Republicans plan, unabated pandemic and signs of insanity

The main event of yesterday was the Republican plan to help the US economy. By and large, this is a slightly modified version of their previous proposal, which now includes an increased unemployment benefit of $ 300 a week, money to help small businesses, additional funding for the US Postal Service, and protection of employers from lawsuits related to Covid-19.

Considering that the total amount of aid is still near $ 1 trillion, we can safely consider this bill stillborn, since the Democrats will not support it (recall, their position is a $ 3 trillion aid fund).

The situation with the pandemic in the world continues to cause no less concern. The total number of cases has exceeded 22 million, and new outbreaks of the disease are observed in a number of countries. In particular, Germany recorded the maximum number of new cases in the last 4 months, while South Korea also saw a sharp increase in the number of cases. However, the epidemiological situation continues to improve in the US and UK.

As for the financial markets, the madness there continues. It takes especially concentrated and hypertrophied forms in the case of Tesla. The company, which shares priced less than $400 six months ago, is now quoted above $1800, and Elon Musk took the fourth place in the list of the richest people on the planet.

Another striking evidence in favor of insanity in the financial markets recently provided the Norway Government Pension Global Fund. The richest sovereign wealth fund in the world lost $ 21 billion in the first half of 2020: Investment professionals are having hard times right now.

The situation in the US housing market, which is experiencing a boom period against the backdrop of a pandemic and economic crisis, also evidences in favor of schizophrenia prevailing in the financial markets. At least that's what the latest homebuilder sentiment report suggests. It shows record levels of customer buyer traffic. That is, more and more people want to buy houses. But at the same time, the level of delinquencies on mortgages has sharply increased and is approaching record values unseen since the global financial crisis of 2007-2009.