[chrisseaton]

The markets absolutely soared. People saved money rather than spent. Most people's jobs carried on as normal or were protected by the government.

As a concrete example, bank account deposits in the UK rose 10% during COVID.

[coldtea]

>The markets absolutely soared.

The markets are not invididuals, if we're talking about stock markets. And in Europe they don't represent most of the population as asset holders or anything like that.

Case in point for France:

"There was an 8.3% decrease in France’s economy in 2020, and the country has not seen a recession to this extent since World War II. For example, France’s travel and tourism sector’s contribution to the French economy decreased by 48.8% due to travel restrictions. As a result, that sector alone lost 193,000 jobs. (...) Before the pandemic, 9.3 million people lived below the 1,063-euros-per-month poverty line in France. Those who were poor had little opportunity to improve their lives, especially during the pandemic when unemployment rates reached a two-year high. As a result, retail workers, artisans and self-employed people were among those the pandemic most affected. Further, the number of French people in poverty has significantly increased to more than 1 million people during the pandemic. (...)"

>As a concrete example, bank account deposits in the UK rose 10% during COVID.

That's one disconnect. Most people don't have bank account deposits (or don't have any to write home about). That's apparently true for the US too...

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/23/most-americans-dont-have-the...

- though I guess those people don't go out buying houses either.

[namdnay]

Careful, the French measure of “poverty” is a percentage of the median income. It’s more an indicator of inequality than anything else

And the 200k people laid off from the tourism and other sectors were paid 80% of their previous income by the state.

[coldtea]

>areful, the French measure of “poverty” is a percentage of the median income. It’s more an indicator of inequality than anything else

It does say "below the 1,063-euros-per-month poverty line in France" which whether it was calculated with the median income in mind or not, it's quite fine as a poverty measure, not just inequality (that's like making less than $12K/year, or if we adjust for cosr of life, less than $18K/year or so).

[namdnay]

Two things:

1) being a fixed percentage of a median, any variation in the median will change the “poverty rate” without it necessarily meaning anything. If the minimum wage increases by 100 euros, the poverty rate will actually increase because the median income will go up and more people will come under X% of it

2) you can’t really compare income across countries. 1000 euros a month means you will receive social housing or subsidies for private rental. It means neither yourself nor your children will pay for any state services (school, school meals, health, swimming pool etc, public transport etc). I’d far far prefer to be on 1k in France than 2k in the US

[coldtea]

>2) you can’t really compare income across countries.

As a close by European whose been to France many times and have friends there, I can assure you 1000 euros a month doesn't by you much in France. Not sure if it corresponds exactly to $18-20K year, but it's not far.

That said, of course, being someone making 1K in France is better than 2K in the US -- regarding education, health, and several other aspects....

[chrisseaton]

If the class of people who buy houses (people with assets and deposits) get wealthier then house prices go up.

As you say, people who aren't buying houses anyway not getting richer doesn't have any impact on the price of houses.

[coldtea]

I guess so, but it makes sense to be surprised when house prices (and rent) goes up, in 2 years when most people get fucked over financially.

[ashtonkem]

Yes. That’s clearly what happened. But lots of people, myself included, expected prices to go down. The early pandemic was marked by a market meltdown and a shutdown of the timber and housing industry as analysts expected a drastic slowdown in home buying and building. It was perfectly reasonable at the time to assume (or hope!) that house prices were going to fall, and let's not brow beat people over that.

[inawarminister]

Yeah, similar event happened to the car industry. Analysts and factories forecasted dramatic slowdown in sales, so are rental car companies. Yet after the reduction in investments happened, it turned out consumers in COVID prefer to buy additional cars, or rent to go to smaller towns. Cue pandemonium. (And the supply chain shortages of chips)

To be fair, if COVID happened anytime before broadband is available to homes, the analyses wouldn't miss. Novel pandemic, novel technologies, novel situations all around.