The countrys citizens could be infected. But that was months you have to understand that the virus is there in the population have no immunity yet to this virus there are no vaccine. That a High Percentage experts say 60 to 70 percent of the population will be infected as long as this situation continues germany has had more than 1500. 00 cases so far with 3 deaths in italy which is the most cases so far outside of china Prime Minister just. Said while more restrictive measures are a possibility the freedom of a crucial. Our primary objective and we all share this objective is to protect the health of this. Because comparing this to the other constitutional matters that are at stake here this one is certainly the priority but lets keep in mind other interests for example when we issue restrictive measures they impact the lives of people we need to be aware that there are. Liberties social rights could be impacted we need to keep in mind that there will be the freedom of enterprise suffers and that is also a constitutional value we must take into account everything. What is now known as tuesdays dead batt found sparked by president johnson emergency fiscal stimulus package faded quickly as the yields in equities are tumbling once again wednesday as there is a lack of details in fiscal response the dow plunged more than 1500. 00 points to end the day and all major and neck these are now down more than 18 percent from all time highs in mid february and Goldman Sachs issued a note slashing its midyear as m p forecast by another 15 percent 80 percent of American Companies are facing severe supply chain disruptions with lead times that have doubled the recent shot market volatility is unprecedented now in 2100 major indexes all average daily moves of less than one percent but now over the past 12 trading days the average change has been well above 3 percent causing tremendous damage to markets Investor Sentiment confidence and Stability Oil continues to slide following another 3 percent as opec now sees a 94 percent drop in 2020 Global Oil Demand growth in response to the coronavirus this demand shock is coming just as supplies peaking with saudi arabia increasing cruise ship is to asia and the u. A. E. Getting ready to raise its output capacity as this continues bloomberg knows that w t i will soon trade premium to brand as shale outlets come under threat of default the trump in ministration is now quote strongly considering a bailout package for the u. S. Oil and Natural Gas Companies in the form of low interest government loans the proposal was strongly criticized for propping up fossil fuel companies at the same time the Clean Energy Bill seems to be unraveling meanwhile the u. K. s fleshing out the details of their own fiscal stimulus and supporting the markets with a definable game plan the bank of england cut its benchmark rate by 50 bits to a quarter of a percent and announced. The government will spend billions of pounds in an effort to limit the impact of the coronavirus on the economy now specifically 7000000000. 00 pounds will be available to support the labor market and an additional 5000000000. 00 will go to health care the total fiscal stimulus plan of 30000000000. 00 pounds is now the largest budget giveaway since 1902 and should be significant towards mitigating the economic hit in the short term so in comparison european markets only fell around one percent versus the u. S. Which is now down more than 5 percent wednesday. From london for now joined by professor Richard Wolffe the host of the economic update so richard lets start off here there are a couple things at play obviously the 1st is the coronavirus which is responsible for the huge demand shock to the system but then we have the breakdown of opec leading to the collapse of oil prices and then in hindsight the trade dispute with china that we had last year now seems to be small potatoes so why it now is the most worrying to you and do you see these events coming together to create the perfect storm that will caused irrecoverable damages to our capital market. I think i would pick the latter i mean this is a sad situation and its tragic in what it what it means but i i always look at it historically capitalism is a system as i have said on this program before that wherever it has landed over the last 300 years on average every 4 to 7 years theres an economic downturn some are short and shallow some a long and deep but thats the average the last time we had were in this country 2008 and 9 thats more than 4 to 7 years which means if you understand history and you will understand that this is been true without exception for 300 years then you knew something was going to come down and it was going to come down hard because its gone up for so on the usually long whether its the virus or the oil shock or the trade war with china or anything else is a secondary my. Rather to the fact that our Economic System is extremely fragile we could have and should have done something about that had we done so we would have been able to handle this crisis the way we handled the sars virus a very similar virus a few years ago ebola or several other things like this its important not to get lost on the specific thing that causes the crisis but rather to see the social totality that is so vulnerable to give us the craziness we see now. And professor wolf now it seems that Monetary Policy has been deemed completely ineffective to help stem the markets the way we see things so we now must turn to fiscal policy but even that seems to be not enough right now to bring confidence back into this market and not only is there a lack of details which is already making the markets suspicious but there is a lack of confidence that anything can be done at this point to turn the boat around what do you think are we at the point of no return i mean i understand what youre saying here previously which is weve built this upon ourselves by continually propping things up but at this point we cant really let them fail can we. No we have to try to do something but weve not only not taken action weve lost the capacity to organize an Economic System to solve a social problem our system is based on profit on profit for individual enterprises we grouped together sometimes in complexes like the military industrial or the medical industrial but both basically we