In 2020 we had the outbreak of the pandemic and forced closures to deal with it. The panic in Washington and in the corporate press came not with the small business closures, the 47,000 infected citizens, rising death, and historic job losses. The panic came when the stock market closed more than 35 percent off its peak, continuing an epic slide that had started a month earlier.
The Federal Reserve announced on March 23 that it would start direct purchases of corporate debt an unprecedented rescue of corporate America and Washington passed the "Cares" Act to bail out the investor class instead of the citizens.
Between March 23 and April 30, the Dow skyrocketed nearly 6,000 points, a jump of nearly 31 percent, creating over $7 trillion in capital wealth. The April gains were the largest one month jump since 1987.
The same month, 20.5 million Americans lost their jobs.
Since then, the stock market has risen over 30 percent, corporate bond funds have recovered, and companies have saved tens of billions in borrowing costs. Thanks to this massive government subsidy, large companies like Boeing, Delta Airlines, and Carnival Cruises were able to avoid taking money directly — and sidestep requirements to keep employees on — by instead issuing bonds.
One year into the pandemic, it's not clear whether the $54 billion the U.S. Treasury used to prop up airlines during the pandemic was the right move, or just an expensive gift to a politically favored industry.
