Please dont comment on Sweden when you have NO Idea whats going here. Sweden was NOT prepared. There arent ANY masks or protective gear for the doctors nor nurses. Elderly homes get NO help. The elderly people here in Sweden get to pumped up with drugs and let die. There are doctors from elderly homes now that have created court cases against the government. Nurses and doctors in Stockholm are being told to come to work even if they have Covid-19. Sweden is massively under reporting deaths by a factor of 4. The ONLY country prepared for this was Finland. Sweden will probably be the next Italy in due time. I have seen videos of elderly die in their beds and get NO help from anyone. I was thinking of the "final solution" when I saw those videos! And every day in the TV we are being told that there are beds in the ICU! The gov of Sweden is lying to everyone. I have read somewhere that the reason they are doing this is for the Stockmarket NOT to crash more. But if this is correct I don't know. Dont get me wrong I am not for a total shutdown but lets try to promote some natural antiviral things like vitamins etc get a face mask and back to work. We did live through pandemics before modern medicine!

I would argue that the jury is still out for Sweden. Both in terms of death per capita and in terms of the economic impact. 1. Death per capita in Stockholm is high compared to many countries and government is afraid that the infection will spread to the rest of the country now. 2. Our Nordic neighbors can now go back to a situation that is closer to normality than the Swedish approach since the number of infected is so slow. Sweden probably have to continue our strategy for the foreseeable future since the number if infected is still high.

As Roger said, what is ultimately important is the total amount of suffering produced by the different levels of lockdown chosen by each country, and that cannot be known until we look back on this in the future. We know economies and therefore people are suffering now and are going to suffer more. We do not honestly know how effective lockdown measures have been at containing the virus. I think lockdown measures may be having less of an effect at limiting infection than originally hoped for, and the Swedish data support this, because their numbers are not actually that different from anyone else's once you filter out international differences in epidemiology and health care system capacity. This virus is highly contagious. People forget that the original stated logic for pervasive lockdown was to prevent healthcare systems from being overloaded. Both Canada and Sweden have achieved this for example, with different levels of lockdowns in place.

Roger is spot on...we 100% will look back on this five years from now and say "we totally blew it". Well it's unfortunate that we can't use our brains and make that realization now and open it up, responsibly. Ed is right, the Swedes are nexgen thinkers on this one.

Mr. Koo's solution should have been in the original Euro documents. It is too late now. If you were a wealthy Italian would you buy Italian bonds. If you were a wealthy Greek would you buy Greek bonds. If you were a wealthy Argentinian would you by Spanish bonds - maybe. DLS

Peter Cooper with a great delivery on that intro. Well done and thank you!

Yes more macro ! I don’t miss all the interviews that I got paywalled from because they moved to a higher tier without communication... jeez I miss the Grant Williams content I originally subscribed to this platform for which is non existent now.. not surprised if see more pure advertisement videos like the past.

haha, when Peter said it was Wednesday, I got confused and started looking for the daily from the next day :)

what happened to the CC option? Some of us need it!

Sorry, what does it mean to "weaponize the treasuries"? Thanks.

There is no grind upward until we hit the bottom.

Quick comment on Covid-19, Sweden's policy response and mental health. I wrote a post on it here https://pro.creditwritedowns.com/p/the-jobs-picture-coronavirus-response I think the mental health issues from unemployment and lockdown isolation are important and can't be as fully captured as deaths from infections. The goal has to be to allow people as much freedom as you can on a sustainable basis until the threat of the virus passes. That's likely to be months and years as we get a vaccine or achieve some measure of herd immunity. I think Roger is right. We can't know if the Swedes are doing the right thing until months into the future. But, we do know lockdowns create suffering and we want that suffering to end and be replaced with some semblance of normalcy where we, are friends and our families are as safe as they possibly can be. Happy Friday and have a good weekend.

Greece has been praised for its early and effective response against the coronavirus. Greece is in early discussions with low case countries (Cyprus, Israel etc) to create a safe zone for tourists. One of the ideas thrown on the table is to test travellers right before boarding airplanes for their holiday destinations. The tropical Chinese island of Hainan is accepting tourists as we speak. Hotels rates are discounted around 50%.

Does anyone have a link to the BoA report about central banks?

GReat discussion, keep it going, the Daily Brief is at the top of RVTV success stories IMO.

