Bernstein & Baker: Yes, this is an emergency. No, that doesn’t justify a $500 billion Trump/Mnuchin slush fund. [feedly]

Yes, this is an emergency. No, that doesn't justify a $500 billion Trump/Mnuchin slush fund.
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/yes-this-is-an-emergency-no-that-doesnt-justify-a-500-billion-trump-mnuchin-slush-fund/

While the indicators are lagging, the U.S. economy is in a recession that will very likely be extremely deep. It's likely that real GDP falls at double-digit pace in the quarter that begins next month and the unemployment rate more than doubles. If that sounds implausible, history shows that in sharp downturns, the unemployment rate takes the elevator up and the stairs down.

To their credit, after a slow start Congress appears to have grasped this urgency and is working around the clock on what may turn out to be the largest stimulus package in our history, with a price tag of $1-2 trillion, or 5-10 percent of GDP (the Recovery Act was $800 billion over two years, roughly 2 percent of GDP). Given that fighting the virus essentially calls for putting the U.S. economy in deep freeze for an unknown period, we vigorously support going big.

But even as Congress must speed toward completion and passage of this legislation, there is time to avoid wasting resources, and there is one, large part of the bill—$500 billion, according to the Washington Post—that threatens to create a "slush fund" for businesses with virtually no oversight, no benefits for workers, and far too much discretion for President Trump to dole out goodies to himself and his cronies.

The lending mechanism in question allocates $500 billion to backstop (i.e., repayment is guaranteed by the government) private-sector loans to the tune of $50 billion to airlines, $8 billion for cargo carriers, $17 billion for businesses "critical to national security," and $425 billion for businesses, states, and cities.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong and a lot right with providing resources of these magnitudes for businesses. The bill also proposes $350 billion for small business with a smart, built-in incentive to help workers: if employers use a portion of the loan to maintain their payrolls, that portion is forgiven.

But the $500 billion carries no such incentives (there is a requirement that CEO can't raise their pay over last year's level, but that could mean just "restricting" a CEO to a $15 million paycheck, an extremely mild condition). Nor does there appear to be adequate oversight or "underwriting," the process by which banks determine credit worthiness, leading Sen. Warren to tweet that it "sounds like Trump hotel properties like Mar-a-Largo could receive huge bags of cash – and then fire their workers – if Steve Mnuchin decides to do a solid for his boss with taxpayer dollars."

We know for a fact that Democrats want to complete this stimulus package as quickly as possible to get money out the door to people and small businesses that are a few paychecks away from personal despair and possible failure or bankruptcy. But the bill won't pass without the support of Democrats in both chambers (the stimulus will require 60 votes in the Senate).

Yes, time is of the essence, but Democrats must use their leverage to remove this Trump/Mnuchin slush fund while they quickly negotiate the attaching of pro-worker conditionality to it. The main thing for this moment is to get the help to families (direct cash) and small businesses out the door.

There is no obvious reason that we can't do something similar for larger firms by making loans available for purposes of meeting their payrolls.* If the airlines and other especially hard hit businesses need additional assistance to get through the crisis, we can work through a well-designed package that ensures both that shareholders and top executives share the pain and that President Trump can't use the money to help himself and his friends.

But let's train our water hoses on where the immediate fire is—low, moderate income households and small businesses with a week or two of cash reserves and little access to credit markets. No question, this is an emergency, but that doesn't excuse opportunistic, potentially wasteful spending with no oversight. We have important work to do, none of which includes setting up a half-a-trillion-dollar slush fund.

