The End of Peak Neoliberalism

Extremely bad news from The New York Times this morning:

Oil lost nearly a quarter of its value in futures markets on Monday, dragging shares of energy companies lower. It was what one analyst called “another acute shock to markets.”

[snip]

Even before the weekend’s developments, stocks in the United States and other major financial markets had fallen by more than 10 percent in a sudden downdraft that began as the coronavirus began to spread outside of China.

The problem globally is growing worse.

[snip]

To keep cash flowing smoothly through the financial system, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Monday said it will ramp up the amount of short-term loans it offers banks.

Starting Monday and lasting through Thursday, the New York Fed will increase its daily offering of overnight repurchase agreements — essentially short-term loans to eligible banks — to at least $150 billion from $100 billion. It is also increasing its offering of two-week loans starting Tuesday, to at least $45 billion from at least $20 billion.

The Fed had already been active in the market for short-lived loans between banks and financial institutions — called the repurchase or “repo” market — for months. Those operations started after rates in that obscure but important corner of the financial system’s plumbing spiked in September. It had recently been shrinking the size of its injections as markets calmed.

The moves on Monday “are intended to ensure that the supply of reserves remains ample and to mitigate the risk of money market pressures,” the New York Fed said in a statement.

All this before disruptions in the global supply chain have yet to deliver their full impact.

What's bizarre about the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting freak-outs in global stock markets is that it comes at a time when the mainstream corporate press is ejaculating all over itself because of Joe Biden's apparent triumph and voters' rejection of democratic socialism.

Amid the panic selling, panicked self-quarantines and stripping of store shelves of toilet paper is this unseemly self-congratulation and chest-thumping about the genius of neoliberal centrism and the great political gifts of a senile second-tier pol like Joe Biden.

If this doesn't augur an end of peak neoliberalism, I don't know what will.