Dealing with COVID-19 has proven to be a hot topic in that no single solution can be applied across the globe to in my opinion.Many factors like seasonality, population size and density together with testing and tracing capabilities play a part in minimizing the economic impact. Finding the balance in building up sufficient capacity in the health sector VS the preservation of the economy will be a topic many books will be written upon in the future.

Sweden is like Canada, few people and lots of space, not comparable to New York

Ed, I agree on your take of Sweden, I think it would be a disaster with a lockdown because Sweden is an export country and for sure will suffer anyway. People aged 80 or older make up around two-thirds of Sweden’s deaths. Leaders of other countries I think is afraid that the Swedish model is the right model. People who lose their jobs and business in other countries would not be happy and take their anger at the leaders who run the country

Here in the UK politicians have always resorted to two things to drive consumption: 1) Lining the pockets of elder baby boomers with freebies like the scandalous triple-lock pension and 2) QE to pump up house prices and supply dividends in the FTSE for their private pensions. However this time it won't work because the gig economy is going to the wall and as cafes and restaurants go to the wall, pensioners will have no where to spend their free money. Once the housing bubble pops it's game over for the UK and I worry for my friends who have small businesses, mortgages and families.

isn't China bringing ahead the impossible trinity right now? they don't have to devalue, they have to pass to flexible currency rate with dollar so they won't need dollars to sell to pump up the Yuan, they will need dollars, but now they need dollars and then they sell them when need to keep the peg. That necessity will no longer exist will flexible currency rate, and they can open up their financial system which is what they must do

With regard to all the criticism of Sweden dealing differently with regard to locking down their population, we need to remember that this all comes from politicians, most of whom have spent their life focused on being popular. And as we recall from high school, the kids who aspire to be popular tend to persecute bitterly those who dare to be different. In this case, the concern is not for the potential lives that may be lost, but rather than a different approach may turn out to be better, in which case those criticizing Sweden would themselves be responsible for having imposed a worse course on their populace than Sweden has on theirs. From the perspective of the politicians it is much better that everyone follow the same course in lock-step so that no one (or no politician) can be criticized for not having taken the best course. Of course, this would mean that we would have no idea, in reality, what might be the best course, but it would protect the politicians from embarrassment, which is their highest priority. A more logical approach would be to encourage different approaches in different places, and to evaluate how each works out, in both the short term and the longer term. This is the first time in modern history that we have faced a pandemic of this magnitude, but it almost certainly won't be the last. We need to learn all we can to prepare for the next time. Certainly, following the advice of the "experts" hasn't worked out well, in part because the advice changes from day to day, and in part because their early predictions have been proven dramatically wrong, time after time. We need data and comparisons.

With all due respect, would you mind turn the mobile phone to silent mode while doing video recording? Or put the phone away from the desk, mate. Lol.

Ed, said "Grundgesetz" like a native.

This is immeasurably superior to watching the financial news with my breakfast in the morning. Thank you.

DAILY BRIEFING – MAY 7, 2020 Published on: May 6th, 2020 • Duration: 33 minutes

Nice to see Ed considering the consequences of hysteria at last . Suicide , depression , and stress kill also , not to mention all other sickness that go untreated during Covid madness. For sure history will look back on this as the year the world went mad , spurred on my the media , social and otherwise .

When Peter said it was Wednesday, I believed it

Great intro Peter! You've got screen presence! And as always, I really enjoy Ed and Roger's conversations. Is the reason we're all staying home and social distancing to prevent the hospitals from becoming overwhelmed or to try and make it so no one gets infected? Hoping to eliminate new infections is a pipe dream. People can get behind 'flattening the curve', because it is a finite goal with a beginning, middle and end. Asking for anything more just isn't practical in this country.

We are in the early innings of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is too early to start saying how anyone will come out of this! I hope for the best for all. I am glad there are many different approaches. We can follow over time to see what worked better. There is no reason to start handicapping now. It is just too early. DLS

It appears recent hospitalizations in New York City have to do with people over 51 being infected by the younger people in their families. This is like all the school children bring the regular flu home from school. The kids are contagious before symptoms appear. Mixing in family units opens older people to contagion which they may not be able to handle. The virologist in Sweden could do this tracking quickly as their elementary schools are open. As the US opens, it may be that older persons need to isolate from their favorite family members. Exceedingly difficult. DLS

I like Peter Cooper's introductions. Well done!