Speaker 1: We are ready now more than son. Where did you
Speaker 1: start and where are you going? Yes? But I got Germany?
Speaker 1: And where are you from from? Shop? Okay? What's in
Speaker 1: your van? I have a biscuits. Have you had food? Yes?
Speaker 1: The airport they give yours half a bottle of water
Speaker 1: and one more bread. But I don't need the pool.
Speaker 1: I want to go home. Hello, and welcome back to Stephanomics,
Speaker 1: the podcast that brings the global economy to you. And
Speaker 1: I have to say the global economy has had a
Speaker 1: pretty busy Christmas and New Year. You heard they're a
Speaker 1: frustrated lorry driver caught up in the chaos that hit
Speaker 1: Britain's ports when France suddenly closed its borders to all
Speaker 1: UK traffic just days before Christmas. The closures were due
Speaker 1: to COVID fears, not Brexit, but we're the trade deal
Speaker 1: between the EU and Britain at that point still not signed.
Speaker 1: The frantic scenes on the coast felt like they might
Speaker 1: be a sneak preview to what would happen when Britain
Speaker 1: fully left the European Union at the start of this year.
Speaker 1: Our UK Economy reporter Lizzie Burden wented over before Christmas
Speaker 1: and has been keeping an eye on what's been happening
Speaker 1: at the ports since January one. We have her report
Speaker 1: in a minute, along with the chat with senior UK
Speaker 1: economist Dan Hanson about the new third national lockdown in
Speaker 1: the UK and what it will do to the economy.
Speaker 1: That's another thing that's happened in the past few days.
Speaker 1: But first I thought we should pay a call on
Speaker 1: a corner of America, which this week held the fate
Speaker 1: of Joe Biden's presidency in its hands, Georgia. Mike Sasso
Speaker 1: is our US Real Economy reporter based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: Some of you will remember he's given us a picture
Speaker 1: of what's happening in his state a few times since
Speaker 1: the pandemic began. Mike, thanks for joining us again. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've been right at the center of the action this week,
Speaker 1: with those Metropolitan Atlanta votes apparently making quite a big
Speaker 1: difference to the chances of the two Democrats who seem
Speaker 1: to have become US sentences this week, giving control of
Speaker 1: the Senate to President Biden's side. What's the past few
Speaker 1: days been like for you? Yeah, yeah, it's been a
Speaker 1: little bit crazy to see Georgia at the center of everything.
Speaker 1: There's been a huge effort among canvassers, these are activists
Speaker 1: and whatnot calling different populations. I didn't get a ton
Speaker 1: of calls. However, my wife, who is a Latina, she's
Speaker 1: of Cuban heritage, she was just hit up constantly, almost
Speaker 1: every day by different groups. I believe the latest estimate
Speaker 1: or something like five million dollars in commercials spent, which
Speaker 1: is an ex straordinary amount in just in Georgia's just
Speaker 1: on these runoff races. I have a little eight year
Speaker 1: old daughter. She could she could remember each of the
Speaker 1: four candidates. She could remember the taglines. Um, there's a candidate,
Speaker 1: Democratic candidate, Raphael Warnock, who was sort of branded by
Speaker 1: his opponent as radical quote radical liberal Raphael Warnock. My
Speaker 1: that is burnished into my daughter's brain at this point.
Speaker 1: They tried to combat that, all of those relentless attacks
Speaker 1: on Warnock by having just pictures of him and footage
Speaker 1: of him with puppies. I thought was a very straightforward
Speaker 1: response to that. And you you wrote a piece for
Speaker 1: us talking about the relative strengths that Georgia has had
Speaker 1: in coming through the pandemic and perhaps also getting quite
Speaker 1: a lot of benefit from the from the government. Support
Speaker 1: there's been sure well. As we talked about several months ago,
Speaker 1: earlier in the pandemic, Georgia opened relatively early from lockdown.
