Here's our summary of key economic events over the weekend that affect New Zealand, with news it's a topsy-turvey world and the big drivers of global economic activity are not helping.
While the world is focused on social injustice protests, and the coronavirus, the bond market has been moving quickly with falling prices for long term bonds, and rising yields.
It seems investors are moving back into equities as the mood lifts about restarting major economies. If it lasts, this will have an unfortunate impact on government budget deficits that have mushroomed recently to battle the economic impacts of the pandemic. Sharply higher liabilities combined with interest rates that have almost doubled from very low levels, will eat into tax revenues very fast. Yes, central banks can create new money to buy increasing amounts of government debt, but obviously they can't do that forever. And if markets push bond interest rates higher, the taxpayer will need to shoulder an increasing load just to make the interest payments.
In the world's largest bond market, the US, the Federal Reserve has been much less active in the past few weeks, as evidenced by a noticeable slowdown in the growth of its balance sheet. Last week it reported growth of +US$68 bln taking the four-week total growth to +US$444 bln. That is far slower growth than in the same four weeks a month ago when it rose +US$638 bln. The rise in March was +US$1.6 tln.
Investors are starting to assume the Fed will adopt the Japanese tactic soon of setting target interest rates for benchmark bonds and flooding issuance if market pressure raises them at a pace the US Government can't afford.
In a surprising announcement, the US Administration reported that "nonfarm payroll employment rose by +2.5 million in May, and the unemployment rate declined to 13.3%". Markets were anticipating further deterioration of -8 mln jobs and a 20% jobless rate. Apparently, no one noticed a jobs hiring spree in May and a minor rise in their participation rate - until Saturday. The private sector monitoring of the same labour market, and the rising layoff levels are apparently 'fake news'. The "greatest comeback in American history" didn't see any improvement for Black or Latino Americans however, intensifying the dubiousness of the reported data.
To be fair, the US Agency responsible for the May payrolls data have cautioned that data-collection issues that have plagued them throughout the crisis, continued in May.
But Wall Street ignored those caveats and jumped higher anyway on the news, with the S&P500 up +2.6% and a weekly rise of +5%.
But the US Fed didn't get the message. It reported that consumer debt fell at a remarkable -20% annual rate.
Across the northern border, they too reported labour market data that was more optimistic than expected but the effect was within normal statistical tolerances. Employment grew marginally in May from April.
Back in the US, China is apparently canceling purchases of US farm commodities. They imported only US$9 bln from the US in May while exporting US$37 bln to them. That is behind a huge -16% fall in May imports, which along with a smaller-that-expected -3% fall in exports, boosted the Chinese trade surplus in May to +US$63 bln. It also helped them report an unexpected rise in foreign exchange reserves to US$3.1 tln at a time most analysts were expecting a decline after a general depreciation of the yuan.
But despite the low level of imports, China's recovery seems to on track. New personal loan lending, including credit card loans and consumer loans, shows signs of improvement in May. In particular, home mortgage loans in some regions have recovered to pre-coronavirus levels.
And the latest data from the Chinese central bank indicates that assets of the Chinese financial sector exceeded US$$47 tln in the first quarter of 2020, up almost +10% from a year ealier. Chinese banks apparently have assets equal to two thirds of global GDP. If you find that hard to believe, you won't be helped by official data that shows the total assets of all American commercial banks is now just over US$17 tln.
Not only are iron ore prices rising on rising demand, but so are copper prices now.
China however is advising its citizens not to travel to Australia, in an escalation of the trade and security tiff between them. Beijing says the risks of "discrimination and violence" against its citizens is high at present. That will restrain the flow of students at Australian universities. But there is some [minor?] evidence that those who were aiming for American, British or Australian universities may transfer their focus to ... New Zealand.
If the UK also moves to block Huawei from bidding on its G5 contracts, that is likely to ruin HSBC's Hong Kong and China business, the bank is reported as claiming, and especially after Britain moved to offer Hong Kongers a path to citizenship in England.
Singapore is reporting that retail sales fell a remarkable -40% in April as their lockdown bit. In May they are reporting that Singapore banks attracted rising deposits from protest-hit Hong Kong. Record inflows follow unrest in their rival.
Meanwhile in Japan, they are reporting the largest decline in household spending since 2001 when their data on this was first collated.
