Sheffield united and Manchester City against arsenal. There will be no fans in the stadiums, but all 92 remaining games will be shown live on tv. Our Sports Editor dan roan reports. Its game on. With clubs resuming contact training for the First Time Since the season was suspended back in march earlier this year, confirmation tonight the premier league is set to resume injust under three weeks time. Subject to government approval, the 92 remaining fixtures will be played in a packed 5. 5 week period as clubs try and make up for lost time. Obviously, there are things that are much more important at the moment and we have not lost our sense of perspective, obviously, but football is an important thing to lots of people. Ive missed it. I think its ok to say we have missed it. Im really looking forward to seeing some football again. At times over recent weeks, plans to restart the season have seemed shaky amid tension between clubs and concerns among between clubs and concerns by players over safety, but now we know Manchester Citys postponed match with arsenal here at the etihad will be one of two games marking the return of the campaign and the government has encouraged the league to make the most of the resumption. Not since the 19805 have the bbc shown top flight matches live. Now, for the first time, it will broadcast four premier league games, sky making a further 25 fixtures available free to air, with all the remaining games shown live. As in germanys bundesliga, all matches will be behinds closed as in germanys bundesliga, all matches will be behind closed doors, but the head of the Supporters Federation told me that fans will focus on the positives. I think fans will be pleased that theres some free to air games. Obviously, it is very much a second best watching it on television than being able to go to the game, but now theres going to be more opportunities to do that than we thought there might be, i think most fans will be pleased about that. With four Different Premier League kick off times at the weekend and the fa cup final pencilled in for august 1st, footballs preparations are gathering place. Footballs preparations are gathering pace. In store, a Season Finale like no other. Dan roan, bbc news. Now on bbc news, its hardtalk. Welcome to hardtalk. Im stephen sackur. The covid 19 pandemic has plunge the World Economy the covid 19 pandemic has plunged the World Economy into a deep recession. How long will it last and what kind of recovery can we expect . Well, in large part, that depends on what governments do next. Will they pile up a mountain of future debt in order to cope with todays crisis . My guest is the former governor of indias reserve bank, raghuram rajan. Do the old rules of fiscal discipline no longer apply . Raghuram rajan, in chicago, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. Lets begin with a simple proposition that the covid 19 pandemic has been very damaging to the World Economy. The question is just how bad is it going to get . Whats your answer . Well, it depends on this very big imponderable how successful are we to be in arresting the spread of the pandemic . Weve dealt with the first phase in industrial countries. We have brought it down, we have brought the reproduction rate down below one, and these countries are opening up. Is there a second phase . And of course, it is still rampant in the emerging markets brazil, russia, india and of course in africa, it is starting to grow in a number of places, so i think we still have to wait and see how bad it will get. It is already very, very bad. You recently wrote im in the camp which has grown progressively more and more pessimistic about the outlook. Is that because of your focus on some of the emerging markets or because of what you might perceive as mismanagement of the problem in some of the developed, richer countries . I think it is a bit of everything, right . This what we have seen in the industrial countries is Different Countries have had different degrees of success. That is also true of emerging markets. Vietnam is struggling to prevent its first death from the virus. On the other hand, brazil has had tens of thousands of deaths already and it isjust expanding. So, management has been variable. But also, we do not really know how bad it can get, whether we will have a second wave. We have spent an enormous amount of money already on cushioning the effects of the first wave. There is not a lot left in the kitty for the second wave, if that actually comes. What President Trump wants to see is a v shaped recovery that is, a steep plunge down at the beginning the crisis, at the beginning of this crisis, followed by a rapid ascent back to some sort of economic normality as people believe the lid has been put on the spread of the pandemic. Do you believe in this concept of a v shaped recovery . Well, it is possible to get a rapid recovery in some areas, for example, manufacturing, if you can get the supply chains working and if demand starts picking up. These are all big ifs. On the other hand, i mean, who is going to venture into a restaurant . Even in china, with all the tracking they are doing, you still see that many restaurants are half or three quarters empty still. People are not confident enough to go into places which are very crowded. So my sense is that any recovery is going to take place over time, especially in the high Contact Service sectors hospitality, travel, et cetera but even in manufacturing, getting the supply chains synchronised, getting making sure your supplier in mexico also has his plant running and that your buyer in europe is willing to accept delivery. This is also going to take time. So, i think its v shape is looking a lot more optimistic, even if we do not have fresh outbreaks of the virus. Whats interesting about your analysis there is that it is not just about controlling and curbing the spread of the virus, it is also about addressing public perception, confidence, attitude. Because, as you point out, in many sectors, important sectors of the us and wider Global Economy, im thinking aviation, all of those sectors that rely on Public