put between the people who needed and the resources we have which are adequate we put this system that focuses everybody on the socalled bottom line once you have a system that does that when youre confronted with a social problem like the coronavirus or like our countrys dependence on oil you find that the system is your biggest problem because it doesnt allow you to mobilize the resources you have to deal with the social problems you have an economy has to focus on the social problems notice that the representative you add on said we want to focus on the medical issue thats priority ok if thats really true then you have to suspend the profit game for President Trump to go up and say im going to cut the payroll tax come on people are not going to the mall the not going to stores and not going to colleges because theyre afraid for their life you put a few more bucks in their pocket theyre not going to suddenly go and spend money i mean its irrational but that kind of thinking is the convention in a profit driven system and thats the problem. Now lets turn over to the oil markets now that is also contributing significantly to the volatility in the u. S. Yet at markets right now and right now a huge portion of the high yield bonds in america are issued by Energy Companies that are highly highly leveraged so if we start to see a wave of bankruptcies come through what kind of knock on effects to expect to see and are there any systemic risks that we should be paying attention to or. Let me answer the last part yes this is a make risks the United States as a as a nation allowed a decision to be made 1020 years ago to go into the fracking business to penetrate and transform the Global Oil Market which had been controlled by the middle east by nigeria by the other Major Oil Producers in opec and and russia and so on and the United States wanted quote unquote Energy Independence it could have and it should of gone after getting free of dependence on fossil fuel it didnt do that it made a different decision because its more profitable to go into Fracking Fracking is very expensive so the Fracking Companies went to americas banks borrowed the money because they promised this is a wonderful deal look at the price of oil lend us the money will bring up the oil well be able to pay you back of fact Interest Rate would be profitable everything was premised on the notion that the price of oil would stay high the saudis and the russians were hurt by the emergence of the american fracking industry they hated that industry from day one its a competitor and now finally the russians together with the saudis and the notion that theyre fighting each other is an illusion they are together fighting the United States because by bringing the price of oil down all of those fracking Oil Companies go belly up theyre done and that would be bad enough as a shock but they cant repay their debts and that plunges the credit market and. Banks into all whole new crisis which were just beginning to learn to understand threatens the whole system you put the corona together with the oil and you have a 12. 00 punch that is making most of wall street realize that the glowing description of the American Economy as the greatest in the world was a selfdelusion of politicians and has no basis in the realities which are now coming home and shaking us about the very capacity to get through this and now professor wolf i want to touch on one more thing here before we go today i want to touch on sanctions something weve discussed many times over the last especially couple of months but probably many times over the last couple of years now iran is now urging the u. S. To ease sanctions that hinder imports of Mission Critical supplies such as medicines and food it needs to fight the coronavirus presently the sanctions have blocked every financial channel of vailable to iran and as a result nearly 300 people have died from the outbreak the hardest hit after china and italy of course there in iran now what do you make of this situation and i mean should we be lifting the sanctions right now. Well i think that what youre seeing and you should be very sensitive to it is that everybody now sees that this virus problem is enormous and youre going to get every kind of using of the virus crisis to get something that they couldnt a gotten otherwise companies that are failing are going to blame the virus because its a lot easier than blaming their own managerial decisions politicians are going to blame the virus again thats why i stress it isnt the virus the virus was just the last straw its a system that isnt working and as to what to do with this sanctions of course stop them you need global coordination to deal with the global threat to our lives this is not the time go back to it later. If you have to but of course stop all of the interference is for the petty gains of one against another recognize the national and International Threat we have which to wit w. H. O. Has now certified as a pandemic and get to work coordinating instead of playing minor competitive games capitalism has always been a double edged sword professor richard well most of the economic update thank you so much. Thank you. For a quick pause but hang here because on the other side weve discussed the breakdown of the supply chain in china but were now going to turn our attention to the bin being felt in europe well go indepth with expert analysis and as we go to break here are the numbers. So what weve got to do is identify the threats that we have its crazy. Let it be an arms race is. Dramatic to follow only mostly im going to exist i dont see how strategy will be successful. If you sit down and talk. Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. Stands it turns it. Doesnt. This is a remarkable. So much to do with todays stock market volatility and the coronavirus all working at the same time and showing. Compound interest is all. Wrong. To shape our. Outlook. And indeed. The trail. Descriptions sound up to tell using even for the owners. To choose Food Industry is telling us what to feed our pets more based on what they want to sell us necessarily good for the pet turns out may not be the best people believe we have the animals that have. To have auto immune disorders these allergies we are actually creating these problems its a huge epidemic of problems i believe can be linked to very simple problem of diet and some dog owners so heartbreaking stories about their pets streets the larger corporations are not very interested in proving or disproving the value of their food because theyre already making it a 1000000000. 