Speaker 1: This was I believe we opened in late May, reopened
Speaker 1: the economy to some to some criticism. Uh, most businesses
Speaker 1: in many businesses open here in May and June, which
Speaker 1: is before many other states around the United States. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of theory that that helped Georgia. There
Speaker 1: has been an unusual and probably good phenomenon around the
Speaker 1: country of a growth and entrepreneurship, a surprising surge in
Speaker 1: small startups during this pandemic, and a lot of that
Speaker 1: got started in Georgia and the South, and it was
Speaker 1: a little bit slower to get going in some of
Speaker 1: the northeastern and western states. And some people attribute that
Speaker 1: to the reopening of the economy. And and also our
Speaker 1: unemployment rate in Georgia has generally been better. We're at
Speaker 1: five point seven percent unemployment, which is a full point
Speaker 1: less than the national economy, which is at six point
Speaker 1: seven percent unemployment. So people are doing a relatively better
Speaker 1: at least job wise, than than there are elsewhere. And
Speaker 1: I noticed that you had some some of the industries
Speaker 1: that the states dependent on have done relatively well. I
Speaker 1: think carpets doing well and poultry, is that right. I'm
Speaker 1: more familiar with carpet carpets and that industry, which is
Speaker 1: kind of up in the northwestern part of the state Dalton,
Speaker 1: which is where interesting a where President Trump came in
Speaker 1: campaigned the other day. Um. That's that's benefiting largely from
Speaker 1: the huge boom in in in housing Atlanta. The Federal
Speaker 1: Reserves keeping a track and actually helping the lower interest
Speaker 1: rates has had a big effect on the housing market. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that is creating a great, just a boom, particularly
Speaker 1: in mortgage refinancing. So there's just just people refinancing, just
Speaker 1: all including my self, I refinanced, almost all of my
Speaker 1: friends have refinanced a mortgages lately. That's creating a tremendous
Speaker 1: have and have not scenario in Georgia. UM. We we
Speaker 1: took a look at some of the counties around Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and in a primarily white affluent county on the north
Speaker 1: side of Atlanta called Forsyth County, you compare that to
Speaker 1: a primarily black county on the south side of Atlanta
Speaker 1: called Clayton County. The white affluent county, the rate of
Speaker 1: refinancing is ten times that of the primarily black county
Speaker 1: on the south side of Atlanta, despite relatively the same
Speaker 1: population in each county. So it tells you, you know, affluent,
Speaker 1: white collar in particularly white communities are benefiting to much
Speaker 1: greater extent than blue collar in minority communities. From all
Speaker 1: of this, well, it's been such a persistent theme, and
Speaker 1: I would imagine it did feed into some of this
Speaker 1: much high high turnout among those parts of the population
Speaker 1: in this election. If the Democrats have now got control
Speaker 1: over the Senate, it's a very very narrow control, so
Speaker 1: they're not gonna be able to do everything they might
Speaker 1: want to do, but it does look like they will
Speaker 1: be able to support more fiscal stimulus. That's certainly what
Speaker 1: investors are now betting on. Do you think that that
Speaker 1: desire for more fiscal support fed into this election result
Speaker 1: at all or was it just about other things in
Speaker 1: the end. I think, you know, I think we'll have
Speaker 1: to look at some exit polling, and we're not to
Speaker 1: tell for sure. I do think it was interesting that
Speaker 1: the day before the election, this is on Monday, President
Speaker 1: elect Biden stumped for the two Democratic candidates and did
Speaker 1: make a very strong point that if Georgians elect the
Speaker 1: two Democratic candidates, there would be these additional two thousand
Speaker 1: dollar stimulus checks sent to Americans. That's a lot of
Speaker 1: money for you know, particularly some low income and just
Speaker 1: frankly a lot of people. And could the promise of
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars stimulus checks have motivated some people? Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely I could. I could see it, so I do
Speaker 1: think it probably had some some effect. Mike Sasso, thanks
Speaker 1: so much. I hope you're not you're going to get
Speaker 1: a relief now from all those ads for a while.
Speaker 1: Certainly my daughter is happy that the commercials have ended.
