In other news, South Korea and China are seeing new outbreaks of the coronavirus after easing lockdowns. South Korea has now re-imposed shutdowns for bars and night clubs.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is warning that countries that reopen, including Germany, are seeing a surge in new cases.
Finally, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari says our economic recovery will be slow and gradual, not quick like the Trump White House is claiming.
“What I’ve learned in the last few months unfortunately is that this is more likely to be a slow, more gradual, recovery,” Kashkari said. [...]
“I would love to see a robust recovery but that would require a breakthrough in vaccines, a breakthrough in widespread testing, a breakthrough in therapies to give all of us confidence that it is safe to go back. I don’t know when we’re going to have that confidence, Ultimately, the American people are going to decide how long the shutdown is,” the Minneapolis Fed president said.
He said he expected the pandemic to go on, in phases, for the next year or two.
Just minutes prior to Kashkari’s interview, Larry Kudlow, who heads the White House’s National Economic Council, said signs pointed to a very strong second half of the year, “probably 20% economic growth” and a tremendous snapback in 2021.
You know, even if Kudlow was referring to 20 percent growth relative to the previous quarter, which was negative, that would still be quite fantastical. That's far above what the Congressional Budget Office is projecting.