00 on it and theres no reason to do that research. And welcome back the Global Business travel sector is expected to lose more than 800000000000. 00 in revenue due to the corona virus according to Global Business travel association Business Travel to asia will likely face the biggest hit with roughly 75 percent of companies saying they have canceled or delayed trips to China Hong Kong taiwan and other countries in the region according to this report now china is expecting a loss of more than 4 100000000000. 00 in the country as the country has witnessed a 95 percent drop in Business Travel since the outbreak began europe is expected to be the 2nd most hit by they are planning to lose just shy of 200000000000 due to limited travel now whats really interesting is i would you just when you were to. Just purely Business Travel but did you know that Leisure Travel is actually more than double that of Business Travel and its got to be hit as hard if not harder obviously as Business Travel because when you doing Business Travel you have to go do that when you doing Leisure Travel youre making a choice to go out in the world when were having the situation with a crowbar and Leisure Travel contributed 10 percent of global g. D. P. As well so this will be a very tough hit for the entire industry as a whole absolutely and as we mentioned earlier in the program fiscal stimulus measures are being taken throughout europe to curb the Economic Impact of the crown of virus in italy which has been one of the hardest hit nations by the outbreak Prime Minister does that because announcing a stimulus package of 25000000000 euros or roughly 20000000000. We are just in the middle of the Cabinet Meeting and we have just decided to allocate an extra money 25000000000. 00 euro because we are aware of the. Country is facing the. 2525000000000 euro. We will not using all of that right now but it will be available to all the good and we have done. As i always said this emergency it is both a Health Care Emergency economic emergency. Has a considerable social impact. And then u. K. The countrys treasury chief announced a package consisting of roughly 39000000000. 00 to help the country struggling economy. Taken together the extraordinary measures i have set out today represent 7000000000 pounds to support the selfemployed businesses and Vulnerable People to support the n. H. S. And other Public Services i am also setting aside today a 5000000000 pound Emergency Response fund and i will go further if necessary those measures are on top of plans i will set later in this budget which provides an additional fiscal loosening of 18000000000. 00 pounds. Support the economy this year that means im announcing today in total a 30000000000 pound fiscal stimulus to support british people british jobs and british businesses. Meanwhile the bank of england has made the decision to cut Interest Rates by half a percent for when the spread of covert 19 risky. And Commodity Prices have fallen sharply and Government Bond yields have reached all time lows consistent with a more deterioration in Risk Appetite and in the outlook for global and u. K. Growth indicators of Financial Market uncertainty have reached extreme levels. Although the magnitude of the economic shock from coronavirus is highly uncertain activity is likely to weaken materially in the u. K. Over the coming months and thats why were acting today the m. P. C. Is reducing bank rate by half a percent to not point to 5 percent this action will help support net cash flows during a period in which Economic Activity is likely to be disrupted. There in the time to unpack here so lets bring in hilary forward board member of the British AmericanBusiness Association. So hilary before we get to elsewhere in europe what do you make of these measures coming out of the u. K. How big of a deal is it for the bank of england to cut rates to a quarter of a percent quarter over saying that right it is a big deal i think this is a jolt that the u. K. Economy needs i also think its leadership Global Leadership showing what needs to be taken its action immediate action i think what is actually going to do is going to show not the way to talk about bracks it what it takes in terms of independent Decision Making the u. K. Has acted so quickly he talked about the spending measures and i would say 2 things you know some things are very important and drastic when theres no heckling in the house of commons you just had your course there was no hurricane whatsoever and even i mean it shows the depths of the help that theyre giving even any business affected by the lack of football fans which is a big. Industry across the u. K. Theyre even going to receive help so this is a big deal and its a big example to all of europe and now even like the central bank in europe theyre scrambling theyre going to have a meeting you know tonight tomorrow theyre having cause to determine what to do but yes the u. K. Has acted fast and its very significant its interesting when we look at the stimulus measures we are seeing actual plans be put in place a 39000000000. 00 stimulus plan in Great Britain in the u. S. Were having the conversation about. Stimulus but were really not seeing what the actual plan is yet now in the u. K. The footsie was down just about one percent where u. S. Markets were told 5 percent on the day so is there anything to this the fact that youre seeing planes out of europe youre not really seeing a 4 player coming from the u. S. Youre absolutely right and we havent seen a full plan yet trump is going to go on National Television tonight as we speak wednesday hes announced to literally just announce that i think hes going to come out with a plan dont forget also as he said i think hes very right to say you know the this virus is not choose with the republican or democrat and you know hes got to get things passed nancy pelosi and the democrats that want to stop everything so i think theres much more of an issue here in terms of whether he can get things through but i would say dont forget also the footsie hasnt had so far to form because