My god, the US is headed for virus disaster

Advertisement

It’s everywhere:

Surely this cannot last:

In terms of economy and markets, there are any number of scenarios but the best way to think about it is:

  • the worse the pandemic the quicker it will be over;
  • the more the virus is checked then the longer the shutdowns.
Advertisement

The problem is, the US is a mishmash of state run responses that mean the country will be in and out of partial lockdowns for months to come with no consistency of response, state borders closing and supply and demand shocks ebbing and flowing all over the place.

Surely markets will crash again as this develops and the mass bankruptcies begin.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.