ELON Musk is warning that a second round of stimulus checks won’t save the economy amid the coronavirus outbreak. Musk, an outspoken critic of virus stay-at-home restrictions, told podcaster Joe Rogan last week: “You can’t just legislate money and solve these things.” “This notion though, that you can just sort of send checks out to […]
ELON Musk is warning that a second round of stimulus checks won’t save the economy amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Musk, an outspoken critic of virus stay-at-home restrictions, told podcaster Joe Rogan last week: “You can’t just legislate money and solve these things.”
“This notion though, that you can just sort of send checks out to everybody and things will be fine, is not true, obviously,” the billionaire SpaceX founder said, adding it’s “detached from reality.”
Musk was referring to the stimulus checks that have been sent out by the federal government in recent weeks as part of a $2.2trillion economic relief package.
He said that because of the virus, “the [economic] machine just grinds to a halt,” and impacts medical and food supplies.
“Several people have this absurd view that the economy is a magic horn of plenty,” Musk said. “if you don’t make stuff, there’s no stuff.”
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has said it’s paid out more than $218billion in stimulus checks that were intended to help people amid the outbreak.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump hinted that a second round of stimulus checks could be coming for struggling Americans.
“Well, something could happen,” the President said Thursday when asked about a second round of checks.
“There is talk about something happening. And we’ll see what’s going on.”
The coronavirus was declared a global pandemic in March, and since then, more than 33million people have filed for unemployment as businesses shut down because of the outbreak.
As a result, the US is seeing its worst economic crisis in decades.
In February, unemployment was at a more than 50-year low of 3.5 percent, and the economy had added jobs every month for a record 9 1/2 years.
In March, unemployment was 4.4. percent.
“In just two months the unemployment rate has gone from the lowest rate in 50 years to the highest rate in almost 90 years,” Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial, told The Associated Press.
Nearly all the job growth achieved during the 11-year recovery from the financial meltdown was lost in one month.
The US economy has never endured anything like this: the economic shock from the 9/11 terrorist attacks was short-lived.
The financial crisis and the Great Recession were devastating — but they weren’t intertwined with a massive health crisis.
Musk has been an outspoken critic of stay-at-home orders and coronavirus restrictions across the country.
On Saturday, he tweeted he was moving his Tesla plant in Fremont, California, “immediately” because local officials aren’t letting him reopen the vehicle plant just yet.
