Latest / Trumponomics / China’s Uneven Reopening Shows Fear Might Hold Back Economies
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- 0:00Speaker 1: They put an alarm on my door that alerts my
- 0:04Speaker 1: kind of my property management building are building management whenever
- 0:07Speaker 1: I opened the door, and I'm only allowed to open
- 0:10Speaker 1: the door to put the trash outside and to pick
- 0:13Speaker 1: up food that's delivered or any items I have delivered.
- 0:16Speaker 1: I have to report my temperature to three different re
- 0:19Speaker 1: check groups every day, twice a day. Beijing is just
- 0:22Speaker 1: on high alert. It's kind of more paranoid than any
- 0:24Speaker 1: other city in China. Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the
- 0:31Speaker 1: podcast that brings the global economy to you, which this
- 0:39Speaker 1: week includes the inside of Sharon Chen's apartment in Beijing.
- 0:43Speaker 1: She's the Beijing bureau chief of Bloomberg and she's in
- 0:46Speaker 1: quarantine because she's just returned from a reporting trip to Whuhan.
- 0:50Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to her because we're focusing this
- 0:52Speaker 1: week on what the path out of lockdown might look
- 0:55Speaker 1: like for all of our economies. Our chief economists for
- 0:58Speaker 1: Europe in the Middle East, Jamie, has been looking at
- 1:01Speaker 1: how quickly the economy could come back depending on which
- 1:04Speaker 1: measures are removed and when are we talking to him
- 1:07Speaker 1: in a minute, and also playing you part of a
- 1:09Speaker 1: conversation I had with the former president of the European
- 1:12Speaker 1: Central Bank, Jean Clautriche. But first let's hear more about
- 1:17Speaker 1: that trip to the city of Wuhan, first into the
- 1:20Speaker 1: crisis and now first out. Yes, so we went to
- 1:29Speaker 1: Wuhan on April four, just before the quarantine was lifted
- 1:34Speaker 1: on April eight. The idea was to go there and see,
- 1:37Speaker 1: you know, how does the city of more than ten
- 1:40Speaker 1: million people emerged from lockdown and it's the first city
- 1:44Speaker 1: in the world that went through it. And throughout this
- 1:47Speaker 1: whole process, this virus outbreak, Wuhan has kind of been
- 1:51Speaker 1: ahead of the curve. Did have been the first city
- 1:53Speaker 1: to deal with it and then now the first city
- 1:55Speaker 1: to be locked down and then the first city to
- 1:56Speaker 1: try to get back to normal. And we thought that
- 1:59Speaker 1: going there maybe give us some clues about what kinds
- 2:02Speaker 1: of things would happen when other big cities try to
- 2:06Speaker 1: emerge from lockdown. Yeah, so that was the idea behind
- 2:08Speaker 1: the trip. And now that I'm back in Beijing, I've
- 2:11Speaker 1: been quarantined in my apartment for fourteen days and I
- 2:14Speaker 1: can't leave on on Wohan. What what struck you most
- 2:19Speaker 1: immediately about the experience there, because, as you say, we
- 2:24Speaker 1: do look to Wuhan as an extreme example of the
- 2:29Speaker 1: impact of the virus, but also a place that was
- 2:31Speaker 1: quite far ahead of everywhere else. Yeah, I mean, I
- 2:35Speaker 1: think my biggest takeaway is that it was really kind
- 2:37Speaker 1: of a two speed recovery or like coming back to normal.
- 2:42Speaker 1: So you had the resumption of work and that was
- 2:45Speaker 1: really apparent and really immediate, especially because it was something
- 2:50Speaker 1: that the government was pushing. So the day we arrived
- 2:53Speaker 1: there were there was hardly any traffic, and by the
- 2:55Speaker 1: time we were leaving ten days later, we were getting
- 2:57Speaker 1: stuck in traffic constantly at rush hour because people were
- 3:00Speaker 1: going to work. You know, factories were working at full
- 3:03Speaker 1: production capacity. They were working through the weekends, they worked
- 3:06Speaker 1: through the long holiday that we were there to make
- 3:08Speaker 1: up for all the lost time. But in terms of consumption,
- 3:12Speaker 1: you know, the shopping malls were open, the restaurants were open,
- 3:14Speaker 1: but they were basically empty. No one was eating out.
