WEEK IN CHARTS: BIDEN AND BUSINESS / THE ECONOMIST

Week in charts

Biden and business

Germany’s 30th rebirthday • The covid-19 housing boom • India, Pakistan and the pandemic • Famine in Yemen

THE NEWS that President Donald Trump had tested positive for covid-19 capped another astonishing week in America’s presidential campaign, following revelations in the New York Times about his paltry tax payments and hefty debts, and an ill-tempered debate in Cleveland. 

It is too soon to tell how the president’s diagnosis might affect the race, much beyond ruling out his planned visit to Florida on Friday. But as things stand, our model suggests that were the election held today his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, would be very likely to win. 

On the cover this week, we examine what a Biden presidency might mean for the American economy. Mr Trump claims, and some businessmen fear, that Mr Biden would tack hard to the left. 

That looks improbable. 

Mr Biden’s formal spending plans amount to 3% of GDP, against the 16-23% pitched by his defeated left-wing rivals for the Democrats’ nomination. 

In fact, in some respects—on prising open monopolies, or turning back Mr Trump’s protectionism—Mr Biden does not look bold enough. A lifelong pragmatist is likely to govern as one.

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On Saturday Germans mark the 30th anniversary of the reunification of their country. 

Divisions between east and west Germany are still plain (eg, for women in the labour market). 

Yet reunification has been a resounding success, despite the misgivings of other European countries in 1990 about a possibly dominant Germany at the heart of the continent, and despite the crises of the past dozen years in global finance and the euro area, and over migration. 

Even so, western Europe’s biggest power has been too cautious on the international stage. 

In its relations with China and Russia it has put commercial interests before geopolitical ones (notably over Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline linking it to Russia). 

There are welcome signs of a shift, in dealings with those countries and (in economic policy) with its partners in the euro zone. 

But Germany has much more to do.

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The world’s economies have been blighted by the pandemic. 

Yet despite a rocky September its stockmarkets have been remarkably resilient. So have markets for another, bigger asset class: housing. 

In the rich world, house prices rose by 5% in the second quarter. 

They have been supported by the same ultra-low interest rates that have helped stockmarkets, by governments’ support for people’s incomes during the pandemic and by greater demand for living space as more people work at home. 

But the boom makes life harder for young, would-be homebuyers. 

It is another unequal effect of the pandemic, which could intensify intergenerational tensions already visible in the 2010s.

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Another covid-19 curiosity is the contrast in the fortunes of two South Asian neighbours. 

Officially, the disease has killed 6,500 Pakistanis in all. 

Lately India (with a population only four times bigger) has been losing more lives than that every week. Odder still, Pakistan is poorer and its health-care system flimsier. 

But its people are also younger. 

Indians’ relative prosperity (and hence mobility) may ironically have left them more exposed. 

Both countries’ true caseloads, though, may far exceed the official tally. 

Elsewhere, grim news continues to roll in. 

In severely hit Peru, ill-informed self-medication is adding to the virus’s toll. 

In Iraq doctors have been beaten up and religious leaders continue to organise mass gatherings. 

And in Europe’s second wave, Spain is again the worst-hit, with its politics also infected.

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Perhaps nowhere is worse-placed to withstand the pandemic than Yemen. 

Covid-19 is spreading unchecked in a country torn for the past six years by a war between the government, backed by Saudi Arabia, and Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, that has killed tens of thousands. 

A rusting oil tanker off the west coast is an ecological disaster in waiting. Yemen’s most urgent problem is famine. 

Two-thirds of its 30m people need food aid; millions, says the UN, are at risk of starving. 

Famine could be prevented. But the Saudis and others have cut back promises of aid. 

And the combatants show little more sign of caring about the plight of Yemen’s people.