150 Million People Expected Into Extreme Poverty By 2021

Covid-19 (Response) will push as many as 150 MILLION people into extreme poverty by 2021 – World Bank

 Frantisek Krejci

Extreme global poverty is expected to rise in 2020 for the first time in over 20 years due to the disruption caused by the “extraordinary” coronavirus crisis, the World Bank has warned.

According to a new report, the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to push an additional 88 million to 115 million people into extreme poverty this year, with the total rising to as many as 150 million by 2021, depending on the severity of the economic contraction.

Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.90 a day, is likely to affect between 9.1 percent and 9.4 percent of the world’s population this year, it said. That would represent a regression to the rate of 9.2 percent in 2017. Had the pandemic not convulsed the globe, the poverty rate was expected to drop to 7.9 percent in 2020.

“The pandemic and global recession may cause over 1.4 percent of the world’s population to fall into extreme poverty,” said World Bank Group President David Malpass. “In order to reverse this serious setback to development progress and poverty reduction, countries will need to prepare for a different economy post-Covid, by allowing capital, labor, skills, and innovation to move into new businesses and sectors.”

Rosenberg: We Are In A Depression

 John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com

Disney is laying off 28,000 workers. American Airlines and United Airlines plan to cut 31,000 workers. Last week’s disappointing unemployment report shows that we have a long way to go. Perhaps a lot longer than we think.

I’m going to quote at length from my friend David Rosenberg, who I believe is absolutely spot on:

“You tally up these sectors and before the crisis, they supported 32 million jobs, or about a third of the private sector workforce, and it looks to me as though half of them are not going back to their old jobs.

“And I’m not sure many people understand that amusement parks, airlines, hoteliers and restaurants cannot stay in business at 50% capacity (or even 75% in the case of restaurants).

“… As it stands, the US Chamber of Commerce said that 25% of small businesses have already shut down. Another survey by Ipsos concluded that two-thirds are still nervous about leaving their homes; 59% say they intend to remain locked down on their own until signs emerge that the virus is ‘fully contained.’ A YouGov/CBS poll concludes that 85% of American households say they wouldn’t get on an airplane even if they could. That’s why the industry needs a bailout!

“A Washington Post/University of Maryland poll shows that only 56% of consumers across the nation intend to shop at the supermarket, which I suppose is a continuous bullish data point for delivery services but that’s about it. Just 33% say they are comfortable entering a retail store. And a mere 22% say they are willing to dine in a sit-in restaurant.

“All these polls say basically the same thing – it will not be ‘business as usual,’ as the bulls will try and convince you, and the best we can hope for is a partial recovery. I mean, at best. What we had on our hands was a vertical down economic decline with job losses an order of magnitude higher than anything we have witnessed since the Great Depression. So, even as the stock market is telling you it has it all figured out, I can assure you that what we face at this very moment is a very uncertain economic future. And unfortunately, most of the longer-term risks are to the downside.

“We are in a depression – not a recession, but a depression. And I think the dynamics of a depression are different than they are in a recession because depressions invoke a secular change in behavior. Classic business cycle recessions are forgotten about within a year after they end – the scars from this one will take years to heal.”

It’s one thing to bail out airlines with multiple billions of dollars. What about the local bakery with 15 employees? Where do they get the capital to reopen when the time is right?

You can repeat that story a million (or more) times.

Know this: That which can’t go on, won’t. We can’t keep piling on debt at this rate forever, and we can’t repay what we have.

Thousands of scientists sign declaration that COVID-19 lockdowns have “devastating” impact

Worthy News

Around 15,000 scientists and doctors from around the world, and both sides of the political aisle, have now signed a document stating that coronavirus lockdown measures are having a “devastating” effect on public health, the Washington Times reports. Initiated by doctors from Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford University, the Great Barrington Declaration was published on Tuesday. Doctors and scientists have continued to sign up for it since then.

The signatories assert in the declaration: “As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies...Coming from both the left and right and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people,” the declaration says.

According to the signatories, current lockdown measures are “producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.” These effects, the signatories say, include “lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings, and deteriorating mental health—leading to greater excess mortality in years to come.”

Instead of lockdowns, the Declaration recommends a policy called “Focused Protection.” Under this approach, people would be allowed live normal lives “to build up immunity through natural infection.” At the same time, improved safety measures would be put in place to protect the elderly and others who are more vulnerable to infection and death from COVID-19, the Washington Examiner reports.

The lead signatories to the Declaration Harvard professor of medicine Dr. Martin Kulldorf, Oxford epidemiologist Dr. Sunetra Gupta, and Stanford Medical School professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. By Thursday afternoon, the declaration had been signed by almost 5,000 medical and public-health scientists and almost 10,000 medical practitioners, the Washington Examiner reports.