaurants using “cloud kitchens.” Perhaps I will write more on this in the future. 
• TOURISM / VACATIONS: I’m not so sure but it’s funny to me that Carnival Cruises says they are going to open up in August. 

First, are you kidding me? 22% of the cruises that were at sea in March ended up docking with almost everyone infected with the virus. 

But the one thing we can say about this country is our ability to get people back into buffett lines. We might be the best in the world at this. 

Japan has the philosophy of “Hara Hachi bun me,” which basically states, “Only eat 80% of what you need.”

That is the OPPOSITE of a buffett. Fortunately, Americans do not have that philosophy and cruise lines cater to that. 

Also, some of the deals Carnival Cruises are offering are just $28 a night!

Man!

If I were 22 years old and had $10,000, I would just get on a cruise for a year, travel all over the world, eat unlimited amounts of food for free, and maybe write a novel in between Turks and Caicos, Bali, and Alaska. LIfe would be great. 

Or if I were 80 years old maybe I’d move onto a Carnival Cruise ship instead of going into a retirement home. I’d be “Old Man and the Buffet.” 

Still, not sure I would bet on this. 

• COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE is dead, dead, dead. I’m calling my friends who rent a lot of office space. Big commercial owners are in a panic and are offering up to a year free if you sign a multi-year lease. Who knows what will happen but office space will be cheap and even then… who cares? Expect a bailout.
• RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE in major cities (LA, SF, NYC, maybe more): DEAD. 

The benefits of living in NYC are: the deal flow for entrepreneurs, the restaurants, the culture, and, of course, the comedy clubs. All of these things will be dead as workers move remote, offices shut down, restaurants close, etc. 

Second-tier cities: BOOM! Maybe some touch and go for a while but overall, second-tier cities like Miami, St. Louis, Dallas, etc will do well, and suburbs will maintain or go up. 

• MEDIA: BOOM! Netflix has  something like 74% new subscribers these past few weeks. Every online content service and platform is booming. I’d trust subscription businesses more than advertiser-based businesses but we’ll see.
• ADVERTISING: Not so good. If you want to place ads for your business, now is the time to do it. Facebook ads, Google ads, etc. are all offering big discounts. 

When they “offer” a discount, it’s not like they are offering you a gift. THAT’S THE NEW PRICE and they are pretending like it’s this great deal. 

• BANKS: I just saw an article today that banks are in trouble. This strikes me as not true. Maybe if banks rely on commercial real estate loans but a lot of them are mostly residential. So they aren’t going anywhere. 
• TECH: BOOM! Drones, robotics, AI, storage, Big Data, cybersecurity, chips, phones, bandwidth, gaming, etc., will all boom. 

And don’t forget that the $700 billion in PPP loans and the Fed removing risk for banks is going to generate an easy $17.5 billion in fees for ludicrously little work.

Two companies that might benefit are Square and PayPal, which became “almost” banks in order to distribute PPP loans to many of the unbanked. 

I could go on and on. Vice companies (liquor, pot, porn, etc.) will  do well. Insurance will suck (like at Berkshire Hathaway), etc. 

The economy will come all the way back and surge, but many people that were happy before will now be sad and perhaps vice versa. It’s horrible this had to happen.

More and more evidence shows that if they did a strategy of quarantining the more susceptible and encouraged the use of masks, then we would not have had a lockdown at all, but I’m tired of making that argument. 

And also, now that we have successfully flattened the curve and avoided crowding the healthcare system, we should automatically reopen, right? I mean, I thought that was the goal. But, again, too many people are arguing this and I’m no expert. Best to not get involved if you have nothing to say. 

I do know this. Many people are not getting unemployment, have no money, have no job, and are getting hungry and angry. And when I say many, I’m talking tens of millions. They are not happy. 

We’re coming back into a strange, new world. The money will be there, but society is in PTSD and many people have been destroyed by this. Some from the deaths of loved ones, and some from the collateral deaths, sickness, and stress and mental health issues from the shutdown. 

I do think looking at how to make a living is more important now than learning how to make a killing. 

Sure, stocks are cheap (some of them) but I’m not going crazy with so much uncertainty.

Check out some of these sites for mini side hustles: 

My favorite: CrowdMed.com. People post their illnesses and anyone can become a “medical detective” and the crowd helps diagnose and money gets distributed to people who help the most. 

Finally my dream of being a doctor without medical school is coming true. I have already signed up to give hardcore medical advice. Because I know I’m an expert on Twitter. 

Also, check out substack.com. 