- 3:18Speaker 1: Even the few people that we spoke to in the
- 3:20Speaker 1: mall said that they don't think that they would go
- 3:22Speaker 1: out like they used to before just for fun um,
- 3:25Speaker 1: you know, they would really only go out for essential activities.
- 3:28Speaker 1: People were still scared. I think both of the virus,
- 3:34Speaker 1: even though there are officially no cases in Mohan. Now, um,
- 3:38Speaker 1: they're they're both scared of the virus. It's kind of
- 3:40Speaker 1: I think a psychological hangover after being told for weeks
- 3:43Speaker 1: and weeks that it's very dangerous outside and you can't
- 3:45Speaker 1: go outside and it's dangerous interact with people. But they
- 3:49Speaker 1: were also scared of being quarantined again because in Mohan
- 3:52Speaker 1: they have this health code system, so you're either green, yellow,
- 3:56Speaker 1: or red, and even going into a shopping mall where
- 4:00Speaker 1: later someone else is either suspected or confirmed of having
- 4:04Speaker 1: the virus will turn your coat yellow and then you
- 4:06Speaker 1: can get quarantined again, and your housing compound can refuse
- 4:10Speaker 1: to let you leave the housing compound. So there's kind
- 4:13Speaker 1: of like this high level of paranoia about both those things,
- 4:16Speaker 1: both the virus and about being locked up again. So
- 4:19Speaker 1: I mean, I think consumer habits and just social habits
- 4:23Speaker 1: really have changed, and there was kind of this divergence
- 4:26Speaker 1: between going to work and going out for fun. Now
- 4:30Speaker 1: that's fascinating and I think and we are seeing that
- 4:32Speaker 1: when we're looking at the sort of high frequency economists
- 4:34Speaker 1: are now looking at the high frequency data in Beijing
- 4:38Speaker 1: and other cities and you can see this reel, there's
- 4:41Speaker 1: a sort of bat as you say, there's the kind
- 4:42Speaker 1: of supply side and the demand side. The supply side
- 4:46Speaker 1: shock as we used to talk about it has gone
- 4:49Speaker 1: because people are more or less back to work, But
- 4:53Speaker 1: anything that's to do with spending and consumer activity, particularly
- 4:58Speaker 1: at the weekends, is just still way below where it was.
- 5:05Speaker 1: And that's obviously concerning for economists thinking about how steep
- 5:10Speaker 1: the recovery is. When you look at Wuhan and then
- 5:13Speaker 1: you read people still talking about that v shaped recovery
- 5:16Speaker 1: that we turn everything back on again, do you think
- 5:19Speaker 1: that is is quite far off the map. Yeah, I
- 5:22Speaker 1: mean I think if you listen to you know, like
- 5:25Speaker 1: US President Donald Trump saying when we lift the lockdowns,
- 5:28Speaker 1: everything's going to go back to normal, it just seems
- 5:31Speaker 1: so far removed from what's happening in Buhan. You know,
- 5:35Speaker 1: just because people have the freedom to go outside doesn't
- 5:38Speaker 1: mean that they want to the idea of people sitting
- 5:41Speaker 1: in a crowded restaurant or going to watch a movie
- 5:44Speaker 1: in a theater or going to a concert. I mean, like,
- 5:47Speaker 1: I don't think anyone in Wuhan would even consider that
- 5:50Speaker 1: within the realm of possibility. Being at home for so long,
- 5:53Speaker 1: I think it's really changed people in the long term,
- 5:57Speaker 1: Like people are just more used to eating at home,
- 6:01Speaker 1: used to cooking at home, not really going out getting
- 6:04Speaker 1: food delivered. We also interviewed a restaurant owner. He off
- 6:09Speaker 1: his ten restaurants. None of them have reopened. The original
- 6:12Speaker 1: plan was for him to reopen three, and then when
- 6:15Speaker 1: he realized that nobody's going out anyway, he decided he
- 6:18Speaker 1: was just going to reopen one, and eventually he reopened
- 6:21Speaker 1: none of them. And he said, you know, people now
- 6:25Speaker 1: they don't go out for lunch on their lunch hour.
