Fed Chairman Jerry Powell let the nation know recession is the economic flavor of the day. Powell also said the Feds have unlimited resources to handle the financial fallout from the coronavirus. But several Wall Street economists think a depression could be in America’s future if the ghostly invader sticks around the states for more than six to eight weeks.
Gross Domestic Product growth is on the way to the toilet, according to MarketWatch. By June, U.S. economic growth will officially be in a recession. Economists predict GDP growth could drop by 35% at the end of June.
Now that countries around the world are in the same sinking economic boat, recovering once the pandemic disappears won’t be easy. China’s economy hit negative territory in March, and the EU, as well as the UK, are up to their ankles in the rapidly filling recession waters. China sent its workers back to work, but exporters don’t have enough orders to keep the factories busy now that the world is in timeout. Plus, about 10% of Chinese workers still worry COVID-19 is still active, so they stay home.
The global supply chain is in shambles and virus made the fiasco worse. Trump thinks he can bring the economy back to life before in May, but economists claim that won’t happen, according to the New York Times.
Mr. Trump tries to cover up the fact his administration went through a pandemic drill in 2019. All the issues Trump has with his coronavirus response came up then. But his team decided to bag the report and throw it on a shelf, according to the Washington Post.
Huawei continues to increase its R&D budget. CEO Ren Zhengfei knows his company has to replace Samsung as the number one vendor and developer of smartphones. The Trump blacklisting hurt the $100 billion company. Not being able to use Google’s Android operating system and not marketing the company’s P30 and P40 series smartphones in the U.S. also hurt revenue projections.
Prince Charles got it first, and then Boris came down with COVID-19. Boris told the Brits he’ll still lead the charge to flatten the curve. But Boris didn’t say he’ll move the final Brexit date back a year. But it looks like the coronavirus will do that for him.
The British Parliament plans to critique Johnson’s hospital room coronavirus response using by creating a virtual parliament. British MP’s can stay at home and still have a voice in the economic and health decisions that face the nation. According to House of commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg, the virtual Parliament should be ready to go by the end of April.
