If anything this is partly an economic crisis of logistics.
The US government is depending on cheques (
), bank loans and a bunch of middle men.
In Europe this is slightly different. Our government decided to pay up to 90% of the salaries and send the money to businesses directly.
You simply have to fill out how much of a revenue drop you expect (for example 30%) and you get 90% of 30% of your salaries subsidized.
On paper that works but in theory a lot of businesses still need to pay rent and other expenses. Plus if you fire anyone you won't get the emergency funding.
So businesses are left with two choices, use their cash reserves / find enough revenue sources to cover their expenses and the 10% of salaries that the government doesn't cover or fire people.
As this drags on more and more businesses collapse and some sectors like tourism and the restaurant business won't recover overnight.
Unless governments 100% foot all the bills over the next 2 years this will send a shock throughout the system. The oil price panic is just a primer of what is about to happen.
Most countries will cynically prefer higher unemployment as paying for unemployment benefits is far cheaper than keeping insolvent businesses afloat and covering salaries of jobs that were well paid up until 6 weeks ago.
WFH is nice but for every 2 new jobs at ZOOM you probably lose 100's of gas station workers.
