Was she right? Before 1968 there were the hippies, the flowers, the music of the Beatles.
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Coronavirus (COVID-19): Global business, economics, and stock markets updates
- Thread starter Xulonn
- Start date
-
- Tags
- corona economy stock market
- Status
Was she right? Before 1968 there were the hippies, the flowers, the music of the Beatles.
Alice of Old Vincennes
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2019
- Messages
- 1,427
- Likes
- 921
Fleetwood Mac wasn't bad.
They were great, and Leonard Cohen too.
On the subject of returning to a normal life (grain of salt plus reality) ...
Fauci says we may not get back to our normal lives until the end of 2021
Dr. Anthony Fauci said it could be the end of 2021 before we get back to how our lives were before Covid-19.
He told reporter Andrea Mitchell he’s been saying all along, “I believe that we will have a vaccine that will be available by the end of this year, the beginning of next year.”
But there is a caveat: “By the time you mobilize the distribution of the vaccinations, and you get the majority, or more, of the population vaccinated and protected, that's likely not going to happen to the mid or end of 2021,” he said.
“If you're talking about getting back to a degree of normality which resembles where we were prior to Covid, it's going to be well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021.”
_____
* Van Morrison and Bob Dylan
Fauci says we may not get back to our normal lives until the end of 2021
Dr. Anthony Fauci said it could be the end of 2021 before we get back to how our lives were before Covid-19.
He told reporter Andrea Mitchell he’s been saying all along, “I believe that we will have a vaccine that will be available by the end of this year, the beginning of next year.”
But there is a caveat: “By the time you mobilize the distribution of the vaccinations, and you get the majority, or more, of the population vaccinated and protected, that's likely not going to happen to the mid or end of 2021,” he said.
“If you're talking about getting back to a degree of normality which resembles where we were prior to Covid, it's going to be well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021.”
_____
* Van Morrison and Bob Dylan
2 and 3, I disagree.
Jay Powell money machine go brrrrrrrrr.
Interested companies can buy public influence via social media too much now to mean you can predict public opinion on a topic of that size.
Dave Zan
Active Member
Not 6 months yet but seems like forever in "Corona Virus years".
Lately the US infection rate has passed 1,000,000 people with new infections per week, and the trend is ever further up.
Death toll is now >250,00 and death rate is practically certain to exceed 10,000 extra deaths per week soon, and increase for at least several more weeks.
So maybe 100,000 additional deaths even with optimistic outcomes for the vaccine.
I continue to be amazed that the apparent economic impact in the US is not worse.
Like the proverbial man who fell off the skyscraper and yelled out as he went past the 2nd floor "It's been quite OK so far", seems like there must be a nasty shock eventually.
But perhaps I am mistaken and the economy will simply sail on.
At what point do people think the economy will be seriously affected?
Let's spare the moderators any discussion about the medical/health consequences, that's too bad to want to even think about.
Best wishes
David
From what we know up here in the Great White North in Canada something like 40% of restaurants are on the verge of closing permanently. That'll happen silently and fast I imagine when they are simply fed up.
Last edited:
Similar in Hong Kong, no matter how the small shops closed up (e.g. small game stores, clothing retailers even big names like G.A.P. etc. and a lot of restaurants) the property and stock market just hyped up. Personally I feel it's due to:
1) 99% of wealth in 1% of ppl's hand, all your closing up and dead ppl are just affecting like 2-3% of the market value, the rest are just hypes from "good news" by those funds
2)Government economic policies to keep the economy stable, like deferred payback of mortgages etc. so the normal lag between ppl lost their job/life to reflecting in say bank bad debts are further lengthened.
I believe it's almost the case worldwide, but I feel like the iceberg is breaking, like the largest regional airline Cathay Pacific just fired a lot of their pilots and cadets, so those started to have problems in their mortgages and then compete for lower paid jobs and further on.
Vasr
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2020
- Messages
- 1,409
- Likes
- 1,926
Those are good questions and I think the answers are nuanced and a bit contrary to commonly held views and not as simple as restaurant closings and lack of hair care salons.
First what is one referring to by Economy?
If it is the stock market, it is mainly correlated with momentum these days of money moving in and out of the markets and there is plenty of cash with all the easy monetary policy and low interest rates giving no other choice. People who have the money to affect these movements aren't suffering as much from the pandemic.
