Insight - Is the global recovery over or just on pause?

Cautious stance: The Federal Reserve is still likely to proceed with a cautious reduction in bond buying, but discouraging jobs numbers for August have raised questions about precisely when the process can begin. — Bloomberg

RESERVE Bank of Australia (RBA) governor Philip Lowe has a coffee mug in his office inscribed with the words “half full.” Lowe says he’s an optimist about next year, as do many of his peers. They’ll have to make it through 2021 first.

The global economy is in for a choppy future that may provide few convincing signals about the vitality and duration of the recovery. Just as analysts and investors were beginning to worry that growth was bouncing back too sharply and bottlenecks were adding to inflation concerns, the Covid-19 Delta variant has stalled commercial activity. If we aren’t back to square one, we have lost significant ground.