Author: johnredwood

It s time to take stronger economic action to offset the impact government measures against the virus around the world, along with  consumer behaviour is now having on jobs and  business.

It is clear that as the virus spreads so people cancel travel plans, hotels, restaurants and pubs lose clients, cultural and sporting events are stopped, business and academic conferences  abandoned and  discretionary shopping and tourism fall substantially.

Let us take a bad case of what could happen. Let us suppose that the  20% of our economy most exposed to these activities that lose out from closures and loss of customers  are in  trouble for four months. Let us guess that they lose a large 50% of their revenue on average. They are likely to lose more turnover than businesses do in a typical recession, as in some cases what they do is simply banned and in other cases consumers walk away from them in big numbers.  

This would mean a fall of 3.3% in annual GDP just from the impact on the most vulnerable 20% of the economy. There would then be second round effects. These businesses would shed labour quickly as they try to stem their cash losses. Some will go bust with every employee losing their job. This then means lower incomes for people to spend on other things, and a further loss of consumer and investment confidence.

What could be done to reduce this bad outcome? The government could step in with temporary help for employees working for basically sound businesses that have experienced a big loss of turnover thanks only to the special circumstances of the virus.  It could be like the German temporary reduced working scheme which has got through state aid tests.

The terms might be that the government will pay a specified quite high percentage of the wage bill for a company that was profitable up to the end of January, but has faced a fall of more than say  50% of turnover since thanks either to the virus putting off customers or from bans and closures required by law. This would be a grant, available for a limited period related to the progress of the virus. It would be conditional on the business not taking on any extra employees during  that period, and not making anyone redundant. The business would otherwise  be loss making.

It is most important that say a good hotel in a town or city can keep its core staff together during a period of much reduced bookings to be available again for the recovery once we have an all clear from the virus. Putting more businesses through bankruptcy is not a good idea if they are sound businesses for the future damaged by this one off extraordinary event. Bankruptcy puts the costs of the employees onto the state anyway when they lose their jobs, and makes recovery for them and for business more difficult afterwards.

The new facilities to lend to business, and the capacity of the Treasury to delay tax payments are both very helpful to many businesses hit by the virus slowdown. They will not be sufficient for the businesses at the sharp edge of the problems, as their revenues fall too much to survive just on  more loans and deferred tax.

Beware the tyranny of experts.

Whilst like the next person if I fell ill I would turn to a good doctor to help me, that does not mean experts are always right or should make all the decisions.

It has been fashionable for some years to say experts should be in charge of more of our public policy decisions and politicians fewer. This resulted in some famous policy disasters chronicled here . It has also led to greatly contrasting styles of interview on the UK media, especially by the BBC and Channel 4.

If an “expert” is interviewed  they are introduced positively, they are rarely interrupted, they are asked questions designed to let them explain their knowledge and viewpoint. The interviewer is often on their side and usually concludes with a short summary of their main points to reinforce them.

In contrast a politician interviewed on the same subject is often introduced with some critical or derogatory reference or characterisation, interrupted often, asked questions which make allegations or allege views to the interviewee which he or she does not hold, seeks to set the interviewer against the politician with a superior moral position and ends with a put down or critical comment.

I have a bigger complaint about the way the so called expert is interviewed than the politician. I of course think interviewers should be challenging and put alternative views where necessary. When interviewing an expert we should be told

Who they represent

Who pays them

Their political affiliations where they have them

What their main qualification is

The interview should consider covering professional competence where relevant. For example, if interviewing an economist about the current crash, did they forecast it or the last one and what did they say about previous disasters? If they earn money from a related interest the interview should also refer to or ask about that. If the expert is a known supporter of  a particular political party or movement that too might need to be questioned.

No politician should be given an easy interview, but they should be allowed to state their case before it is probed and questioned. I sometimes am frustrated by interviews of Labour people because the interviewer talks over them to the point where we cannot hear what Labour does actually think or recommend about a crucial topical issue. I will look in a future post at the ploys interviewers use to ensure politicians come over badly.