*Technical note: Supporters of this part of the bill argue that because the liquidity for the $500 billion is provided by the Federal Reserve (though one of the "lending facilities" the Fed's been setting up), it cannot include the same forgiveness feature for maintaining payroll that's part of small business loan package. The reason given is that the under the Fed's charter, this would invoke credit risk the Fed cannot undertake. We do not find this at all convincing. First, as with all such lending programs, the Treasury must backstop the Fed's credit risk. Once they do so, given that the fiscal authorities guarantee the full loan, it is unclear to us why the forgiveness feature is problematic. Other conditions, such as no buybacks, dividends, any payroll maintenance, or even just some oversight should not invoke Fed risk and are thus no-brainers in this context.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Peter R. Orszag: Social Distancing Makes Sense Only With Extraordinary Fiscal Stimulus

Social Distancing Makes Sense Only With Extraordinary Fiscal Stimulus

Governments' economic measures to address Covid-19 need to be much bigger.

By 

Peter R. Orszag

March 22, 2020, 6:00 PM EDT

Across the world, as governments take their first economic stimulus measures to address the Covid-19 crisis, debate is intensifying over the right form and size of that assistance. But this discussion hasn't yet come to grips with five fundamental realities:

• First, mandating social distancing in response to the Covid-19 crisis requires socializing the economic costs of doing so. We as a society can't reasonably require social distancing, with the massive economic consequences it entails, and believe that most of those costs should be privately borne. We therefore need to either abandon social distancing (thereby overwhelming health systems and sparking untold deaths) or enact much larger stimulus measures. And by much larger I mean far larger even than the eye-popping figures the Trump administration is now pursuing in the U.S.
• Second, the disruption is so vast — the economy in many sectors and areas has effectively come to a standstill — that government failure to act will result in an avalanche of bankruptcies and extended unemployment that will, in turn, inflict lasting damage on businesses and families, even after the health crisis passes. Economists call this phenomenon hysteresis; others call it not being able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. It is why government intervention cannot be limited to the sectors most directly affected (airlines and hotels, for example) and must take new forms beyond the conventional tools (such as rebates to individuals). While many existing stimulus measures are necessary and helpful — especially support for unemployed workers and state governments — they are terribly inadequate given the scale of the economic damage already occurring.
• Third, given governments' adoption of social distancing, the dilemmas we face will continue until an effective anti-viral or therapeutic can be found that allows us to contract the disease without suffering significant harm. In the meantime, even if current efforts are successful at attenuating the spread of the disease over the next several weeks, social distancing will need to be re-imposed in cycles. Given the plausible timetable for developing a vaccine, and unless we get very lucky and the virus itself mutates in a less harmful direction, these cycles could continue for well more than a year.
• Fourth, a proper response to the Covid-19 crisis will stress test the increasingly popular proposition that government deficits don't matter. This is a fiscal risk worth taking. Indeed, those who argue that the cost is too high or that a stunning increase in the deficit is too risky need to return to the first point above, because the budget impact reflects the economic consequences of social distancing. If you don't like the fiscal cost but you favor social distancing, what you're really saying is that you are willing to accept millions of bankruptcies and the ripping apart of corporate and social fabrics across the world.
• Fifth, the economic harm comes mostly from the sudden stop in business activity due to social distancing, not the lost productivity of those suffering or dying from Covid-19. The demographics of those suffering from coronavirus and those suffering from the economic virus are quite different.

Governments around the world are awakening to these truths, and beginning to debate how to assist businesses suffering from the downturn. The U.K. is considering making grants to companies for up to 80% percent of salary, capped at 2,500 pounds ($2,900) a month; offering loans to small and medium-sized businesses; and taking equity stakes in airlines and other companies. Denmark has put forward a program to subsidize 75% of payroll for companies facing a need to cut jobs by 30% or more. France is considering equity injections and loan guarantees.

The economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman have proposed that governments simply pay companies to cushion the shock: "In the context of this pandemic, we need a new form of social insurance, one that directly targets and works through businesses," they wrote earlier this month. "The most direct way to provide this insurance is to have the government act as a buyer of last resort. If the government fully replaces the demand that evaporates, each business can keep paying its workers and maintain its capital stock, as if it was operating under business as usual."

And Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times has suggested a universal loan program, with a zero interest rate and extended repayment terms.

One thing is clear about stimulus measures in this crisis: Bigger is better. To my mind, the least-worst option is a large and comprehensive program of loans to businesses, as Sorkin has proposed, which could be extended quarterly and limited in the first instance to a share of 2019 revenue. 1  It should work according to these four principles:

• All companies and sole proprietors should be eligible, given how hard it is to quickly assess which industries are affected and the feedback loops across sectors and businesses. The only condition should be that the companies maintain payroll and payments at some threshold relative to 2019.
• The program can most effectively be administered through banks, with the government then buying the loans and borrowers repaying through the tax code. Repayment could take the form of allowing a company or individual to deduct only a certain share of non-labor expenses until the debt is repaid. This approach in effect provides an auto-stabilizer for the repayments: They will be accelerated if the economy starts booming and delayed if doesn't. Repayments will also be faster for firms that get back on their feet faster and that spend a smaller share of their budgets on labor. By having the government take loans off banks' balance sheets up-front, this strategy also avoids further capital stresses on banks.
• In the event an effective therapeutic against Covid-19 is delayed, causing the economic shock to last longer, the loans could be transformed into grants (thus moving from Sorkin's idea to Zucman and Saez's). It is nonetheless better to start with loans, and then forgive those loans (thus shifting to grants) if necessary, because we don't know how long or severe the downturn will be, and it may turn out that the loans are sufficient to attenuate the economic damage. Even broad-scale loans would be an unprecedented fiscal experiment — but pose much less long-term fiscal risk than grants.
• Any future debt forgiveness for companies should give the government equity in those companies, and impose stricter conditions than those attached to the loans.

The specific design features of this program are matters for debate (including whether the banks should bear some share of the risks), and the right approach undoubtedly will vary from country to country. But the basic realities are the same everywhere: It makes no sense to impose social distancing without socializing the costs. And if we want to avoid irreversible economic damage, we can't afford to wait.

1. Some have suggested simply delaying payments rather than injecting liquidity into companies. Delaying payment for taxes and perhaps certain mortgages and rental payments is wise, but a broader payment halt across companies offers only the mirage of a solution. It would push the problem into the future, but comes with the significant cost of building up arrears that will ultimately come due. In addition, delaying payments to any entity other than the government merely shifts the cash-flow problem somewhere else — it doesn't eliminate even the short-run problems from the collapse in demand.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Peter R. Orszag at porszag5@bloomberg.net

--

John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV

Enlighten Radio

Socialist Economics

Facebook

Bloomberg: China Expands Medical Aid to Africa With First Ethiopia Shipment [feedly]

China Expands Medical Aid to Africa With First Ethiopia Shipment
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-22/china-expands-medical-aid-to-africa-with-first-ethiopia-shipment

We're tracking the latest on the coronavirus outbreak and the global response. Sign up here for our daily newsletter on what you need to know.

China's mass deployment of medical aid to fight the coronavirus reached Africa as Ethiopia received its first shipment of supplies, including protective gear and test kits, for distribution across the continent from billionaire Jack Ma.

The Horn of Africa nation received 5.4 million face masks, more than 1 million testing kits, 40,000 items of protective clothing and 60,000 sets of face shields, China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Jack Ma's foundation said in a statement Sunday. More medical supplies are expected over the next few weeks.

"Getting these donations to all 54 African countries, with diverse geographic conditions and different levels of infrastructure, is a great logistical and transportation challenge," the foundation said. "We are working around the clock to make the delivery as fast as possible."

Ethiopia's Health Ministry will coordinate the distribution together with the national carrier, Ethiopian Airlines, and with support from the World Food Programme and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said separately. Abiy announced a week ago he'd struck a deal with Ma.

Read more about China's mass deployment of medical aid to Europe here

Although the spread of the virus has been relatively slow in Africa, the number of people who tested positive have climbed to about 1,000 in more than 40 countries.

