Dow plunges 3,000 points as Fed intervention does little to subdue Wall Street's distress
Source: Washington Post
Wall Street cannot be calmed when it comes to the coronavirus. Government intervention and assurances, from a $50 billion spending package to combat the outbreak in the U.S. to directives from President Trump to “buy the dip” have done little to subdue Wall Street’s distress. Even the Federal Reserve taking its most drastic steps to shore up the economy since the 2008 financial crisis was met with outsized volatility, amid worries that all the tools in the government’s belt would not be enough to keep the U.S. economy from toppling into a recession.
The jaw-dropping swings of recent weeks have erased most Wall Street’s gains since Trump’s 2016 election, and the VIX volatility index has reached its third-highest level ever. All major U.S. indices are now in a bear market, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq shredding more than 25 percent off their February highs, and the Dow Jones industrial average down 28 percent.
Panic reached a fever-pitch Monday morning as investors reacted to the Fed’s plan to slash interest rates to zero, buy $700 billion in government bonds and mortgage-backed securities and revive a crisis-era “quantitative easing” program. The S&P 500 tumbled more than 8 percent less than a minute into the session, triggering the fourth forced halt to trading in two weeks. The Dow plunged more than 2,250 points,
There was some bounce back as the day progressed, but it evaporated as the closing bell neared. The Dow cratered nearly 3,000 points and nearly 13 percent. The S&P 500 plunged nearly 12 percent and tech-heavy Nasdaq skidded 12.3 percent.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/16/stocks-markets-today-coronavirus/
Original headline: Stocks tank across the board as Fed intervention does little to subdue Wall Street's distress
= new reply since forum marked as read
plus the 45+ years of libertarian mantra...................
And after 9/11, there was supposed to be a "National Stockpile" at various locations around the country that could be moved out on 18-wheelers as needed for emergencies/disasters. Am wondering what happened with that? 
Website for that - https://www.phe.gov/about/sns/Pages/default.aspx
I guess the answer to my question is here -
By Beth Reinhard and Emma Brown
March 10, 2020 at 4:57 p.m. EDT
The H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009 triggered the largest deployment in U.S. history of the Strategic National Stockpile, the federal government’s last-resort cache of drugs and medical supplies. The stockpile distributed 85 million N95 respirators — fitted face masks that block most airborne particles — along with millions of other masks, gowns and gloves.
The gear to protect medical personnel came from multibillion dollar emergency funding authorized by Congress in 2007 and 2009, leading to calls for the government to better prepare for the next outbreak. The trade group for manufacturers of personal protective equipment in mid-2009 urged “immediate action” to restock N95 masks. The International Safety Equipment Association warned of “significant shortages” if another pandemic caused demand for masks to surge.
A nonprofit representing public health agencies, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), echoed industry’s appeal in a 2010 report funded by the federal government, recommending the repository of masks be “replenished for future events.” But the stockpile’s reserves were not significantly restored after the 2009 pandemic, in the view of industry and public health experts. With a limited budget of about $600 million annually, officials in charge of the stockpile focused on what they say was a more pressing priority: lifesaving drugs and equipment for diseases and disasters that emerged before the new coronavirus, which has no vaccine or specific anti-viral treatment.
“In hindsight, it appears to be shortsighted,” said Gerrit Bakker, ASTHO senior director of public health preparedness. “It’s an issue of, ‘Will there be any (masks) left when they get to me? And if the stockpile won’t have enough for my state, what am I going to do?’ ” The limitations of the stockpile — valued at $7 billion — reflect challenges in what many experts say is an underfunded public health system that leans toward smaller inventories to hold down costs and looks to fast-moving private supply chain when crises emerge. Public health and emergency preparedness officials also say the stockpile’s budget lags the expanding threats of the past two decades — from terrorist attacks, to natural disasters to deadly infectious diseases.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/face-masks-in-national-stockpile-have-not-been-substantially-replenished-since-2009/2020/03/10/57e57316-60c9-11ea-8baf-519cedb6ccd9_story.html
