Economic numbers as grim as the toll: The immediate and forecast economic damage from the novel coronavirus pandemic is clearer each day, with 22 million Americans now registered as unemployed — up 5.2 million in a week and effectively ending the decade-long economic boom which almost eliminated unemployment and sent markets to record highs. (The Washington Post)
Asia can’t help us this time: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted the most dramatic fall in global output since the 1930s. It forecast historically fast-growing Asian economies won’t be able to pull the rest of the world out of the doldrums this time, with zero growth predicted this year for the first time in 60 years. (Reuters)
Second waves: Japan extended its state of emergency and Singapore announced a big jump in detected cases. (The Guardian)
Quote du jour: “This is not a time for business as usual. Asian countries need to use all policy instruments in their toolkits,” said Changyong Rhee, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific department. (The Guardian)
Losers and winners: Equities markets which have proven both resilient and somewhat volatile from the news flow of the pandemic, eased on the employment news from the United States and the wider market with Boeing and Airbus both hit hard, while the Nasdaq had modest gains, with Amazon and Netflix gaining from lockdowns. (Reuters).
Hard to know where anyone stands: “We are still struggling to grab a foothold on the deterioration of what’s going on,” Andrew Smith, chief investment officer at Delos Capital Advisors in Dallas, told Reuters.
Comeback kid? US President Donald Trump told a news conference he expected to announce a recovery plan on Friday (New Zealand Time) that would restart the engine of the US economy.
‘We’re gonna do it soon’: “We’ll be the comeback kids – all of us … Tomorrow’s going to be a very big day … We’ll have some openings that will exceed our expectations. And they’ll be safe, they’ll be strong, but we want to get our country back. We’re going to do it, and we’re gonna do it soon.” (The Guardian)
Macron joins calls to rethink world economy: In an interview with The Financial Times, French President Emmanuel Macron, joined the Pope and other leaders calling for an urgent rethink of the global economy and behaviour in response to the pandemic, saying: “We are all embarking on the unthinkable.”
“We all face the profound need to invent something new, because that is all we can do,” he said.
Macron urged the European Union to create an enormous fund to support its hardest-hit members such as Italy and Spain but also to support African countries struggling to cope with the pandemic and the economic fallout. Days after saying global supply chains dependent on China had to change, he also questioned whether China had been transparent about the impact of the virus there. (The Financial Times).
Quote du jour: “I don’t know if we are at the beginning or the middle of this crisis — no one knows. There is lots of uncertainty and that should make us very humble.”
Covid-19 numbers game leaves much unsaid: The inexorable ticker of doom from Johns Hopkins University ground on with 2,113,226 cases reported as of early on Friday New Zealand Time. The United States accounted for 648,788 of those cases, ahead of Spain where new cases appear to be stabilising somewhat at 182,816. Global deaths stood at 140,371 with 26,708 of those in the United States.
Longer lockdowns: New York extended its lockdown to May 15 and the United Kingdom said it was extending its lockdown for another three weeks.
‘We can’t relax’ “The government has decided that the current measures must remain in place for at least the next three weeks,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, deputising for recovering Prime Minister Boris Johnson, told a news conference. Health experts had advised, he said, that “relaxing any of the measures in place” would “undo the progress we have made” and would “risk damage to both public health and the economy”. (The Guardian).
How disinformation works: no evidence, no worries: Trump gave an object lesson in how disinformation works from the top, using a White House news conference to give credence to the unproven theory that the novel coronavirus emerged in a Chinese laboratory, saying ““more and more we’re hearing the story”. (The Guardian) The US military has said natural origin was more likely.
Before digesting that you might like to read our earlier commentary on disinformation: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them*
