R Is for Recession Unless We Can Go Below 1
The chances of avoiding a double dip could depend on keeping patients in the Sun Belt alive in the next few weeks.
America won’t reopen much more until people believe the pandemic is under control.
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The pandemic continues to be as divisive a subject as it is possible to imagine, and it might yet — as the economist Gavyn Davies says — inflict a double-dip recession on us all. The problem isn’t necessarily whether to issue official stay-at-home orders, or reopen schools, but that a failure to beat the coronavirus has a chilling effect on economic activity. Exhibit a) is the extraordinary difference in the return to restaurants in Germany (which appears to have the virus relatively under control) and the U.S. (which does not). This chart is from George Saravelos of Deutsche Bank AG: