Episode 27 of the Sounds of Stonebridge took us around the globe to Shanghai, China. Eric, an associate of Len and Julia Hornstein joined us today to talk about what life is like now as China has already made the pivot back to re-opening the country. They are about 6-8 weeks ahead of the US. As background, Shanghai is a city of 30 million people, and about 620 miles away from Wuhan, the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic across the world. When it became early on that the virus was easily transmittable from person - person, the Chinese government took some very agreesive actions ro curb the spread. These actions were able to limit the spread outside of Wuhan to just over 600 total cases with only 6 deaths in Shanghai, Eric said that for the most part, life has gotten back to normal. People are out in the stores, restaurants and even shopping malls are open with people wearing masks, gloves and maintaning their best efforts at social distancing. The Chinese government has also set up rigerous testing procedures complete with contact tracing. The Chinese government also did something that was directly designed to stimulate consumer spending activity. Every week, each Chinese citizen is getting a coupon for 45% off in either a restaurant or retail store. It must be used during that week. New coupons are going to get issued weekly for the next month or so. Again this is a great way to get people out of their homes and back in retail establishments and restaurants. Maybe the US government can stop playing the blame game and start thinking up some ways to stimulate the consumer economy, which makes up 70% of the total. Tune in tomorrow for "Financial Friday" with Ken Nemery.
