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Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#51

Post by elihu »

baby wrote: post #15
mLuby wrote: post #2

And yet the stock market is already recovering. I guess "worst crisis since Great Depression" has been priced in?

The increase we’ve seen in the last two weeks make zero sense to me. It’s almost making me lose trust in the market as I feel like it’s rigged. We’re in a complete state of unknown, nobody knows when this will be over, unemployment raises like crazy, the US now realizes that coronavirus is hitting them the hardest...

It doesn't make much sense to me either, but I have a couple theories. One is that the spending bill that made it through congress and/or action by the Federal Reserve have caused a temporary bump. Another is that the infection rates in the U.S. have slowed somewhat and this is being interpreted (correctly or incorrectly) that we're at or near the infection peak, and that the worst-case scenario is probably averted. A third theory is that even with all that's happening, most people who had money before all of this began still have money, and they're using it to buy stocks while they're on sale.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#52

Post by sahil-kang »

swsieber wrote: post #32

At what point does fallout from trying to avoid covid-19 deaths cause more deaths than covid-19. We're talking domestic violence, starvation abroad (due to local hoarding, which has begun), and actual crop failure (due to a shortage of transient labor). There's also suicide, depression, etc. I'm not even saying let up on all the social distancing measures. I think social distancing measures are good, but perhaps over…

Can you share sources/data showing some of the fallout from covid-19 mitigation efforts?

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#53

Post by jdc »

swsieber wrote: post #32

At what point does fallout from trying to avoid covid-19 deaths cause more deaths than covid-19. We're talking domestic violence, starvation abroad (due to local hoarding, which has begun), and actual crop failure (due to a shortage of transient labor). There's also suicide, depression, etc. I'm not even saying let up on all the social distancing measures. I think social distancing measures are good, but perhaps over…

I can't help but think we could close a lot less shops if everyone wore (even sub-N95) masks

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#54

Post by vvanders »

blhack wrote: post #43
andbberger wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US's response could not be described as anything even approaching competent. This is still just getting started. Let's check back in a few months and see how this comment has aged...

What should the US have done that other countries are doing? We closed travel early, we started closing businesses early, and we hold daily press conferences with multiple medical and financial experts that are directly informing the entire population of what measures they should be taking. edit: it seems like the general response to "what should we have done" is "the federal government should have shut down travel/b…

Not suspending federal support for testing would go a long way.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#55

Post by lisper »

mLuby wrote: post #2

And yet the stock market is already recovering. I guess "worst crisis since Great Depression" has been priced in?

Stock prices are being propped up in part by easy credit from the Fed, which is a very dangerous position to be in. If investors get spooked at all, the unwinding of this credit bubble will get very ugly very fast.

The fact of the matter is that Covid-19 is causing a substantial real loss of productive capacity, and barring some unforeseen breakthrough in treatment options, this is likely to continue for at least a year, possibly two or more. So I'd be very careful not to take too much comfort in the DJIA chart at the moment.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#56

Post by birken »

swsieber wrote: post #32

At what point does fallout from trying to avoid covid-19 deaths cause more deaths than covid-19. We're talking domestic violence, starvation abroad (due to local hoarding, which has begun), and actual crop failure (due to a shortage of transient labor). There's also suicide, depression, etc. I'm not even saying let up on all the social distancing measures. I think social distancing measures are good, but perhaps over…

If you just let the virus run its course you would have so many extremely sick people at once that it would overrun the health care systems in every country. Many more people than just COVID patients would die, and the death rate of COVID patients would go way up due to inadequate care.

The fallout from letting the virus run its course is way beyond taking the current rates and extrapolating to the entire worldwide population.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#57

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

blhack wrote: post #27
baby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The increase we’ve seen in the last two weeks make zero sense to me. It’s almost making me lose trust in the market as I feel like it’s rigged. We’re in a complete state of unknown, nobody knows when this will be over, unemployment raises like crazy, the US now realizes that coronavirus is hitting them the hardest...

The increase in the last two weeks is because it's becoming obvious that: 1) The US's response to this was competent. 2) The measures put in place are working. 3) The projections are improving substantially . 4) The time horizon is shrinking. 5) We are starting to understand how to treat this. (+ "in the us"). Two weeks ago we were looking at places like Italy, and extrapolating that the US could see deaths in the mi…

Manufacturing will be moving to places like Vietnam and Malaysia. Nothing significant is going to be domesticated. The vaunted Foxconn factory in Wisconsin is still vapor. China would have already had it done and running.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#58

Post by _delirium »

blhack wrote: post #43
andbberger wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US's response could not be described as anything even approaching competent. This is still just getting started. Let's check back in a few months and see how this comment has aged...

What should the US have done that other countries are doing? We closed travel early, we started closing businesses early, and we hold daily press conferences with multiple medical and financial experts that are directly informing the entire population of what measures they should be taking. edit: it seems like the general response to "what should we have done" is "the federal government should have shut down travel/b…

We still haven't really closed travel: even the source of the biggest current outbreak, NYC, still has airports operating! And not only for medical flights... you can just buy yourself a plane ticket from NYC to Miami if you want to visit. The first significant US outbreak was in Washington state in February, and there were no real travel-restriction measures to/from the Seattle area back then either, which is part of how it spread across the country. It probably wouldn't be possible to do a China-style quarantine of an entire region, like the way they completely locked down travel to/from Hubei, but we didn't do anything even 25% of the way there... SeaTac kept operating for weeks as if there was no issue, with large volumes of passengers exiting the source of the then-biggest outbreak.

We were also quite late on shutting down businesses, although some places later than others. Fairly high-ranking officials (the Oklahoma governor, the NYC mayor, etc.) were openly encouraging people to go out to big events as late as mid-March, weeks after there was evidence of community spread.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#59

Post by cycrutchfield »

blhack wrote: post #43
andbberger wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US's response could not be described as anything even approaching competent. This is still just getting started. Let's check back in a few months and see how this comment has aged...

What should the US have done that other countries are doing? We closed travel early, we started closing businesses early, and we hold daily press conferences with multiple medical and financial experts that are directly informing the entire population of what measures they should be taking. edit: it seems like the general response to "what should we have done" is "the federal government should have shut down travel/b…

How about waiting for 4-6 weeks while the CDC shipped a buggy test before we started actually ramping up testing. We could have had a trajectory like South Korea.

Re: Worst economic crisis since 1930s depression, IMF says

#60

Post by threeseed »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #42
swsieber wrote: post #32

At what point does fallout from trying to avoid covid-19 deaths cause more deaths than covid-19. We're talking domestic violence, starvation abroad (due to local hoarding, which has begun), and actual crop failure (due to a shortage of transient labor). There's also suicide, depression, etc. I'm not even saying let up on all the social distancing measures. I think social distancing measures are good, but perhaps over…

I am sure a lot of politicians are struggling with this decision right now.

Not really.

Consensus from almost all countries is that you need to quarantine and shut down the economy in order to beat this. Those that believed that they could get around this with herd immunity are either paying a huge price (UK) or about to (Sweden).

And those politicians that took hard measures actually have been rewarded (Australia) and those that didn't punished (UK, US).

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