If Covid-19 doesn't kill me, the recession might

[FedUpWithThisToday]

Just that.

I am terrified how we are funding all this!

Government paying up to £2500 per person out of work, business relief measures, grants, tax relief, vaccine development, antibody testing, support for key workers. Massive losses for business globally and nationally, gross economic decline, housing market crash, businesses going under etc.. etc..

How on Earth are we funding this, and how will we cope with the deepest recession of all time, after this global pandemic ends

😥

It’s pretty much the war budget... essentially we’ll borrow it. It’s not ideal but nothing here is...

Who do we borrow it from? What actually is money? I honestly don't know any more.. if it's the product of our labour, then all the under-paying billionaires owe 'the workers' big time, and it's time for some wealth distribution. Back to my first question, 'Who do we borrow money from?'

This isn't being borrowed. This is being printed. Prepare for lots of inflation. The same number of people, more money, and 10-20% less goods to buy, means everything is going to get real fucking expensive real fast.

On the other hand, any debts you have before inflation begin will essentially be wiped out by the inflation. So that's nice if you have a big mortgage and you can ride out the interest rate storm. But OP, I'm with you. Coronavirus never scared me, it was always the economic consequences of trying to suppress it that terrified me. Hopefully we get through it. Oh the plus side, this doesn't reflect a destroyed capacity of 20%, so I think if we can ride out the next few years we should be ok, because production will resume as soon as Corona is squashed.

I don't really understand how it works tbh, can't get my head round it. Do all banks 'print' money, or just central banks. Why are super-rich so rich? Isn't it because they are creaming off money? Can they return it? Am I just really thick and pissed?

I don't have debts. I have savings. So I'm screwed again, I guess.

Why didn't I learn to be extremely careless with money instead? Pfffft.

I’d worry about getting through this first, then deal with the aftermath later! Or should we just let people starve and die?

We're probably fucked either way.

My oh has his own business and has taken a 50% pay cut to make sure he can keep his employees on full pay without letting anyone go.
The help the government is offering doesn't help self employed at all, just employees. We couldn't survive on UC.

All employees are also working from home for the last week. There's only my oh manning the office 12hrs a day to make sure the work keeps coming in, even though I'm in the vulnerable group.
If he can't work we risk losing our house, so we've no choice really.

I don't really understand how it works tbh, can't get my head round it. Do all banks 'print' money, or just central banks. Why are super-rich so rich? Isn't it because they are creaming off money? Can they return it? Am I just really thick and pissed?

Money = confidence. I have confidence that if I go to tesco and give them £20, they will give me food. Now I also have confidence that based on how long/how difficult it is to get £20, I will get a reasonable amount of food.

The government is always printing some money, just to replace damaged currency, etc etc. In the situation we're talking about here, the government prints LOTS of money (the mint). Billions upon Billions of pounds, then gives it to itself to spend.

This money is not linked to any kind of productivity boost. So now we have more money with the same number of goods. Which means more people have their £20 but the same amount of food in Tesco. So demand has now increased because effectively everyone is 'richer'. Tesco puts it's prices up. Thus we have inflation.

The central bank whose sole preserve is to maintain inflation at between 2-3% kicks in its lever- and attempts to increase interest rates to prevent inflation going crazy. So we will have a period while the government prints money because there is no money coming in, in order to keep the basic wheels turning, we're talking gas, electricty, water and food. Probably also military, roads, basic trade, justice and government.

We're heading for a few years of high inflation. If you have savings, as PP mentioned above, you're probably better off spending it now while it spends. I'm going and have a very young family so have a gigantic mortgage locked in for another 3 years. I will, hopefully, be ok.

I expect the government will take steps to order banks to prevent people defaulting at this time.