Europe and a Double-Dip Recession, Trump and impeachment

The situation with the pandemic in Europe continues to be as dire as possible. The logical consequence of this was the statement by Merkel that the German authorities are considering extending the lockdown for another 10 weeks. For the largest EU economy, and the EU as a whole, this means a guaranteed decline in GDP in the first quarter. Bloomberg Economics, in particular, believes that the eurozone economy will contract by about 4% in the first three months of 2021 (previously predicted to grow by 1.3%).

And if a decline is also recorded at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020 (JPMorgan believes that in the fourth quarter of 2020, the European economy contracted by 9%.), Then Europe will officially go into a state of recession (for the second time in a year).

Europe is not the only problem region. Japanese Prime Minister Suga said that the state of emergency announced in Tokyo could spread to other prefectures.

As for the vaccination as a panacea for a pandemic, although the United States at the start of the week had a record for the number of vaccinations per day (1.25 million), this is far from the pace that will allow the States to achieve herd immunity in the foreseeable future. According to the most conservative estimates, it is necessary to make about 500 million shots, which at a rate of 1.25 million per day gives extremely disappointing estimates of the timing of this vaccination (about 400 days).

Meanwhile, Democrats continue systematically destroying Trump. It would seem that there is only a week left and they can forget about Trump as a bad dream. But no. Today the House of Representatives is going to initiate the impeachment procedure (the second during the Trump term).