Kevin Hassett: The ‘Markets Look Like they Expect that We Will Get Back to Normal Quickly’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

HASSETT: Well, I think that’s the hope. And that’s why — if you look at the data, the thing — one of the things that really jumps out at me is that the economic harm from the shutdown is spread pretty much uniformly across the country.

Initial claims are actually the worst of any state in Hawaii. And it makes sense, because the travel industry is so important to that state.

But that damage to the economy is uniform, but the disease is sort of allocated across the country in pockets. And so what it means is that the decision by the president to sort of tell everybody to slow down at the state level and to shelter in place and so on had a really, really big collective effect, and now that the states are starting to open up, hopefully, following the guidelines of Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci, that we can maybe start to get back to normal.

And I think you’re right that markets look like they expect that we will get back to normal quickly. And, God willing, that’s what happens.