Hi, and welcome to Macro Bytes. My name is Stephanie Kelly, and together with my co host, Paul Diggle, we’ll be guiding you through the world of economics, politics and markets.

This week marks the rather grim milestone of a year since the World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 spread a global pandemic. But a year later, we are justified starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, with vaccines being rolled out in major markets. And we're starting to see some early signs of lockdown easing. So ahead of this easing, I asked our Macro Bytes team what they are going to do when locked in.

Voice 1 - Al
To me, it would be a meal in, a movie with my wife, something we used to do a lot of, and just getting out and enjoying that big screen experience and someone else cooking the dinner.

Voice 2 - Rosa
So after lockdown, I'm definitely looking forward to actually putting on a pair of jeans. And I cannot remember the last time I’ve really taken off these sweatpants! So I'm really looking forward to dressing up putting on some makeup and just going out for dinner. Yeah, and just having somebody else wait on me. And not having not having to do the dishes. So yeah, looking forward to that.

Voice 3 - Rob
So looking forward to playing football again, and coaching, and also just be part of our crowd and getting back into the football stadium. On a Saturday afternoon. I'm so looking forward to that.

Voice 4 - Paul
I'm looking forward to going to the weddings of various friends, which have been repeatedly cancelled or rescheduled, and having a good old party with loads of other people.

Stephanie
So there you heard the voices behind this podcast on what they're going to do when lockdown lifts. But the big question is more generally, for investors, for policymakers, when lockdown is over? What will people do with their hard earned savings with the income that they have? And what will all of that mean for growth, inflation and market returns? To help me tease out some of these answers. I'm delighted to be joined by James McCann, our senior global economist at the ASI Research Institute and a regular guest on this podcast. Thanks so much for joining James.

James
Thank you for having me.

Stephanie
So James, maybe we could start off just by talking about what has happened during lockdown in terms of people's behaviours relative to pre-crisis. So how have spending patterns shifted in developed markets, particularly the US that's where your base, of course, how has that shifted during lockdown compared to what we saw pre crisis?

James
Well, as we just have been saying, consistently through the course of this COVID shock, it's been just really an unusual crisis. And the first point to probably raise is the nature and the depth of the initial shock. If we cast our minds back 12 months ago, we're obviously just about to depending on where we were in the global economy, in some form of lockdown. And what that really delivered was a really extraordinarily deep hit to consumer spending. So if we think in the US, q2, which captures most of the period during which the economy was locked down, we're talking about a 10% year on year decline in overall consumer spending.

Now, to put that, in context, during the Great Recession, after the financial crisis 2008 2009. We saw spending in year on year terms bottom at around two and a half percent down in in annual terms. So it just give us a sense that the initial shock to spending was extremely large. And that that meant that the recession felt quite quite different. I guess that shock was relatively short lived. And as you started to see the crisis or not the crisis, necessarily, but as you as you started to see restrictions on activity started ease as we began to get over that first way, then spending came back relatively quickly, it didn't come back all the way. But it came back relatively quickly.

And I think the other interesting component is the nature of that of that spending shock. So again, if we take the 2008 2009 financial crisis and think about it, it's really, really clear that back then people thought, right now is a really bad time to spend on sort of big ticket items like durable goods, things like cars, new furniture, TVs, consumer earnings, etc. You know, as risk aversion started to rise, they decided that they didn't want to go out and spend on those on those bigger ticket purchases. During this crisis, I think what's been really unusual is that dynamic has has almost flipped the nature of the restrictions on activity, be it through lock downs via through limits on restaurant capacity, closed sports venues, etc. means that a lot of the shocks really come on the services sector and that's where we'd really see the biggest decline in consumer spending. Whereas actually the Those durable good items that were really unpopular during the previous recession have been really popular. And that's just a dynamic of people couldn't spend their money in the ways that they usually would have done. So they diverted some of it towards towards those durable goods.

Stephanie
I guess that's the interesting thing about this crisis. I guess it's a health crisis, right. It's a it's not just an economic crisis. But it's actually like we can't go out and spend in the way that we might want to in another world in quote, unquote, normal recession or normal crisis. So I guess that compositional shift is, is quite profound.

