To those who keep saying the “economy will recover”

[Sadie789]

And who think focusing on the economy is “money over lives”.

Please can you explain to me why you are so relaxed about this, because it affects every one of us.

This won’t be a UK recession, it will be an unprecedented global recession.

People already have lost their jobs and will continue to lose their jobs long after lockdown is over. Well into next year.

If you lose your job you need to claim UC. UC is paid for with taxes. From people who are earning money in jobs.

Taxes also pay for the NHS. Not just the NHS that is treating COVID patients. The NHS treating cancer patients, kidney patients, heart patients, brain patients. The NHS that also keeps thousands of private companies afloat as they sub services and procure resources from them.

Tax pays for just about everything else we take for granted in our daily lives from housing for millions to keeping rubbish from overflowing our streets to keeping the street lights on.

Let’s put the wider issue of how the economy runs to the side and look at individual livelihoods. People say you should have savings to cover emergencies such as these current rainy days. But this rain is unprecedented and affects us all.

DH and I have about £16000 in savings. We both work in roles that are looking very uncertain right now. If we both lose our jobs those savings will last us about 4 months realistically. If only one of us does it will last 8 months. Til the end of this year more or less. When our industries will both still be in an uncertain state of flux. Just get another job you say? What, like thousands of others in the same boat?

When the savings run out what do we do? We’d have to sell the house. There’s some equity in there but it will go down dramatically as house prices drop. Who will buy our house? If we do sell, we will need a mortgage to buy a new one - who gives mortgages to two unemployed people. Could we rent? The equity would soon run out and then who pays for the roof over our heads? So on, and so on.

The economy is about money and greed I hear people say. Lives are more important. Yes they are. But the people saying this in the context of a blase “the economy will recover”, I genuinely want to know why you think an economic depression will not affect lives?

Only the rich are worried about businesses going under is another one I hear.

Let’s see. My neighbour has his own company doing lighting and rigging for theatres. His wife has a wedding dress shop. No one is paying them furlough. They are both terrified.

Around me are a fishmonger who supplied hotels and restaurants. A nursery owner. A pub owner. A mortgage advisor. A friend is a pilot, his wife cabin crew. Another has been running a small childrenswear shop for 22 years and says this will be her last month as she’s bought thousands of pounds of stock (last year) for summer that she has to pay for along with the rent etc. Her business is finished. My hairdressers have shut up shop for good. Our main shopping centre has lost Debenhams, Oasis, Warehouse, all in a month.

Please tell me - this is a genuine question - how you can be so nonchalant about the economy if that is what you truly believe?

It is not a money or health arguement though. Severe economic damage will affect health for years to come through reduced spend on the nhs and other public services, increased poverty, reduced access ro healthy food which tenss to cost more, increased mental health problems and so on.

I am not saying we should not have locked down but the government should have done it earlier to enable us to get out of it quicker. There also needed to be quaranteening of flights from italy and other infected areas back in February and more testing rather than allowing it to spread through all the big events that continued.

But how will I feel the effects of a recession if I'm dead?

A recession is inevitable and I am prepared to struggle, but it's going to be a lot harder if I'm mourning the death of my family members and friends.

Essentially it's down to where your values lie. I treasure human life over economic prosperity. Probably cos I'm not a fucking Tory.

My point is that recessions cause death. Lets just hope your family members do not need health or social care in the future becuase there will be no money to pay for it.

I have never voted Tory in my life.

Severe economic damage will affect health for years to come through reduced spend on the nhs

Yes, but if that is the case it will be blamed on the effects of Covid on the economy it will not be blamed on an over money-oriented Government which could happen with the other scenario.

I agree Edwina. It is the policy response which is key. Spend could in theory increase on the nhs if the decision was made but with our Government the economic damage will unfortunately be used as a way of saying the nhs is not sustainable in its current form and further privatisation. I expect we will all be paying for health insurance in the next 10 years.

So it's a lose lose situation. Covid equals death, as does recession.

But I think the former poses more of a risk so I'll do what I can now, remain in lockdown, to prevent deaths. Nobody knows what our economic future looks like, or how many deaths it will cause, so I'll take action based on the risk I know most about & is the most immediate threat

"Nearly 30,000 covid deaths in the UK and over 1200 hospitals...you do the maths..bearing in mind not all the deaths are in hospital...yet hospitals are overrun?"

You do realise that it's not only the people who die who go to hospital? About 4 times more people than that ended up hospitalised for several weeks. Recovery with this virus is long and hard.

You do realise that it's not only the people who die who go to hospital?

