“Many economists believe that a recession is already underway. So do millions of Americans struggling with bills and job losses.
“While the ghosts of the 2008 financial crisis that sent inequality soaring to new heights in this country are still with us, it’s become abundantly clear that the economic disaster brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic has already left the initial shock of that crisis in the dust.
“While the world has certainly experienced its share of staggering jolts in the past, this cycle of events is likely to prove unparalleled.
“The swiftness with which the coronavirus has stolen lives and crippled the economy has been both devastating and unprecedented in living memory. Whatever happens from this moment on, a new and defining chapter in the history of the world is being written right now and we are that history.”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/05/28/here-comes-great-coronavirus-depression
“More than 40 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the last 10 weeks – a number of jobless the US has not seen since the Great Depression.
“The economic impacts of Covid-19 have been far and wide, hurting virtually every industry and leaving tens of millions of people without paychecks to pay the bills.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/28/jobless-america-unemployment-coronavirus-in-figures
““Policy makers need to do more,” she said. “For example, a prolonged depression is virtually guaranteed without significant federal aid to state and local governments.
“We also must provide more funding to state unemployment insurance agencies to hire staff to speed up processing and to make improvements to websites and other administrative infrastructure.”
“U.S. corporate profits fell 13.9% in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That is the largest decline since the fourth quarter of 2008 during the Great Recession.
“The decline is not annualized. Profits were $1.84 trillion annualized in the first quarter, down from $2.13 trillion in the last three months of 2019.”
“Carmakers across the U.S. including Ford and General Motors restarted production last week with the coronavirus pandemic is receding, but bankruptcies among their suppliers could throw a wrench in the automotive industry’s plans.
“Car companies may be unable to churn out their automobiles at full capacity if the parts they need are not available. Compounding these vulnerabilities, automakers have in recent years moved away from stockpiling components in favor of using finely tuned supply chains to deliver parts at the exact moment when they are needed.”
“The number of cars built in Britain last month plunged by 99.7pc as manufacturing collapsed due to the coronavirus lockdown.
“Just 197 cars were made according to stark industry figures that highlight the scale of the crisis in the automotive industry.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/05/29/car-production-grinds-halt-lockdown-britain/
“There was no mistaking the optimism of both the GCEE and EC. But it is misplaced. Such are the unresolved problems of the German and other European economies that there is unlikely to be a recovery in the short term.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/28/europes-zombie-economy-staggers-on/
“Health workers fear the pandemic’s economic shock will return Japan to 14 dark years from 1998 when more than 30,000 people took their lives annually.
“With the grim distinction of the highest suicide rate among G7 nations, Japan adopted legal and corporate changes that helped lower the toll to just over 20,000 last year.”
“Japan’s factory output slid faster-than-expected and retail sales tumbled the most in more than two decades in April, as the coronavirus pandemic wrecked both foreign and domestic demand for the country’s autos and other manufactured goods.”
“Japan’s April household spending likely tumbled at the fastest pace in decades, a Reuters poll showed on Friday, as the nation’s state of emergency to fight the spread of the coronavirus prompted people to stay home and businesses to close.”
“Sri Lanka is facing the worst financial crisis in the country’s history due to the economic curbs imposed after the coronavirus outbreak…
““We are facing the worst foreign exchange crisis in history,” Bandula Gunawardena, who is the minister for Information and Communication and the government’s spokesperson, said.”
“From call centers to hotels to airlines, India’s key services industries have come to a standstill during the coronavirus outbreak, dragging the economy into possibly its worst recession on record.
“Businesses providing services of everything from technology to travel and trade were the first to be hit when the government took unprecedented steps to lock down the nation…”
“The U.S. Special Representative for Iran on Wednesday reiterated that maximum economic pressure on Iran would prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
““Because of our pressure, Iranian leaders have come to a decision: either negotiate with us or manage the economic collapse,” Brian Hook, U.S. Special Representative for Iran, told reporters at a State Department special briefing.”
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/brian-hook-to-iran-negotiate-or-manage-economic-collapse-/30639161.html
“President Donald Trump said he would hold a news conference “on China” on Friday, but he offered no details as to what he would say.
“Even without any details, Trump’s announcement Thursday at the White House was enough to send markets tumbling.”
“At a street market in southern Beirut, Lebanese crowd around volunteers handing out free rations of bread and pasta, staples that have become a lifeline to families whose living standards have plunged during a financial crisis…
“Lebanon’s economic crisis has brought mounting hardship for its roughly 6 million people. “
“Brazil is not just another emerging market economy; rather, it accounts for around half of South America’s overall output, and it currently ranks as the world’s eighth largest economy. It also is a highly indebted country with a government debt that now totals around $2 trillion.
“With Brazilian debt being a major component of most emerging bond portfolios, a Brazilian economic crisis has the potential to roil world financial markets.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/499817-brazils-dark-cloud-over-the-global-economy
“LATAM Airlines and Avianca Holdings AVT_p.CN survived the Great Depression, but just a few weeks of quarantines forced both companies into bankruptcy, marking Latin America as the world’s top spot for airline financial ruin…
“Their bankruptcy filings this month are now set to have a ripple effect on United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, whose untimely bets on the future of Latin American air travel could cost them billions.”
“International tourism is set to fall by 70% this year, marking the sector’s biggest slump since records began in the 1950s, United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili told newspaper Handelsblatt.”
“A wave of job cuts has been announced today by Boeing, EasyJet and Nissan as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic takes it toll on manufacturers.
“Aircraft manufacturer Boeing has said it will cut more than 12,000 US jobs through layoffs and buyouts, with more cuts expected in the future.”
“The Federal Reserve is seriously considering yield-curve control as its next step to ease lending conditions and aid the US economic recovery, John Williams, president of the Fed’s New York branch, said Wednesday.
“The central bank has already moved past its previous policy playbooks to lift the economy through the coronavirus crisis. Yield-curve control stands out as one of the few tools left untouched in the Fed’s arsenal, and Williams suggested the authority could turn to such actions if additional relief is needed.”
“…the world economy has been frozen and the thaw will take too long to save the old system. Deflation will make the recovery situation worse and in the end how are we going to have deflation for long, after oceans of money have been injected into the system to avoid complete meltdown.
“Once the system is shocked back into life, then what? There will be a gap in output. Massive unemployment. A huge budget deficit… straight out of the text book for the conditions for hyperinflation.”
“The Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) chaired by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday cautioned that the pandemic poses a serious threat to the stability of the global financial system as the ultimate impact of the crisis and the timing of recovery is uncertain at this point of time.”
“The crisis facing us is harder [than the GFC] to handle for several reasons.
“Firstly, it hits both supply and demand… Furthermore, the crisis is rooted in the form which globalisation has taken in recent decades. In particular I am thinking of the chains of production locating the manufacture of different components in the four corners of the planet.”
“… as experts warn that the economic effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic could be comparable to the Great Depression in the U.S. and around the world, and as the International Monetary Fund predicts that the “Great Lockdown” could cause the worst recession since the 1930s, similar scenes of crop destruction have taken place, with reports of U.S. farmers having to make difficult choices to dump their milk, slaughter their livestock and smash their eggs.
“And around the world, COVID-19 has brought food supply chains to a standstill, as farmers in China have been unable to sell their produce at closed wet markets and unable to access animal feed; in the U.K. and Germany, there has been a shortage of workers to help with the spring harvest due to lockdown and self-isolation measures.”
https://time.com/5843136/covid-19-food-destruction/
Read the previous ‘Economic’ thread here and visit my Patreon page here.
