
Europe's recession will be even deeper than expected - LinuxBender
https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_cf9744f2a6542445f3e4adfb1dce24c5
======
parsimo2010
I'm not really that interested in the article, but thank you OP for linking to
the lite version of CNN. It loaded so fast and didn't have any autoplaying
videos.

But related to the article- We have multiple continents that are significantly
curtailing their output due to the pandemic, and it will last for a while yet.
I'm a little surprised to see that they think Europe will contract by only
8.3%. That might make sense if it were just Europe being affected by the
pandemic but all of their trading partners are affected too. I don't think
they've accounted for how the entire world going down at once is going to
effect the EU as a multiplicative effect, not an additive effect.

~~~
simonh
It's a reasonable concern, but a look at the report indicates they seem to
have attempted to take into account the effects on the EU's main global
trading partners. You can get the report here.

[https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/economic-
per...](https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/economic-performance-
and-forecasts/economic-forecasts/summer-2020-economic-forecast-deeper-
recession-wider-divergences_en)

~~~
parsimo2010
The report claims that their economy will take a 17% hit in the first half of
2020 (it has already taken this hit, but it takes a while for the accounting
to shake out). And they're claiming that the yearly hit will only be 8.3%. I
understand that they are trying to take a lot of things into account, but this
forecast is too optimistic. Europe won't bounce back that much in H2, because
their recovery will only happen at the pace of everyone else's recovery.

~~~
simonh
I agree it's optimistic, it assumes no second wave which is actually already
happening and is sure to happen elsewhere in the world too.

~~~
WinstonSmith84
Nothing proves that a "real" second wave will come with a similar lockdown to
the first one. The first lockdown was catastrophic for the economy of some
countries and didn't really help anything at all in regard to the health (best
example is France/Spain vs. Germany). It seems (some) countries have learnt
the lessons and now apply successfully limited restrictions (masks, social
distancing, limited gathering, etc.) and this shall be the sweet spot for
limiting contamination while not impeding further the economy. Arguably one
shall not, again, underestimate governments for self-sabotaging themselves,
but we can hope to see more reasonable measures being undertaken.

~~~
autokad
> "Nothing proves that a "real" second wave will come with a similar lockdown
> to the first one."

I dont know about similar lockdowns, but its reasonable to be concerned about
a 2nd winter wave. We seen what happens once winter time comes in Brazil

~~~
mercer
Let's hope Covid took Bolsonaro by then and his replacement isn't somehow
worse...

------
totally_a_human
I'm german and I remember people being pessimistic naysayers in the banking
crash 2008, the "refugee crisis" in 2015, the "climate crisis" last year and
many times before that. Apparantly a year without a near end of the world is a
wasted one.

The single most appropriate quote in these times (it comes from 4chan of all
damn places) is, and always will be: "Your impending sense of doom is nothing
but emotional residue - there is nothing wrong. Even when something is wrong,
nothing is wrong. You deal with problems as they arise, no big deal."

~~~
fulafel
There's one crisis in this set that's real and we're doing way too little
about it (climate crisis). Probably the biggest harm from short term panickng
about these smaller things is taking away attention from it.

~~~
totally_a_human
Exactly! Short-term panicking is the worst thing to do. I definitely think the
climate change is man-made. I also think it is impossible to realy predict its
environmental, ecological and social consequences on a global scale.

By listening to those, who try to nudge us into panic mode, we neglect calm
long-term strategies that would improve our lives over time.

Imho, this applies to every "immediate threats" that are regulary propagated
by (social) media.

------
Darmody
I don't even want to know how hard Spain will be hit. The country was kind of
recovering from the 2008 crisis which was not pretty. Unemployment was still
high before Covid, around 14% down from 26% which was not a good number but
things were going forward.

Now this new crisis will be 5 times worse, at least in terms of GDP. In 2008
the GDP went down around 2,5% now it'll go down more than 12%. Madness. Around
50.000 small businesses have already shut down and thousands more are barely
surviving. And now the government is going to increase some taxes. Taxes which
were supposed to affect the rich but guess what, they won't.

I'm pretty concerned about several people I know with small/family businesses.

------
WhompingWindows
COVID is the massive elephant in the room that this article doesn't fully
address. Everyone is very focused on GDP, but this is merely a single metric.
What about new cases, patients hospitalized, patients dying from COVID? These
have dramatic repercussions for economic policy, and it seems the countries
doing the best right now economically are those who handle COVID the best.

~~~
wnmurphy
Global warming is the same issue. We don't seem to realize that the economy
kinda sorta depends entirely on the environment, just like the economy kinda
sorta depends entirely on public health.

------
subsubzero
This pandemic will be alot worse in economic terms than predicted. So far the
only bright spot will be deaths seem to have really dropped, but death is a
low bar compared to having severe chronic symptoms after infection. Alot of
people have really shut down spending(my family reduced it by 50%) Expect
international travel/tourism to be completely shutdown as well as a majority
of restaurants and bars until prb early 2021. Sports and concerts also. That
is a considerable chunk of the economy. Will a majority of these restaurants
even exist next year? A few assumptions that have been proven wrong with
covid-19:

1\. The virus will subside in the summer like the flu does. Based on cases in
the US and other areas (sans Europe) skyrocketing right now this is absolutely
not true, forget a 2nd wave we have a growing mountain of a 1st wave hitting
the US/Americas now.

2\. Children are not really affected by covid. Israel had to shut its schools
down after cases there were jumping, in addition kawasaki disease seems to be
prevalent in a higher percentage of infected children than normally seen.

3\. Antibodies will offer protection against covid-19 after being infected.
This too has been disproved although the jury is not out yet. Studies have
seen neutralizing antibodies stay in a persons system for about 2-3 months.
There are other ways the body knows how to fight an infection so this is not
definitive yet.[3]

[1] -
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/07/coronavirus...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/07/coronavirus-
live-updates-us/)

[2] - [https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
updates/2020/0...](https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
updates/2020/06/03/868507524/israel-orders-schools-to-close-when-
covid-19-cases-are-discovered)

[3] - [https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-
perspective/2020/06/chinese-...](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-
perspective/2020/06/chinese-study-antibodies-covid-19-patients-fade-quickly)

~~~
seppel
> as well as a majority of restaurants and bars until prb early 2021.