Speaker 1: That's that's for sure. Thanks a lot. We've heard again
Speaker 1: and again in this pandemic about that unequal impact of
Speaker 1: the crisis on different people and places. One reporter who's
Speaker 1: consistently brought that home to us in the US is
Speaker 1: Sean Donnan. He did it again recently with a magisterial
Speaker 1: report for Business Week that came out on almost the
Speaker 1: last day of usure. Now with just a taste of
Speaker 1: what he uncovered, it's easy to forget, but an economy
Speaker 1: is really just a group of people. So if you
Speaker 1: want to understand the state of the U. S. Economy
Speaker 1: right now, You could just start by talking to one
Speaker 1: of those people, like Donna Swangler. Donna is forty two.
Speaker 1: She has three kids, ages seven to sixteen. She and
Speaker 1: her husband, Brian live in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, just north
Speaker 1: of Philadelphia, and right now, at the start of one
Speaker 1: they are struggling because of this pandemic, which in really
Speaker 1: knocked them, like the U. S. Economy, off what had
Speaker 1: been a pretty good course. As she made clear when
Speaker 1: we first spoke in early December, I have three young
Speaker 1: kids at home, so basically I'm here all day with them,
Speaker 1: and he worked when he can, and you know, of course,
Speaker 1: we just do what we have to the chart stay healthy,
Speaker 1: because if he can't work, then were we will lose everything.
Speaker 1: In March last year, as the US lockdown in response
Speaker 1: to the first wave of the pandemic, Donna lost her
Speaker 1: job scanning paper records. It was something she had been
Speaker 1: able to do from home while her youngest child was
Speaker 1: still getting ready to start school. Until all of us
Speaker 1: went home and the courts and other offices she worked
Speaker 1: for stopped generating that paperwork. She was able to get
Speaker 1: unemployment benefits, but the hundred dollars a week she was
Speaker 1: getting ran out in mid December, and though Congress passed
Speaker 1: a new nine billion dollar rescue over the holidays that
Speaker 1: extends her benefits, it's still unclear when she will start
Speaker 1: actually receiving them again. Meanwhile, her husband, Brian, who has
Speaker 1: a small contracting business doing landscaping, home renovations and the like,
Speaker 1: is seeing his work dry up again. As COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: cases search, the Swanglers exhausted the few savings they had
Speaker 1: getting through last year, and as Congress was debating a
Speaker 1: rescue plan over the hollow days, Donna was increasingly nervous
Speaker 1: about what lay ahead. There's no savings left now, so
Speaker 1: it all depends on what my husband brings in. And
Speaker 1: if we can't make rent and food and we're going
Speaker 1: to start falling behind. And with that, it didn't no vision.
Speaker 1: I'm scared. I don't know what's going to happen, because
Speaker 1: we have nowhere to go. If we leave here like
Speaker 1: there is, we don't have a family member, we could
Speaker 1: go crash with them, you know, being the five of us,
Speaker 1: there's there would be nowhere for us to go, which
Speaker 1: means right now, the Swanglers like the U. S. Economy
Speaker 1: or in a month to month scramble to get through.
Speaker 1: How are you guys gonna get through the winter? Um,
Speaker 1: we don't know. Just after the new year, Donna and
Speaker 1: I exchange texts. The five member family on January five
Speaker 1: received the six dollar ahead stimulus payment negotiated by Congress
Speaker 1: over the holidays. The three thousand dollars was welcome, but
Speaker 1: it went quickly to covering bills the family had left
Speaker 1: over from December and the rent on their home for January.
Speaker 1: Donna says, but that is a long way from where
Speaker 1: Donna expected to be a year ago, which is a
Speaker 1: point that seems to occasionally get lost in discussions about
Speaker 1: the U. S. Economy and the recovery still underway. A
Speaker 1: year ago, Donna Swangler was getting ready to go back
Speaker 1: to work full time as a medical office assistant, something
Speaker 1: she had done before having kids. The idea was to
Speaker 1: earn more money so that she and her husband could
Speaker 1: start building up more of an economic cushion. She hasn't
Speaker 1: abandoned the idea, but like many things in America and
Speaker 1: Europe right now, those plans are on hold. Not my
Speaker 1: RESI mail, you know, updated and everything. Um, so I
Speaker 1: was really hoping to start doing that, but you know,
Speaker 1: the beginning of March was when everything so it feels like,
Speaker 1: I guess the one steps for over two steps back.
