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◼ REMARKS
● Commerce is on hold as we battle
the virus. Here are ways to help
companies outlast the pandemic● By Peter Coy
themorelivelihoodswillbebroken,insomecasesirreparably.
President Trump said on March 24 that he would like the U.S.
economy “opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” which
is April 12. However, the more we ease up on quarantines and
social distancing to allow the economy to breathe, the more
patients will have their breath stolen by this frightening lung
disease. Martin Eichenbaum of Northwestern University and
otherscalculateina newworkingpaperthattheU.S.could
save500,000livesthroughseriouscontainmentmeasures
vs.thebasecaseofdoingnothing—butatthecostofknock-
ing10%offeconomicoutputin2020.Nodoubt,it’sgoingto
beugly.
Hereis oneprincipleforpolicymakerstoconsiderasthey
makedecisionsonourbehalf:If youmustdoharmtothe
economy,pleasemakeit reversible.Hurt,butdon’tkill.Bend
it,butdonotbreakit.
Thesuddenstopcouldcausehundredsofthousandsof
smallandmedium-size enterprises to go out of business—to
break. Some will quickly reemerge, which is fine. But in many
cases the loss will be permanent. High-functioning teams that
have taken years to assemble will break up. Synergies will be
lost. Workers who thrived in a particular niche will flounder,
seeking jobs from new employers who don’t understand who
they are or what they can do.
“Much of the information in our society is embedded
within corporations. The bankruptcy of an enterprise leads
to the loss of organizational and informational capital—aIn economics, there is no Hippocratic oath: First, do no
harm. If there were, world leaders would be in serious vio-
lation of it. With the noble purpose of saving lives, they
are deliberately throttling the global economy. The plan
is to put economic activity in a state of suspended anima-
tion for weeks or months, get past the worst of the Covid-
19 pandemic, and then resuscitate the patient. Necessary?
Probably. Dangerous? Undoubtedly.
Because this has never been done before at this scale,
there are no white-haired elders to guide us. We are going to
have to invent the plan as we go, recalibrating as facts emerge.
Just as overwhelmed doctors must choose which patients to
save and which to let go, we will need to decide which sec-
tors, which companies, and which workers are most in need
of and most deserving of a rescue.
And eventually we’ll need to make agonizing trade-offs
between saving lives and saving livings. The more people are
saved from the coronavirus through draconian shutdowns,How to Keep Busine ss From Going Bust