Coronavirus

March 18, 2020

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of a healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary –

It seems like overnight we went from a booming economy to shutting everything down.
Schools are closed, businesses are working online to avoid contact. “Social distancing” is the
new way to live. In some states they are even closing restaurants and bars. And what ever
happened to “March Madness?” Sporting events are cancelled. Stock markets and commodities
take a dive. All of this happened because of a global health crisis – the coronavirus pandemic.
China has been hit the hardest. Europe not far behind. Here in the U.S. we are taking
drastic action to slow the progress of the virus. I am impressed to see the serious effort that
President Trump, State Governors and cities are making to limit the damage to our economy, and
lives of our citizens.

President Trump and Congress are working together. They want to keep our economy
from falling into recession. The House and Senate are passing bipartisan stimulus bills. The cost
could be more than a trillion dollars. With the debt that our country already shoulders you would
think someone might worry about piling on more debt. No one is even talking about that. They
are talking about food security – make sure the food chain works. Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin says our economy isn’t in a recession now, and should recover later in the year. He
says we will need to help support our airlines and small businesses and workers that get laid off
or lose their jobs. There is talk about giving everyone $1,000.

I want to point out that there is some hope. It appears that China may be starting to
recover. Last Friday China reported only 8 new cases of the virus. Kids are going back to
school and workers are going back to work. China is making some regulatory changes which
will open the door for more of our beef and distillers dried grain (DDG) to be shipped to them. I
am becoming more optimistic. Hopefully, China will be able to buy that $40 billion worth of ag
products from the U.S. Yes, I am optimistic, but I won’t bet the farm on it.

Until next week, this John Block reporting from Washington, D.C. If you would like to
review my radio shows going back more than 20 years, just go on-line to
www.johnblockreports.com.