You know how you subscribe to this newsletter and maybe others? Well, substack lets you set up your own FOR-PAY newsletter in about five minutes. 

If you’re THE EXPERT on antique car auctions and how to price them and find the best deals or build them or whatever, make your newsletter at substack. 

Or if you want to be an inventor and you have an idea: sketch out your idea and upload it to quirky.com. 

If the crowd likes the idea and others chip in on making it, everyone who helps starts getting royalties when the product is finally made (by members of the crowd) and when Quirky starts selling it.

Again, maybe you will see me there. My idea: Drones the size of flies that fly around you at all times and videotape everything and anytime you want you can upload the prior X amount of time to the appropriate social media platform. I sketched it out on a waiter’s pad and will upload it and see what happens. 

Meanwhile, last week they declassified videos of UFOs and nobody cared. Maybe it’s time we start thinking about the Space Force instead of “fixing bridges.”

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Don’t Read the Headlines!

I love this: 

Right now it’s 3:40 p.m. as I write this and the headline on Yahoo! Finance is: 

“Markets fall as concerns over virus fallout mounts.” 

That’s the top headline. 

But here’s the thing: The markets are UP. 

They just need a stupid headline and that’s the point. That’s the point of what has been happening this entire crisis. The media keeps creating headlines and the sheep fall for it. “Geez, honey, should we panic? The headlines say there are more concerns!!”

Clearly we know the market exists. And I think all 300 million people over the age of 5 in the U.S. know all about the “the virus fallout.” How much worse could it be? 

I mean, we have monster hornets arriving in America and “released classified footage of aliens” and those headlines are not even newsworthy anymore. We get it! The virus is an issue. The economic shutdown is an issue. The other day, undercover police officers not wearing masks beat up two people in NYC who were not social distancing. It turns out the people WERE social distancing and the cops (by beating them up) WERE NOT social distancing. And they weren’t even wearing masks while they were beating these kids up. 

The world has kind of gone a bit crazy. 

I didn’t even read the article. I just thought the headline was funny. 

Here’s another headline. This one from CNN:

“Coronavirus is causing harm to the world’s oceans.”

Are you kidding me? I thought pollution was lower since the world shutdown. All the articles say so. I feel like the Pacific Ocean was getting annoyed that the coronavirus was getting so much press. 

I can imagine it calling its PR firm: 

PACIFIC: Dude, we’re not in the news anymore. Aren’t the glaciers still melting? 

JOE PR: Uhh, apparently that big hole in the Ozone layer has snapped shut. And pollution is about 30% less around the world. 

PACIFIC: WHAT!??? I thought the world had passed the tipping point. You mean to tell me that after only six weeks of Americans binge watching Tiger King the entire world has been saved? How can that be? 

JOE PR: I don’t know what to tell you. Aren’t you feeling better these days? There’s probably even less garbage being thrown in the ocean. 

PACIFIC: I DONT EFFING CARE! I pay you good money. I’m a big ocean. A piece of garbage is meaningless to me. 

JOE PR: How about we focus on the good news right now? Like, “Pacific Ocean is once again the masterful, blue, beautiful expanse it was in the 1400s.”

PACIFIC: The 1400s? Did you just say the 1400s? Are you kidding me? You mean the 1400s when those guys crossed the Atlantic and then killed 50 million Americans with… wait for it… a virus called smallpox? What am I paying you for? Can you answer me that? People don’t want good news. They want to know that the oceans are dying. Get Greta on the phone! Have her ride a goddamn kayak across the Pacific. Stop sitting around. 

JOE PR: OK, OK, I got it. You’re going to love this. For a while, every state thought they needed ventilators. They made a MILLION extra ventilators. Now they are throwing them out. How about ventilator parts, surgical gowns, masks, etc. are filling up the oceans with plastic?

PACIFIC: Ahhh, now you’re talking. Love it. Get on that. Do you think they will print it? 

JOE PR: (Laughing). Are you kidding me? They’ll print anything I tell them if it combines plastic and you. 

If you are sitting at home, here are some suggestions. I will call this my “Top 3″ and every few days I’ll write my “Top 3” of the day. 

Top 3 side hustles to look into: 

BIG: Set up a virtual restaurant for delivery via a “cloud kitchen.” Here’s an article about cloud kitchens in India but the same principles apply here. I love this idea and will write more about it in the future.

MEDIUM: Write a book in the next 30 days. Google “Altucher” and “30 day book challenge” to give you some ideas. 

SMALL: Join a mock jury. For instance, check out eJury.com. Or become a “Zoom babysitter” at SitterStream.com

And don’t read the headlines! 

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