- 6:27Speaker 1: Everyone's bringing lunch to the office, like bringing home cooked food.
- 6:31Speaker 1: So all these little things that are really going to
- 6:32Speaker 1: impact businesses like his, especially small businesses, I think, and
- 6:38Speaker 1: I think it gives that point of the permanence of
- 6:40Speaker 1: some of these costs. We know, as you said, the
- 6:42Speaker 1: manufacturers are quickly doing the orders that got put on hold,
- 6:47Speaker 1: and you could imagine that they might get back eight
- 6:49Speaker 1: or ninety percent of what they would have had. You know,
- 6:52Speaker 1: they'll grow much faster now in the classic kind of
- 6:54Speaker 1: recovery way and catch up that lost ground. But in
- 6:58Speaker 1: the service sector and spending on things like restaurants. We
- 7:01Speaker 1: just we know that we're not going to be eating
- 7:04Speaker 1: twice as many restaurant meals in the second half of
- 7:06Speaker 1: the year. But what you're telling me is that we
- 7:08Speaker 1: may not even be eating half the level of our
- 7:12Speaker 1: normal level. That could really have an impact on the
- 7:15Speaker 1: pace of the recovery. Well, Sharon, so how long have
- 7:17Speaker 1: you got before that bell goes off your front door?
- 7:20Speaker 1: How when do you when do you get to see
- 7:22Speaker 1: the sun, to feel the sunshine again? So I have
- 7:25Speaker 1: seven days to go, but Beijing has just said that
- 7:29Speaker 1: my district is a high risk area because they discovered
- 7:32Speaker 1: a cluster. A student from the US came back and
- 7:36Speaker 1: tested positive for the virus two days after he completed
- 7:39Speaker 1: his fourteen day quarantine. So there's been some rumors that
- 7:43Speaker 1: they could extend it to twenty one days, but so
- 7:45Speaker 1: far that hasn't happened. So fingers crossed that I get
- 7:47Speaker 1: up in a week. Good luck, fingers crossed, and thanks
- 7:51Speaker 1: so much for all the reporting you're doing. Thank you.
- 7:59Speaker 1: I We'll be hearing more from Sharon and others in
- 8:01Speaker 1: China in the weeks and months ahead as we start
- 8:04Speaker 1: to see and feel what life looks like after lockdown.
- 8:08Speaker 1: But now we have some new numbers to feed into
- 8:11Speaker 1: that conversation brought to us by our chief Amire economist,
- 8:14Speaker 1: Jamie Rush. Firstly, I should thank you for all that
- 8:20Speaker 1: you're doing with the Europe team and globally. But something
- 8:24Speaker 1: you did last week I thought was particularly interesting trying
- 8:27Speaker 1: to take a stab at thinking about the economic impact
- 8:32Speaker 1: of different stages of lockdown. And I guess what's the
- 8:35Speaker 1: relevance of that to anybody thinking about where we go
- 8:39Speaker 1: from here? As we know now that it's not going
- 8:42Speaker 1: to be like flicking a switch when we start to
- 8:45Speaker 1: move out of lockdown, we'll probably go through several stages.
- 8:49Speaker 1: What did you do to try and get a handle
- 8:52Speaker 1: on what that might mean for the economy and what
- 8:54Speaker 1: were the results? So the starting point for our analysis
- 8:57Speaker 1: was to look at what's been going on in France.
