by Brian Maher, Daily Reckoning:

3.28 million.

That is the total number of unemployment claims Americans filed last week — nearly five times the prior record of 695,000, from October 1982.

“We’ve known this number was coming for a week and a half,” laments Tom Gimbel, who captains a Chicago employment agency, adding:

It doesn’t surprise me at all. When you see a city like Las Vegas get shut down, I don’t know what other options there were than seeing a number like this.

A fellow must take his comforts where he can find them these days. And precious few are on offer.

But if it is consolation you seek, here you have it: Some economists had forecast as many as 7 million claims.

Here is additional cheer, however transient: The stock market had itself another day at the races today.

Stimulus, at Last!

The Dow Jones recaptured another 1,351 points. The S&P gained 154, the Nasdaq 413.

Today’s stock market surge follows last evening’s Senate passage of a $2 trillion relief package. It is the largest ever in United States history. The vote was unanimous.

The bill includes, per CNBC:

One-time direct payments to individuals, stronger unemployment insurance, loans and grants to businesses and more health care resources for hospitals, states and municipalities. It includes requirements that insurance providers cover preventive services for COVID-19.

Qualified individuals will receive cash payments of $1,200. Couples will receive $2,400… with an additional $500 for each child.

A Lobbyist’s Dream

883 pages in length, we can only imagine the skullduggery and chicanery within, the sweet venoms the lobbyists put in.

But who has time to read all 883 pages while American life dangles by a strand? And who can say no?

The legislation next goes to the House of Representatives for the rubber stamp — which it will assuredly receive tomorrow morning when the vote is scheduled.

Then it jumps to the White House for the presidential signature. Mr. Trump has pledged to sign it “immediately.”

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said today the checks will mail within three weeks.

But as we have questioned previously… what will they accomplish?

Say’s Law

The issue at hand is not one of demand. It is one of supply. And a shuttered-in economy produces little.

Filling an idle man’s pocket with fabricated money does not increase supply. It merely increases the bid for existing supplies.

Let us not forget Say’s law — that supply creates its own demand. “Products are paid for with products,” argued Jean-Batiste Say over two centuries ago.

One man produces bread. Another produces shoes.

The cobbler who requires bread for his dinner appears before the baker. And the baker who must clad his feet appears before the baker.

They may transact in money… but money merely throws an illusory veil across their transactions.

Ultimately the baker purchases his shoes with the bread he has baked. And the cobbler purchases his bread with the shoes he has cobbled.

Concludes Monsieur Say:

Money performs but a momentary function in this double exchange; and when the transaction is finally closed, it will always be found that one kind of commodity has been exchanged for another.

The Government Attempts to Outlaw Say’s Law

Assume now a free economy in which supply and demand are allowed their unfettered reign. Assume an economy — that is — that does not presently exist.

You can expect supply and demand to come to terms, to come into rough equilibrium.

If there is less demand, prices will fall to meet it.

But when the government prints money with no production to match it… it attempts to outlaw Say’s law.

Consider the thought experiment of another 18th-century thinker David Hume…

Imagine a benevolent fairy slips money into all the nation’s pockets overnight. And so the money supply doubles at a stroke.

Is this nation doubly rich?

Alas, it is not. The money supply has been doubled, yes. But no additional goods have entered existence.

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