Still, the consequences of pandemic will be "catastrophic due to the continent's weak health care systems, including inadequate surveillance and laboratory capacity, scarcity of public health human resources, and limited financial means," said Abiy.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Bloomberg: Top Economists See Some Echoes of Depression in U.S. Sudden Stop [feedly]

Top Economists See Some Echoes of Depression in U.S. Sudden Stop
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-22/top-economists-see-some-echoes-of-depression-in-u-s-sudden-stop

By 

Rich Miller

 and 

Reade Pickert

March 22, 2020, 7:00 AM EDT

•  
  Key is length of contagion and the economic policy response
•  
  Economy seen headed for worst quarter in records back to 1947

We're tracking the latest on the coronavirus outbreak and the global response. Sign up here for our daily newsletter on what you need to know.

The U.S. is entering a recession. The ultimate fear is that could turn into a protracted malaise that has some flavor of a depression.

That's far from the base case, with many analysts and investors taking heart from signs of revival in the original epicenter of the coronavirus -- China -- and predicting a second-half upturn in the U.S. after the contagion hopefully subsides.

But as business activity halts and layoffs surge, some prominent economy watchers -- including former White House chief economists Glenn Hubbard and Kevin Hassett and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder -- have drawn comparisons to the Great Depression, though they've stopped well short of forecasting another one.

Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Maury Obstfeld said the world hasn't seen a synchronized interruption in economic output in decades. The best example the University of California, Berkeley, professor can think of: "Well, maybe the Great Depression."

The U.S. undoubtedly will suffer a huge economic contraction as businesses close and Americans stay home. By some estimates, the economy is headed toward its worst quarter in records since 1947. JPMorgan Chase & Co. expects gross domestic product to shrink at an annualized rate of 14% in the April-June period while Bank of America Corp. and Oxford Economics both see a 12% drop. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. sees a 24% plunge.

Read More: Bloomberg Economics on U.S. GDP Facing 9% Contraction

While that's an enormous wallop, it's only one quarter. In the Great Depression of 1929-33, the entire economy shriveled by roughly a quarter as unemployment neared 25%.

Recessions, which refer to periods of significant, broad-based declines in economic activity, vary in length. Depressions, of which there is only one since 1900, require the downturn to last for a long time, perhaps years.

Whether the coming contraction proves to be prolonged depends a lot on how long it takes to check the contagion.

"Unless this virus miraculously disappears from the population over the course of the next few months, it is a reasonable scenario that we might be in this lockdown setting for quite a while, measured in quarters," said Harvard University professor James Stock, who is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research panel that dates the timings of recessions.

If everybody stays home for six months, "it is going to be like the Great Depression," Hassett, who's returning to the White House to advise on economic matters, told CNN on Thursday.

Read More: Bloomberg Economics on U.S. GDP Facing 9% Contraction

The downturn's depth and duration will depend on the economic policy response. It was policy mistakes -- particularly by the Fed -- that turned the contraction nearly a century ago into a depression.

"I am fearful of that if we don't do the right policy," said Hubbard, now at Columbia Business School.

A big concern: The sudden stop leads to widespread firings and bankruptcies that scar the economy for years, as in the Great Depression.

Goldman Sachs sees jobless claims surging to a record 2.25 million in the week ended March 21, while Bank of America projects 3 million and Citigroup 4 million. That compares with 281,000 in the prior week and would be more than triple the record 695,000 during one week in 1982.

Unprecedented Wave of Layoffs

Coronavirus effects expected to throw millions out of work

Source: Labor Department, Goldman Sachs

Greg Brown, finance professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, said unemployment will rise as high as 9% in two months, from February's 50-year low of 3.5%.

With such job loss, "spending is not going to be as easy to restart because you just can't see the same level of spending if you have people that have lost that income," said Andrew Hollenhorst, chief U.S. economist at Citigroup Inc.