The majority of bars and restaurants are back open in Germany.

~~~
AnssiH
Yeah, they are open in Finland as well
([https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/information-on-
coronavirus/curr...](https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/information-on-
coronavirus/current-restrictions)).

Though I think the parent was talking about worldwide numbers which I have no
idea about.

------
orwin
Growth expected to return by 2022 then? European oil providers supplies were
supposed to be contracting by 2028 according to data from Rystad, before the
pandemic, mostly because of below ground issues (and with very, VERY
optimistic previsions concerning above ground issues imo). So anyway, Covid or
not, European industrial production will peak this decade.

Times will be harder and harder for a lot of people.

~~~
abyssin
A bad economy is good for the climate, which is good for the economy.

~~~
Ghjklov
Bad economy might lead to wars and conflicts. But if it kills a lot of people,
I guess that's good for the climate in the long game. Wars are also great for
the economy assuming you survive.

Wow, the outlook for the next decade is fantastic.

~~~
abyssin
I personally can hardly handle thinking about the future without taking the
possibility of conflicts caused by the climate mess into account.

~~~
mercer
I don't know your age, but I've been rather worried about the fact that almost
all my < 30 years old friends seem to be some degree of 'doomer'. Whether it's
climate, the economy (and the prospects of retirement), or even just
expectations if what their next few decades will be like.

Obviously I don't just worry that they feel this way, but also that they
probably have a good reason for feeling this way, but either way it's
worrying.

------
war1025
A thing I've thought is really interesting on how the news is covering
Coronavirus here in the US is they like to talk about all the economic harm
going on in the US and then they blame it on the government response rather
than the pandemic itself.

I've heard more than one news piece where they imply that Europe and Asia will
be somehow spared from the economic fallout of putting their countries on
lockdown for months on end. Then in the next piece they'll talk about how the
US unemployment rate is off the charts and find a way to blame the Trump
administration for it.

The economy is suffering because we slammed on the brakes in what (at least at
the time) seemed like a prudent measure to avoid a worse fate. Now we have to
pay the price for that. Choices have consequences.

~~~
funcDropShadow
Well, a country will have less economic fallout if it manages to keep SARS-
Cov-II at bay. Trump managed to evoke the collateral damage of a lockdown
without the full benefits. And that is on the government.

~~~
war1025
> Trump managed to evoke the collateral damage of a lockdown without the full
> benefits.

Besides the fact that the Federal government doesn't actually have the
authority to invoke a lockdown, and it was done on a state by state basis, yes
the Federal government did advocate for it.

As to the benefits of the lockdowns as performed in various countries, I think
it really remains to be seen how badly the US will be affected vs the rest of
the world.

As of right now, yes, the US looks particularly bad in terms of the number of
infections / deaths. But it's also an area the size of Europe with the vast
majority of the deaths restricted to New England.

I wonder how things would look if you compared individual states to European
countries. For example, here in Iowa, we're at I think 700 deaths and 30,000
confirmed cases. That doesn't seem too catastrophic to me.

~~~
Symbiote
You can make your comparison with these two pages:

\-
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)
("Europe" is all Europe, not just the European Union. That's 747 million
people.)

\-
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/)

In that case, Iowa is doing very badly for cases/1M. I don't know if the
comparison is fair, it might depend on who is tested.

For deaths/1M, it's somewhere around the European average.

Some European countries are very densely populated, like Belgium, the
Netherlands, others less. Though much of Europe is as dense as New England.

~~~
war1025
> In that case, Iowa is doing very badly for cases/1M.

This is interesting to me. I don't personally know anyone who has caught
Coronavirus, much less been hospitalized or died from it.

If this is average or worse than average, it really makes me wonder why we've
gotten so worked up about the re-opening. I assumed based on the way it's
covered on the news that people were dropping like flies in other parts of the
world.

~~~
Symbiote
I'm really not sure if the cases/1M is a reasonable figure to compare.

At least between European countries, there have been quite different
approaches to testing -- who gets tested varies depending on symptoms,
perceived risk to themselves, risk to others, and availability of testing.

I don't personally know anyone here in Denmark that has tested positive. Two
people I know know someone who has tested positive here. Many hotspots seem to
be limited to quite small communities -- a single building, a single care home
for the elderly, or a single food processing factory might have tens of cases
(even deaths for the care home), so it's not so surprising that I'm unaware of
anyone infected.

------
pjmlp
Looking to many people that I know that I quite obvious.

Plenty of people are still not able to work, and it is not like everyone can
work from home.

------
11235813213455
Fantastic news for the environment and ourselves if people overall consume
less

~~~
josho
Are you seeing that people are taking that message to heart? Those around me
don’t seem to be changing their attitudes. So, I don’t see any reason why
things will change long term.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Are you seeing that people are taking that message to heart? Those around me
> don’t seem to be changing their attitudes.

Lots of aircraft still parked (~15k).

------
gavribirnbaum
8.3% cause everything is fine and Covid will be gone next week... right?

~~~
mercer
that comment is even more useless than this one.