The latest compilation of Covid-19 data is here. The global tally is now 6,855,900 which is up +152,000 in a day, still rising at an increasing pace. India and Russia are reporting more than 10,000 new cases a day. Brazil is reporting more than 30,000 a day. Global deaths are now over 401,000.
Just under 28% of all cases globally are in the US, which is up just +8,000 since this time yesterday to 1,927,400. This is also a slower rate of increase. US deaths are now exceed 110,000.
In Australia, there have been 7260 cases (+5 since yesterday and +9 over the weekend), 102 deaths (unchanged) and a recovery rate of just over 92% (unchanged). 18 people are in hospital there (-3) with 3 in ICU (-1). There are now 455 active cases in Australia (-5).
There were zero cases again yesterday in New Zealand, so now only one person is left with it in the whole country. We are now at sixteen days with zero new cases.
The iron ore price is ignoring official Chinese warnings about a frenzy and is higher yet again today, and on high volumes of trades. Thermal coal prices are being ignored by buyers, dropping to ten year lows. Mines are shutting.
The UST 10yr yield is up +8 bps at 0.89%. For the full week, it is up a remarkable +26 bps as investors start pricing risk back into American Government debt - in fact, long term debt from all governments. Their 2-10 curve has steepened further to +69 bps. Their 1-5 curve is also steeper at +29 bps, and their 3m-10yr curve is now up at +77 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr yield is up another +6 bps to 1.14%. The China Govt 10yr is up too, by another +3 bps to 2.88%. And the NZ Govt 10 yr yield is also firmer, up +6 bps to 0.99%.
The gold price started a yo-yo ride at the end of last week with large falls then rises. Since Friday, it is down -US$40 to US$1,681/oz.
Oil prices will start the week sharply higher. The US crude price is up about +US$2 to just on US$39.50/bbl. The Brent price is up to just over US$42/bbl.
And the Kiwi dollar has risen further. We are now just on 65.1 USc, another +½c gain and the last time we were this high was at the end of January. On the cross rates we are to 93.4 AUc and a one month high. Against the euro we have are up almost +1c to 57.6 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 has moved up to 69.8.
Bitcoin is lower than this time Saturday, down -2.5% to US$9,504. The bitcoin rate is charted in the exchange rate set below.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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124 Comments
Interesting.
I went to two open homes on the weekend and they were rammed almost exclusively with (what I assume were) fellow FHBs (they were depressingly mostly much younger than me...). The house we were interested in had been on the market less than a week and was already under offer prior to the first open home. I suspect the offer is 10% over CV.
Interesting isn't it. We were out shopping a couple of times in the weekend and it was pretty mental.
In terms of the housing market, I have always said damage is likely to be minimised (note 'minimised' not 'avoided') by two key factors. Firstly, very low interest rates which will go lower still. Secondly, much but far from all unemployment will be focussed on younger and poorer people and working visas, most of whom don't own and effectively can't own.
Of course there will also be significant but much lower job losses in the professional classes which will have some impact on the market. Also, and perhaps to a greater extent, salary reductions which could last another 6-12 months.
That's why I am sticking to moderate overall average fall of 10-15%. But there will be some areas of carnage such as CBD apartments, and some areas where there are minimal falls.
AspiringHO
Just a further anecdotal comment;
Your comments are consistent with those I heard from an Auckland based mortgage broker (family so with no vested interest in any spin) over the weekend in answer to my query as to what they currently happening in the Auckland market. Comment was that there was seemingly reasonable level of activity including from FHB and prices consistent with pre-lockdown. However, did comment that there remains some uncertainty over the medium term.
FHB here - I went to three open homes in central Auckland (Grey Lynn, Sandringham, Eden Terrace) yesterday. None of the houses appealed to me, and even if they did, I was just browsing. Activity at an open home is no indication of activity in a market. There will no doubt be plenty of others like myself 'just having a look'.
I went to three open homes around central Auckland yesterday. Rvs around $1M. Seemed to be very little activity (2 or 3 other groups when there) and agents pushing for quick sales or auctions. Most of the viewers were aged +50.
Walked away uninterested in any of the places at the prices. Will continue to sit on the sidelines for a few more months.