In addition, if companies can't make planning and investment commitments now, "that can have impacts on spending today but also on potential innovation in the future," said Tara Sinclair, an economist at job website Indeed and professor at George Washington University.

Unlike nearly a century ago, the Fed has acted fast, cutting interest rates effectively to zero, restarting quantitative easing and resurrecting emergency financing facilities it used during the financial crisis.

President Donald Trump, who has been criticized by some for a sluggish response, has also now recognized the enormity of the coming economic hit. He said Saturday that negotiators in Congress and his administration are "very close" to agreement on a plan that an adviser said will aim to boost the U.S. economy by about $2 trillion. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was aiming for a final vote on the measure Monday.

"The economic hit could be sharp and deep," said Harvard University professor Jeffrey Frankel. But assuming that infections peak in 2020, "there is no reason why economic activity should stay depressed for a period of years, which I take to be the definition of a depression."

Some analysts trying to project the economy's path cite the 1918 influenza pandemic that claimed an estimated 50 million lives worldwide.

In a recent presentation to a virtual Brookings Institution conference, economist Robert Barro said that countries back then typically suffered a 6% reduction in GDP, about in line with that of the last recession but far smaller than in the Great Depression.

He described his findings as an upper-bound estimate of the economic impact from the coronavirus. Global health systems are better equipped to handle contagion now, but the world is more interconnected, Barro said.

"We think of a depression as a recession that is very, very deep and very, very long," said Blinder, now a Princeton University professor. "That's the kind of thing that could happen" should infections peak only temporarily then return in the fall.

Jeff Bezos is asking laid-off restaurant and bar workers to come work for Amazon amid the coronavirus crisis [feedly]

Jeff Bezos is asking laid-off restaurant and bar workers to come work for Amazon amid the coronavirus crisis
https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-urges-laid-off-restaurant-workers-to-join-amazon-2020-3?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds

excerpt from business insider: with 10 million laid off -- anyone want to run this offer out of town?

• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement on Saturday the company is hiring for 100,000 new roles, and urged laid-off restaurant workers to apply.
• Bezos added that the company has implemented a number of health and safety measures in response to the crisis, and has raised wages for hourly workers.
• Amazon has been flooded with orders since the virus began spreading across the US, as residents have been stocking up on household essentials and other basic goods.
• The deluge has forced the company into a tricky balancing act between protecting the health of its workers and keeping up with the rapid pace of customers' orders.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is urging laid-off workers from closed-down restaurants and bars to come join the company as it struggles to accommodate an enormous volume of orders amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Bezos said the company is hiring for 100,000 new roles, and is raising the wages of its hourly workers who help fulfill orders and deliver to customers.

"At the same time, other businesses like restaurants and bars are being forced to shut their doors," Bezos said in a statement Saturday evening. "We hope people who've been laid off will come work with us until they're able to go back to the jobs they had."

Bezos added that the company has implemented a number of health and safety measures in response to the crisis.

"Everything from increasing the frequency and intensity of cleaning to adjusting our practices in fulfillment centers to ensure the recommended social distancing guidelines," Bezos wrote.

 

He added that the company has ordered millions of face masks to help protect workers, but noted that there is a global shortage delaying the masks.

Amazon has been flooded with orders since the virus began spreading across the US, as residents have been stocking up on household essentials and other basic goods to tide themselves over as they isolate in their homes.

The deluge has forced the company into a tricky balancing act between protecting the health of its workers and keeping up with the pace of customers' orders.

Last week, the first known coronavirus case at an Amazon warehouse was confirmed at a facility in Queens, New York. Workers at the facility told The Atlantic that employees were still expected to work their regular night shift after their colleague was diagnosed, though Amazon denied that.