of the issues and the doubt around i think theres been a lot of the sort of doom and gloom has been baked into the pound and thats why you see the pound and in general investment in the u. K. Thats why the foot sea has not accelerated to the same extent that the u. S. Stock markets had and the dow like you mentioned was down to 5 they were over down about 5 percent i think if they had a father to fall as well last issue is of course that the u. S. Has far more business in china such as apple and dell that are affected drastically and all links with china are far stronger than that in the u. K. If you want to point out that obviously i mean while some people play this is a partisan issue both democrats and republicans are going to probably stick this thing in some capacity you have republican members here in the u. S. Wearing gas masks to try to say that this isnt a big deal so i think that what it was also it were. It was the. But these are facts i mean this is going to be partisan in the u. S. Because thats where an Election Year thats the way things work here hopefully they can work out but i want to bring back something the german chancellor chancellor Angela Merkel said on wednesday. But. You have to understand that if the virus is in the population has no immunity yet to this virus there are no vaccine. That a High Percentage experts say 60 to 70 percent of the population will be infected as long as this situation continues. No more than 1500 cases 3 deaths so far the country is going as far as suggesting the care solution of events with an attendance of more than 1000 people. So what do we make of this comment that 70 to 80 percent of german citizens could be affected she said that she a former German Health minister said absolutely not he thought up 240000 people rather than 58000000 so theres a drastic disparity there and i cant who is more accurate i do think that her doom and gloom and gloom projection now is a little bit sad because why would they close the borders why havent they restructured vents and why havent they done what all the nations of done which is move more swiftly to could tail large crowds to say theyre going to stop crowds over a 1000 what about crowds of hundreds you have schools in the u. S. Closing you have universities in the u. S. Recalling their International Students you have far more action being taken by the u. S. And the u. K. Its actually surprising that shes you know spouting the doom and gloom and yet hasnt taken more steps to close down events in germany and schools and Community Events like italy did with the the 10 towns closing immediately and quarantining and the austrian border shutting its surprising that germany hasnt actually shut the borders but it only right now there is only the possibility of closing nonessential business and Public Transportation so they havent closed off completely yet and citing that this is their citizens liberty at stake so where does it come in like is it a Public Health issue or is it a liberty issue well i. I think its a very confusing issue and i think i think one thing to note is 2 things a lot of people always ask me like why is it so drastic in italy why so many people dying in italy a lot of people question our right actually its because of the american scientific has a very great article on this they have the oldest population in europe 23 percent of their population is over 65 and their median age is over 47 words the median age in the us is 38 so number one the our the reason that more people are dying in italy is because of the age issue there secondly theres a lot of talk of its difficult to get your finger on this but a lot of chinese illegal workers in milan in the fashion industry and there has its difficult to kind of finals of hard data on that because theyre illegal and that hasnt been documented so those are kind of 2 of the reasons but to answer your question kristie i think you got to look at 100000 a tally and died last year due to cigarette smoking 5000 risk because of corn over virus you know smoking is a human liberty issue the answer is its up to the individual but when it comes to an epidemic and a pandemic like this according to the World Health Organization societies have to start taking control absolutely forward which board member with the British AmericanBusiness Association thank you so much for your excellent chrissy thank you. And thats it for this time you can catch boom bust on portable t. V. The portable t. V. App is available its available. On the apple app store. On apple t. V. And. In the president ial candidates debate the future of the u. S. And the world. Every week. Student trade was money. This sunday exclusively. No not one tough. Enough lose often i dont want to have snakes on the definitions and im by any. One seeking i need. To. Take him you know he could see the south can sound. Down to get the gun and then youre just going to bring. It with a guy. Who might not be. Good enough to know when the. Sun is out. In this just feeling if one means i love this guy you know the deep but a lot of hes just numb tokyo find it hes going to have to go to him. To live. Out. His work was because did it because he didnt seem quite a cultural thing i pulled that premise. As initial assumption yes and. I think shes come up for from the forward of the troika 1st from. The chairman i produced got him never to try to accomplish the project for him i was. Upset. Because the global was going to have to fully experience it in your voice you just of us have the displeasure of us moving the sports lead in the family meaning youre fighting with a slice of the sofa cushion have. Something left for show a photo 6 months because of the sound. Former Army Intelligence analyst and whistleblower Chelsea Manning is in hospital after attempting suicide in jail shes been refusing to testify further in the u. S. Governments wiki leaks probe. President Donald Trumps decision to suspend all air travel to the u. S. From 26 European Countries stressing that because grown a virus pandemic requires a coordinated international response. And experimenting with explosives in britain can be lawful after the Supreme Court clears a man of terror related charges we discussed the ruling. You know it was just experimentation it was just learning as the Supreme Court said you know sense learning to disagree