{"id":52638,"date":"2020-04-19T08:22:12","date_gmt":"2020-04-19T13:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=52638"},"modified":"2020-04-29T08:28:39","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T13:28:39","slug":"when-economic-depression-follows-pandemic-no-time-to-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=52638","title":{"rendered":"When Economic Depression Follows Pandemic, No Time to Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Economic Depression Follows Pandemic, No Time to Waste<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What the Bank of Canada and IMF see coming will demand bold stimulus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ClubMonacoRobsonBoardedUp.jpg\"\/
On Vancouver\u2019s Robson Street, the Club Monaco outlet is boarded up to prevent looting. Photo by Joshua Berson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is still sinking in that the end of the pandemic will not be the end of our troubles. On the contrary \u2014 we will likely see the end of the pandemic overlap with a full-scale economic depression, with COVID-19 waiting to make recurrent comebacks. Amid a global economic collapse, Canada will have to postpone hopes of recovery; for the foreseeable future, we will be in damage-control mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IMF\u2019s best-case scenario assumes that the pandemic \u201cfades\u201d in the second half of 2020, and \u201ccontainment efforts can be gradually unwound,\u201d permitting some economic rebuilding. Even so, \u201cthe global economy is projected to contract sharply by -3 per cent in 2020, much worse than during the 2008-09 financial crisis.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strikingly, the IMF implicitly endorses a program that is socialist in all but name:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe immediate priority is to contain the fallout from the COVID-19 outbreak, especially by increasing health-care expenditures to strengthen the capacity and resources of the health-care sector while adopting measures that reduce contagion. Economic policies will also need to cushion the impact of the decline in activity on people, firms and the financial systems reduce persistent scarring effects from the unavoidable severe slowdown; and ensure that the economic recovery can begin quickly once the pandemic fades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IMF approves such policies in many of the advanced countries as well as in China, Indonesia and South Africa. It argues that \u201cBroad-based fiscal stimulus can preempt a steeper decline in confidence, lift aggregate demand, and avert an even deeper downturn. But it would most likely be more effective once the outbreak fades and people are able to move about freely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best-case scenario?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Economic Depression Follows Pandemic, No Time to Waste What the Bank of Canada and IMF see coming will demand bold stimulus. It is still sinking in that the end of the pandemic will not be the end of our troubles. On the contrary \u2014 we will likely see the end of the pandemic overlap […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[942,11528,2310,434,1234,855],"class_list":["post-52638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-bank-of-canada","tag-crawford-kilian","tag-depression","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-stimulus","tag-viral-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52639,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52638\/revisions\/52639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}