‘Sacrifice the weak’ is a lousy coronavirus plan

Follow Us This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a postal service of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Today's Agenda Mailing paper checks is no way to save an economy. FOMO has been replaced by ROMO. The Fed may decide to buy stocks. Where's that package? The Covid-19 Survival of the Fittest An alarming number of people see the Covid-19 pandemic through a Darwinian lens, perhaps best summed up by this lovely sign at a recent protest in Tennessee: Source: Fox 17 News, Nashville Source: Fox 17 News, Nashville Aside from the raw amorality of this sentiment, it's also apparently based on a falsehood that coronavirus is a problem only for the "weak." The virus threatens people with strong immune systems, too, and the broader devastation it wreaks affects us all. Fortunately, the U.S. government took a more enlightened view when pledging financial relief to help people through the crisis. Unfortunately, the results are still ruled by the law of the jungle. The poorest Americans, those who don't pay taxes or have bank accounts with handy direct-deposit capabilities, need help the most, but they're the ones least likely to get it quickly, writes Bloomberg's editorial board. Our creaky old system of mailing checks over weeks or months isn't suited for this emergency. We need upgraded technology, wider banking access and a fully funded IRS, for starters. For now, we need a functioning U.S. Postal Service to get checks to the far corners of the country. But the virus threatens its survival, and President Donald Trump seems perfectly willing to sacrifice it for the alleged sin of its own weakness. That's a bad idea, writes Tim O'Brien, and seems driven mainly by animosity toward Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com, which pays the service to carry packages. Trump should help modernize the post office, not kill it out of spite. The economy's Darwinian state affects businesses, too. Bigger, financially stronger companies are better able to protect employees and vital services during this crisis. Weirdly for any time travelers from the year 2008, that includes America's big banks, along with big tech firms. As Tae Kim writes, this sort of corporate heroism is just good business: It builds public goodwill and lets employees worry about creating profits rather than keeping their jobs. But it will also hasten a long trend of smaller businesses being increasingly squeezed out by larger ones, Peter Orszag writes. That may help explain why there's been such an outcry over organizations such as Harvard and Shake Shack getting bailout money while smaller ones go belly-up. Jonathan Bernstein suggests such criticism misses the point: These bailouts are about protecting employees, not employers. And not all big companies are in such good shape. Boeing Co. is fairly enormous, but demand for its primary product — giant airplanes — is going nowhere, Brooke Sutherland notes. Together with its lingering 737 Max headaches, it's rapidly losing ground to rival Airbus. Even massive Apple Inc. faces delays and soft demand for its latest iPhone, Tae Kim writes. Evolution comes for us all. It's a Marie Kondo World Now Gather round, grandkids, and let me tell you about a thing in the Twenty-Teens we called "FOMO." Believe it or not, people used to worry that going to one party/TED Talk/family reunion would make them miss out on some far more exciting gathering. Oh, and "gatherings" were also a thing. Now instead of fear of missing out, we have what Sarah Green Carmichael calls "ROMO," the reality of missing out. We're losing not just parties but also months of graduations and summer camps and funerals and all those other moments that help define a life. If there's any upside, it's that we're all getting a crash course in what really matters, writes Andreas Kluth. If this helps us declutter and worry less about missing that TED Talk, then that will be a good thing. Still, it would be nice to end all this soon, though most of us aren't openly calling to "SACRIFICE THE WEAK" for it. But hurrying back to business could involve unnecessary human sacrifice. Even Germany, which had a relatively good handle on the pandemic early, seems a little too eager to emerge from its shell, writes Chris Bryant. Even a society as worshipful of expertise and science as Germany can botch this transition. Further Life-Under-Coronavirus Reading: Lawrence Wright saw Covid-19 coming, but only because he listened to experts. Some governments we could name could learn from this example. — Tobin Harshaw America has made pandemic mistakes, but isn't yet a failed state. — Ramesh Ponnuru Businesses suing over coronavirus shutdowns may have a case. — Stephen Carter The pandemic is hurting the health and education of children around the world. — Adam Minter Africa is especially vulnerable, both to coronavirus and to the breakdown of food supplies. — Jessica Fanzo The Fed's Hard Choices The Fed meets this week, in what will probably be an unusually quiet event for such tumultuous times. That's because the Fed has already slashed rates to zero and set up various rescue plans for the economy and markets. But there's still plenty it can do. It may soon have to decide, for example, whether or not to go out and buy stocks, notes Mohamed El-Erian. This would help stabilize markets, but raises moral hazard issues. Noah Smith argues the downsides of such an idea far outweigh the upsides. The Fed buying stocks would only further distort markets without really helping the economy. The Fed could also cut interest rates below zero, as central banks in Europe and Japan have already done. Narayana Kocherlakota argued the case for this last week. Brian Chappatta takes the other side today, warning negative rates might actually cause deflation. Telltale Charts In the absence of baseball or other sports, America's new national pastime is ordering stuff online and tracking its delivery, writes Ben Schott (and I can confirm). Negative oil prices were no anomaly, writes Julian Lee. They were the market's way of warning production cuts aren't happening quickly enough. Quarantined people may be itching to travel, but they're going to be pickier about it, writes Andrea Felsted. Further Reading Republicans are already finding ways to exploit the virus to limit voting in November to help Trump. — Francis Wilkinson China's approach to bailing out banks is hardly reassuring. — Anjani Trivedi Deutsche Bank reported a refreshingly decent quarter, but still has hard work ahead of it. — Elisa Martinuzzi Jair Bolsonaro is doing the opposite of rising to the occasion for Brazil. — Mac Margolis This brainteaser requires a deep dive. — Scott Duke Kominers ICYMI The coronavirus death toll may be vastly undercounted. The new small-business lending program is already breaking down. Americans face a meat shortage. Kickers Help save the Postal Service with this dog costume. (h/t Scott Kominers) Museums around the world are sharing the creepiest things in their collections. How coffee became a modern necessity. The mythos of Michael Jordan continues. Note: Please send creepy objects and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. 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