Treasury, the efforts to stimulate an economy in free fall jim, you got off a call or an interview it was a call as well with secretary mnuchin what stood out to you . That you shouldnt lay people off. I want to point out i got a correction, he said on Small Business payroll, two weeks, he meant two months two months means you do not lay people off without, i think im not saying its irresponsible but everything is being done to keep businesses open Small Businesses open. David, with the fed, i think theyve taken off to me anything involving credit the secretary talked about anything involving liquidity we cant produce demand. You keep people around for two months, but they wont be able to produce demand. There will still be a burden on Small Business not sure how that will be resolved thats an interesting point jim, we did we were watching the futures, which appeared to be limited down at different points in it the evening last night after japan opened as well then we got a fed announcement this morning just to go quickly into it taking off the size limit in terms of the treasuries, Mortgage Backed securities and i think importantly as well this direct business, main Street Lending program to support lending to eligible small and mediumsized businesses, complimenting efforts by the sba how important is that in your opinion . Look, in the end, our economy is Small Business. In the end, those are the people that really are trying to figure out whether to open or close you cant be thinking about just now. You need to be thinking about when we beat this. If you wipe out Small Business, the whole country will be run by amazon and walmart we cant have that happen. The Restaurant Industry will not really survive remember, 50 we have more than 50 Million People in service. Most of them do not work at walmart. I think its just really important to be able to make it so the average working person gets a job and keeps a job and that means you have to give the Small Business person money. And i think the dems and republicans favor that not sure i would love to hear from Speaker Pelosi and from senator schumer how far apart they are secoretary mnuchin indicates theyre very close time is of the essence as we know, as we know watching the markets as well. The reversal today is on the fed. The expectation, as you say, that well get something out of congress in the nearterm. Jim, just to your point, im sure you had these conversations, i certainly did over the weekend with a lot of different people who run businesses, typically larger ones, but, you know, everybody is trying to figure out a day by which, all right, this is my first layoff round, thats coming this week most likely is what im hearing this is my second. My sales are down, 40 , 50 , 60 , and i know how long i can go this is happening in realtime. Those layoffs are occurring in realtime thats not to mention, of course, as you point out the person the Small Businesses, whether its the person who works at a hair salon, a nail salon. The dog walkers, the restaurant workers, the garage attendants, the personal trainers, the gym employees, and it goes on and on and on we all have one thing in common in this country, the person, the dry cleaner, where we get our hair cut, where we try to help local, it is i try i live in summit, new jersey were trying to figure out this weekend how do we help local every business is closed it sounds like the treasury secretary understands that i have to believe that senator schumer and Speaker Pelosi understand that. Thats why i dont think that far apart. I was hate to see we had the first remember t. A. R. P. , we had the failed vote this weekend. I think that sent the market down limit i know its also creating such havoc that were going to get the layoff announcements today i expect big layoff announcements in the next half hour one thing that can happen, if they come together and make it so the Small Business feels like, okay, at least i can take care of payroll. The next thing is rent we have to be sure theres some sort of forgiveness on rent or else you will say its not worth the effort i sure hope that isnt the case. Yeah. I know you and i have talked for some time now, over a week, about forbearance up and down and how that would work. Again, we hear things antidotically, but it doesnt make them less real. Im hearing that rents are not being paid by the way, also by companies that are fairly large, theyre saying were not paying. The landlord has to turn to the bank and say were not going to pay. You need the forbearance up and down we have not gotten there at this point. Not quite sure how we do but thats sort of a very important component of this as money is not going to be flowing. Weve all been getting the emails from tom barrick, hes on commercial mortgages if you go to the dems, i think commercial mortgages are really important. Thats what Steve Liesman was talking about with the fed the fed should be able to, it sounds like, back pretty much anything so provide liquidity is what i can say. Lets say you dont pay, it goes up the food chain. It sounds like that the bills of a major real estate company, how much would Simon Properties like to call in, those properties will not go under. So many of them are connected with the stock market. You saw a lot of companies that are say mortgage reits evaporate last week. Because they had good dividends, you know thats where the elderly, the people with no other income, thats where they were what bothers me tremendously is not just the jobs side but the savings side given who we are at cnbc, we seem to have, i think, better call on how you have got to protect the seniors who dont have a job and wont