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Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

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Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#81
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enormous liquidity injected into the system along with lower production suggests high inflation in the future after the crisis is over. Do you think that will likely happen? Note: Above is not a value judgement. The measure is necessary to prevent the system from completely breaking down.

To be honest, it seems that the basic tenants of inflation have been violated since the 2007/8 crisis and the subsequent massive influxes of liquidity (primarily through the various quantitative easing programmes), so I really cannot say with any certainty. There’s an enormous amount of money already sloshing around in the systems, and it seems to be pooling at the top (hence all the inequality). On one level, somebo…

A key reason why this time might be different: A call for helicopter money even among some fiscal conservatives.

Before this, such as in the 2008 crisis, much of the liquidity injection didn’t flow down the bottom part of economic hierarchy. Thus, they haven’t had much increased spending power. So, no inflation of common items. The prices of trophy and other assets preferred by the wealthy did rise up greatly in the past decade.

If the helicopter money plan actually happens in substantial quantity, then inflation of everyday items might occur this time.

Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#82
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely. One reason the Great Depression was so bad because there was an environmental catastrophe (the Dust Bowl) which made agriculture very hard at a time when agriculture was still a really, really big deal. The virus does not make normal economic activity particularly hard; we are avoiding economic activity for mostly humanitarian reasons, and we can resume economic activity either when everyone gas been infect…

The Great Depression was global. It affected much more than the US. The dust bowl was local colour. The premise of your entire analysis is faulty.

The Great Depression was global, but much of the damage was US-led, so the factors that made it a great depression, not just another footnote in economic history, are relevant worldwide. The world economy was already integrating, particularly in the areas of banking and finance, so US monetary tightening affected many European economies and currencies, causing crises in European banks and currencies worldwide. Meanwhile foreign direct investment from the US dried up, neutralizing what had been a major source of European productivity growth in that era.

Today, everyone's quit the gold standard and the forex situation is very different, blunting impacts of wild currency movements. US and European banks are not at risk of bank runs (as they are stabilized by general government policy and specific interventions), and whatever chaos we see, a ~35% contraction in the supply of USD is not on the table. If we are beset by deflation it's going to be puny in comparison.

It is worth mentioning that the Depression was also associated with major breakdowns in international trade, in part due to lots of tariffs. The bad news is we're tariff-happy again, but not as bad as Smoot-Hawley for now? The protectionist impulse bears monitoring.

And I'll finally clarify that we will still have a recession, and it might be pretty nasty. It's just not going to be Great Depression bad where we can't recover for a decade, not with just what's happened so far.

Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#83

Hopefully everyone will keep in mind that bailouts should go to the citizenry at large to resurrect demand, not to large multinationals which need to pay off debt they should have never incurred in the first place (and which was spent on high-risk growth projects or shareholder buybacks). "Take Boeing. The aerospace giant of course wants a $60 billion bailout. Financial problems for this corporation predated the cris…

Exactly this. This is not a financial crisis, corporations bailout without Demand will do nothing and we’ll have wasted all that money.

Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#84
Last crisis (Spanish flu) caused a 5% decrease in global GDP and that was without widespread shutdowns and an already depressed GDP from the first world war.

I think realistically the drop in demand, the onslaught of bankruptcies, the stopping of lending and the depletion of consumers' and corporate cash savings will lead to a prolonged recession of at least 5% GDP decrease.

On the upside, climate change is now within bounds for the coming years.

Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#85
post #78
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand i predict there will be a huge surge in tourism and partying. Also, not everyone has insufficient savings.

I am willing to bet more than 50% of people have not enough saving for a crisis long 8-12 months

That’s an easy prediction I think nearly half of Americans don’t have 500 in savings. That number is 80-90%

Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#86
post #61
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add that even after the crisis is more under control, people will still avoid any not necessary spending for a very long time and this will keep the economy to restart. Also most of them will have depleated all savings at that point and will want to rebuild them aggressively, further reducing spending

On the other hand i predict there will be a huge surge in tourism and partying. Also, not everyone has insufficient savings.

68% of Americans dont have enough to cover a $500 surprise bill [0]. A lot will rely on credit availability which will worse that impending crisis.

0: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-...

Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#87
post #78
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand i predict there will be a huge surge in tourism and partying. Also, not everyone has insufficient savings.

I am willing to bet more than 50% of people have not enough saving for a crisis long 8-12 months

More than 50% of Americans making less than $50K say they can't afford to miss a single paycheck.

About 30% say they have absolutely zero emergency savings.

I would expect that the number of working Americans with emergency savings to cover even six months of expenses is fewer than 1 in 10.

Granted, there are options such as HELOC, tapping 401k, etc.

But most of us are grasshoppers, not ants.

Granted,

Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#88

The more the economic crisis worsens, and the more people have to watch their parents and grandparents die prematurely, the more virulent the global anti-China sentiment will get. The #fuckchina hashtag is really popular (not trending though, probably due to censorship) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23fuckchina&src=typed_query&f=... I don't think the CCP realizes yet just how harsh the backlash is going t…

Really? I understand that Trump is pushing a lot of anti-chinese rethoric, but outside of the US the optics are pretty different.

https://www.newsweek.com/chinese-company-donates-tens-thousa...

Chinese companies are sending stocks of masks to help Italy to recover.

https://mobile.twitter.com/heylauragao/status/12386016724542...

China is also sharing the expertise of their medical team with Italy...

Compare with the US:

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/03/us-air-force-flew...

They deprived Italy of half a million testing kits, in the area in which they are most needed!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/not-for-sale-a...

And they're trying to deny the vaccine to other countries...

If anything, I expect people to be furious at the US, after this whole event will be over.

Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#89
post #15

I've heard economic forecasters predict that the economy will spring back once the crisis is over. Their reasoning is that the crisis is an external issue, not a problem with the economy itself, as with the housing crisis. Once it becomes more contained and controlled, there will be work for people to do, and people available to do that work, and the economy will just start humming along again. I'm more pessimistic.…

During the Great Recession my employer at the time laid off a large percentage of our staff that they had wanted to layoff for a long time. Due to the nature of their industry, the appearance of stability was very important so they never did layoffs before. Any accumulated excess workforce had to be reduced through attrition or gross misconduct excessive enough for warrant being fired for cause. During the recession…

> accumulated excess workforce

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Re: Ask HN: How bad will the 2020 economic crisis be?

#90
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think that will happen. China will clean up the root cause of the virus quickly (wild animal markets). They seem to have the outbreak under control now, are ramping up production again and are in excellent position to help other countries dealing with the crisis now, which is exactly what they are doing: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/16/africa/jack-ma-donate-mas... https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-doctors…

The Chinese have apparently quit testing, so naturally it seems they have it 'under control' since they report zero new cases (detected). And the live-animal markets have produced disease before, every year in fact for decades, and not been 'cleaned up' so far. I have little confidence in any of that happening. I have no problem with the Chinese as people, but their current government is not to be admired.

> The Chinese have apparently quit testing, so naturally it seems they have it 'under control' since they report zero new cases (detected).

That's patently untrue

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/coronavirus/bay-area-woman-f...

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