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By Michel Snyder,
Those that have been hoping for some sort of a “V-shaped recovery” have had their hopes completely dashed. U.S. workers continue to lose jobs at a staggering rate, and economic activity continues to remain at deeply suppressed levels all over the nation. Of course this wasn’t supposed to happen now that states have been “reopening” their economies. We were told that things would soon be getting back to normal and that the economic numbers would rebound dramatically. But that is not happening. In fact, the number of Americans that filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week was much higher than expected…
Weekly jobless claims stayed above 1 million for the 13th consecutive week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to hammer the U.S. economy.
First-time claims totaled 1.5 million last week, higher than the 1.3 million that economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting. The government report’s total was 58,000 lower than the previous week’s 1.566 million, which was revised up by 24,000.
To put this in perspective, let me once again remind my readers that prior to this year the all-time record for a single week was just 695,000. So even though more than 44 million Americans had already filed initial claims for unemployment benefits before this latest report, there were still enough new people losing jobs to more than double that old record from 1982.
That is just astounding. We were told that the economy would be regaining huge amounts of jobs by now, but instead job losses remain at a catastrophic level that is unlike anything that we have ever seen before in all of U.S. history.
With the addition of this latest number, a grand total of nearly 46 million Americans have now filed initial claims for unemployment benefits since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
If you can read that statement and still believe that the U.S. economy is not imploding, I would like to know what you are smoking, because it must be pretty powerful.
Some of the things that we are seeing happen around the country right now are absolutely nuts. For example, earlier this week in Kentucky it was being reported that people were waiting in line for up to 8 hours to talk with a state official face to face about their unprocessed unemployment claims…
The state police said it will be an 8 hour wait from the back of the line to speak to a state employee about unemployment. pic.twitter.com/plGONcpS6n
— Daniel Desrochers (@drdesrochers) June 17, 2020
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
By now, the U.S. economy was supposed to be roaring back to life and we were supposed to be entering a new golden age of American prosperity.
Unfortunately, the truth is that more bad economic news is hitting us on a continual basis, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.
Over the past few days, we have learned that Hilton is laying off 22 percent of its corporate staff, and AT&T has announced that it will be eliminating 3,400 jobs and closing 250 stores…
The wireless carrier AT&T is cutting 3,400 jobs and shutting down 250 stores over the next few weeks, according to a statement from the Communications Workers of America, a union representing AT&T workers.
The AT&T Mobility and Cricket Wireless retail closures will affect 1,300 jobs, while the other layoffs are said to be affecting technical and clerical workers.
Needless to say, all of these job losses are having a tremendous ripple effect throughout the economy.
Without paychecks coming in, a lot of Americans are having a really tough time paying their bills, and the Wall Street Journal is reporting that payments have already been skipped on more than 100 million loans…
Americans have skipped payments on more than 100 million student loans, auto loans and other forms of debt since the coronavirus hit the U.S., the latest sign of the toll the pandemic is taking on people’s finances.
The number of accounts that enrolled in deferment, forbearance or some other type of relief since March 1 and remain in such a state rose to 106 million at the end of May, triple the number at the end of April, according to credit-reporting firm TransUnion.
Wow.
To me, that is an almost unimaginable number, and it has become clear that a tremendous amount of pain is ahead for the financial institutions that are holding these loans.
A lot of people out there are going to keep hoping that there will be some sort of an economic rebound, but the cold, hard reality of the matter is that fear of COVID-19 is going to keep a large segment of the population from resuming normal economic activities for the foreseeable future. And it certainly doesn’t help that the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. has been steadily rising over the past couple of weeks and that the mainstream media has been endlessly warning that a “second wave” is coming.
If you doubt what I am saying, just look at what is happening to the restaurant industry. We had started to see a small bit of improvement in the numbers, but now fear of a “second wave” has caused restaurant traffic to start cratering again…
After three months of slow but consistent improvement in restaurant dining data in the US and across the globe, in its latest update on “the state of the restaurant industry”, OpenTable today reported the biggest drop in seated restaurant diners (from online, phone and walk-in reservations) since the depth of the global shutdown in March.
As shown in the OpenTable graphic below, on Sunday, June 14, restaurant traffic suddenly tumbled, sliding from a -66.5% y/y decline as of June 13 to -78.8% globally.
This was mostly due to a sharp drop in US restaurant diners, which plunged by 13% – from -65% to -78% – the biggest one day drop since the start of the shutdown in the US, and the second biggest one day drop on record.
Business travel is another area where we are seeing signs of big trouble ahead. The following comes from Yves Smith…
Business travel is not coming back any time soon. People are getting accustomed to Zoom. And word may also get out that domestic flying is much worse than it used to be, which will be a deterrent to those who might be so bold as to want to get on a plane. That is a fundamental blow to airlines, airport vendors, hotels, restaurants, and convention centers. Hotel occupancy in April was 24.5% which if anything seems high based on my personal datapoints. The pricings I see say that hotel operators are not expecting much if any improvement through the summer.
Like many of you, I wish that economic conditions would go back to the way they used to be, but that simply is not going to happen.
Yes, we will see economic numbers go up and down over the coming months, but a return to “the good times” is not in the cards.
And what hardly anyone realizes is that this is just the beginning of our problems, and I am working on a new project right now which will explain why this is true in great detail.
So stay tuned, because things are about to get really, really “interesting”.
