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The economy is rather aggressively recovering. Unless the US has to do a full lockdown again, it's likely to continue to recover gradually. That makes sense giv

The economy is rather aggressively recovering. Unless the US has to do a full lockdown again, it's likely to continue to recover gradually. That makes sense given the recession was induced by a forced shutdown, it wasn't caused by eg the business cycle or the crash of an epic asset bubble (as in the great recession). There is no great reason to think median and higher income jobs will be hammered while the economy is in recovery mode (and lower income job openings are also soaring). The US is back up to 5.8 million job openings, up from around 5 million at the bottom. By contrast, at the bottom of the great recession there were only ~2.3 million job openings. This recession has been a far weaker hit to the overall job market, very sharp and short as one would expect from a temporary forced shutdown. Americans are finally doing what they should have been doing months ago - wearing masks, social distancing better, being more pragmatic regarding the pandemic, which has resulted in the case numbers being cut in half from the peak five weeks ago (along with a correlating large plunge in hospitalizations). If people ingrain that behavior, it'll be very helpful through the Winter, when the Covid mortality rate is likely to spike higher (ie it may help avoid another full lockdown, better bridging the economy from here to a vaccine). There is an old quip (possibly incorrectly attributed to Winston Churchill) about Americans eventually doing the right thing after trying everything else, that appears to again apply with the pandemic.

chiefalchemist 6y ago
> There is no great reason to think median and higher income jobs will be hammered while the economy is in recovery mode (and lower income job openings are also soaring). That's a big brush statement considering we've never done a shutdown like this before. Sure, it can inch back but consumer confidence is essential. It's difficult to imagine confidence growing when approx half the population is going to be sold a vision of unrest, distrust, mismanagement, and so on. A self-fulfilling prophecy isn't out of the question.
puranjay 6y ago
I'm bullish on the economy. Outside of tourism and live entertainment, I don't see any industry taking a massive hit. I'd even say that tourism will bounce back much faster than expectations. Over the last few weeks, I've realized that people are okay with the risk in exchange for getting back their normal lives. Six months into the pandemic, it's also clear that while it is serious, it isn't the civilization ending pandemic we initially thought it was.
- ckdarby 6y ago
  > it isn't the civilization ending pandemic we initially thought it was If you look at the USA age distribution of 65+, the death rate of those above 65+, and assume 50% only get it because herd immunity we're talking about ~4M deaths. Yes, not civilization ending but Losing >1% of your population isn't something to just brush off either. Of course if there's a vaccine then it'll be much better but this is just the USA and now think on a global scale. Not all countries will be able to afford the vaccine, not all countries will be able to get access to it in time, not all countries will be able to produce it by themselves at scale, etc. Let it sink in what a 1% population loss looks like on a global scale, 78M deaths. I think this is why the markets have been so bullish. How much financially better do developed countries with retirement plans look if they didn't have to pay out ~7% less of all retirement payments.
- ir77 6y ago
  i don't think you understand how broad the word "tourism" is. in march, worldwide air travel was down almost 95%. even now it's still down about 60-75%. these are staggering numbers, that have and will have staggering effects. think how many people go into building, maintaining and flying a simple airbus 320. everyone from airbus, to its engineers, suppliers, everyone on delta, etc., is absolutely impacted if that plane is not flying. this trickles down into private travel which hits even more well paying jobs that build/maintain/support/fly those aircraft. travel is simply not some dumpy motel in some dumpy town going out of business, travel/tourism has tremendous implications.
  - eli_gottlieb 6y ago
    Yeah, every single academic conference has gone virtual for the entire year. I can't leave the state and come back without having to quarantine for two weeks. Long-distance travel is down.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      From what I've seen, all going well most professional events business (and a great deal of other business travel) is completely shutdown for the next 12 months. That will have huge downstream effects.
TheCowboy 6y ago
The recession was caused by a pandemic, not a forced shutdown. Even if you want to point at lockdowns as the cause, it is an empirical fact that the decrease in public foot traffic happened prior to any lockdown and continues for a large % of the population. The pandemic didn't disappear and people getting sick will continue to drag on the economy until it's manageable.
- twblalock 6y ago
  > Even if you want to point at lockdowns as the cause, it is an empirical fact that the decrease in public foot traffic happened prior to any lockdown and continues for a large % of the population. The pandemic didn't disappear and people getting sick will continue to drag on the economy until it's manageable. Look at how people are behaving in states that re-opened. Given the clear evidence of human behavior it is ridiculous to assert that a recession caused by the pandemic alone would have been as bad as the recession caused by government-enforced lockdowns. People are not acting like they are afraid. Maybe they are being stupid but that's not the point -- the point is that consumers are acting like there is no virus, and it was the government lockdown, not consumer behavior, that really hurt businesses. People were living normal lives until the day the lockdowns started, and they resumed living the same way the day the lockdowns ended, despite the clear risks to their health.

