The Myth Of A Rapid Economic Recovery Once Quarentines Are Lifted

originally posted by: schmae
People will climb from their tombs and get manicures and new hairos and eat out and shop and spend every single penny they can get their hands on.

Maybe the people who have jobs will and then only at the businesses that survived the shutdown.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Exactly.

...and there's little wiggle room for the vast majority of them.

A good friend of mine, after thirty plus years of patronage in his book store, has gone under because of the closures mandated by our ever so concerned govt. After 40 years, through no fault of his own, he's gone under.

He won't be alone.

But, hey, we're all safe, right??? [/sarc]

a reply to: ketsuko

You're not alone in that.

Around here, the vast, vast majority of stores are small, even the box stores are smaller.

Thusly, as you probably know, they operate much closer to the edge. I've already heard that a dozen, or so, won't reopen. So more jobs lost that won't be there when this is over.

That pisses me off, and some politicians need to lose their jobs, too. I'll certainly be working to make that happen.

I think it is reasonable to say that in financial and economic terms we were already in dire straits globally last year, and there was no fix for the situation. Something very radical was required to re-set things, not as a recovery to return things to normal, but to completely change the financial and economic paradigm globally. This re-set will be very disruptive and destructive to all economies that were constantly hanging on by their fingernails.

Here in the UK, our Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, has stated that Britain's economy may shrink by 35%, a third of its GDP. For Europe, the lockdowns will cost it 9 trillion dollars. I would imagine things will be similar for America? It is all appallingly grim!

Of course, this is looking at countries individually, the figures are broadstrokes, but let us never forget that the effects are damaging to local economies within each country. Unemployment goes through the roof, literally. Firms shutdown never to re-open, and as that is happening, how does one apply for a job, when the job market has been utterly decimated? How do you retrain your skill sets when the courses to do so are devolved? Unless you are reasonably well off financially, or in some ways self-independent, one's future does not look promising. All aspects of social life have become expendable. While health is touted as being more important than the economy, no disruption or damage to the economy is too small or severe, and that is just for this round of viral outbreak. What about future ones? Millions are going to suffer economically and will find themselves living at levels of survival they had never contemplated of having to do so.

Societies are fine when they are ticking over, when most of us can go to work to earn money to pay for the things we have acquired, and things we need to buy daily, but all that has now changed. Societies are crashed, and have pretty much lost limbs to the crash, and you will not be able to get those limbs back, without something false and manufactured put in place.

Something will be put in place, something false and manufactured as part of the reset, but it will be much smaller than the economies we are used to. Deprivation will be rife in every country. People who had never thought that they would be reduced to such living will find themselves there.

The dire global situation imputes many things as to what we can expect. So many threads of disruption and damage that on the tapestry being weaved the picture emerging is so damn horrific.

originally posted by: seagull
Exactly.

...and there's little wiggle room for the vast majority of them.

I know the pizza place I frequent is just barely getting by. He was dine in only before the shutdown because of the style of pizza he made but now is doing take out only to try and keep the doors open.

3.5 million small businesses are at risk of closing.

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on small businesses’ revenue, and millions of Americans employed by our nation’s smallest businesses are at risk of unemployment as a result. Approximately 35.7 million Americans employed by small businesses appear to be at risk of unemployment.

Good times.

a reply to: elysiumfire

Anyone who thinks the economy is just going to pick up where it left off seriously has no understanding at all of the scope and extent of the damage this has done to the global economy. There will barely be a nation on earth untouched by it.

There may be an initial upsurge as people celebrate the lifting of the lockdown measures but local, national and international economics and trade etc rely on far more than goodwill and intent.

A friend and I have already drawn up plans for a couple of ventures in the local area when things start up again. This may entail renting/hiring properties from businesses that have gone bust or are really struggling.
However, after meeting expenses and a nominal fee each we fully intend to use all remaining profit to help small businesses in the area start up again.

It won't be a lot but we intend to try and help those in our community that deserve a little help.

I'm no economic know all - that's probably one of the last things anyone could describe me as - but even I know that its going to be very hard and take a long time to stimulate growth and trade on a national and global level and its well beyond my level of knowledge on how to make that happen.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

The argument will go as follows;

"You don't have someone dying from the virus you selfish bastard!"