One of the eyes was indifferent in respect of our membership -
An unnamed senior British government official has confirmed to the Sunday Times that the father and daughter at the heart of one of the biggest scandals between London and Moscow have spent more than a year in an MI6 safe house before being given new identities and moved to New Zealand so that they could start a new life there. Link
Does China cancelling orders for US farm products help us? Does this push up prices worldwide or just mean cargoes are re-routed, eg 23 ships leave US for India, instead of China and 23 ships leave Brazil for China, instead of India? Storm in a teacup or big deal?
The USA is highly competitive in grain markets like Soy. China has purchased large amounts of peas and soy out of the States in the past few months. Perhaps Brazil couldn't meet Chinese demand or Chinese buyers were price sensitive. Nothing is as it looks on the surface.
Think about Roger's comment below as well, IO, perhaps they are all afraid of what they don't know? We are so far outside any historical precedence that the powers that be are terrified of not being in control. So the only way to work in that scenario is to try to preserve what was the status quo, not matter how ugly that was. 'Black Lives Matter' scares the powerful and privileged because they cannot see them selves as being on the same level as those who aren't. This is really funny because 90% of them will go the church regularly, but they still can't see themselves as being equal to someone dressed in rags and living on the streets. They donate to charity in a sense of superiority, not out of a desire to do good.
They are all afraid of having to admit that they are no different from the ordinary person, and that their position of privilege has been gained at the expense of someone else, usually unfairly. This has been a human condition for centuries - how to change it?
Great post - yes agree. Well history would suggest that if you find yourself in a position of relative power or privilege it is important to show humility and good grace towards those who are not. Forced authority works in the short term, but eventually the will of the people will prove too strong and gain control either via democracy or violence. The wealthy who may have abused their relative positions of power can determine whether they lose their heads or not (literally) in the process. I look to the end of serfdom and the French/American revolutions to see what happens when enough people become tired of abuses of power and privilege. Eventually they just turn their backs on those they were serving. In this instance is may be the 'capitalists' who are at risk of revolution due to abuses of power.
Maybe life in a transparent society appears messier and less sustainable than it is? Certainly centrally planned societies look more orderly and sustainable than they really are.
Take a walk around and ask yourself, how do all these people make a living? It is incredibly complex and astonishing that anything works at all. Society is self organising to a larger degree than we can make sense of.
My favourite observations are:
1. Who are the people that buy consumer goods like clothing, bedding and toys from supermarkets? They hardly ever seem to put that stuff on clearance, so someone must be buying it.
2. How can so many people go to malls in the weekend and spend all that money?
1. Doesn't have an expiry date so perhaps they don't have to move that stock much. And there is value in being able to get something you need from exactly where you are already going... if your life is full with other things.
2. Its an interesting thought. In my mind, people have no choice because spending money equates to doing well, rewarding yourself for your hard work and struggle, and is a strange form of entertainment. (Some % of people do it at malls, some % in bars and restaurants, others manage to replace that with frugality and getting reward from seeing bank account numbers go up).
Buying property is never a zero sum game. On average in general, in spite of clowns like Emaquel Saquib, property owners do better financially than non property owners. They are more socially, economically and financially stable, and are more likely to be financially content. "I have been rich, and I have been poor, and rich is better". There will always be anecdotes showing the opposite, but this is a generalised observation.
Oh for goodness sake !
Landlords and property investors are an integral part of any functioning free-market economy , even , it turns out , in China !
They provide housing to rent , in the absence of the State being able to so ............ and we need to recognize , the State cant even get others to build enough houses for the market , just look and the Kiwibuild abortion
Landlords are here to stay , whatever our extreme left-wing Government does to try and get rid of them , the COL has no alternative but to accept their existence
"Instead of 50% of people renting we have 60%, is that a problem?"
What happens if owner-occupier ownership gets low - say 40%? That would mean that non-occupiers and landlords would own say 60% of the houses (and 60% of households would be renters).
After owner occupiers ownership level goes below the 49.9% level, then the majority of household's in NZ becomes renters. If the rents are too high relative to income levels, then this may cause financial pain on household budgets leading to potential discontentment. Perhaps that will cause many Kiwis to move internationally where the cost of living is more affordable (like one commenter who was a university graduate in law, who moved to Perth)
When owner occupiers are 49.9% which is not far away then 50.1% will be renters and the 'renters party' will be elected into power and impose rent controls and capital gains on all sales of property and GST on all sales of property and an annual wealth tax on land and increase property registration fees and generally mess things up for the likes of me. Who could blame them.
