COMING UP ON CLUBHOUSE ON FRIDAY — Canada calling: Join POLITICO Canada’s Ottawa team on Clubhouse at 3 p.m. ET on Friday to discuss and debate the country's upcoming 2021 Budget, featuring Abacus Data’s David Coletto, economist Armine Yalnizyan, Scotiabank’s Rebekah Young, and Mostafa Askari of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy. OUTSIDE GRADES FOR BIDEN — Wall Street analyst Richard Berstein, founder of RBAdvisors: “As the son of a scientist, I’m glad the virus response is finally being science-driven. The results should be quite good. “Regarding the stimulus, I totally agree we should err bigger, but once again Washington has knee-jerked for a short-term solution that has to be paid for via longer-term debt. I wish they’d put people to work by improving the country’s dilapidated infrastructure, which would improve the country’s competitiveness and could benefit future generations of Americans. Think WPA, CWA, TVA, and Interstate Highway System. Overall, I’d give them a B+/A- broken down into an A+ for following science and B for the stimulus plan.” Moody’s Mark Zandi: “Slam dunk A+. The Biden team is like a pro-football team that has scripted out its first dozen plays, has successfully executed each one of them, and is now spiking the ball in the endzone with the passage of the American Rescue Plan. “Some of the most successful plays have been ramping up the vaccination process, issuing executive orders on immigration and climate change, and re-engaging with global institutions like the WHO and WTO. Of course, Biden’s term has only started, and while the Biden team has a clear game plan, next up being a Build Back Better fiscal package, it will become more difficult to execute on. The economics and politics are sure to get quickly more complicated.” STIMULUS MATH — RSM’s Joe Brusuelas: “The legislation will provide a robust tail wind to the domestic economy and likely boost U.S. GDP by an additional three percentage points. “Based on this latest development we have upgraded our 2021forecast to 7.2% (previously 6.1%) and our 2022 growth estimate to 4.8% (3.2%) and now expect a 2.9% pace of growth in 2023 all well above the long term growth rate in the U.S. of 1.8%. “It is critical to note that we think that based on this legislation and the $1 trillion or so of spending still in the pipeline from previously passed legislation late in the last administration that there is notable risk of much faster growth over during the 2021-2023 period.” Pantheon’s Ian Shepherdson : “[T]he cash will … begin to flow very quickly. The most immediate impact in the macroeconomic data will be in retail sales numbers, where some of the $410B in direct payments will appear in both the March and—especially—April reports. … “The March and April data, therefore, are likely to be very strong, and will be augmented by the easing of Covid restrictions in many states. We also expect to see a rapid response—though not quite as quick as in the retail sales data—from state and local governments” GAMESTOP FRENZY CONTINUES — Our Kellie Mejdrich: “A trading frenzy in the stock of video game retailer GameStop restarted Wednesday, forcing the New York Stock Exchange to repeatedly pause trading in an effort to control volatile market swings. “NYSE halted trading in the stock seven times by the early afternoon, according to alerts on the exchange's website. Under SEC rules a stock exchange must impose temporary pauses in trading when a stock's value shifts too quickly over very short period of time — less than a minute. In GameStop's case, the threshold is more than 10 percent up or down.” | 
