[apinstein]

My view is that this isn’t an underlying financial crisis. However, of course the temporary disruptions will be of such magnitude that they will create one. Worst case IMHO is that it could be way worse than the Great Depression due to the very tight coupling, high leverage, high overhead and JIT nature of the global economy today. There will be a huge cascading failure effect.

That said, interventions can have a huge impact on the extent of that. Interventions that delay/defer/mitigate economic damage at the entity and individual levels I think can do the most to simply “pause” the economy and prevent underlying degradation while we deal w the pandemic.

Imagine the benefit of just all debt being rolled over month-by-month to the end of the loan term, and similar for renters. Defer irreversible economic decisions and go into subsistence mode. I think that will be the best best for the maximal eventual recovery. That will be the difference in a return to prior levels taking 6-12 mo vs 5-10 years.

Sadly I don’t think the US is heading in this policy direction. I half wonder if we should just do it grassroots and then there will be ample support to reimburse it via tax or other incentive.

That’s how I am thinking about it anyway.

[apinstein]

I realized I didn’t answer your specific q. Whatever impact you see in your business, assume it will continue for at least 3-4 months. If that is unsustainable then the sooner you deal with it the better.

Not sure how unemployment insurance works in your country but in the US I spoke to restaurants and they just terminated people so that they could collect unemployment at a higher level than the business could provide income (salary or tips). Do what you have to do fast, and do it empathetically and in a way that preserves your options for restarting / re-hiring when things eventually improve.