Speaker 1: That's a common story in the US, where things like
Speaker 1: the shift of virtual schools have hit many people and
Speaker 1: particularly women hard. A little over fifty seven percent of
Speaker 1: Americans were working in November, which was the lowest level
Speaker 1: scene since the lowest that is, if you don't count
Speaker 1: even worse months of that came before that. The start
Speaker 1: of vaccinations means there's promise ahead, of course, but the
Speaker 1: US is going to spend much of playing catch up,
Speaker 1: which is one reason that the Biden administration and others
Speaker 1: have already started talking about the need for another rescue package.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean Donna Swangler thinks she's getting back on
Speaker 1: the path she and her husband were planning on anytime soon,
Speaker 1: not until the kids are back at school at least.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a possibility of this year because
Speaker 1: school is so uncertain up to the end of the year.
Speaker 1: I can't be calling out of work, especially at a
Speaker 1: job in a local office, you know, for three days
Speaker 1: in a row because my kids have to be out
Speaker 1: of school, which means that for much of one Donna
Speaker 1: Swangler's plan is to hang in there and survive week
Speaker 1: to week, month to month, hoping that some day before long,
Speaker 1: she and her family and the rest of the U
Speaker 1: S economy can put a pandemic behind them and get
Speaker 1: back on track. For Bloomberg News, I'm Shanda. There's a
Speaker 1: famous UK newspaper headline which is supposed to have run
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, heavy fog in the Channel Continent
Speaker 1: cut off. Whether or not it was actually published, it's
Speaker 1: been used many times over the years to symbolize the
Speaker 1: UK's somewhat distorted view of Europe, and I thought of
Speaker 1: it again just before Christmas, when fear of the news
Speaker 1: strain of COVID nineteen sweeping across England prompted France to
Speaker 1: block all traffic from the UK for forty eight hours,
Speaker 1: just days before Britain cut itself off from the main
Speaker 1: economic arrangements underpinning the European Union. Lizzie Burden, our UK
Speaker 1: economy reporter, went to Dover to see the chaos for herself. Confusion,
Speaker 1: desperation and frustration. Those were the sounds of angry truckers
Speaker 1: clashing with police at a roundabout near Dover, Britain's busiest poet.
Speaker 1: There were two arrests outside the disused airfield where drivers
Speaker 1: were sent for a COVID test, which would be their
Speaker 1: ticket across the French border into mainland Europe. They had
Speaker 1: been stuck after a forty eight hour blockade imposed after
Speaker 1: a new strain of the virus was found in the UK.
Speaker 1: Tensions had mounted as thousands of Hawley as you on
Speaker 1: the M twenty the highway over from where ferries crossed
Speaker 1: to the French port of Calais. A stroll down the
Speaker 1: Central Reserve revealed license plate after license plate on vehicles
Speaker 1: from Poland, Romania, Hungary, almost none from the UK. Behind
Speaker 1: the wheels were men craving home comforts in time for
Speaker 1: the holidays, especially clean toilets. I spoke to some of
Speaker 1: the drivers on December twenty three. We are wading now
Speaker 1: more than forty eight dollars. So where did you start
Speaker 1: and where are you going? Manchester? Yes, but I got
Speaker 1: to Germany and where are you from from? Shop? Okay?
Speaker 1: What's in Van? I have biscuits? Is there a roof?