- 9:00Speaker 1: In that country, the Statistics Office has published quite a
- 9:03Speaker 1: lots of information about how lockdowns are affecting the economy,
- 9:07Speaker 1: and what they've found is that the lockdown period has
- 9:12Speaker 1: coincided with a falling output around about a third. But
- 9:15Speaker 1: we've combined that information with some data from the Platonic
- 9:19Speaker 1: School of Government, which has gone around and measured the
- 9:24Speaker 1: stringency of of measures across countries. So when we look
- 9:28Speaker 1: at the output loss, it's about thirty and when we
- 9:31Speaker 1: look at the stringency index it's it's that's one data
- 9:36Speaker 1: point to the other data point we have is that
- 9:37Speaker 1: we know that when stringency is is zero, the output
- 9:42Speaker 1: loss is going to be zero. So the question that
- 9:44Speaker 1: we've been asking ourselves is is it reasonable to draw
- 9:47Speaker 1: a line from zero to and then just read across
- 9:52Speaker 1: what that means for output and to kind of get
- 9:55Speaker 1: a sense of whether that is reasonable. We've looked at
- 9:59Speaker 1: other indications, so we know that different stringency measures have
- 10:02Speaker 1: been in place across countries, and we've plotted those against
- 10:05Speaker 1: the change in the p m I in those countries,
- 10:07Speaker 1: so we can see that actually they do look sort
- 10:09Speaker 1: of linear, and the same is true when you look
- 10:12Speaker 1: at traffic congestion. So the second step in our analysis
- 10:16Speaker 1: was to take the Platonic School's methodology, unpack it, and
- 10:20Speaker 1: then create a stringency reading from scratch. So a scenario
- 10:24Speaker 1: for moderate containment measures. So we assume, for example that
- 10:28Speaker 1: UM school. Some schools are still shut, but many are open.
- 10:32Speaker 1: Some businesses are allowed to open, but but many remain
- 10:35Speaker 1: shut and so on, and so we think this is
- 10:38Speaker 1: consistent with a phased withdrawal of containment measures. And what
- 10:42Speaker 1: we found is that when you move from this full
- 10:45Speaker 1: lockdown back to the sort of phasing out of containment measures,
- 10:49Speaker 1: the output loss drops from about thirty five to about
- 10:54Speaker 1: so that step down is likely to be quite large.
- 10:58Speaker 1: And we came into the thinking that it would be
- 11:01Speaker 1: a V shaped recovery. We've progressively deepened the V. You know,
- 11:07Speaker 1: we've had to increase our estimate of the short term
- 11:11Speaker 1: impact of these shutdowns. You talked about the thirty five
- 11:14Speaker 1: percent impact in France of a more or less total shutdown.
- 11:19Speaker 1: Have we also changed our view of the shape of
- 11:22Speaker 1: the recovery? What do you actually think the recovery is
- 11:24Speaker 1: going to look like now? If it's not a V,
- 11:27Speaker 1: is it an L? Is it a you? What do
- 11:29Speaker 1: you think? I think what we've learned in the past
- 11:32Speaker 1: few weeks is which governments are stepping up to the
- 11:35Speaker 1: plate and offering the fiscal support that is required for
- 11:40Speaker 1: persistent effects on output to be avoided after the pandemic passes.
- 11:44Speaker 1: And we're also seeing which governments aren't stepping up to
- 11:47Speaker 1: the plates, So I think in the in the doing
- 11:49Speaker 1: the right thing category, we have have Germany and we
- 11:52Speaker 1: have the UK, both of which are offering substantial income
- 11:56Speaker 1: support to businesses a lot of liquidity to loan, so
- 11:59Speaker 1: the comp these don't go bust. Time will tell whether
- 12:02Speaker 1: that has come fast enough to prevent the worst damage
- 12:04Speaker 1: from being done. But our base cases that these are
- 12:07Speaker 1: economies that are likely to bounce back relatively quickly, but
- 12:11Speaker 1: not all countries are are doing enough, so I think
- 12:14Speaker 1: Italy and Spain probably fall into that category. The fiscal
- 12:18Speaker 1: support isn't as forthcoming as it is elsewhere, and this
- 12:21Speaker 1: means that the damage is going to be the more pronounced,
- 12:25Speaker 1: and this damage is going to be hard to reverse.