Confidence in being in open spaces with other people, whether it be entertainment, restaurants, many leisure activities, there is now a profound confidence problem, isnt there . There is, right . In some sense, the only answer to this is either knowledge that everybody has been vaccinated or that everybody has been tested recently and dont actually carry the virus, otherwise, youre always going to be worried there is somebody coming in here who is a carrier and what will that do to me . Lets get into the detail of Economic Policy making across the world and tap into your experience as both a former governor of the Indian Reserve bank and also chief economist at the imf. Youve got a lot of experience to bring to the table, particularly with the nature of fiscal policy and the use of debt. What we see in the United States and many other countries is vast, expansion of borrowing, of debt, to finance economic recovery packages, to help people in the here and now. You, traditionally, have been very cautious about the use of debt to fuel economic recovery and growth. Are you just as cautious today . Well, i think the Immediate Reaction when the virus hit was appropriate. The sense was this would be only a couple of months. That the policy objective was to put the economy in a coma, protect people, protect theirjobs, protect firms and two months later, with the swish of the wand, the economy would wake up and we would be back to normal. That was the v shape recovery, that was this sense that this was all easily tackled. Now, as we see, it is going to take much longer, there is a real question about whether the economy should be transformed in this process, whether it is enough to put it to sleep or whether we need a new economy to take care of all of the concerns about, you know, proximity, as well as the ability to now work at a distance that far more people realised they have. So there will be transformations and are we sort of keeping the economy from transforming . We are also discovering it is extremely costly to keep people at home, extremely costly to keep these lockdowns. The us has issued 3 trillion worth of debt this quarter, and, you know, a trillion here, a trillion there, it becomes real money very, very quickly. The reality is now we have to make harder choices. Pick and choose what do we protect . Clearly, people have to be protected but do we protect theirjobs . Perhaps they need new jobs elsewhere . We need to make sure that happens. We need to provide credit at that time, but do we have to keep a restaurant alive for the next year while it is closed . Crosstalk. If i understand you correctly then, mr rajan, you seem to be saying that policymakers need to be a little bit more brutal, a bit more cold blooded and hard eyed about the Current Situation rather than propping up, as you put it, restaurants or maybe even airlines, which you might believe do not have a long term future in their current form. Are you saying that those businesses should be allowed to go bust and not to allow them to go bust is economically, deeply inefficient and unsustainable . Well, we certainly need to start taking advantage of bankruptcy procedures and restructuring. Some of these airlines will have to shed some planes, some of them will have to downsize somewhat, given that air travel might be more constrained over the next few years. So i think we should, now that we have steadied the economy a little bit, before the advent of new challenges, perhaps we should let the natural processes take over market processes like bankruptcy like restructuring. You know, some entities will obviously survive but they may need much less debt then they have. Piling on more debt is probably a bad option at this point. So i think. Right. Isnt it time for some reassessment, though, of your aversion to debt . Let me quote to you another respected economic i know you know him well ken rogoff, who has written a lot about the nature of the debt curve and how dangerous National Debt can be to Economic Growth. He says, any sensible policy right now is going to have us racking up the deficit for a long time. And he says, if we go up another 10 trillion, i would not even blink at that right now. So he is saying this is a very special, unprecedented situation and our responses need to be unprecedented, too. We have to be careful in two ways. One, of course, is i do think we will require much more money to be spent, but it may not be in propping entities up and trying to make sure nothing changes. But it might be in ensuring there is a substantial stimulus so that the massive unemployment that we have starts being brought down relatively quickly going forward. This may take the form, for example, of a massive infrastructure package in the us, but what i am saying is we need to start shifting because we will need resources for that also down the line. And of course, the post covid world will require stronger worker protections, better healthcare. That will also require money. So lets make sure that we are not doing the wrong thing at this point, which is keeping unviable entities alive at enormous cost to our finances. That is one. The second is we have to be very careful. Crosstalk. I understand your point about the need for transformation but i want to get specific on the question of how much debt is too much debt . Traditionally, economists like you have worried a great deal if nation states take on a debt that represents more than 100 of their national income, their gdp. But we now look at a country like italy which has been hurt very badly by covid i9, its economy, frankly, in ruins, and it looks as though their National Debt in the next year or two will spiral beyond 160 or more of gdp. Are you saying that that is simply unsustainable and italy is going to have to completely rethink its National Economy . No, what has changed, of course, is the level of interest rates. They have come down a lot and higher levels of debt are affordable at these levels of interest rate. However, if you have an enormous amount of debt, it prevents you from doing some things, especially at times like this. So take italy