have income if this thing keeps going away i know. Your point is a good one weve seen dislocations, what is a lack of proper functioning in a number of markets. Theres been so much coming at us over the last week, its hard to focus on one thing at one time but our Corporate Bond market is not working particularly well. The Municipal Market got blown out. The feed appears to be trying to deal with that initiating liquidity facilities to ease that crunch on Corporate Bonds theyll be in the muni market, the shortterm side of it. We have not even talked that much about some of these enormous dislocations that are going on in huge markets, jim, that are not related to stocks we can talk about etfs as well that are trading strangely youre so right there is a lack of liquidity to the point where people kind of, i think this opening will be met with heat seeking missiles people who need money so badly, david. What i want to caution people to do, when you buy up like this, remember you have to have that bill passed. Then after the bill is passed, we have to start thinking about the numbers that will come out unemployment numbers people are talking about 30 unemployment thats a daunting number that exceeds youre talking about numbers that take out the Great Depression we have never seen anything like it. Ever some of these numbers, as you say, 30 Unemployment Rate that down 24 print on gdp that goldman put out, last week, it may be higher now, and the earnings reductions that were talking about for the Second Quarter, which are negative. So 100 plus percent decline in earnings, weve never seen anything like this you go back i spent more time reading about the depression this weekend than Current Events one thing that sticks out is the small banks. The small banks that provide the loans locally, they shut their doors. Finally fdr said listen, lets have a bank holiday. That would work in a time where we had very slow reactions were in lightning speed we have to make sure those banks are equally as protected theres so many entities in this complex economy. If you even leave one out, that could be the one that is like jenga. You pull it out and the thing falls. I think theyre trying to cover every single base. If they dont get this legislative package passed, these gains are going to be something that i say could evaporate in seconds yeah. Jim, weve spent about nine minutes talking about the economic crisis. Lets move on to the Health Crisis, of course. It is not as though the virus doesnt continue to spread in various communities around the u. S. I did want to bring in on this topic specifically and obviously more broadly as well to talk about whats going on michael roman, the ceo of 3m they are the maker of those n95 respirators that are in such demand and short supply right now. He joins us on the phone its good to have you. Lets start off right away with where things stand in terms of your ability to produce the n95 respirators and get them to communities in need, particularly new york, seattle and a couple other areas around the country . Good morning, david and jim thats is the top priority for us our highest priority at 3m is the safety of our people and the public our teams around the world are focused on supplying Health Care Workers with Safety Products they need. Here in the u. S. We have accelerated our production starting in january. We ramped up our production. We had a longstanding decision to invest in excess capacity, keep it idle and turn it on in times like this. Thats what we did we doubled our output from 19 million respirators to 35 million a month. We are prioritizing Health Care Workers and working 24 sh 7 to p to the front line Health Care Workers. We are working to expand that capacity further in the nearterm and longterm as well. Is that u. S. Capacity i wonder, there was a period of time when this crisis was centered in china. And the need was there you have manufacturing facilities there but were unable to manufacture because people were not coming to work or a lot of people werent. Is china manufacturing back on is that output going to end up back here in the u. S. . How does that work we actually are able to operate all through lunar new year, the extended shutdowns in china. We had special permits to operate because of the importance of the Safety Products we were producing we ramped up in china starting in january as well we served the market there out of our production in china we manufacture these respirators in every region of the world china was a great example where our team jumped on it, ramped up to full capacity and were able to meet the demand in the local market mike, thank you for coming on good morning, jim one thing disturbing to Many Americans was to see at target in seattle all the n95s on the shelf. I dont understand how that kind of dislocation occurs where we have the Retail Market have them and yet over ucsf they run out of masks certainly many of the new York Hospitals really touch and go. How did that happen . We ramped up our production we came in the year, about 95 of our respirators go to industrial channels in a normal Business Environment when you have a crisis like this, we shift everything to health care. We were able to do that with the implementation in march of the emergency use authorization from the fda and also the u. S. Prep act, all of that enabled us to shift what are normally industrial respirators over to Health Care Workers. It allowed us and gave us the certification that we needed to be able do that. That happened. Now, there was some inventory, as you would expect, throughout the supply chain from what was happening even as we came in to 2020 its not itsedy