Speaker 1: Of course, it's food. I came here, O Lord Lord
Speaker 1: and God, big men. I can't they close the borders
Speaker 1: the conditions. Have you had food? Yes? On the airport
Speaker 1: they give yours half water number one bread. But I
Speaker 1: don't need the poll. I want to go home Christmas,
Speaker 1: you understand, and now I can't make it. Don't have
Speaker 1: Christmas in I don't know it. Do you have children
Speaker 1: waiting for you? One from a six years old and
Speaker 1: one is three and they are crying at home? Are
Speaker 1: you waiting for us? But what can we do? And
Speaker 1: are you worried about coronavirus? Yes? I know you can
Speaker 1: no job with that, but we are drug divers. We
Speaker 1: don't ever gontact with anybody. As testing gathered paste, the
Speaker 1: backlog was cleared. A Brexit trade deal, aimed at avoiding
Speaker 1: exactly this type of chaos at the border was signed
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve and by eleven pm on New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: when the UK left the European Unions, Single Market and
Speaker 1: Customs Union, it was eerily quiet at Dover. Yet there
Speaker 1: are still signs that the double wammy of Brexit and
Speaker 1: COVID could take their toll on trade. Real time data
Speaker 1: shows the rate of freight firms reject in contracts to
Speaker 1: take cargo from France into the UK tripled from the
Speaker 1: third quarter. Shane Brennan is the chief executive of the
Speaker 1: Cold Chain Federation, which represents businesses along the food supply
Speaker 1: chain in the UK. I asked him whether no queues
Speaker 1: were good news and what all this means for supermarkets.
Speaker 1: I don't think we can tell anything from the trade
Speaker 1: that we've experienced so far. Trade on New Year's Day
Speaker 1: was sort of ten percent of what it would be
Speaker 1: on a normal trading day. Most of the members I've
Speaker 1: spoken to of the last forty eight hours have not
Speaker 1: tried to send a vehicle through the border yet, and
Speaker 1: most of them are looking at sending stuff starting on
Speaker 1: so Thursday or Friday of this week. Certain times of
Speaker 1: fresh foot and vegetables do rely on coming into the
Speaker 1: country just in time, so there could be a situation
Speaker 1: where they're in short supply in the coming weeks. There is, however,
Speaker 1: another dynamic here, which is we're going into a COVID lockdown,
Speaker 1: so normal trade flows will be distorted by that, and
Speaker 1: that'll be more an important factor than the actual Brexit
Speaker 1: distortions in trade volumes and trade for requirements in the
Speaker 1: coming days and weeks. So it could be that actually
Speaker 1: the Brexit disruption is masked by that bigger COVID disruption
Speaker 1: the most Britain's the main question is when things will
Speaker 1: get back to normal. It will take us through to
Speaker 1: the spring before we can have any confidence of what
Speaker 1: normal now looks like because of the lots of paperwork
Speaker 1: requirements are going to be trial and error for some
Speaker 1: weeks yet. And just because they are moving smoothly today
Speaker 1: does not mean they'll be moving smoothly tomorrow. That's just
Speaker 1: the reality of it, and we're going to have to
Speaker 1: just strap in for the ride. Well, our senior UK
Speaker 1: economist Dan Hansen is here to take stock of what
Speaker 1: Brexit and now this very serious intensification of the pandemic
Speaker 1: means for the UK economy. Dan breaks it first, we
Speaker 1: did have those real worries going into the new year
Speaker 1: about not having a deal and having further chaos on
Speaker 1: the borders. Um, we've we've dodged that bullet, but we
Speaker 1: still don't really have complete clarity on what a burden
Speaker 1: is this going to be on businesses going forward? How
Speaker 1: is it looking for you? Yeah, it's really difficult to know.
Speaker 1: I mean, as you say, the avoiding the no deal
Speaker 1: was was really good news and that was sort of
Speaker 1: a nice, nice Christmas present for us all. But to
Speaker 1: be honest, the what we've seen so far at least
Speaker 1: is that the disruption hasn't hasn't really been there. These
Speaker 1: big queues at the at Dover and in Calais, they
Speaker 1: they haven't come, they haven't come to pass yet. And
Speaker 1: I mean in terms of the economic impact in the
Speaker 1: first quarter, it's extremely difficult to calibrate this sort of shock.
