This stimulus will not save us

COMMENT | Our economy is collapsing and only we know it. Air flights halted, travel agencies shut, restaurants closed. In the weeks to come, we will hear about many businesses having zero revenue. Soon, we will know someone around us who has lost a job.

These stories will take a while for the government to register as statistics, and we need two consecutive quarters of economic decline to call this a recession.

But make no mistake, we are standing at the cliff of one of the worst economic crises of our time.

Destroy economy to save our health

Unlike other crisis, we need to destroy our economy to save our health. The only way to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic is to stay at home. All businesses must close, you cannot travel or go outside, and you should only spend on necessities that keep you safe and healthy.

We are left with an unfortunate dilemma: Do we save our health or do we save our economy?

The only way out of this bind is for the government to spend, at a massive and radical scale. And this is the bare minimum to keep our economy from going further south...