• Read more:
• A top New York surgeon warns that the coronavirus has 'breached' hospital walls and infections could peak in 22 to 32 days
• Read the letter Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos just sent to employees about the coronavirus: 'Things are going to get worse before they get better'
• Target is apologizing after selling coveted N95 masks to the public while health care workers across the country run out
• YouTube and Amazon Prime are following Netflix by reducing streaming quality in Europe to prevent traffic overload in face of coronavirus pandemic

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

In Practice, there are Two Pandemics: One for the Well-Off and One for the Poor [feedly]

In Practice, there are Two Pandemics: One for the Well-Off and One for the Poor
https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/20/03/2020/practice-there-are-two-pandemics-one-well-and-one-poor

Rodrigo Fracalossi de Moraes explores the inequalities creating two very different pandemics in Brazil and elsewhere.

In contrast to recent epidemics that impacted almost only developing countries (as those caused by the Ebola virus in 2013-15 and the Zika virus in 2015-16), the coronavirus pandemic is hitting both the global south and the global north. However, this pandemic is everything but an equalizer: it not only reveals various forms of inequality but is likely to also reinforce them.

The virus spreads in a socially unequal world, implying that people experience the pandemic differently and suffer its consequences differently, depending on their country, social class and gender. From a social point of view, the international spread of the virus has in this way created two pandemics and is likely to create two post-pandemic worlds: one for people in the global north (as well as upper- and middle-class people in developing countries) and another one for the poor in the global south.

After emerging in Wuhan, the virus 'used' mainly the bodies of the well-off to spread internationally, initially to developed countries, later to affluent people in the global south (returning from holidays or business trips) and then to the poor. As poor people in the global south – as well as their governments – often lack resources to prevent, detect and respond to pandemics, a socially different type of pandemic emerged.

In Brazil, for example, while upper- and middle-class people started working from home almost overnight and stockpiled food and water, others remain at a crossroads. Their options are either: i) trying to work (even if demand has in general plummeted), which requires physical social interactions over the course of the day, thus increasing the risk of getting infected and infecting others; or ii) staying at home, which means not earning any money and still remaining at a higher risk of getting infected due to over-crowded houses, lack of water and household hygiene items, or poor sanitation. Therefore, not only the availability of resources to respond to the pandemic is a privilege for a few; the capacity to afford the consequences of social distancing is also conditioned by various types of inequalities.

Conditions to prevent, detect and respond to the pandemic, as well as the consequences of social distancing are unequal because the availability of at least seven types of resources is unequal: healthcare, fiscal capacity, labour, space, education, information, and leisure. These dimensions are all correlated to one another but for the sake of clarity they are analysed separately.

Concerning health, half of the world's population lacks access to essential health care services. For them, the coronavirus pandemic is much more a matter of life and death than it is for the other half. Research comparing health security capacities in 182 countries in the context of Covid-19 found that 28% of countries had a preventative capacity of levels 1 or 2, as well as that 23% had a response capacity of these same levels (in which 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest capacity). The number of physicians is extremely unequal: while the United States has around 25 physicians per 1,000 people, India has 8 and Mozambique only 0.7. This is made worse when associated to a lack of sanitation and access to drinking water, as this makes people more likely to have comorbidities and therefore less likely to survive if infected. This is the potential situation of 60% of the world population, who do not have access to safely managed sanitation. In addition, washing hands is a luxury for many: basic handwashing facilities are not available for 40% of the world population, let alone soap or hand sanitizers.

This results to a great extent from inequalities in the fiscal capacity of governments. Low levels of taxation imply a lack of funding for public goods, essential to prevent and respond to a pandemic. While in OECD countries the tax-to-GDP ratio is around 34%, in a sample of 26 countries in Africa this ratio is on average 17%, severely constraining their capacity to invest in health care. Moreover, the pandemic is severely slowing down economies, which can be in part compensated by fiscal stimuli measures, a limited tool for poor countries. Weak fiscal capacity also has an effect on their costs of credit, further restraining their ability to respond to the pandemics and stimulate the economy.

