Economic Recovery Depends on ‘The Path of the Virus’ — Fed Official
By Chuck Abbott, Successful Farming
The U.S. recovery from the pandemic will depend in part on success in managing the coronavirus through steps such as therapeutics and a vaccine, the president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank told an agribusiness conference on Monday. Also at the meeting, two Trump administration officials attacked the EU Farm-to-Fork policy as a barrier to U.S. farm chemicals and biotechnology.
“The good news is that an economic recovery is underway” and growing more rapidly than many analysts expected, said president Esther George of the Kansas City Fed. Consumer spending has regained its footing, unemployment is dropping rapidly, and inflation is minimal. “So all in all, the outlook is positive but that, of course, depends on how the path of the virus goes.
“And in our region, we will continue to keep a close eye on how businesses, how households and on how important sectors to us like the ag sector are experiencing this recovery,” George said at the annual Outlook Forum sponsored by the Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City.
George credited the ‘”general resiliency” of the economy for part of the recovery, aided by fiscal stimulus from Congress, the White House, and the Federal Reserve, and by the growing knowledge of how to manage the coronavirus, which has allowed business activity to pick up. The Fed’s Open Market Committee, which sets interest rates, “has said in its statements over its past few meetings that how goes the virus will be how the economy” will proceed. “To the extent there are therapeutics, there are better ways to manage the virus, that will be a positive. To the extent there is a vaccine that the public will begin to adopt at some point, that too will begin to allow the economy to resume activities that have been pulled back on, up until now.”