Covid 19 Part XXV-44,159 ROI (1,830 deaths) 21,898 NI (598 deaths) (13/10) Read OP

How will the economy survive and how will we fund the COVID payments?

Just thought I would put up what I believe is happening and what will continue to happen, at least until next summer. Why do I pick next summer? Because I believe there is alot of uncertainty surrounding how long we may need to manage this virus and the strategies we can use. As such, I think a prudent government is looking to fund everything and work out cost (jobs, economy etc) until the summer when you would hope regardless of how bad it gets in the winter, that we have a lull (like this summer) and time to reflect on what works best and maybe better tools to combat it.

But I regularly see comments like "our economy will collapse" or something to this effect. My own personal view is that this certainly not going to happen in the next few months anyways. The government will try and borrow their way out of trouble which is what pretty much every country in the world is doing. Loans can be gotten on negative interest rates and because everybody is in the same boat, I think it will be a case of rising tides lift all boats.

The biggest damage will possibly be in job numbers. Revenue returns this year have been far better then were predicted so we actually have a bit of breathing space. I anticipate huge stimulas packages to create replacement jobs for those who lost them once, hopefully, the dust has settled on how to manage this next summer (I am being optimistic of course).

One thing I dont believe is going to happen, is that any decision the government makes will collapse our economy. They have already crunched numbers on how far we can go on COVID payments. Not just that, every country and every central bank is having to change the parameters as the crisis changes.

I think sometimes people get so scared and upset, they jump to the worst case scenario "the government will run out of money and cant keep borrowing". As it stands, the cost to the economy is not clear yet, the pain is in the proverbial post. But I think the landscape is so different to 2008 and I really don't anticipate the kind of prolonged financial crisis we had back then.

There is a huge pentup demand for goods, services and recreations. People have nowhere to spend their money. Once we have gotten a handle on the virus and can go back to relative normalcy for longer periods of time, most of the hardest hit sectors can recover. Maybe in a different way, but they can recover quickly. It will be too late for sum, but people want to travel, people want to go on holidays, supply and demand will replace the catering/airline services lost.

As a relatively rich country, we have the flexibility to be more compassionate to our vulnerable. But if you don't even care about this end of things, its because we have a poorly resourced/managed healthcare system, we don't have as much flexibility to be gung ho "lets go herd immunity all the way baby".

The economic concerns individually to each person is real and makes sense, but from a national perspective the country will be fine.