The EU Commission has reminded all EU states  on its website that “it is the responsibility of the Member States to refuse entry on public health grounds to individual 3rd country nationals” where they are judged to be a risk to public health.  This applies at all borders between an EU member and third country.

It wants the  external border of the EU to be reinforced, with migrants kept separate on arrival until their health has been checked.

It has also made clear it does not recommend that action at internal borders within  the EU between member states.  It states

“It should also be noted that according to the WHO and others, reintroduction of border controls at internal borders in  order to refuse entry is not considered an appropriate preventive (or remedial) measure”

The Republic of Ireland and Scotland have closed their schools. The rest of the UK has not. I invite views on this.

I do not have a strong  view myself as I am not an expert on the virus and do  not have access to much of the  medical and statistical information about it.

The latest medical view I heard from the government is that the virus either does not attach to so many children, or if it does many remain without visible symptoms.  If many children do or will experience a mild or invisible form of the illness it may be impossible to know whether tested or not whether they have had the virus. The test apparently works better on people with symptoms. Medical opinion seems agreed children are the least likely to get a bad version of it and extremely unlikely to die from it.

The one plus from shutting schools is it prevents circulation of the virus between pupils and teachers in school. If the pupils off school continue to socialise with each other and with other adults a lot of this  benefit is lost. Only if they go home and stay at home would there be a major and lasting  reduction in their number of contacts and therefore in their vulnerability to picking up the virus.  If they already have the virus spending all their time at home might increase the chances of other family members contracting it.

There are several  negatives in closing schools. Many more adults will have to give up work and mind their children at home. These will include many nurses, doctors and other health workers needed to work in  the hospitals and surgeries to tackle the health emergency. Those who make a living out of supplying and providing contract work for schools will lose their income. Education, exams and training will be interrupted, disrupting the life chances of those facing early public examinations that matter.  

I am happy with the government’s decision so far not to close the schools. It is difficult to believe closing the schools would slow the spread much  or protect many more people. Limiting access to care homes and places where vulnerable elderly live might achieve more in limiting infections of those most at risk.

The main points in  the ECB response yesterday made sense and were similar to the Bank of England’s approach the day before. The ECB announced a major increase to its version of the Funding for lending scheme, the LTRO facilities advanced to Euro area banks. It announced that Euro area banks can borrow from the ECB with the ECB paying them 0.75% a year for the money, so they can lend it on to businesses and individuals.

They also announced an expansion of Quantitative easing, adding another Euro 120bn this year.  They reduced the required capital commercial banks need to hold for any given amount of lending, and allowed a wider range of assets to  be used against the lending. They did not cut their main interest rates, which are at zero or negative already.

The ECB has two problems the Bank of England does not share. The ECB thinks a fiscal stimulus is needed at the same time, as the UK authorities arranged. The ECB cannot be sure this will happen. The Treaty rules make it unlikely, unless they find a way of authorising temporary extraordinary measures.The ECB wants governments to make banks  lending to distressed businesses more likely by offering loan guarantees financed by taxpayers. Again, it cannot guarantee this will happen.

The ECB has gone some way in weakening its prudential regulation of the commercial banks. It will allow them delay in implementing requirements imposed on them by Regulatory Inspection, and it will put off the next set of stress tests they need to meet. It is relaxing the type of capital they need to hold and it will allow them to go under the Pillar 2 Capital requirements anyway in order to keep lending going. It needs to be careful this does not build more future problems into the commercial banking sector.

The ECB has done a better job at keeping money growth at a sensible level than the Bank of England over the last couple of years, offering more support for the Euro economy. It now needs to be careful it does not dilute its regulatory standards too far and allow banks to build loan problems for themselves on a scale out of proportion with their capacity to absorb the subsequent losses when some of the loans go bad.

Mme Lagarde’s comments about spreads were damaging anD her reported private comments about the seriousness of the situation also destabilising.