appoi edy g when you see that, but that changeover and that shift, and now everything is going to Health Care Workers. We are producing and shipping directly to those Health Care Workers around the u. S when our president contacted you, i believe midfebruary, were you able to divert and get as many masks as possible here or was there a miscommunication where they did not request what they could have . Well, weve been working closely with the Vice President and the president and now fema to get respirators to where theyre needed most. Weve been doing that every step of the way it was it was this emergency use authorization and u. S. Prep act that enabled us to shift everything to health care through all channels we have from the early stages in march weve been responding and shifting everything to health care. Mike, i want to get to the specifics of the problem here. Certainly a lot of it is in our hometown, new york city. A lot of people have seen this memo from the chief of surgery at new york presbyterian, usually they use 4,000 n95 masks a day, theyre now up to 40,000 and he sees them going to 70,000 are they going to run out of masks or will you figure out a way to get these hospitals the masks theyll need at numbers theyve never seen before . Yeah, david, we have prioritized new york and Washington State and over the weekend we shipped more than 500,000 respiratorers into those cities more than 350,000 are landing in new york today they are coming into use and well be able to prioritize and ship we are working broadly with partners its impressive to see the Way Companies have stepped up. Many companies are working in partnership with us to extend capacity were working with other companies to help us in logistics, expedite. Were ready to expedite respirators to wherever theyre needed new york is a priority in the nearterm. As i said, were getting respirators on the ground there. There are other respirators serving new york through Health Care Distribution that we would normally be shipping to. This is an expedited shipment that is getting there today. Mike, is there a way to get back just lets say if you go on right now, i think if you go on alibaba, theres tons of masks, any way to get the masks from china back . Like a Lease Program from china which is doing so well and our company which is now bearing the brunt with you being the broker . Yeah. We are working every angle to get additional respirators into the market in the u. S. We are working to really prepare ourselves for this we have to ensure that we meet the standards of the u. S. From the product the standards vary around the world our team now is doing that then as soon as we can bring capacity from international to the u. S. , were doing that what can we do with the other part you know everything about what goes into a Health Care Worker a doctor right now in an emergency room what else can we get for them . I think everyone in america wants to help these people we want to help the Health Care Workers first. If we can do anything, whether its make it so they dont have to pay taxes or have a gown, what can we all do to help those people we are focused a lot on respirators, but were working on ramping up hand sanitizers, were working with Many Companies, its amazing how Many Companies have come to the table with great ideas, and bringing together some capabilities we have in the Broader Health care business to support them i think theres a broad effort and a very focused set of teams that are working to do that right now. I think that supporting them really, supporting those teams is one of the best ways to do that keeping focus on the supply chain that serves those companies in order to continue to supply into health care, thats an important aspect of it even what we were talking about earlier, making sure we have the ability to move products and materials around the world that we dont see export restrictions come into play those are all aspects of what we can do to Work Together to solve that so that those are some things that from a company and business standpoint that were working together to try to bring to the table mike, given your knowledge of whats going on in terms of what Health Care Providers need, far beyond what your products are, ventilators being a key one, do you think the president should make sure of the defense production act to get needed supplies into the hands of these hospitals . The administration is encouraging industry to look at the defense production act as a tool to expand our capabilities. Thats the response ive been talking about. We are we are building on our capabilities and working together to he arespond to covid19 including personal protective equipment, vaccines, ventilators. Thats been a positive part of the way the defense production act has been presented were discussing this with the administration, working to partner in the supply chains were working with fema to make sure that together were getting our respirators to where theyre needed most. All of those are positive steps forward as part of the discussions around the defense protection act thats a positive step in encouraging everybody to find a solution and get them to market. Mike, this is a little bit of a theorial question. Between dr. Fauci and what i read online, theres some people who feel that 80 of the people in this country will get sick. Do you think, as a business person, i cant ask you to be dr. Fauci, do you think were all going to get it . Were focused first and foremost on our on the safety of our people. We have implemented all Remote Working the social distancing, were separating our people and focusing on their safety we implemented new oper