chiefalchemist 6y ago

> There is no great reason to think median and higher income jobs will be hammered while the economy is in recovery mode (and lower income job openings are also soaring). That's a big brush statement considering we've never done a shutdown like this before. Sure, it can inch back but consumer confidence is essential. It's difficult to imagine confidence growing when approx half the population is going to be sold a vision of unrest, distrust, mismanagement, and so on. A self-fulfilling prophecy isn't out of the question.

puranjay 6y ago

I'm bullish on the economy. Outside of tourism and live entertainment, I don't see any industry taking a massive hit. I'd even say that tourism will bounce back much faster than expectations. Over the last few weeks, I've realized that people are okay with the risk in exchange for getting back their normal lives. Six months into the pandemic, it's also clear that while it is serious, it isn't the civilization ending pandemic we initially thought it was.

ckdarby 6y ago
> it isn't the civilization ending pandemic we initially thought it was If you look at the USA age distribution of 65+, the death rate of those above 65+, and assume 50% only get it because herd immunity we're talking about ~4M deaths. Yes, not civilization ending but Losing >1% of your population isn't something to just brush off either. Of course if there's a vaccine then it'll be much better but this is just the USA and now think on a global scale. Not all countries will be able to afford the vaccine, not all countries will be able to get access to it in time, not all countries will be able to produce it by themselves at scale, etc. Let it sink in what a 1% population loss looks like on a global scale, 78M deaths. I think this is why the markets have been so bullish. How much financially better do developed countries with retirement plans look if they didn't have to pay out ~7% less of all retirement payments.
ir77 6y ago
i don't think you understand how broad the word "tourism" is. in march, worldwide air travel was down almost 95%. even now it's still down about 60-75%. these are staggering numbers, that have and will have staggering effects. think how many people go into building, maintaining and flying a simple airbus 320. everyone from airbus, to its engineers, suppliers, everyone on delta, etc., is absolutely impacted if that plane is not flying. this trickles down into private travel which hits even more well paying jobs that build/maintain/support/fly those aircraft. travel is simply not some dumpy motel in some dumpy town going out of business, travel/tourism has tremendous implications.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  Yeah, every single academic conference has gone virtual for the entire year. I can't leave the state and come back without having to quarantine for two weeks. Long-distance travel is down.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    From what I've seen, all going well most professional events business (and a great deal of other business travel) is completely shutdown for the next 12 months. That will have huge downstream effects.

TheCowboy 6y ago

The recession was caused by a pandemic, not a forced shutdown. Even if you want to point at lockdowns as the cause, it is an empirical fact that the decrease in public foot traffic happened prior to any lockdown and continues for a large % of the population. The pandemic didn't disappear and people getting sick will continue to drag on the economy until it's manageable.

twblalock 6y ago
> Even if you want to point at lockdowns as the cause, it is an empirical fact that the decrease in public foot traffic happened prior to any lockdown and continues for a large % of the population. The pandemic didn't disappear and people getting sick will continue to drag on the economy until it's manageable. Look at how people are behaving in states that re-opened. Given the clear evidence of human behavior it is ridiculous to assert that a recession caused by the pandemic alone would have been as bad as the recession caused by government-enforced lockdowns. People are not acting like they are afraid. Maybe they are being stupid but that's not the point -- the point is that consumers are acting like there is no virus, and it was the government lockdown, not consumer behavior, that really hurt businesses. People were living normal lives until the day the lockdowns started, and they resumed living the same way the day the lockdowns ended, despite the clear risks to their health.