Source: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
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From a 57yrs old man that watched this insane 80’s economy being built (post taking us off the gold standard of course, Nixon beginning the creating of this ‘fiat economy’). I graduated HS into that mass lay-off, real-business (manufacturer) closing economy and have watched our country deteriorate to its current sad state of affairs, as farm foreclosures wipes out America’s heartland…
Everyone touted Ronny Reagan in the 1980’s and his selling out America’s manufacturing first via NAFTA (North American Free Trade Alliance) to Mexico where they then promptly sold out Mexico for GATT (General Agreement on Trade & Tariffs) to create an American economy based on service business’s (paper hat type, minimum wage, zero benefit jobs)… which of course, also led to these transnational corporations lobbying for their year upon year, decade upon decade, enormous tax cuts which after 40 years, we can assuredly say, has benefited only the top few percent of the population…preparing nothing for (staged or otherwise) crisis like today…
The “roaring eighties” ie; created by these (benefiting huge transnational companies with their 64,000 interlocking boards of directors and sub or co-ownerships) and the raid on the Social Security Trust Fund three times in the eighties alone (trillions of dollars stolen), to fund enormous tax cuts for the already,, filthy stinking rich slime of the 70’s, resulted in what, for average Americans of 2020? Nothing, zero benefits (and don’t give me ‘but the stock market expanded’ – rigged to make the little guy fail while the elite scum watc( our orders and move the market elsewhere stealing your money in nanoseconds you are not allowed to play the market in equally nor fairly)…
Where was Main Street America’s benefit? We did not have any, we were too busy working two or four minimum wage ‘service’ jobs (there was a time, I personally held 5 such part time nothing jobs just to try to make ends meet, and still did not), that ‘set us up’ to fail, when the ‘elite scum’ plans panned out (COVID-19 Scamdemic and god only knows what else they have planned)…
I just have one thing to ask you America; Now that the wealthy few, the very very very, few,, own 98% of everything and you are lucky if your pensions (if, you even have one, most don’t) still exist, to pay that enormous mortgage on an over size house they encouraged you to purchase, and you live in but don’t likely own, and to all the rental slaves out there, I ask, ‘do you want to supersize that’ economy, or ‘would you like fries with that’, new (1980’s) American economic plan we called ‘Reagan’s voodoo economics’… Oh yeah, you can’t get those fries, the restaurants are mostly closed, and laying you off.
So, what are we going to do America? Where does this leave you Main Street America?
I’ll tell you what you already know, “your screwed” begging at the rich elite scum master’s table for a scrap ($1200 check that is not worth like $120.00 in 1970’s money) you might knaw from the bone they throw you, if,, they do that, at all… no more likely the6 are in their underground mansion of a bunker somewhere in New Zealand or some place…
Are we going to allow this kind of thievery to continue, allow them to destroy what’s left of America amongst our crumbling infrastructure and try to keep (impossible) what remains of stolen pensions you worked your whole life to accumulate, most of which is probably already gone in the repeated bubble-(stock)-market swindles and what’s left, is just numbers on a page that are fantasy because they are unfunded? Or are you, like most Americans, completely screwed, having massive credit card debts (they encouraged you to run up with easy to get credit cards that even dogs, and children were given because the application rules and cross checking credit was so lax), and other debts for consumer ‘goods’ you bought that are benefiting you not at all now, or long gone to the trash heap because ‘Made in America’ (which in the 70’s almost always came with extra parts, freebies and an English speaking Americans, on their customer service line, when you rarely needed service) once meant something more than, the cheapest crap, deliberately made to fail,, that we all bought…
I know, this is a rant but, the sad truth is, it’s all true, and worse (far too much, to reiterate herein). So, the real question, is America, going to lie down in the grave they dug for us, or are we going to throw these elite scum rich, that have lawyered up and lobbied up, “our Congress”, to steal America right out from under us, and stop them!!
We must act.
Flood your state house with calls, tie up the White House phone lines 24-7, Demand the illegal Federal Reserve Act be repealed, demand return to the gold standard, demand the US Administration work out an agreement with the Global Debt Facility and the US Military which has,, the people’s physical Gold reserves (in quadrillions of dollars) in its possession,, return it to the people and ope; the Treasury TDD Accounts in every Americans name (under their Social Security number) distributing these funds “they own”, to the people, demand an immediate 5 or better, ten year price freeze on all products, demand the formerly American based businesses return to America or they cannot sell here, demand an end to corporatocracy (outlaw corporations and businesses greater than 500 or maybe even greater than 100 people in size to force companies to de-monopolize and encourage small businesses, by rebuilding Main Street America, demand local and state governments institute one on one training through apprenticeship programs which encourage small business, diversify the American economy because it’s far more than, proven, letting the elite scum corporate profiteers run things, in a ‘capitalist greed’ method, is a complete and utter failure for All, the people.
I’m not suggesting we turn to communism nor socialism but,, a “human-eco-ism”, which benefits the human over machine, people over profit, giving every American the opportunity, to succeed and build what they once called, the American Dream. Which the elite scum turned into just (as George Carlin once said: you have to be asleep to believe) a dream, and a fruitless hope. We the people, the, innovative, talented, and quite literally, brilliant and industrious Americans, can and should, now create, if only, we choose to end their rule over us, and our enslavement to them.
I’ll end my rant here for now, I hope for you America, I hope for all of the people. We have the opportunity, we have the people but, do we have the will, to stop them in their tracks and restore America to its greatness (minus Donald Trump and the current Democrat and Republican vice Congress, of course). We need a new direction, and the current government and corporate oligarchy, is not, the way…obviously.