Yes I do but the videos of hospital staff performing choreographed dance routines and lining the corridors to clap for those being discharged don't exactly make me think they're overwhelmed. Happy to be told I'm wrong.

Nearly 30,000 covid deaths in the UK and over 1200 hospitals...you do the maths..bearing in mind not all the deaths are in hospital...yet hospitals are overrun? From googling and I could be wrong but it seems only 241 hospitals have critical care units, so definitely not all hospitals or even most are overrun - but the ones that are able to take Covid patients, seem to be quite busy!

Yes I did say that I was aware the deaths wouldn't be spread evenly and not all hospitals will even be treating covid patients necessarily.

Guess you have never been in a truly long running highly stressful situation then

A silly dance, a 5 minute break , these are essential breathers that humans need if they are to keep going

I'm just saying that if you do think of it in those terms, the number of deaths doesn't really seem shocking enough to warrant the collateral damage of the lockdown imo.

@midgebabe

Oh I don't object to them enjoying themselves or having a joke or a laugh...I don't expect them to never have a break. I don't think they should be walking round in a state of perpetual misery...but a choreographed dance routine? Filmed and posted online,...Numerous staff members available to line the corridors to clap...doesn't scream overwhelmed to me

Yeah, well we will just have to differ on that won't we.

I knew from the very start of this virus the economy was going to tank and frankly it has frightened me far more than virus. I am self employed and run a successful business, at the moment I'm keeping it ticking a long. At some point for me to keep it going I will need to start interacting with clients. At the moment, I'm not allowed to.
The inevitable recession will kill more people than the virus along with all the undiagnosed conditions which have been left untreated. It is a ticking time bomb. I agree with what someone said on here that those who are totally bemused by your post are the ones who want the lockdown extended and are sitting on furlough unaware their jobs will probably not be there when it ends or are too rich to care. They are clueless and don't know what's coming!
There will be an enquiry and I don't expect Boris to be in his job at the end of it.

I guess having lived through recessions before , having emerged onto the job market in the north east in the 1980s where we had 25% unemployment , I know we can get through a recession

And I am hopeful that a better understanding of the health costs of poverty mean that we will lose this obsession with low taxation and instead try to develop a more equal society going forward. Previous grea economic disasters have tended to lead to this.

What type of job do you do ? Perhaps we can work out how you can interact with clients safely so you can get going again

The very same report you linked to also predicted a recovery next year - or did you not read that far?

@FiveEyes

I said they are recovering, not they have. There's obviously still a long way to go. You would hope your shareholdings / pension etc is spread more evenly than just in the FTSE100/250 etc.

March 23 - 4993.89
May 7 - 5935.98

www.statista.com/statistics/1103739/ftse-100-index-uk/

@StCharlotte he Ftse was just an example - you didn’t need me to go through them all did you?

@FiveEyes

I answered your question using your own example. What's your point?

@StCharlotte you're right - the recovery if you want to call it that, has a long way to go.

I'm feeling vulnerable but there are some possible saving Grace's. This is a world wide impact, it's not a recession causes by market collapsing or a sudden state change. COVID will end as quickly as it began and whilst everything has paused little has changed. If we can prevent initial wide scale job loss we do stand a chance of avoiding massive recession.

We aren’t going to avoid recession. As noted in thread - we were only just ok after 2008. Some industries are going to struggle to come back. Also in the years since 2008, we’ve moved to a gig economy with wages stagnating. There is not going to be money in the system to kickstart the economy.

And I’m not a Tory - just aware we are economically dependent on a capitalist consumer culture and that’s just tanked.

Very scary. So easy to say it will recover but will that be after we’ve lost our homes?

There has never been a global situation like this before. In many cases the economy has "paused" rather than recessed. The hospitality industry which contributes massively to the economy will return. Slowly at first but it will come back. 5% of GDP which is also fed into by Agriculture which is our biggest contributor.

The construction industry is 7% of GDP. Plenty of projects are on pause and ready to open up as soon as they are allowed.

There have been other threads where people have been quite clear that they will be out spending as soon as they can, Retail is 5% of GDP, and is fed by manufacturing. Manufacturing will also be positively impacted when economies overseas start to recover.

All of these have a knock on impact to the service sector.

Nobody knows what is going to happen in the longer term, but there is a lot of negativity which is just not based on fact. The projections are based on what the economy is doing right now. In 3 months, as things are open, there will be a pretty major jump. That's bloody obvious but economists can't report on that because they don't know what the number will be. Instead people just love the doom and gloom.