again. Italy has not had the massive spending packages that germany has had, precisely because its debt is so high and it fears rolling the Financial Markets by taking on a whole lot more debt. Its stimulus has been in single digits, compared to the double digits that have been there in most Northern European countries. That is one very, very important concern. The second concern in europe is you will have a 2 stage europe. You have southern europe, with debt to gdp in the 130 , 140 of gdp, and in italys case even higher, and you have a Northern Europe which is tootling along at 60 and 70 . That is a 50 percentage point difference. Thats going to create a whole lot of angst over the crisis which is one reason why this common european budget that they are planning makes sense because these disparities get alarming in a single currency. That is a fascinating take and i want to push you further then on the worlds various reactions to the emergency, starting with europe. You seem to be suggesting that unless europe gets serious about fiscal integration, a much deeper economic union, then, the eurozone, as it is currently constituted, could collapse. Is that what you are saying . Because the divergences between Northern Europe and the south have become so stark, so pronounced, they are not sustainable in the current form . Thats broadly what im trying to say. Europe is really an idealistic project. Northern europe has to ask whether it is idealistic enough about it to make some of the transfers that may be required, going forward. You cant look at it purely in the sense of euros and cents. It has to be about the longer term goal and how we feel about it as europeans rather than individuals and nations. Of course, a lot of stuff goes into that, how much sovereignty are you willing to give up, how much common rules do you want . Different folks have different takes on that but i would say that is an existential question for europe right now. Existential questions are europe, we have talked about donald trump existential questions for europe, we have talked about donald trump and his determination, as he would see it, to make that a v shape recovery in the us but who do you see emerging from this covid i9 pandemic in the best economic shape . The latest imf analysis suggests that while europe and the us will see steep contractions by the end of this year, maybe 6 of gdp contraction, china will eke out growth of perhaps i or maximum 1. 5 or 2 . India was still be growing, but only about i . Do you think this is going to hasten the shift in the balance of economic power in the world to the east, to china and, some extent, india as well . Well, first, i think these numbers will have to be revised, given more recent data. China may well eke out a 0 growth, but i think india will not do as well, probably 3 , 4 , maybe more, and of course brazil and russia have also experienced significant rises in cases and worry about their economic performance. The reality is this is actually going to be as crushing a blow for the emerging markets, with the exception of a few like vietnam, south korea and china that have managed to contain the pandemic, and the problem for many emerging markets and developing countries, especially in africa, is that theyre so dependent on a few commodities, on trade, for recovery, that even if they managed to contain the virus and prevent the extensive damage that is likely, given they have few resources to bail out firms and people, there is the problem of what happens after . How does the recovery take place . And they simply dont have the resources for a substantial stimulus. So, their stimulus depends on the industrial countries growing strongly and buying their stuff, and, you know, with all the constraints on trade we saw before the virus, and now the massive fight that seems to be brewing between the us and china, i really hope the world post covid comes together becomes because we really cant afford a trade war, especially in a number of the poorest countries in the world. Its interesting you say that, because all of the indications are that Rising Economic nationalism and protectionism is exactly what we are going to see, and im very mindful that you wrote a book last year called the third pillar, in which you looked at the relationship between capitalism and democracy. And you wrote, if people lose their faith in the ability to compete in the marketplace, if their communities continue to decline, if they feel the elite has appropriated all opportunity for itself, popular resentment can turn to rage. Surely the covid i9 pandemic and the spiral of economic misery youve just outlined is going to, is it not, lead to that popular resentment leading to more rage . Almost surely, yes. So, what sort of hope is there . My hope is that we sort of see that this cannot go on. Something which is unsustainable has to stop. You cant have periodic crises, huge levels of inequality, massive spending, and then repeat every ten years. We need to start tackling the problems that afflict capitalism and we need to start thinking how do we fix this inequality, which is problematic. And which is creating, according to some people, the weakness of demand that causes us to have these massive massively stimulating monetary policies that lead to the debt build up and all the conservatism in me that youve talked about. So we need to start thinking about the real economy how do we make it fairer . But mr rajan, youre a very well connected economist. You point to me one Global Leader right now who is taking on that difficult task of talking genuine economic transformation, for this being a moment of opportunity to rethink capitalism name me one. So i do think the us president ial election will offer some semblance of that choice, that is the democrats are certainly putting forward an alternative view. I think perhaps under Bernie Sanders and elizabeth warren, it was a little extreme, but i do think thatjoe biden has been moved a little more towards that camp. I do think the debates that it will create or it will engender will be very important, because it talks about the sustainability of