Stephen Roach warned us of a recession in January, says recovery is going to be extremely tentative

Stephen Roach former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs warned us in January that the virus outbreak in China has the potential to cause a global recession.

But not many bothered to take heed until things went absolutely beyond control. Now the 74-year-old economist warns us not to be overly optimistic about the economic recovery.

No, he is not saying that we won’t recover, he is just warning us to be cautious about the timeline for recovery.

The most important statement he made was this, “There will be no recovery if we don’t contain the virus.” It is not hard to understand why he is saying that. If infections persist in the community, people will remain cautious about where they are going and what they are doing. Freedom of movement will remain either voluntarily or involuntarily restricted and it will have a direct impact on businesses.

The strain on the economy will persist, stifling recovery.

“This is a sudden stop in the U.S. economy. The hope is we’ll get through this. But it’s at least two-quarters of the sharpest declines we’ve seen since the end of World War II,” the Yale University senior…