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Christmas shopping during the second shutdown
Photo: Jochen Tack / imago images
It may have been a news coincidence - there may be more to it.
Almost at the same time, statisticians reported this week that never before had so many people died from or died with Covid-19 in Germany in one day - and that the number of unemployed has fallen to the lowest level since the beginning of the corona crisis.
In November.
In the middle of a pandemic.
And despite the shutdown light.
But maybe also because the shutdown is too easy to break the pandemic.
Then it went together that everything seems great on the job market, while beds are scarce in intensive care units.
Except that the apparently good news from the job market would then be rather frightening: a possible indication that the shutdown is too light - and that a lot of people are losing their lives because the economy and parents should be spared.
In the data surveys on the economy, it is only gradually becoming apparent how the new contact restrictions that came into force at the beginning of November and followed a time when the increasing number of infections had already led to many people staying at home will have an economic effect.
Thomas Fricke, arrow to the right
Born in 1965, has headed the WirtschaftsWunder internet portal since 2007.
From 2002 to 2012 he was chief economist at "Financial Times Deutschland".
He is co-founder of the "Forum New Economy", in which experts have come together to create a new economic leitmotif.
It doesn't take any large surveys to suspect that the slump in sales in restaurants, hotels, stadium box offices and cinemas has been drastic since November.
Logical when they are closed.
And it was also foreseeable that this would be enough to stifle the interim economic recovery in Germany as a whole.
Especially since there are even tougher restrictions with important trading partners like France.
The only question was and is how severe the setback will be - especially compared to spring.
Stable situation - too stable?
This is where the unemployment reports come in, and not just them.
According to the surveys by the Munich-based Ifo Institute, the statements of those companies that reported good versus bad business situation in the first weeks of the restriction month were roughly balanced in November.
Surveys of purchasing managers suggest that the situation is similarly stable and that economic output is no longer increasing noticeably, but is not shrinking either.
The companies also reported more vacancies nationwide.
How does that fit together when, according to the Google mobility index, at the end of November almost 60 percent fewer contacts were registered in retail and leisure facilities than at normal times and a good 40 percent fewer people hang around bus stops and train stations?
How does the economy do it?
One answer could be that all of these are only the harbingers and the big shock is yet to come.
According to the Ifo survey, export expectations for the next three months are not looking so good;
Fewer companies are also anticipating growing business over the turn of the year.
According to reports from the Federal Agency, there were also more new registrations for short-time work than in October.
But all of this does not give any inkling of such a severe economic crash as in the spring.
Despite the deterioration among exporters, the balance between optimists and pessimists is still roughly zero;
After the first pandemic shock in March, it was at times minus 50 percentage points.
The same applies to business expectations.
It's running again in China
Another answer could be that everyone is simply dealing better with the situation now - companies are also better organized.
And more efficient.
Production also works with mask and space.
Unlike in spring, there are also significantly fewer interrupted production chains - which caused German industry to experience delivery problems even before the local restrictions.
It's running again in China.
The only question is: Can the better way of dealing with the virus explain why in the spring the industry produced an average of almost a quarter less at times, unemployment rose by more than half a million within weeks and the gross domestic product slumped in double digits - and stable for November Deals are reported and the economy hired more people instead of fewer?
Rather, the resolution might be that the "lockdown" isn't actually a lockdown - except for restaurants, gyms, and recreational soccer players (which, in turn, are really not the problem).
And that the mix of persistently high numbers of infections and a fairly mild economic slowdown reflects precisely that risky de facto bet that has come out politically in the federal-state fuss - according to which it is somehow about reducing contacts in order to cause the pandemic stop, but the economy should not be expected to lose too many sales.
And working parents don't have too many kids.
Calculations by Phillip Alvelda, Thomas Ferguson and John Mallery, which have just been published by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, suggest how scary the choice between life and business is in the corona crisis.
A comparison of all possible countries and strategies over the past year then gave a fairly clear picture: Those who consistently aimed to stop the epidemic through hard lockdowns have significantly fewer deaths - even if they initially suffered greater economic damage;
while it was the other way around in countries like Great Britain, which initially hesitated with the lockdown and raised all the more money to avoid economic damage.
With the fatal result that precisely because of this, the second wave became all the more violent - and economic output collapsed in the end.
Conclusion of the study: The more negligent governments allow the pandemic to work in order not to harm the economy, the more the economic costs will pile up over time and ever new waves.
Almost no matter how hard these rulers and central bankers try to counter it with economic stimulus programs.
The damn virus finds activity between people (also economic) pretty good.
This also suggests what is currently happening in America - where the economy was hit far less straight away and purchasing managers are currently reporting the best deals in a long time in surveys.
While the number of Covid deaths in the USA continues to reach new highs.
There is a connection.
If so, it is tantamount to a grotesquely negligent experiment trying to stop the pandemic while the economy is more or less unchanged.
Then it might not have been a good idea to try it with such a shutdown light, even if and because that immediately leads to minor economic damage - the human costs are unbearably high.
At least higher than it should be.
It could still be that, although more people are currently dying than necessary, the wave will soon subside, especially when the vaccinations start, and there will then no longer be any major economic damage.
The risk is just dangerously high that things will turn out differently - and the pandemic will last even longer due to the lack of consistent contact stops, without the economy ending up being as light as it seems in the face of more and more thrusts of restrictions.
Then (would have been) better to stop the contacts much more consistently.
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