. . . . . Which, incidentally, is the same application towards emotion that is used in gun-grabbing arguments.

"You didn't have someone close to you die because of gun violence!"

And the oft-used reply is, "No. Stop. This appeal to emotions is not rational. We have the Constitution which guarantees rights and the restriction of government to interfere with those rights."


This virus should be taken seriously. But it is not. It is being taken, emotionally.

Government "leaders" are reacting instead of being proactive.

They either can't see the end to this or don't want to.

Our economy is on a "vent" right now. And you have one side wanting to pull the plug and the other side saying it didn't need to be on one to begin with, if only we were smart in our responses.

Regardless, once off a "vent" you just can't go back to business as usual. You need to recover.

And you're really never the same again.

Funny you call it emotional, while we would see it as logical. While the rants you guys and gals go on about your "rights" would be seen as emotional thinking by us and logical by you. Two side of the same coin. We are all guilty of thinking emotionally, when something effects us emotionally. Whether you choose to admit it or not, your arguments are as just as emotionally based as ours are in the end.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Just wait until the second wave of this virus.

a reply to: filthyphilanthropist

At that point there should be an armed revolt if they try it again.

Freeborn:

It won't be a lot but we intend to try and help those in our community that deserve a little help.

Way to go Freeborn. Good thinking. Looking in a speculative way at what might be coming down the pipe at us, I am thinking that local communities need to band together and help all members of the community out. There needs to be instilled an impetus to bring out about communal self-dependency from the state, and to keep things small and manageable.

I don't think the real economic hardship has truly hit yet, as people are living on reserves, but wait until those run out due to not being able to replace them. I think this is the reason why they want to extend the lockdowns, they want people suffering in order to get compliance from the them to accept the third part of their problem, reaction, solution.

I'll be honest, I am pretty concerned for the immediate future, long-term doesn't bear thinking about.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Very true. The middle class is who I mean. I have seen so many posts of pictures of finger and toenails and how people cannot wait to get to the ' nail salon ' when this is over so I used that as the example. I just think folks will go out and over spend to compensate and ' feel better' not realizing it's close to their last dollars maybe for a very long time.

Here in the UK there is the idea everyone seems to have that as soon as the lock down is lifted everyone is going to have a big party and flood the pubs with their friends. They don't realise that things won't suddenly go back to normal. Then it got me thinking, the pub industry in the UK has been struggling for a very long time, they struggle to make any money even without social distancing rules. If they struggle during normal times then how are they going to manage when the government tells them that they have to limit the amount of customers allowed in their pub/bar at any given time? If they can't make a profit during social distancing measures which will last for a long time then there's no way they will just stay open. This is just one aspect of all of this. The economic impact is going to be devastating for so many different industries.

The old way wasn’t working. Americans wouldn’t know happiness if it bit them in the ass.

And there’s something depressing about your numbers.

I'm more optimistic, in ny it has not even been a full month of business closures.

If people are worried this early then they are weak.

American people are very resilient and hard working. If things go bad you wont find them ditching their country and moving elsewhere..they will rebuild and make America great and hygienic again.

originally posted by: Bloodworth
I'm more optimistic, in ny it has not even been a full month of business closures.

Goldman says downturn will be 4 times worse than housing crisis, then an 'unprecedented' recovery.

originally posted by: schmae
I have seen so many posts of pictures of finger and toenails and how people cannot wait to get to the ' nail salon ' when this is over so I used that as the example. I just think folks will go out and over spend to compensate and ' feel better' not realizing it's close to their last dollars maybe for a very long time.

They still cannot make up for lost appointments, that money is not going to the business owner.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I've seen their chess game..
Goldman wants us to dance like a bear and wait for the big blonde brute.

originally posted by: Slichter
I've seen their chess game..
Goldman wants us to dance like a bear and wait for the big blonde brute.

Yeah, Goldman said it, so everything must be just perfect than. Anything about the data they used or did you not bother reading the article or watching the video?

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I don't know what you're talking about, bro. I got my Trumpy bucks today. The recovery is now in full swing. (◔_◔)