- 12:27Speaker 1: So once companies go bust, it takes time for new
- 12:30Speaker 1: ones to spring up. And what we don't know is
- 12:32Speaker 1: what sort of condition the banking sector is going to
- 12:34Speaker 1: be in after all this, so they may not even
- 12:36Speaker 1: be the loans available for new businesses to start, so
- 12:39Speaker 1: there's um. I think these countries are the ones where
- 12:42Speaker 1: the bounce back it's likely to be smaller, and they're
- 12:45Speaker 1: also the ones that risk the slowest recoveries in future
- 12:48Speaker 1: quarters and the consequences of the economy not bouncing back
- 12:52Speaker 1: in the second half a huge If you can run
- 12:55Speaker 1: a persistent output gap for many years, that will push
- 12:58Speaker 1: debt up by a huge margin, whereas the a short
- 13:03Speaker 1: chart shock is likely to have a smaller long run impact. Well,
- 13:07Speaker 1: and you raise it. That's a key point, I mean,
- 13:10Speaker 1: and it's a good way of thinking about it that
- 13:12Speaker 1: if you're spending a lot of money now, you are
- 13:15Speaker 1: directly investing in the gradient of your recovery. You're you're
- 13:19Speaker 1: you're investing in a faster bounce back, and that obviously
- 13:24Speaker 1: would be a contrast with the recovery we had after
- 13:26Speaker 1: the global financial crisis, where we saw that there was
- 13:30Speaker 1: a lingering effect and a much slower rate of growth
- 13:33Speaker 1: for many years after the crisis. Obviously hoping that that
- 13:37Speaker 1: doesn't happen this time. But your point about Spain and
- 13:40Speaker 1: Italy actually in particular has a very high debt stock.
- 13:44Speaker 1: There's much more constraints on it in terms of how
- 13:47Speaker 1: much it can spend right now. But the implication of
- 13:50Speaker 1: what you're saying is if they don't spend now and
- 13:53Speaker 1: have that much more costly recession, slower recovery in the
- 13:58Speaker 1: long run, that's worse for debt. I think that's absolutely right.
- 14:02Speaker 1: So if they spend more now and debt rises relative
- 14:05Speaker 1: to GDP by say ten percentage points, that's not a disaster.
- 14:09Speaker 1: That's that's about as good as things can possibly look.
- 14:12Speaker 1: Far more costly would be spending too little now, the
- 14:15Speaker 1: economy failing to recover, and debt spiraling out of control
- 14:19Speaker 1: as the deficit is impossible to bring back down again.
- 14:22Speaker 1: There were some pretty striking figures were used to work
- 14:25Speaker 1: the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Britain's fiscal watchdog Ransom
- 14:30Speaker 1: what it considered to be sort of illustrative numbers on
- 14:33Speaker 1: the public finances for the kind of hit to the
- 14:36Speaker 1: economy that you were talking about at the beginning um
- 14:40Speaker 1: and had the implication was a pretty big jump in
- 14:45Speaker 1: public debt. When you think now, if you had to say,
- 14:49Speaker 1: how do you think that's going to be paid for?
- 14:50Speaker 1: Are we going to be looking at a big increase
- 14:52Speaker 1: in taxes at the end of this or are we
- 14:54Speaker 1: just going to say, Okay, now we've we've had this
- 14:57Speaker 1: big crisis and we've just got a higher debt and
- 14:59Speaker 1: now we're going to carry on light before So I
- 15:02Speaker 1: think once we get the other side of this crisis,
- 15:06Speaker 1: debt's going to be a lot higher, and some countries
- 15:09Speaker 1: are going to feel pressure to reduce it. And I think, actually,
- 15:13Speaker 1: that's that's relatively that's sensible. Um, if we just allowed
- 15:17Speaker 1: debt to rise by temper percentage points every time there's
- 15:20Speaker 1: a crisis, then at some point you reach a position
- 15:23Speaker 1: of unsustainability and defaults of what follows. So I think
- 15:29Speaker 1: it's it is the case that some of these debts
- 15:31Speaker 1: are going to have to be repaid. Um. It doesn't
- 15:34Speaker 1: have to be repaid fast. Our storia doesn't have to
- 15:37Speaker 1: happen before the economy is recovered. But in the long run, yes,
- 15:40Speaker 1: it's going to have to be financed by by higher taxes.