No large lay-offs at big corporations that affects people with investable money. The people who make their money from deployment of capital weren't doing it from building factories or business but moving from one momentum play to another. This has not been affected at all by the pandemic. So the stock market is not a good indicator of the "economy".
A large portion of the members here would fall in this category and I suspect 90% of the people here have not been affected enough to significantly affect their spending levels (while what it is targeted at may have changed).
Is it the purchasing power of the middle class or the poor? The latter with lower-middle class never had enough money to make significant impact on the "economy" - only in the margins and the pandemic toll has been disproportionately large on them. This is the "dirty secret" of capital-based societies. They contribute to employment numbers and to death tolls but not to the money flow enough to affect economies. This is not new. This includes the vast mass of labor at entry level jobs and unskilled work that are often temporary and have suffered multiple localized up and down phases without bringing down the economy. So you can have bad employment numbers and the economy still not enter a recession or depression.I am not being heartless or cruel here. Just observing the reality.
Middle class people with salaried skilled jobs (not business owners) are affected by mass layoffs such as in a recession and can create a snow-ball effect as they stop buying which creates even more layoffs. This is the biggest risk factor to the economy in the developed world that is consumer-based. The pandemic demographics have not been as hard on this demographics proportionately and it is almost a self-contained system in keeping the consumer spending sufficient to avoid a recession. Lot of these people have jobs that don't necessarily require physical presence at a plant or an office and have adopted.
The biggest impact is on the small business owners who are unable to keep their stores/services open and lose their income even if not exposed to the virus. Yes, the closures affect the jobs they created but see above for the impact of that workforce who collectively aren't a significant portion of the economy because they are paid so little. So, would the affected small business owners bring down the economy? Not really. Their own spending contributions to the economy isn't all that much relative to the vast salaried middle class above and a lot of it goes into the capital markets that is doing fine sustaining it.
Some of them have been able to adopt. Some of them have been subsumed by alternate services (especially in retail) and some have just had to close. But a lot of these businesses are for discretionary items or travel and leisure, so it becomes a (business) localized downturn like a housing recession. These kinds of failures don't have leveraged risk or systemic risk on the whole economic like say the financial industry. The money not spent here gets spent elsewhere.
But the above class is also the most vocal because they form the backbone of the local chambers of commerce and politically they have been the most represented, partly from collective lobbying and partly from being the poster child for policy that in reality benefits large corporations more than small businesses which become the excuses for such policies.
In short, it is not how many local businesses close but whether we face a recession or worse from a significant consumer spending reduction. All indications for this holiday season seems to be that consumer spending will not slow to be critical. Why? Because of the large pool of salaried middle class that in some sense are self-sustaining the companies that pay their salaries because they have enough money to do so. This isn't necessarily immune, we almost had a recession with a crisis in confidence which affects consumer spending. But I don't see a direct relationship between lockdowns and recessions if you look closer at the segments - who is getting hit and how and what that segment means for the economy.
Just my own observations and assessment and obviously I am making capital decisions based on that keeping an eye out for any signs of recession and decrease in consumer spending. YMMV!
I am retired and whilst my pension has lost a lot of money I am fine.
What I shall find most interesting is how the longer term pans out for various countries.
Being in the UK I have little interest in the USA economy but a big interest in the World. Some countries have handled the epidemic very differently than others so the medium to long term influence on this will be an interesting lesson.
After the 1918 epidemic the countries which locked down earliest and hardest recovered quickest but a century later other influences have obviously overhauled these shorter term ones.
The collapse of lots of small traders may just be the acceleration of the inevitable forward march of huge on-line traders exploiting tax loopholes in different countries to keep prices low in a way locals can not and never will be able to.
Sad but inevitable.
What I shall find most interesting is how the longer term pans out for various countries.
Being in the UK I have little interest in the USA economy but a big interest in the World. Some countries have handled the epidemic very differently than others so the medium to long term influence on this will be an interesting lesson.
After the 1918 epidemic the countries which locked down earliest and hardest recovered quickest but a century later other influences have obviously overhauled these shorter term ones.
The collapse of lots of small traders may just be the acceleration of the inevitable forward march of huge on-line traders exploiting tax loopholes in different countries to keep prices low in a way locals can not and never will be able to.
Sad but inevitable.
