How much did COVID really damage the Dutch (& Western) economy – My Comments
[Nobody is talking about this. But the real question is how much damage did it do, and how much LONG TERM DAMAGE did it do? I think the numbers will be shocking. Jan]
After 1.5 years of the corona crisis, the economy is ‘celebrating’, but what did that cost?
The mask obligation will disappear in many places next weekend, the home working advice will also expire if one and a half meters can be kept in the office. The corona crisis seems to be approaching the end, and contrary to expectations at the beginning, after a year and a half of pandemic, the Netherlands is doing quite well economically. Unemployment has been falling for months and almost no companies are going bankrupt.
While it was previously expected that unemployment and the wave of bankruptcy would still come, economists are less and less concerned about this. For example, the OECD was positive this week about the rapid recovery of the Netherlands and De Nederlandsche Bank also says that the economy is recovering strongly and smoothly. And then the lockdown-free summer has yet to start.
“It’s going to be a party in the coming months, watch out,” says Hans Stegeman, chief strategist at Triodos Investment Management. “People go out, spend money. Entrepreneurs are happy. Only there is that one question that we prefer not to talk about: what has this success cost us? It can come back to us like a boomerang.”
“I am very optimistic,” says Bas Jacobs, professor of economics and public finance at Erasmus University. “Last year in the summer we saw that the economy recovers quickly if the measures are lifted. I think we will see such a rapid recovery again this year. But for the longer term, the question is how permanent the damage from corona is. .”
We are spending more than usual again and are increasingly positive about the economy:
After 1.5 years of the corona crisis, the economy is ‘celebrating’, but what did that cost?
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