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing we've we've drawn on is what
Speaker 1: the Bank of England have done. They said back in
Speaker 1: November that disruption could knock about a percentage point of
Speaker 1: gross in the first quarter of the year. Now, as
Speaker 1: I say, given what we see, that sounds like it
Speaker 1: might potentially be too much. And disruption, you you would
Speaker 1: hope if it was going to happen, it would happen
Speaker 1: in the first quarter and then dissipate as firms got
Speaker 1: used to the new trading arrangements. But the broader point
Speaker 1: with Brexit, and I think it's this is where it's
Speaker 1: really different from COVID, is that it's a slow burn shock.
Speaker 1: It's not this big sharp shock that happens as we've
Speaker 1: as we've seen with COVID and numerous occasions over the
Speaker 1: past twelve months, it's this slow burn and that drag
Speaker 1: on from lower trade flows and also from lower migration
Speaker 1: flows as well, because of the tighter migration regime. We
Speaker 1: will drag the economy's potential growth rate down. Yes, and
Speaker 1: I think, I mean it's going to be it's also
Speaker 1: journalistically going to be a challenge just to keep tabs
Speaker 1: on those, as you say, really micro changes that will
Speaker 1: unfold over time. Bloomberg's obviously been doing a lot of that.
Speaker 1: And also I remember there was an extremely good Financial
Speaker 1: Times piece actually over Christmas just talking about one sector
Speaker 1: of the wine industry and how if you have extremely
Speaker 1: valuable wine, you're now going to, in theory, have to
Speaker 1: open one of the bottles in order to establish exactly
Speaker 1: the chemical breakdown of the contents to meet the requirements
Speaker 1: of of going into Europe, which, of course, if you've
Speaker 1: got a bottle of wine that's worth seventy pounds, you
Speaker 1: really don't want to do. So I think it's it's
Speaker 1: those little things that perhaps we won't as you say,
Speaker 1: we won't know enough about for quite for quite some time,
Speaker 1: quite big things have happened. Even since the first of January.
Speaker 1: We've now gone into this third made national lockdown in
Speaker 1: the UK in response to what looks like an extremely
Speaker 1: grave situation that the National Health Service is facing with
Speaker 1: this uconormous jump in COVID cases. How has that changed
Speaker 1: your outlook for the UK economy over the next few months. UM.
Speaker 1: We think the economy will contracts by four and a
Speaker 1: half percent in the first quarter UM and that compares
Speaker 1: to a fall of about one percent in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 1: And a big reason why we think the contraction will
Speaker 1: be bigger this quarter than it was at the end
Speaker 1: of last year was because I should say, the schools
Speaker 1: have closed, and that's likely to have a greater economic impact,
Speaker 1: not only through the direct impact on GDP from through
Speaker 1: education output. Fewer fewer children in schools will just reduce
Speaker 1: the education output directly, but also has a labor supply impact,
Speaker 1: so parents will have to stay at home look after
Speaker 1: their children, and that obviously impacts the economy as well.
Speaker 1: If schools haven't been closed, we would have expected a
Speaker 1: falling output in the first quarter of two percent. We're
Speaker 1: saying the output will four by four and a half percent.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's supposed to be a difference in this lockdown
Speaker 1: is that it really is supposed to be the last one,
Speaker 1: because we have in theory and end in sight not
Speaker 1: so long away, with potentially a large proportion of the
Speaker 1: vulnerable population vaccinated within a month or two. How dependent
Speaker 1: is the economy now on that rapid rollout of the
Speaker 1: vaccines and how much can we really believe the government
Speaker 1: in the in the promises, in the promises for for
Speaker 1: how many people will be vaccinated so quickly. I mean
Speaker 1: it's entirely dependent. I mean Boris has linked the the
Speaker 1: ending of the lockdown or the easing of the lockdown
Speaker 1: to the rollout of the vaccine and the government being
Speaker 1: successful at getting those two million shots a week in
Speaker 1: people's arms. So if if that fall short of their
Speaker 1: they're very high, very very high expectation, then the lockdown
Speaker 1: is going to last longer, and I think there is
Speaker 1: a big risk of that. And there are a few
Speaker 1: other things as well there. I think the fact that
Speaker 1: this version of the virus is more transmission transmissible, that
Speaker 1: creates a risk that the lockdown needs to be tightened
Speaker 1: further to ensure that the infection rates come down. We
Speaker 1: have often been thinking about the UK where it ranks.