Boaty, your view is only accurate when everyone has a balanced choice. Your so called "free market" is anything but. It is so unbalanced that the majority no longer have a choice. Landlords today have become privileged parasites who seem to expect that it is their right to be subsidised by the tax payer. While I agree there will always be a need for landlords, but it will only be fair when they do not and cannot expect a subsidy from the taxpayer and everyone of their particular client base has a free and fair choice to rent or buy. We are so far from that now that any attempt to return to it by regulation will be a dramatic change.
"extreme left-wing Government"
If you ACTUALLY think this, it highlights a lack of education that is truly alarming.
As per IO, what level of home-ownership do you think is acceptable? And please explain how your answer is better than a higher level of home ownership.
I get that it's not possible to change your obviously fixed ideas on this, but I'm interested to know what you think would happen to the housing market, and society, if a limit of two homes per person were enforced. And for the purpose of this exercise, let's say that there are some strict rules in place that effectively prevent people from buying two for each of their children, spouse, friends, family etc... A pipe dream, sure, but what do you think would happen?
All landlords are beneficiaries in that they receive higher rents through the effects of the Accommodation Supplement and Working for Families, and higher capital gains through the likes of first home grants, emotional reactions against that fact notwithstanding. Many are likely to also be receiving the pension, a further social welfare benefit.
The pension may be a social welfare for a Kiwi but for a POM who came to NZ late in life my pension is predominately from the UK and is the reward for paying pension contributions for years and years (when I started it was 40 years but after 35 years they changed it to 30). I'd be grumpy paying so much in and not getting what I was promised.
Let’s hope so. An unsustainable mess with 4% unemployment is a much better unsustainable mess than one with 20% unemployment. We need to improved things around slowly, incrementally, not with a Big Bang that involves huge collateral damage, especially among the young. Like it or not, the world turns on making crap and selling it to others, be it new phones, fast food or mass tourism.
I really don't think it is. Because at 20% unemployment, there would likely be a push to redesign the system so it's not unsustainable long term. An unsustainable system at 4% unemployment just masks over the "unsustainable" issue, extends the same problems and pretends others don't exist. Until there is major pain, nobody will change away from being unsustainable...
"Maybe everything will go back to the unsustainable mess we had before huh"
Unlikely to hold for long.
Jobs & incomes are becoming a huge problem
And we are closing in on the end of the road for leverage
Expect tough times on the margins and ever growing numbers joining the margins
That and political instability
The more people bag landlords and investors, the more they put off entering the game, and therefore the more attractive and profitable the game is. As long as our societies influencers hammer away at our children to amuse themselves to death with soy lattes and deconstructed smashed avocados and computer games and sky tv and holidays at Pacific Island resorts, the better it is for those of us who have a bit of self restraint. My 3 sons own 6 properties between them by living reasonably when younger.
You inadvertently demonstrate just how out of touch you are by including 'sky tv' in that. I don't know anyone under 40 who has ever had sky tv. And I guess it needs to be pointed out for the umpteenth time: the idea that the reason home ownership has dropped is because young people spend too much on 'computer games sky tv and holidays' is just flat out wrong. The simple fact is that houses now cost a lot more relative to income than they used to.
Yeah!
Boomers spent money too when they were young, But on different things - ciggies, booze etc.
Yes young people still drink, but the stats show that levels of drinking in young people today is much lower than what it used to be...
Levels of driving and car ownership are quite a bit lower too.
The beat-up on young people's spending habits undermining home ownership is frankly complete BS.
In every generation there have been frugal people, and less frugal people....
With Stock Market racing towadds All time high, risk is getting bigger and many retail investors entering now for FOMO will be Hit hardest unless stock market too becomes a one way street and fundamentals does not matter anymore as long as are assured that wil always have government/fed support to print as much money as neeeded and when needed.
The danger is that people tend to rush back into the things they missed out on, ie the fashionable stocks of the last boom. Things have changed in ways that are not yet clear, but it is unlikely the same set of highly fashionable stocks will prosper, although some of them will. People are not being irrational, but it is like fighting the battles of the last war and ignoring the new risks because they are unknown.
A lot of stock still undervalued at approx half their value before the crisis. Their might be a reason for that. There again there might be still a good opportunity to buy dividend yielding stocks cheaply. Dividends currently suspended for six months-ish, the first six months of 2020 raced by and so will the second. Show a bit of hope people.
