“In parts of Kenya, the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic has been so catastrophic that people have started to kill endangered wildlife for food.
“Last week, The Telegraph trekked with rangers through the Tsavo conservation area… and found a Masai giraffe which had been stripped bare by poachers for bushmeat.
““They have really done a hell of a job on this one,” muttered a ranger when we came across the mass of bloodied bones, organs and skinned hide. “They’ve even cut the meat out from in-between his ribs.””
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/giraffe-covid-threat-kenya-hunger/
“Now that the $600 federal unemployment supplement has expired, Eliajah Carroll is trying to survive on only $200 a week in Rhode Island state benefits.
“The Providence bartender, who hasn’t worked since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered his restaurant in March, logs onto Indeed every morning to hunt for work. He’s applied for jobs at banks, at retailers in malls and at cell phone stores. Only one employer responded, and it was to turn him down.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/22/politics/unemployment-benefits-states-congress-covid/index.html
“Lower-paid workers are losing their jobs at about three times the rate of higher-wage employees.
“But the drop in overall employment that white-collar industries like real estate, information and professional and technology services have seen in five months is already on par with or worse than the hits they took during the Great Recession — underscoring how even highly paid workers with the ability to telework are vulnerable now.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/23/white-collar-unemployment-coronavirus-400130
“Coronavirus, disappointing investment returns and declining interest rates, pose a triple threat to the health of the US public pension system, which is haemorrhaging cash and heading for a record funding shortfall.
“The total funding gap for the 143 largest US public pensions plans is on track to reach $1.62tn this year…”
https://www.ft.com/content/87d385d2-318a-4ddc-8947-9867f03faae1
“…the number of US homeowners who were at least 90 days behind on their payments grew by 376,000 last month, a 20 percent increase from June.
“Serious delinquencies are now 1.8 million higher than pre-pandemic levels and are at their highest level since early 2010.”
“It’s long been clear that Covid-19, like any major disaster, is causing an increase in mental-health disorders and their accompanying evils. Those range from alcoholism and drug addiction to wife beating and child abuse.
“In the Americas, the world’s most afflicted region with hotspots from the the U.S. to Brazil, this psycho-social crisis has become its own epidemic, the World Health Organization’s regional branch said this week.”
“Britain’s worst wheat harvest in 40 years is likely to cause a price hike in flour and bread, the industry has warned.
“Only about 40% of the usual amount of wheat crop was planted last October due to heavy rain, while crops being harvested now are very poor quality due to droughts earlier in the season followed by lots of August rain, the National Farmers’ Union said.”
“The UK Government is preparing for power outages, economic chaos and public unrest if a second wave of coronavirus coincides with a disorderly no-deal Brexit, according to leaked emergency plans.
“…It comes after Brussels’ chief negotiator Michel Barnier said trade talks with London were actually ‘going backwards’, claiming yesterday that there had been ‘no progress whatsoever on the issues that matter’.”
“European manufacturing’s bounceback from its pandemic-induced crash this spring is slowing — and in Germany, the region’s industrial heartland, executives worry that the recovery could soon run out of steam, leaving them with years of painful rebuilding ahead…
“One of the hardest hit sectors has been the carmaking industry… IHS Markit forecasts that global car sales will fall from 88m last year to 69m this year.”
https://www.ft.com/content/7a739543-a39e-4301-830d-dddc8a0f503b
“…banks in Europe were among the most vulnerable institutions as the coronavirus pandemic sent already challenged economies into a tailspin and pushed loan-loss provisions to their highest level in a decade…
““European banks face a profitability crisis,” said Citigroup Inc. banking analyst Ronit Ghose.”
“…former Reserve Bank Governor D Subbarao says India’s short and medium term growth prospects continue to remain grim and the government should not read too much into the economic activity coming back from the depressed base of lockdown.”
“China’s fragile economic recovery is ushering in a dangerous new phase for the nation’s $4.1 trillion corporate bond market.
“With the economy now strong enough for policy makers to dial back financial support but still too weak to save the most distressed borrowers, some fund managers are bracing for defaults on domestic Chinese debt to hit record highs this year.”
“The coronavirus epidemic dealt an additional blow to Abenomics, causing Japan’s annualized real gross domestic product in April-June this year to decrease by a whopping ¥41 trillion from the preceding quarter to ¥485 trillion, less than the ¥498 trillion in October-December 2012.
“In nominal terms, the nation’s GDP in April-June stood at ¥506 trillion on an annualized basis, a far cry from the government’s target set at ¥600 trillion.
“Meanwhile, the balance of government debts ballooned.”
“Despite Thailand’s public debt approaching its limit of sustainability, the Finance Ministry denies the country is on the brink of bankruptcy and will take a further Bt48 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank late this month.
“Local media are speculating that the government is facing financial collapse…”
https://www.nationthailand.com/business/30393287?utm_source=category&utm_medium=internal_referral
Indonesia’s QE hitting headwinds: “Indonesia’s bond and currency markets, risk benchmarks that tend to move in tandem, are diverging in signs that the nation’s pandemic response is deterring global funds…
“That dynamic started changing as massive borrowings by the government to fund pandemic-recovery stimulus spurred Bank Indonesia to take the unusual step of monetizing debt.”
“The amount paid out by big companies to their investors plummeted between April and June as firms cancelled or cut their dividends to conserve cash during the coronavirus pandemic crisis.
“Total shareholder payouts made globally slumped by $108.1bn (£82.6bn) to $382.2bn, a fall of 22%.”
“US equity markets might be breaching record highs, but the state of corporate distress in the country has never been worse.
“Large US corporate bankruptcy filings are now running at a record pace and are set to surpass levels reached during the financial crisis in 2009…
https://www.ft.com/content/277dc354-a870-4160-9117-b5b0dece5360
“The late Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson famously quipped that the stock market has predicted nine of the past five recessions. What he meant is that the stock market is a poor guide to the state of an economy.
“Today, we can say there is a complete divorce between markets and the state of the global economy.”
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3098456/stock-markets-are-divorced-state-global-economy
As we enter a global recession, business risk has never been so high:
“Dun & Bradstreet’s Global Business Impact score for Q3 2020 shows that the risks confronting businesses remain at the record-high first experienced in Q2. The elevated level of risk has been driven mainly by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus: the outbreak illustrates how unexpected events can suddenly worsen the risk environment for businesses operating cross-border.”
““Even before Covid, global markets were drenched with systemic risk. US-China trade wars and/or overpriced corporate junk bonds have long since threatened to spark another 2008-style collapse.
“Now, though, as valuations spiral upward, against all economic logic, it’s the banking sector that may once again tip us over the edge.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/22/a-list-bigwigs-ignoring-impending-disaster/
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