Regarding labour, working from home or not working at all is a luxury for a few. In the global north, those unable to work from home are often protected by a social safety net (even if imperfect), but this is either non-existent or very limited in the global south. Staying at home imply a huge sacrifice of income, especially among people working in the informal economy. In Brazil, 40% of workers have informal jobs, which means they are not entitled to sick pay or various other social safety services. For example, there were 6.2 million maids in Brazil (almost exclusively women) in 2015, of which 70% had informal jobs. According to Débora Freire, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, the poor's income is expected to decrease 20% more than the average in Brazil due to the pandemic. This implies that poor people in the global south are likely to sacrifice the basics: rent, food, water, electricity, gas and essential medicines, making them more vulnerable to the virus and the consequences of an infection.

In times of social distancing, another scarce resource is space. The WHO and various governments have recommended social distancing, but this is a luxury that poor people often cannot afford, especially in urban areas. If they manage to work, they are likely to interact with customers, other employees or other passengers when using public transport. If they stay at home, over-crowded houses and neighbourhoods may prevent social distancing. As emphasized by Gilson Rodrigues, a community leader from Paraisópolis, the second-largest favela in São Paulo, it is impossible to put the elderly into quarantine when there are 10 people living in a two-room house.

Another resource is access to education. Children from affluent families are more able to get their education from home. They can keep their access to knowledge through various types of resources they have (books or a simple conversation with their parents), as well as online activities maintained by private schools. The poor will lack all of this.

Another unequally distributed resource is information. Information about the risks of the pandemic and what to do about it is more easily accessed, filtered, understood and applied in the developed world and among affluent people in the developing one. The lack of credibility from state authorities and the over-abundance of information make poor people more susceptible to believe in conspiracies about the virus, speeches from populist leaders, as well as Pentecostal or neo-charismatic priests. For example, a few of the main religious leaders in Brazil have exhorted people to keep going to the church or told people not to watch news about the pandemic, all of this propagated through social media.

This is what the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called an 'infodemic', a process in which not only the virus but also rumours spread fast, creating a cacophony of conflicting information. Furthermore, as reliable information is produced disproportionally more in rich countries, they tend not to target the poor in the global south: washing hands and staying at home, for example, is suited more for affluent people than for the poor. Language barriers are another often-overlooked aspect aggravating this imbalance: reliable information is produced mainly in only a few languages, leaving a large number of people with either non-reliable or non-information at all. Finally, because the virus began spreading in cold temperatures, the available data on infection refers mainly to weather conditions that prevail in richer countries, leaving considerable uncertainty regarding the conditions of its transmission in the tropics.

Last but not least, leisure is also unequally distributed. Upper and-middle class people can remain entertained in quarantine in a way that the poor cannot: they have more access to gadgets, apps and broadband internet connection. They also have more space at home, making them more able to have relaxing or fun activities, as well as to get physical exercise. In a situation of quarantine, this is likely to reduce levels of stress.

It is true that the poor in the global south may benefit in many ways from activities conducted in the global north: research on prevention, detection and response to pandemics; quarantines and border restrictions, as those imposed in various places in Europe; and production and distribution of science-based information. It is also true that they benefit from social distancing measures valid for the whole society, as the number of mass gatherings events decrease, as well as the overall number of physical social interactions they have each day.

However, inequalities across countries and within them condition how people experience the pandemic, who is hit harder by social distancing, who is more likely to survive, and who will recover faster after its end. This indicates the need to expand not only access to sanitation, healthcare and drinking water, but also to housing, social safety nets, and reliable information, all of which should be seen as foundations of global public health policies.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Interactive Map: Some States Much Better Prepared Than Others for Recession [feedly]

LONG but valuable review of state preparedness for recession/depression --- lots of trouble folks. lots.

Interactive Map: Some States Much Better Prepared Than Others for Recession
https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/interactive-map-some-states-much-better-prepared-than-others-for

 -- via my feedly newsfeed