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I see a lot of doomsday predictions, but 4 months in, I’m barely seeing any signs of a protracted recession. Everyone seems to be doing okay, and when bars and businesses open up, they are jam packed. Am I the only one that is seeing a disparity between the speculations vs what I’m seeing around me? I truly believe we are in a crisis situation but why aren’t I seeing more signs of these doomsday predications?

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> I see a lot of doomsday predictions, but 4 months in, I’m barely seeing any signs of a protracted recession.

Perhaps the trillions of dollars of stimulus money that has been distributed has something to do with it? Or maybe the generous unemployment benefits the federal government has passed out over the past four months to ensure people could pay their bills and purchase things to stimulate the economy?

Without those things we'd be in a completely different scenario. Things may get worse yet, we're not exactly winning the fight against COVID-19 in the US.

And those enhanced unemployment benefits expire next week, so far the Senate and White House are wanting them ‘means tested’, so it looks like they may fall off without renewal.

If they don't provide an extension, they lose the Senate and the White House. Trumpvilles, etc. I doubt they will gamble like that.

US-centric, but:

> An estimated 4,400 Chicago-area businesses have closed during the pandemic. 2,400 say they’ll never reopen.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-ch...

> 30% of Americans missed their housing payments in June

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/16/30percent-of-americans-misse...

> 32% of U.S. households missed their July housing payments

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/08/32-percent-of-us-households-...

Evictions are paused, so these missed payments aren't having an effect yet, but missed rent payments are also affecting mortgage payments for the owners - the biggest fallout is still coming.

Here is a graph of US GDP from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Given that a protracted recession is defined as a couple of quarters of negative GDP growth there are without doubt signs of one:

https://www.bea.gov/system/files/gdp1q20_3rd-chart-01.png

From Feb 2020 and ongoing [0][1].

[0] see shaded area: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE

[1] their source: http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html (was determined in June)

One thing you also have to consider (siblings comment are good too) is that the oil price are ridiculously low. This might seems like a good news, it's not.

It makes mining cheaper (good news in the short-term) but also it reduce the incentive to invest in capital-intensive oil rigs. And this will probably mean a small oil shock two years from now. Also, while i did not have the possibility to look directly inot Rystad[0]'s data in 2019, i've talked to people who did and Rystad's predictions about above-ground issue resolution were really, really optimist and still estimated a 1% contraction of european oil supply in 2029 (last time it happened were 2007 and 2009).

Not only counting covid effect on oil-producing countries population hunger but also ISIS resurgence and the continuing crisis in Lybia, i think it would not be dumb to bet on no growth at all in the eurozone.

[0] https://www.rystadenergy.com/

As a layman, I don't understand why future investment isn't priced in already?

When was the last time you stepped into a region that was already impoverished before the pandemic?

A fair question, I think the reckoning in the US will happen in the fall, when protections against evictions expire.

Since the protections have mostly protected the old at the expense of the young, it will be interesting to see the social ramifications.

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