New York Times (October 3)
“Hurricanes and recessions are alike in many ways,” and we might be able to understand both better by thinking about the other. Both phenomena “cause enormous damage,” “are hard to predict” and “depend on feedback effects,” but “a recession doesn’t leave yachts stacked up on shore like a child’s toys.” Still, the damage from a recession can be just “as severe and is certainly more widely spread than a hurricane’s. Hang on to your hat.”
Tags: Damage, Enormous damage, Feedback effects, Hang on, Hurricanes, Phenomena, Predict, Recessions, Severe, Understand, Yachts
Wall Street Journal (February 17)
“Continental governments have spent trillions during the pandemic keeping firms alive and people in jobs, but that safety net could be putting off the economic deep cleaning that normally comes with recessions.” Concern is growing that “mothballing the economy for so long will leave it struggling to adapt to the seismic business and social changes the crisis is driving. That could stall an economic recovery.”
Tags: Adapt, Crisis, Economic deep cleaning, Firms, Governments, Jobs, Mothballing, Pandemic, Recessions, Recovery, Safety net, Struggling
New York Times (December 18)
“Rising Covid-19 cases are taking a steep toll on economic activity, battering the labor market even as new vaccines offer a ray of hope for next year.” After dropping earlier in autumn, jobless claims “have moved higher, and they remain at levels that dwarf the pace of past recessions.” New restrictions are hammering “the hospitality industry, lodging, airlines and other service businesses…. Until mass inoculations begin next year, the economy will remain under pressure.”
Tags: Airlines, Battering, COVID-19, Economic activity, Hope, Hospitality, Jobless claims, Labor market, Lodging, Recessions, Restrictions, Toll, Vaccines
The Economist (November 28)
“Investors are turning one eye away from the immediate struggle of coping with the pandemic and looking instead at the longer-term competitive picture. Who has won and who has lost? Like viruses, recessions usually come for the weakest first. Companies with sickly balance-sheets or frail margins quickly succumb. As promising startups become crushed closedowns, it is often the incumbents that have the resources to wait it out.”
Tags: Balance sheets, Companies, Crushed closedowns, Incumbents, Investors, Margins, Pandemic, Promising, Recessions, Resources, Startups, Succumb, Weakest
Slate (July 3)
“It might be time to start counting down until our next recession. As of this week, the U.S. Treasury yield curve has now been inverted for a full quarter,” an event that has proven “an unusually reliable warning sign that an economic downturn is on the way. The yield curve has flipped prior to each of the last seven official recessions over the past 50 years, without a single false-alarm during that stretch. If securities could talk, in other words, they’d be screaming bloody murder about trouble ahead.”
Tags: Economic downturn, False-alarm, Inverted, Recessions, Securities, U.S. Treasuries, Warning sign, Yield curve
