Very preliminary, but it looks as if we may have hit bottom on the Covid-19 slump, at least for now 1/ nytimes.com/interactive/20…
What this says is that the feared second-round effects — slumping demand bc of loss of incomes, financial crisis — have been contained thanks to things like expanded unemployment benefits and massive Fed intervention 2/
The question now becomes how fast we can recover, which is what I'm mainly working on now. What I argued yesterday was that the main thing constraining recovery won't be debt overhangs and the other things that hurt after 2009, but epidemiology 3/ nytimes.com/2020/05/11/opi…
That said, remember that expanded benefits expire July 31, state and local governments are in desperate straits, and while US markets have been stabilized, emerging markets and the euro area are still very much at risk 4/
Plus a second wave of infections from premature opening could set recovery back a long, long time. What we need is to stay the course and keep disaster relief in place. Unfortunately, little sign that Trump and allies will do that 5/