Speaker 1: The Prime ministers often talking about us being well beating
Speaker 1: in there, since we certainly we seem to be word
Speaker 1: beating in in our ability to develop new strains of
Speaker 1: the virus and our ability to catch it. But I
Speaker 1: did notice that your forecasts was showing the UK UK
Speaker 1: actually potentially growing faster than many other countries this year,
Speaker 1: having done worse than other advanced economies last year. You
Speaker 1: might have thought, with the faster, much faster pace of
Speaker 1: vaccine rollout than on the continent where it's been quite slow,
Speaker 1: that that forecast was looking okay. But given what's happened now,
Speaker 1: do you think that the UK will still look quite
Speaker 1: economically weak relative to its partners at the end of
Speaker 1: this year. Well, it's a story of two corner football phrase,
Speaker 1: it's a story of two halves. I think you've got
Speaker 1: You've got this this initial period at the start of
Speaker 1: this year, and it's not really the half I see.
Speaker 1: It's probably up to spring into early summer, where it's
Speaker 1: going to be very difficult for the economy. But I
Speaker 1: still don't think that precludes the economy benefiting a lot
Speaker 1: once the vaccine does come online. Obviously there's a lot
Speaker 1: of uncertainty about when that that will be the that
Speaker 1: will happen. But in the second half of the year
Speaker 1: we've got we've got a pretty strong bounce back and
Speaker 1: the economy picking up. I mean, if you look at
Speaker 1: annual growth rates, just to just to say it's that
Speaker 1: the week starts the year will mean the growth rate
Speaker 1: is lowered quite a lot. The annual growth rate looks
Speaker 1: a lot weaker, but actually that means a lot of
Speaker 1: it is pushed into twenty two. So if you look
Speaker 1: at our numbers, you're looking instead of looking at about
Speaker 1: a six percent growth rate in one, you're now looking
Speaker 1: at something closer to four percent. But then you shift
Speaker 1: into twenty two and you've got something closer to seven
Speaker 1: and a half percent instead of something around five and
Speaker 1: a half six percent. Obviously, all of that assumes that
Speaker 1: there's isn't much scarring from all of this, that the
Speaker 1: economy can in fact bounce back, that fiscal policy does
Speaker 1: come in and protecting comes and ensure that unemployment doesn't
Speaker 1: spike and the firms don't go bankrupt. And of course
Speaker 1: the big risk is the more of these lockdowns you have,
Speaker 1: the bigger risk that scarring does occur, and the bankruptcies
Speaker 1: do occur, and the economy does struggle then to bounce.
Speaker 1: But as things stand, we do think the second half
Speaker 1: of the year will be a lot better than the first.
Speaker 1: Dan Hanson, thank you so much. I think we'll probably
Speaker 1: in a few months time, when a lot of that
Speaker 1: fiscal support is about to evaporate and we are hopefully
Speaker 1: looking at a rapid recovery. I'm sure we'll come back
Speaker 1: to check in with you. But thanks again, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. Thanks thanks for listening to Stephanomics. We'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with more on all things economic, and
Speaker 1: remember you can always find us on the Bloomberg terminal, website,
Speaker 1: app or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can
Speaker 1: get more news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics by following
Speaker 1: at Economics on Twitter. This episode is produced by Magnus Hendrickson,
Speaker 1: with special thanks to Mike sas, Sean Donnan, Lizzie Burden,
Speaker 1: and Dan Hansen. Lucy Meekin is the executive producer of
Speaker 1: Stephanomics and the head of Bloomberg Podcast is Francesco Levy.
Speaker 1: M