In the second quarter the Dutch economy took a big hit, but in the third quarter the economy bounced back to just 3% below what we were at the beginning of the year. Unemployment has increased, but not dramatically so. The big and as yet unanswered question is how the fourth quarter will be. The infection rate started to increase dramatically in late August and early September, up to about 10000 a day, but the government waited too long with decisive restrictions (they now also admit). These were only introduced in October (bars, restaurants, theatres etc closed but not shops), and more so in early November. People have been advised very strongly to wear masks in shops etc, and almost everyone does (mandatory mask wearing needed a new law that will come into effect on 1 December). Since then infections have declined to about half that, so some of the restrictions have now been eased again. The regional differences are striking. Where we live in the North, the infection rate was never as high as elsewhere and in our town of some 250k inhabitants it is now down to about a dozen per day, but in the South it can easily be ten times more. Vaccination is likely to start late in December, or early January at the latest, along a recently established priority system, with the elderly and most vulnerable first.
My hunch is that economic data for the fourth quarter will not be too bad other than for the hospitality and people transport sectors. House prices have remained remarkably stable, and even continue to go up in some regions like ours, thanks in large part to cheap money. The long term impetus for recovery will have to come from research and investment in green technologies and conversion to sustainable energy. Until now our main source of energy for heating and electricity generation was natural gas of which we have a lot, and it has now been decided to stop that because if the increasingly serious earthquake issues that have resulted. So e.g. all homes will have to convert to sustainable sources, and that will be a quite massive undertaking.
My hunch is that economic data for the fourth quarter will not be too bad other than for the hospitality and people transport sectors. House prices have remained remarkably stable, and even continue to go up in some regions like ours, thanks in large part to cheap money. The long term impetus for recovery will have to come from research and investment in green technologies and conversion to sustainable energy. Until now our main source of energy for heating and electricity generation was natural gas of which we have a lot, and it has now been decided to stop that because if the increasingly serious earthquake issues that have resulted. So e.g. all homes will have to convert to sustainable sources, and that will be a quite massive undertaking.
Last edited:
nobodynoz
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Do you know that in Monaco - south east of France but they have their own laws... - everything is open, restaurants are full, shops, cinemas, theaters, no confinement but everyone must go home at 8PM. They have a lot less deaths for 1000 people than the rest of Europe.
Many French people are going to Monaco everyday cause there is no boarder...
Many French people are going to Monaco everyday cause there is no boarder...
Last edited:
Monaco is a small city state that exists because it is a tax friendly haven for the super rich. With only 38K of potentially highly mobile inhabitants any good statiscs will be hard to get, let alone interpret. However, the infection rate is only marginally lower than in my town in the Netherlands. Many restrictions are quite similar to ours, other than for restaurants, and since last week also for shops when our non vital shops were closed for the first time (we never had a real lockdown). I notice that just like us Monaco in recent weeks also witnessed a rapidly rising infection rate with nasty peaks, so if I were in charge, I would consider more severe restrictions. But who knows how many inhabitants have actually left the town for their country estates?
For an update on the Netherlands: once restrictions were eased the infection rate started to rise again, and quite badly, so new restrictions have been imposed once again until mid January, and more severe than ever. Christmas will be boring. Mortality remains lower than in the Spring, but is still about twice the normal level. Flights from the UK have just been suspended because of the reports on a new strain in that country.
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2019
- Messages
- 3,843
- Likes
- 3,790
The biggest impact is on the people who work in small cafes, bars, etc. The second biggest impact is on those small business owners who are unable to keep their stores/services open and lose their income even if not exposed to the virus.
I agree. The Dutch government has started various schemes to support these small shops and their often impermanent staff, but it is hard to implement. My fear is that our traditional infrastructure of small shops in the city centre will be badly eroded to the benefit of the likes of Amazon. That would really erode the quality of life in our traditionally urban culture. Bars and restaurants will come back, but small shops may not.
This time for the first time Dutch shops are also closed, unless for food and some other essentials. So when this was about to happen we decided to spend as much as we could in neighbourhood stores. Interestingly, however, many of these small stores already have websites and do internet sales. We are a very digital economy. As it so happens I have been buying quite a bit of audio gear over the last month, but all of it from the online portals of traditional brick and mortar shops.
nobodynoz
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Providing additional context for those who want to understand the actual New England Journal of Medicine + WHO study that was conducted.
- Study: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2023184 (December 2, 2020)
- Status
Similar threads
- Poll