James
Yeah, absolutely. It's really extraordinary. It's an interesting, it's an interesting dynamic. So you've probably got two things going on within here. One is that shift as people can go out to restaurants and bars, go to museums, travel, overseas, or domestically, stay in hotels, a whole bunch of services spending that just isn't available to them, or they're not willing to take the risks that will be associated with doing that, you know, they've invested in stuff like doing core parts of the house buying garden furniture, because they're there. Some of those, exactly. Some of that firepower was transferred within spending. But obviously, as I mentioned before, there was still a really big drop in aggregate spending, which tells us that some of that was just a forced savings.

So it's natural, that savings would rise as you go through a shock as people become concerned about their long term income, their employment prospects, they become more cautious. But the degree of the increase in savings during this crisis with the US personal savings rate rising to over 30%, probably tells us that people just physically weren't able to buy more stuff. Instead of going out and spending money on services. There's only so many TVs they wanted or so many patio sets that they wanted. They were actually what we think of, they actually delivered a degree of forced savings where they physically couldn't go out and stand in the economy so that that accrued on their in their savings account in their checking account. And that's something we're seeing very clearly now, if we look at us household checking accounts has an extra around $700 billion sitting sitting there pretty much done it which we think is is almost like trapped savings to some extent.

Stephanie
I think that's really interesting, James, and we'll definitely get into the question marks that that raises about how people behave once lockdowns, lift and economies do reopen. But one thing I wanted to kind of ask about is the distributional element of the trends you've just talked about. So when it comes to spending and saving, how different are things for wealthier households versus, you know, poor households?

James
Absolutely. I think this is a really, really critical thing to emphasise, when we look at household balance sheets from an aggregate top down perspective. You know, they look pretty healthy, they look, they look great household net worth is increased through this crisis, which is really unusual from a historical perspective. But I don't think it takes too long when we dig a little deeper to see that certainly some of the households on the lower end of the income distribution have not necessarily had such a such a positive experience through the crisis. And I think that reflects predominantly where this crisis has has struck, we know that it's been more common that lower income workers, particularly in the services sector, which is most sensitive to COVID restrictions to lock down restrictions, think about hospitality, leisure, accommodation, etc. These are all these are all sectors that we know from the labour market data, which have really struggled over the last 12 months. And those lower income households who work and depend on those sectors have certainly had a more difficult time of it. If you compare that to many higher income individuals or higher income individuals, they've been able to do things like work remotely, there's been fewer disruptions to their, to their income through that period. So you know, absolutely, I think even there's an argument that you've seen this case style recovery within the household sector, even where some of the, the better off or at least middle to high income households have seen fewer disruptions, they've been able to build up savings, they've benefited from some of the the tax and stimulus measures put in place by by successive governments, whereas the low income households, while they've also benefited from from those stimulus measures, they've not really gone through the crisis unscathed from a labour market perspective, and they're the ones feeling a little bit more stress. So I think it's so important to highlight that, you know, even though in aggregate, the figures look pretty good for households, there's definitely a lot of a lot of disparity between between how they're both those balance sheets have evolved through this crisis. And that will matter a lot when we think about, about how that money gets spent as we go forward to

Stephanie
Right, right. I think, I mean, particularly, you know, I think you made the point really well that there are just some kinds of activities that lower income households are just more exposed to because of the nature of the kinds of Work that gets that gets done. I guess you mentioned there as well, the fiscal stimulus element and the role that that has played in in terms of providing support. But I guess what's interesting is if you compare the US to kind of Western European countries, there is a bit of a differentiation in terms of how the labour market was supported. So, in terms of kind of furlough schemes were much more common or short work schemes were more common in Europe. And in the US, it seemed to be more kind of, you know, checks base and unemployment insurance based. Do you think that makes a difference? The kind of policy support and the kind of, I guess, the extent to which people remain attached to the labour force during this crisis? Do you think that matters?

James
Yeah, I think it's important as well, absolutely. It's very clear from if we take Western Europe, as does the United States and just look at what happened in the labour market. The degree of shakeout that you suffered in in the US over over March, April, April now was pretty, pretty significant. We saw really quite aggressive, aggressive cutbacks there. Now, some of that has has come back. And I think it's been one or two policy schemes, which have helped that the paycheck protection plan provides grants for businesses and strong incentives within those grants to hire back their workers. So they've, they've helped to some extent. But you're absolutely right, that more of the relief valve has come through people being being fired or put on temporary leave, for instance. And that has a bigger potential long term effect, it does risk that there's more permanent job losses through this crisis. Again, if we look at the split of us permanent, temporary layoffs, then there's still a very significant amount of permanent job losses draw from job losses, showing God. And from a household perspective, it just created a great degree, I guess, of financial anxiety to those furlough schemes or short our schemes, at least allow people to stay in employment, provided them with a degree of degree of income and employment insurance, in some cases, more than made up for that. But, you know, obviously, that that paused as we moved into the second half of last year before the before the stimulus plan. And that I think, proved to be very quickly, quite financially painful for quite large portion. Certainly we saw quite quickly, US consumer spending fall noticeably as some of that support gave way. So yeah, I would tend to agree the US tools have been a little bit blunted, or perhaps a little bit less well, well targeted. And I think, to some extent that might have exacerbated some of these some of these underlying trends.