society going forward. To my mind, this us president ial election is one of the most well, like every us president ial election but this one in particular, about resetting the tone, both for the dialogue within the United States, but perhaps across the world. Sorry, im trying to read between the lines. Are you saying four more years of donald trump would be disastrous not just for the us economy, but the Global Economy . Ah, you can read between the lines. Let me say again i think this is an election which offers an important choice to the american people. Lets talk about the country from which your family hails, india. You were obviously, as i said, the governor of the reserve bank of india, very Senior Adviser to the governments of mr modi and his predecessors. You fell out, i think its fair to say, with mr modi and his party over Economic Policy making, and some in his party said that you, in the end, proved that you were not a true indian because you didnt take care of, for example, the Small Business people who wanted access to credit that you wouldnt give them. So, the question is mr modi, despite the fact that infection rates are, at the moment, rising in india, is extraordinarily popular and his brand of hindu nationalism appears more popular than ever. Do you look at india and believe that modi has a sustainable project and programme for his country, or not . Well, i think if you look at india over the last few years, unfortunately, Economic Growth has been declining and weve seen the budget deficits grow. Weve seen a rise in bad debts in the system, partly as a result of the easy credit that you said i was opposed to, and as a result, india enters this crisis in a somewhat different situation than other countries. It still has a substantial amount of Foreign Exchange reserves and it still is a big country with enormous resources, but they have to be used well. Now, so far, if you look at the overall infections, as well as the death rates, theyre relatively small compared to the population. The worry is theyre still growing after a substantial period of lockdown and, in fact, some of the management of this crisis whereby a number of migrants left the cities for their villages, may in fact have caused the virus to expand in those areas. So, india is in a difficult situation today. It does need to find the reforms that will enable it to grow, but it also needs to spend more money in stimulating the economy back to growth. Well, i think indians will be fascinated to hear you, mr rajan, saying the government needs to spend more money, but lets ask you one specific question to end about globalisation. Heres a dramatic quote from the Current World Bank chief economist, carmen reinhart. I think covid i9 is the nail in the coffin of globalisation. Youve referred your fears for an all out us china trade war. Is globalisation dead . It cant be dead, and thats the problem, right. We have a growing an Elderly Population growing in industrial countries. Demand is going to slow down. We have a young population in the emerging markets, and africa is really, really very young. So, if you look at the Economic Opportunities going forward, theyre so big and fostering a genuine globalisation, which works for everyone. My argument has been the democratic backing for globalisation has been wanting, in part, because we havent made sure the people left behind, especially in industrial country communities, but also, in emerging markets, that they havent had a fair shot. And thats why you see a growing resistance. And my belief is if we rethink this, and this goes back to new leadership to rethink this process and to put in place policies that will lead to a better globalisation for all, both for the industrial countries and the developing and emerging markets. Now, for that, i really think we really need to rethink our whole system. But in a word, and we must end now, but in a word, you seem to be saying without new and different and more ambitious leadership in the world, we are in for years of misery and possibly worse. Its the commodity in shortest supply today, and we really need that. As you said, things can get much worse. But hopefully we can turn this world around. I mean, theres so many big global challenges, Climate Change for example, that we need to deal with. And for that, you need global cooperation. But for that, you need leaders. And notjust in the us, in china, elsewhere who are willing to Work Together to create that new world. So, iam hopeful that disaster brings rethinking, and rethinking then creates the possibility of a better tomorrow. But thats hopeful me. Well, well stick with hopeful at least you for now. Raghuram rajan, its been a pleasure having you on hardtalk. Thanks forjoining me from chicago. Thank you. Hello. We know this spring has been warm. Its been very dry in some spots. And now news aboutjust how sunny its been, with the met office saying provisionalfigures indicate that its been the uks sunniest spring on record. Across sunniest spring on record. Some parts of scotland celsius. Across some parts of scotland to 28 celsius. Friday night, we lose the heat of the day and in some spots temperatures i get down into single figures and most places will be clear, sunny as there we lose the heat of the day and in some spots temperatures i get down into single figures and most places will be clear, sunny as the turning hazy in places but most places will have another sunny and very warm day. This is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. Im david eades. Rioting in the us city of minneapolis. These are live pictures of the unrest triggered by the Police Killing of an African American man. When you do not deal with these conditions of inequities and racism and White Supremacy in the nation, these are the kinds of things that happen people riot. Thats their language, thats their frustration. Targeting twitter President Trump signs an executive order aimed at social media companies. Spain unveils its economic fightback against covid i9 a basic income for the countrys poor. Hello and welcome
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