In other news, federal prosecutors charged an Arizona man who called and threatened to kill Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA). The man, who says he made the threat after getting drunk and watching Fox News, told Schiff he would 'fucking blow his brains out.'
Meanwhile, no one actually won the Iowa Democratic Caucus last night. The whole thing was a clusterfuck and all caucuses should be fired into the sun forever. Partial results will be released this evening. Supposedly.
Finally, economists says travel restrictions imposed in response to the coronavirus could take a $10.3 billion bite out of the economy.
A fall-off in visits from China represents the “most immediate and direct link between the U.S. economy” and the virus, said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. He projects real GDP growth at 1.7% this year, just below the U.S. economy’s 2% potential growth rate. [...]
The virus will result in a $10.3 billion loss in Chinese visitor spending in the United States, most of that in 2020, Oxford Economics estimates.
Each visitor spends an average of $6,000 per trip, not including airfare or money spent on education, the research firm says.
Forgive the light posting today, but unless you're interested in talking about the Iowa caucus or the Democratic primary in general (I am not), there wasn't a whole lot going on today. I don't like to ramble just for the sake of it.