Stephanie
Right. Right. I mean, that's, that's a really interesting kind of comparison. I guess the, you know, there are question marks that will come through then in terms of that labour market flexibility, whether there are benefits and during the recovery phase in terms of in terms of how companies behave versus versus their Western European counterparts. So maybe let's, let's move on to that, which is what happens next, given how big an impact the COVID has had on spending and on saving? What are you expecting to happen in the next few months as things reopen? And particularly, I guess, everybody, let's start with the spending side, of course, spending and saving are linked. But how are you expecting behaviour to change maybe compositionally, but also just in terms of people's willingness to go outside and spend money and and engage with the economy? What do you think that that means for the growth environment?

James
So I think there's, as the recovery starts to proceed, particularly helped by the degree of fiscal support that we've spoken about a number of times on these podcasts, but also by a vaccine rollout, and the potential relaxation of COVID restrictions that that puts in place, I think we should expect a couple of forces to kick in first, you know, certainly that fiscal support is providing even more help to household balance sheets, and maybe a little bit more targeted towards the lower end of the income distribution. So a larger round of stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment, insurance Support, Child Tax Credit, for instance, these are all things that should help across the income distribution, but particularly at the lower end. So I think you've got a position in which households, at least should see some boost to their personal income perspective. And then the second point is, as you mentioned, there may be more avenues for them to go out and spend. So this this concept of trapped saving whereby people just physically can't go and, and spend on the types of activities experiences that they normally would do. If we write that the vaccine rollout is enabling some of the restrictions on those activities to ease then that trap spending should should moderate. So as we go forward, we think that month to month, households can probably can probably spend more of their personal income on goods and services in the US economy. I think More of the focus, we might see a little bit of a reversal in that shift towards goods that I mentioned at the start of the podcast and back towards services, as you start to see the economy reopen, and people shift back into their more normal consumption consumption patterns. And I think consumption through that period in aggregate can be can be very strong. So when we look at our q2 growth forecast, we really pencilling in a pretty powerful 10% plus annualised increase in in overall us growth, because you get really a very robust reacceleration in the economy, based on people being able more to go out and spend, first of all, and secondly, than getting another leg up from the fiscal support coming through. So we think these two things interact to mean that you should have a really powerful consumer impulse over over the next few months, or maybe even the next few quarters.

Stephanie
So that's really, I think that's really interesting. It makes sense, right? I mean, you know, as we heard on the initial clip, and as lots of people feel, you're just getting to go out and do the things we used to do and see people in a setting in which we are still consuming services like restaurants, bars, whatever. I think it makes sense to think that as things start to open up, people might feel more open to doing those things. What maybe one interesting question is what lessons might we have learned in the last say, last summer, lots of things were quite open, you know, we saw reopening across a number of Western economies, the US included, you know, was that the kind of thing that we saw after the initial lockdowns? Did we see that big boost to spending? And I guess, is there any reason why, you know, given you mentioned vaccine rollout? Is there an expectation that it will be different this time, because because of the vaccine that is this time, genuinely different versus versus last summer,

James
I think last summer can give us some some clues. But I think this this time will be will be a little bit different. So absolutely. As the economy started to reopen, in, in the sort of late spring into the summer, last year, we certainly did see some of the hitter services spending start to start to moderate. And that was his bars and restaurants were able to reopen either for takeout service offer limited seating, outdoor dining, etc. You know, we saw a little more than half of the hits in overall services spending come back relatively relatively quickly. but crucially, that remained still well down from where it was at the start of last year before this before this crisis struck. So what I would imagine would be, we would see an even more powerful and durable sort of rebounding in services activity. If it's the case that as we move through into the late spring again and into the summer, low, lower levels of community spread, lower levels of hospitalizations, and hopefully fatalities. These are all things that allow for more durable relaxation and social distancing. And restaurants and bars, services, travel, all these types of activities are able to reopen more fully and more durably. And critically, people are more confident using them, because that's the other. That's the other binding constraint here. That could have been the case that last summer, people could go to restaurants, but they didn't feel confident doing so because they didn't rate themselves at risk. So I would expect, I would expect the rebound in Spanish to be quite, quite robust. And I would expect it to get closer, at least to that recovering almost all of that initial rebound not in one quarter, but over the next over the next few few quarters at least. So I think that almost the way to think about it is that was almost a sneak peek of what a full recovery might might look like the experience of moving out of lockdown last last time round.

