Joseph Stiglitz: Coronavirus and the 'Deliberate Recession’ | CoronaNomics, Ep 1.

Amidst huge global uncertainty, one thing we can say for sure is that recession is coming, brought on by lockdowns ordered by governments in order to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

In episode one of CoronaNomics, Joseph Stiglitz and Vince Cable talk to Ben Chu about the Deliberate Recession, and the impact of coronavirus on business, jobs and the economy.

The aim of government policy is, effectively, to stop a considerable amount of economic activity, leading us to a deliberate recession. So if recession is the result of government policy, what does success look like? How does government weigh up lives versus livelihoods? And what’s the coronavirus lockdown exit strategy?

CoronaNomics is presented by Ben Chu (Economics Editor of The Independent). This episode features an interview with Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank, advisor to past US Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001. We also speak to Sir Vince Cable, Business Secretary in the UK’s coalition government between 2010 and 2015, until last year the leader of the Liberal Democrats. Vince is currently a visiting professor at the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics.

Playlists:

[MartinPoulter]

This channel is an oasis of actually informed discussion about the economics of the pandemic.

[callumewart]

I really like Stiglitz’s view that their shouldn’t be such an idea of a trade off between saving lives (lockdowns) and economic freedom, this is also viable for the example of climate change. Governments intervention within social aspects of economies e.g. lockdowns, despite this hitting industries such as the travel/hospitality harder than online shopping (e.g. Amazon), the rising threat of climate change has been suppressed. The population in China has seen the drastic differences in the air qualities, due to reduced pollution. Stanford researchers showed that 4, 000 children under 5 and 73, 000 adults over seventy were spared from dying from poor air quality. As Stiglitz said that the impact of lives can hold value in economic activity and social prosperity (especially for the 4, 000 children whose lives were saved), governments are right to squeeze business in the markets in order to provide less Covid deaths. However, if countless lives can be saved through implementing government policies for Covid, showing some correlation in protecting lives from climate change, why are governments hesitant in pushing through policies that protect the prosperity of the planet for the future? Is this just liberal denial or is the pressure from activist groups and individuals not enough? As shown through myriads of western societies, apparently individuals should make changes rather than governments and large corporations. Will Covid change this?

[scuddyleblanc]

No. The Trump administration didn't shut down the US economy. It was Democrat governors and Democrat mayors who did the most damage to the economy because they had the harshest COVID restrictions. Red states tended to keep their economies more open.