A Better Way to End the Coronavirus Financial Panic

Andrew Ross Sorkin: “With President Trump proposing to send $1,000 checks to every American and industries, like the airlines, lining up for bailouts, there is a better way to arrest the panic.”

“The government could offer every American business, large and small, and every self-employed — and gig — worker a no-interest ‘bridge loan’ guaranteed for the duration of the crisis to be paid back over a 5-year period. The only condition of the loan to businesses would be that companies continue to employ at least 90 percent of their work force at the same wage that they did before the crisis. And it would be retroactive, so any workers that have been laid off in the past two weeks because of the crisis would be reinstated.”

“The program would keep virtually everyone employed — and keep companies, from airlines to restaurants, in business without picking winners and losers.”