Stephanie
Right. And I think the point you made there around people feeling comfortable to go out because, of course we talk about the United States, like it's one amorphous country. And you know, the reality is, for other countries, it's easier to talk about things like national restrictions, although there is a lot of regionalization. But the US is like that on steroids, right? Because it's actually 50 states who have taken different approaches. And particularly, I wanted to ask you about, you know, the the loosening and restrictions in places like Texas, Mississippi, I think you said to me recently, even Massachusetts is is kind of easing in terms of restaurant capacity. I mean, to what extent do you think that there will still be a lag in terms of people feeling comfortable once they finally get vaccinated to go out and do these things? Is that an important threshold? Do you think for people and is that going to be built into the reaction that we see? I think

James
the important thing here is that all of this is related exactly to the new cases, data and what we're seeing what we're seeing on the ground, so There certainly has been an easing in in restrictions. We're seeing that, as you mentioned, not just across some of those states, which have been less inclined to to implement these sorts of COVID restrictions on activity, but across a broader range of states, and it reflects the progress has been made in bringing down new cases, I guess the risk is that if you open to too quickly, then you could undermine that confidence, you know, particularly if these new strains mean that it doesn't take particularly long for the community spread to rebound quite, quite rapidly. So I think I think should should we start to see, you know, that I think that's the major risk almost to that sort of quite rosy picture that I've painted of a vaccination programme helping a lot consumer spending with quite strong balance sheets behind the rest of that would be if you reopen a little bit too early, and certainly the CDC seems nervous about some of the steps that have been taken, particularly around musc mandates, then do you potentially start to undermine public confidence and, and people look at the case data and look at the hospitalisation rates and say, you know, we're not there yet. It might be it might be okay, we're not prepared. We're not prepared to do it. So I think it's I think it's just critical that those states that are reopening are just very sensitive to what they see on the ground, whether that reopening leads to a rapid resurgence in cases, I think it'd be important to, to take steps until you've moved further down the path on the on the vaccine programme. So it's, it's really interesting, how will that hold that all that interacts? What what you hopefully get to is a point at which, you know, further later in the summer, you're vaccinated enough enough people that that that feedback mechanism isn't coming back and, and damaging confidence whereby more economic activity leads to a worsening public health outcomes?

Stephanie
No, that makes total sense, I think it is. There's so many factors that go into this in terms of, you know, vaccines and mute mutations, and just people's individual behaviours, which obviously matters quite a lot, maybe to square off on this segment, then is just to ask about the savings effect of all of this. So we've talked about the spending. And you know, the implication is definitely that spending is is significantly increased, what does that mean for the flow, but also the stock of savings? So household savings that you mentioned, are just so high after this, this lockdown period?