At some point it will have to fall over. What is the meaning of a market if there is no downside and the time value of money is zero? How do you create growth from that? Just more QE? To where? Inifinity? Why work? Why be productive?
If there's no incentive to be productive, as a species, the economic model will send us back into the dark ages.
I dont mind being a lone voice I hold a very different view to the majority here. There are others who dont always comment and that's their choice. At the end of the day, sooner or later we will go back to an economy what we know by and large. The two sides of the argument of whether that is right will rage on.
I'm not arguing if that is right or wrong - all I'm saying is go back in history and see what has happened during periods of rising interest rates.
Its not the same as falling interest rates - which is what we've had for four decades, but you're saying we're about to have more of the same.
That isn't a true statement - its wrong.
Please have a go....for the most part I'm here to get/learn from other peoples views, unless of course they're stuck in some type of confirmation/recency bias.
Implodes or explodes? If we get high inflation then rates should rise.
Have a look at the long term history of interest rates. We've been here before in the 1930's and 1940's. Not long after that we had some of history's highest interest rates.
https://i.insider.com/55fc35efbd86ef15008bb4f3?width=1048&format=jpeg
US stockmarket is not our problem. It is a US domestic issue. Our job is to take the entertainment value out of it. Our own sharemarket is based from years of observation and participation on stuff like profitability, asset worth, and legitimate hopes of future moneymaking. That is why Covid-19 was just a temporary blip in our sharemarket and everything is now settling back to where they should be. Any future issues with the US sharemarket will create all sorts of opportunities for NZ inc.
Interesting, I'm having breakfast with my daughter and she's talking of how much money covid has cost her, yes she got $500 a week but that is way behind what she would have earnt, she's still waiting for her work to start again.
Must be thousands in similar situation.
@andrewj, our 3 offspring too ( all in their 20's ) are back home . Only one has lost his job though , the others are on short hours
The real crisis is going to be after wage subsidy comes to an end , which I gather has been extended to after the September elections .
I get the sense that our young and poor are being used as pawns in this game
if you left school in the last 20 years and got a building plumbing or similar trade apprenticeship then you would not be classed as poor. My friend is 30, building in AKL and on over 100k a year, He is saving half his wage while he looks for opportunities to invest. My daughter has a friend from a low income family who has an electrical qualification, he is making a bloody good wage in Aussie, opportunities exist.
Often decisions that require commitment in the short term with long term benefits are overlooked.
I wonder if at the end of all these riots there will be a discussion about crime in the USA. Many US cities have terrible crime stats and it's been like this for years, imagine bring children up in that environment.
Racism is something in all cultures, it's not unique to one.
" White girl bleed a lot": The return of racial violence to America and how the media ignore it.
Comparison of crack cocaine versus powder cocaine (you know the stuff the elite snort)
A comprehensive examination of the 100-to-1 crack versus powder cocaine sentencing disparity under which distribution of just 5 grams of crack carries a minimum 5-year federal prison sentence, while distribution of 500 grams of powder cocaine carries the same 5-year mandatory minimum sentence.
https://www.aclu.org/other/cracks-system-20-years-unjust-federal-crack-…
Crack has been the drug of many African Americans for years Meth is the white, blue collar drug of choice. Crack is incredibly addictive. It's why they try to keep crack cocaine out of the West coast. All y friends in USA think prison sentences for minor drug offenders is crazy.
A wee while ago I was out for an early morning walk in a mid sized US city when I heard gunfire reasonably close. Turned out some guy had been shot dead by the cops but the interesting thing for me way the way the locals stayed calmly sitting on their porches, tending their gardens etc. They hardly looked up. Common place in that suburb to hear shots exchanged apparently. The guys parents were on the front page of the next mornings paper apologising to the people of the suburb for the trouble their deceased son had caused the police.
China blows the doors of the rest of world
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/06/06/crude-steel-production-china-blows-th…
The economic fundamentals are still a mess , and the storm is coming , we should not kid ourselves .
If anything , people should use this phony rally in the stock market to exit high risk investments , and move Kiwisaver funds to safe havens until this all blows over in a year or two
Yes I was watching another of George Gammons youtube's at the weekend. It had a graph of the number of shares outstanding on the US exchanges over the past 15 years or so. The number of buybacks post GFC has been massive, effectively reducing the number of shares available on the markets and causing a supply/demand imbalance.
