UK contraction
The UK experienced a record decline in economic output in the second quarter of 2020 when COVID-19 lockdown measures were firmly in place.
The British Office of National Statistics (ONS) stated that gross domestic product fell 19.8% in the three months to June from the first quarter. This rate is slightly less than the 20.4% estimates but still higher than those in all other developed economies.
The decline is the biggest loss since ONS registrations began in 1955. Other data show that Britain entered its biggest annual GDP decline since the 1920s.
Britain’s gross domestic product contracted 21.5% when we compare second-quarter production with the previous year’s level. While this figure is the same as in Spain, it is higher than France’s 19.0% decline.
The British economy contracted by 2.5% in the January-March period when the country began to lock in at the end of March.
Britain suffered the highest COVID-19 deaths in Europe, with more than 42,000.
Since the lockdown began to be eased in May, the British economy has recovered sharply. Bank of England (BoE) Governor Andrew Bailey said on Tuesday he expects the economy to decline by 7–10% year-on-year in the third quarter.
Trump vs Biden
US President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden faced on Tuesday night to discuss Trump’s record in tackling the coronavirus epidemic, healthcare, and economics in the chaotic initial presidential debates full of personal insults and interruptions.
While Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden during the 90-minute debate on domestic politics, he tried to anger Biden almost every time he spoke, alleging that the Democrats were trying to steal the November presidential elections with postal ballots, refusing to condemn white supremacist racist groups.
Fox News moderator Chris Wallace repeatedly ignored Trump’s calls to let Biden speak, never taking control of the debate, but he was still accused of interrupting Trump. The two White House contestants swung insults while talking about each other and their children.
Tired of being interrupted, Biden told Trump “will you shut up, man?” accusing him of being unpresidential.
As of Tuesday evening, more than 1.3 million Americans had cast early votes. The two candidates took the stage five weeks before the 3 November election day, with time running out to change minds or influence a small fraction of the undecided voters.
For Trump, 74, the debate on Tuesday night was one of the few remaining chances to turn the tide, as the majority of Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of both the epidemic and the protests over racial injustice.
Biden, 77, has consistently been ahead of Trump in national opinion polls but has been losing his minor advantage in key states in recent weeks.
Warning from Merkel
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany warned on Wednesday that her country is facing a difficult month due to the coronavirus with the number of infections is on the rise and the winter season approaching.
“Germany has survived the epidemic relatively well, thanks to the extraordinarily responsible behavior of citizens over the past few months, but now we see autumn approaching, a difficult phase ahead,” Merkel told the lower house of the Bundestag.
The Chancellor stated that she was trying to do his best not to apply the anti-Covid19 socio-economic restrictions as harshly as before.
ECB policy
European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday that the bank could decide that periods of very low inflation should be compensated by periods of faster price increases as part of its ongoing strategic review.
“If it has credibility, such a strategy can strengthen the capacity of monetary policy to stabilize the economy when the bottom line is encountered,” Lagarde told a conference.
Lagarde added that persistent failure to reach the inflation target could fuel inflation expectations and require a shorter policy horizon.
Addressing the same conference, ECB board member and German Central Bank Bundesbank’s Chairman Jens Wiedmann warned that large-scale government bond purchases “blur the lines between fiscal and monetary policies.”