James
Yeah, I think that's a great way of coming guided, because exactly what if we imagined that out of everyone's monthly income, they spend a certain amount, the same amount of what our forecast is essentially saying is, as we go forward, they're not going to have to out of that flow, save as much they're going to be able to spend and the personal savings rate at the moment is over 20%, it's spiked a little bit because of the latest round of stimulus checks. But normally, that would set let's say, between five and 10%. So what you build in is a normalisation that, that households are saving precaution reviews and a smaller amount. And that means that they're spending, they're spending more, but I think it's a really important question. They've been saving quite a lot over many, many months. And that accrued, and they're sitting a few forms, if we try and estimate the total size of that we're talking well over a trillion, maybe 1.3 to 1.5 trillion in in accumulated savings over that point. Some of that sitting in in checking accounts, I mentioned that about 700 billion now just in, I guess, relatively accessible and liquid, liquid cash. But I think that that, that boost to household wealth hold some really interesting implications for what we might expect from the consumer sector going forward. So from one perspective, it suggests that they may be able and willing to go out and spend more freely, they feel more financially stable, we know that they've used some of this extra firepower to pay down some aspects of that, particularly around consumer credit. One area that's interesting, though, is that mortgage debt has been increasing through this period. So while they've maybe been cutting, credit card spending, for instance, auto spending, or at least paying some of that down, they've been adding to their housing investment to their to their mortgage debt. So it suggests that maybe some of this money might find its way into the housing market. And that's certainly something that we've seen and continue to see very high demand for housing in the United States house prices, very high inventory very, very low at the moment. So I think some of its been channelled in that direction. More generally, it should suggest, I think that there's, I guess, less, less sensitivity to shocks if people feel that they've got a greater degree of security in their financial position. But one interesting potential risk to the upside is They just want to spend more of if they don't feel that they should be holding as much accrued savings. And rather than using it to pay down debt or just improve their financial position permanently, they decided to reverse some of that, that saving. The analogy would be I didn't go on holiday in 2020. So I'm going to do two holidays in 2022, or you know, that it's this sort of catch up standard. And so I think that's one thing we're watching for, for carefully. And it's not just the United States, we see this across many developed markets that households have a bit of a war chest, I think, in general, people expect that just to just to be added to the household wealth position and not drawn down very significantly, but certainly there is there is a chance that they want to go out and spend that more aggressively. So I think that's that's a that's something that economists are watching closely. There's some evidence that following these types of pandemics, households become permanently more cautious. So maybe there's a justification given that we now know that lockdown is possible. This time last year, we would have been, I think, shocked to have seen this type of event come around, it could be the case that now we know these shocks can come and that the impact that they can have that we want to hold higher levels of saving permanently. But I think the savings question is really difficult to get a strong a strong prediction on but it's, it's potentially really important for the outlook.

Stephanie
Yeah, gosh, I mean, everything you've just said kind of highlights you can make arguments for why they you know, the savings, not only will the savings rates drop, but also actually maybe people eat into their savings to spend because they're just so keen to, or is there like a behavioural impact whereby people feel this is a real and present danger that can happen to us at any time. And therefore, I want to hold more, more savings. I mean, maybe just to talk about what all of this means, then from kind of the economic perspective, at least, if we do see a situation where you have just a permanently higher stock of savings, household savings, I mean, what does that mean for the economy? Maybe First off, we start with one of the potential benefits of that world in which you have households just holding higher stocks and savings.

James
I think the benefit is that that household financial positions are robust and strong. And, you know, we can look back at the last crisis, the great financial crisis keep coming back to this. But, you know, that shows us what can happen when households feel that they've become overextended that the housing market, boom, and then and then collapse left households, you know, with levels of debt that they were uncomfortable with, with the value of the asset that that that was was held against was was was was uncertain, and probably follow. And the effect of that was felt over many, many years, when households weren't spending as much they were trying to save and repair that financial position. So I think one benefit is, with the household balance sheet, in aggregate, looking in in relatively good shape is that this crisis, probably, we don't have to see that that that balance sheet repair that we saw after the financial crisis. So I don't think it will be the case that savings rates need to remain very, very high for precautionary reasons or to try and repair some of the damage done through that. So I think that's a, that's a benefit, it means that we should be more resilient to potential shocks down the line as as households should feel less sensitive about their financial position. So I think that that helps.

Stephanie
Yeah, for sure. And then maybe on the on the slightly more negative side, are there any drawbacks to having structurally higher savings rates for households?

James
Yeah, I mean, one, one drawback would be, I suppose that, that this is just a structural change, whereby households, as you mentioned, are more just risk averse, right? through this period. And you don't really feel the benefit more broadly, because they just more worried about the outlook, they think, you know, when will the next pandemic hit, or when will another major shock hit and so their their willingness to go out and spend just is permanently limited and our expectation that a reopening in the economy leads to much, much less forced saving is too optimistic. And actually, they want to save more and more of that is precautionary saving number currently, we're currently factoring in so I think it's that I think you summed it up really well. It's just trying to understand that behavioural factor is really challenging across households. But now there's a bit of a risk of this sticks around more and households. It's three quarters of overall overall demand. So if it's the case that they're, you know, just permanently looking to try and improve their financial position or save against the next type of crisis or shock, then I think that will be a worrying signal.