You can see why companies do it, but its a little morally corrupt and perverse, similar to central banks dropping interest rates and carrying out QE to prevent asset prices from falling (and devaluing) currency in the process).
Investors are starting to assume the Fed will adopt the Japanese tactic soon of setting target interest rates for benchmark bonds and flooding issuance if market pressure raises them at a pace the US Government can't afford.
From QE to Eternity: The Backdoor Yield Caps
In his recent interview with the Economic Club of New York, Stan Druckenmiller tried to clear up the misconception of "When the Fed is making the money printer go “brrr!” it’s time to buy stocks!":
"The consensus out there seems to be, “don’t worry, the Fed has your back.” …There’s only one problem with that is our analysis says it’s not true… I stated earlier that the Fed has increased their balance sheet from four trillion to eight trillion. While they’ve done that, the Treasury Department, I’d say the budget deficit estimate for this year has gone from maybe a trillion a year ago to three-and-a-half trillion… So in March and April alone, the Fed net of Treasury issuance, to pay for the new spending, created a trillion in QE more than Treasury issuance. So it’s the biggest liquidity injection relative to history I’ve ever seen… The problem is as you look forward, because the Treasury deficits are not only still gonna be there, they’re just rolling out aggressively now the financing of them, the Fed front ran this with their actions of a month or two ago and so what the Fed bought was a trillion more than treasury issued. What’s going to happen now is Treasury issuance has caught up with the Fed and if they stick to the schedule they’ve outlined the net difference between those two actually goes to zero in May and net borrowing by Treasury relative to Fed purchases in June very minor, pretty much flat through September. And then liquidity shrinks as far as the eye can see as the Treasury borrowing crowds out not only the private economy but even overwhelms Fed purchases… That leads me to believe… the risk for reward for equities is maybe as bad as I’ve seen it in my career here."
"That leads me to believe… the risk for reward for equities is maybe as bad as I’ve seen it in my career"
Druckenmiller isn't on his own with that one.
Some very, very clever people (ergo, they don't work for Central Banks) who have spent their entire careers in 'the busineess' scratch their heads at what's going on and think similar. Are they ALL wrong? I doubt it....
And then liquidity shrinks as far as the eye can see as the Treasury borrowing crowds out not only the private economy but even overwhelms Fed purchases
Government debt issuance has already crowded out the private sector - the private savings of investors that bought sovereign bonds in the first instance just swapped them for interest bearing central bank reserves which have to be held until the central bank sells them or they expire via redemption.
Hence, these reserves cannot be lent directly to the non-bank private sector. Banks need to create new credit to either fund risky business proposals or further fund government deficit spending. Which will they choose, given current liquidity constraints - clue - witness T Bill yields?
And reality just marches on...
Warehouse Group proposes axing more than 1000 jobs...close six stores
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12…
1080 Jobs in limbo
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/121752684/coronavirus-up-to-1…
Trumps V shaped recovery is going to be a square root symbol by the looks. All this while P/E's are increasing exponentially. Sometimes I do wonder if I am living in the Truman show? (Especially when every single time I park in a car park another car pulls up next to me)
Ezy. Even as you write that fingers of doubt are gnawing. None of us know if she's the W you believe in. The economists and commentators are all over the shop. It could well be a V, in which case your train has already left the station and you will be standing on the platform for another six years. I've split my bets; divided my cargo between the train that's already left and kept some back just in case.
The odds of a V shape recovery are out the window already. It was definitely on the cards IF enough countries had managed to get a handle on the spread of Covid19 as we have done in NZ. But a huge number of countries are going to have 2nd (or even 3rd waves) which will stop economies returning to normal for at least a year.
Good old short term thinking (we MUST not close down the economy) will hurt in the long term. Iran is a great example of where many countries, reopening their economies too soon, are heading
Want to see a country where they took a very light handed approach for COVID19 and let the economy take priority?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/07/brazil-stops-releasing-co…
From where I'm standing the great reset is either going to happen this time round or not. If it doesn't humanity as a species will be unrecognisable - mad max style - somewhere around 2025. We live in a world with hard constraints and scarcity. We can't pretend like we don't and not expect consequences.
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