- 15:44Speaker 1: And you know, I think that there are ways of
- 15:46Speaker 1: there are ways of doing that. I mean, exactly who
- 15:49Speaker 1: experiences or feels the burden most is a question for
- 15:52Speaker 1: the politicians. But you know, look at Germany's history of
- 15:56Speaker 1: paying for reunification. It was done with the tax that
- 15:59Speaker 1: was explicit linked to the activity is intended to finance. Um,
- 16:03Speaker 1: something like that wouldn't be completely mad. I don't think
- 16:06Speaker 1: in the in the future, Jamie, I'm sure we'll have
- 16:09Speaker 1: plenty more to talk about in the next few months,
- 16:11Speaker 1: but thanks very much. As it happens, I just chaired
- 16:17Speaker 1: an online discussion on some of these issues for something
- 16:20Speaker 1: called the Global Solutions Initiative. There were some lofty participants
- 16:24Speaker 1: who said lots of interesting things, But let me just
- 16:27Speaker 1: play you a few comments from the former President of
- 16:29Speaker 1: the European Central Bank, Jean Clautriche on the scary subject
- 16:34Speaker 1: of global government debt. We are cumulating an enormous amount
- 16:41Speaker 1: of additional public spendings we had since the former previous crisis,
- 16:49Speaker 1: an accumulation of indebtedness at the global level, graphically all
- 16:53Speaker 1: countries apart from a very few countries. Germany is a
- 16:58Speaker 1: case in point, but practically the only casing point. So
- 17:02Speaker 1: we we have to be absolutely aware of the fact
- 17:06Speaker 1: that there would be enormous problems not only to digest
- 17:11Speaker 1: what we are spending right now, but also what we
- 17:14Speaker 1: had unfortunately spent during the ten years after the previous crisis.
- 17:21Speaker 1: And then I have to say I am wearing a
- 17:23Speaker 1: lot for the example banks, because of course I eliminate hyperinflation,
- 17:27Speaker 1: which would be a solution to swallow the debt. The
- 17:30Speaker 1: enormous amount of that I eliminate the default or generalized
- 17:35Speaker 1: default data aviation restructuring that that would also be a
- 17:41Speaker 1: dramatic trauma, and I expect that we will avoid that.
- 17:44Speaker 1: But then what's left financial repression, hyper taxation, or a combination.
- 17:52Speaker 1: And there the sample banks have a very very important
- 17:56Speaker 1: role to play. A combination of very low interest rates
- 17:59Speaker 1: for a long, really good time together with a reasonable
- 18:03Speaker 1: level of inflation suddenly not the zero inflation or very
- 18:07Speaker 1: repreation we had in the past, and they've gone through
- 18:09Speaker 1: them that. Thanks for listening to Stephanomics. We'll be back
- 18:17Speaker 1: next week with more on how COVID nineteen is turning
- 18:20Speaker 1: the global economy upside down. Remember you can always find
- 18:24Speaker 1: us on the Bloomberg Terminal, website, app or wherever you
- 18:27Speaker 1: get your podcasts. For more news and analysis from Bloomberg
- 18:30Speaker 1: Economics through the week. You can follow as Economics on Twitter,
- 18:35Speaker 1: and you can also find me on at my Stephanomics.
- 18:38Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Magnus Hendrickson Special thanks to
- 18:42Speaker 1: Sharon Chen, Jamie Rush, Jean Clautriche and all at the
- 18:46Speaker 1: Global Solutions Initiative. Scott Lamon is the executive producer of
- 18:50Speaker 1: Stephanomics and the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Is Francesca Levi
- 19:00Speaker 1: the hand, the