Stephanie
Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, we can't have a conversation about spending and saving up lockdown, without mentioning the inflation debate that is obviously raging in markets at the moment, in particular this question about risks of overheating. And toward extent do you think that the individual spending and saving decisions are an important part of this debate? And how do they kind of weigh off against other factors that you were considering when you you forecast both growth and inflation,

James
The household sector i think is is going to be one which people are concerned about the degree of spending over coming months, I think it's absolutely the case that as you get some reopening, we're already seeing signs of this from the early 2021. Spending data, as you get some gradual reopening of the economy. And as stimulus checks are landing in people's bank accounts as when employment insurance benefits are topped off new child tax credits, the whole range of the interaction of this fiscal support and a reopening economy and relatively high existing savings rates, I think that's going to lead to very, very strong consumer spending. And that's clearly going to spook some people there are concerns that growth rates of 10% annualised over q2 are too fast for the United States that, that the economy is effectively overheating. And, you know, as everyone is, is going out and trying to spend beer on goods, or being on booking holidays or being on you know, even going to a local bar or restaurant, that that's going to push up inflation, for those components. And we're going to start to see the economy overheating, and that that would be damaging for the cycle. So I think that's where it where it fits in. With probably, we're more sanguine, I think on the ability of the economy to withstand, I think that strong growth without without developing those overheating symptoms. But But definitely, I think people will look at household balance sheets, look at income support, and then see as the economy starts to reopen very, very strong growth as a sign that this is this is this is too much. So I think that's where the debate is sort of centred on at the moment.

Stephanie
Right, right. I think that just underscores what a difficult job you have, at the moment trying to forecast not only the economic outlook, but also crucially, the inflation outlook. In a world where there just is there are so many known unknowns, and there are so many factors that are likely to affect what is really individual decision making in a way that, you know, economists just really haven't had to deal with, in many, many days. I mean, arguably, since since the Spanish Flu in terms of the type of global shock that we're we're facing, particularly the United States.

James
That's absolutely right. And the difficulty, we always say it, this is a new type of crisis, we know what took me 10 years plus hindsight, we know what the financial crisis looked like, and the recovery from that this is naturally a different type of type of crisis. And we have a totally different type of policy response to it. We have coordinated aggressive fiscal and monetary support, which is what myself and many, many parts of the economic community has prescribed at the moment in this environment. So yeah, I think it's it's, it's reasonable to sort of say, what if what if this time is is different? I think where we keep coming back to is really hard to get inflation over a long period of time. Now, I think the evidence is, is quite compelling that you can push economies pretty hard without really starting to see those threatening and aggressive increases in in the way the way to the price dynamic in the economy. We know as well, there are a bunch of global disinflationary forces that we're all talking about 18 months ago, but you know, just haven't haven't gone away either. So I think that's what makes us believe that the most likely outcome is that the economy can, can run hotter can absolutely enjoy this, this stronger growth without, you know, threatening a major outbreak in inflation. But you know, that that that is based on many assumptions, and one of those is exactly what households do with their recruits saving how aggressively they go out and spend it and how that that demand permeates through the economy.

Stephanie
Yeah, absolutely. And I cannot let this episode end without asking you as an individual, your individual behaviour, what is the first thing that you want to do when things reopened and you can go back into the world? Yeah, so

James
You mentioned earlier that I'm based in the United States, so I have not I have not managed to get home. As you can tell from my accent that my home is not the States so I've not been home and seen family in in around 1818 months now. So I'm, I'm certainly looking forward to to getting back to the UK and seeing seeing friends and family and if I'm really honest get into a game at Goodison Park.

Stephanie
Well, you kind of stole mine because I have to say, as is obvious as well, so I'm based in Scotland, but very audibly Irish. And again, it's the same thing I think as soon as possible just getting back, which maybe we are an indicator about, you know, prospects for global travel, although we do think global travel will just take a while to kick back in. But just in the interest of alternative answers, so we don't have the exact same one. I am also really looking forward to someone else pouring my wine and someone do not me, not my husband. So yeah, so maybe that gives us a sense of the kinds of things that at least, you know, earlier, we heard from the rest of the Macro Bytes team, their priorities, you've got our priorities, a tiny little sample, but I guess the big question is going to be here, the wider economy and how different economies adapt going forward, and how those individual behavioural decisions that each household makes builds off into, you know, the overall economic environment we find ourselves in later in the year.

So unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. But thank you so much, James, for coming on. Again. Thanks to all our listeners for tuning in. Once again, we've been really overwhelmed by how much support the podcast has gotten. If you've got any questions, or any ideas for topics that you'd like us to tackle or any feedback on this episode. You can email us at macrobytes@abrdn.com. And next week, we'll be back talking about cryptocurrency so please do join us then.

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