This thread comes with a very warm welcome and a huge thank you to my new subscribers (and an equally huge thank you to my existing subscribers!).
“Anxiety is building about job security in a world upended by the coronavirus pandemic.
“More than half of workers around the world are worried about losing their jobs, according to a survey measuring labor-market insecurity wreaked by the coronavirus crisis.”
“It’s been more than seven months since the coronavirus pandemic hit, leading to sweeping shelter in place orders in March that put millions of Americans out of work.
“While some of those [Americans] laid off due to shutdowns have been able to return to their jobs, permanent unemployment has increased.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/23/long-term-unemployment-is-increasing-as-relief-is-running-out.html
“…wealth and income inequality… have widened considerably [in the US] as a result of the pandemic.
“Two snapshots of the nation’s economy released on Thursday furnished more evidence of this trend.”
“‘People need to eat’: Nightmare tales of Michigan’s unemployment system:
“Many of these new claimants had never been unemployed before. That, combined with a system not designed with user ease in mind, was a recipe for chaos.”
“Local governments are scuttling borrowing plans that would normally be put before voters on Election Day as financial uncertainty strains municipal budgets and stresses taxpayers that need to sign off on such debt…
“And it’s not just towns and cities that are nixing bond-ballot measures this election. New York state pulled a $3 billion environmental bond from the November ballot, citing a dire financial situation stemming from the pandemic.”
“The US arts sector did receive government assistance through the stimulus bill known as the CARES Act. The legislation allocated a combined $115 million to the grant-making National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities. The sector also received $1.8 billion in loans through the Paycheck Protection Plan.
“However, the assistance came to just a fraction of the $9.1 billion in estimated losses to arts organizations between March and July of this year.”
https://qz.com/1920970/the-financial-crisis-threatening-us-arts-organizations/
“America’s School Funding Crisis: Budget Cuts, Rising Costs And No Help In Sight.”
“T. Anthony, the Manhattan luggage maker favored by the likes of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Marilyn Monroe and British royalty, filed for bankruptcy Thursday after the pandemic stifled demand for luxury travel goods.”
“Losses are mounting for the U.S. airline industry as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the economy and hope dims for an immediate government aid package.
“Karl Moore, associate professor at Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, says, “We’re looking at flights being down in the area of 90% less in March and April than they were the year before. So, it’s a time of enormous crisis…”
https://www.voanews.com/economy-business/us-airlines-await-critical-aid-deal
“Finland is to provide a €350 million ($414 million) recapitalisation of state-owned airports operator Finavia amid the continued slump in air traffic demand.
“Passenger traffic remained 90% down in September across Finavia’s airports and 92% down at its biggest gateway, Helsinki.”
“British Airways owner IAG warned the travel slump from the coronavirus pandemic had deepened, forcing it to axe even more of its winter flying schedule after it reported on Thursday a quarterly loss of €1.3 billion ($1.54 billion)…
“As a second wave of COVID-19 infections spreads across Europe, airlines are facing a bleak winter and IAG joins Lufthansa, Ryanair and easyJet in cutting back already anemic schedules.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1752796/business-economy
“British consumer sentiment fell this month by the most since a slump at the start of the coronavirus pandemic as lockdown restrictions tightened across much of the country, according to a long-running survey published on Friday.”
“‘Pregnant, jobless and evicted: I missed out on furlough by two days and it ruined my life’ [UK]:
“This 31-year-old pregnant woman who lost her job and faces eviction is just one of the many left out of the UK Government’s support schemes.”
“Covid-19’s second wave is hitting the eurozone economy hard with businesses reporting painful slumps in activity as new restrictions came into force this month.
“Job losses continued and optimism for the future faded as companies told IHS Markit’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) survey that activity levels were sliding again, raising the spectre of a “double dip” recession.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/10/23/eurozone-heads-dreaded-double-dip-recovery-stalls/
“Gap to close? Fears for clothing retailer as it considers shutting all European stores.”
“Hundreds of protesters in Naples threw projectiles at police and set rubbish bins on fire late Friday during a demonstration against coronavirus restrictions in the southern Italian city.
“Calls were issued on social media to challenge a curfew that took effect in the Campania region ahead of the weekend, enacted in response to a spiralling second wave of infections.”
“It is only a matter of time before [Greece’s] food service sector starts seeing businesses closing, one after the other, insiders warn as rising coronavirus infections lead to more restrictions and lockdowns.
“Even in popular tourism destinations turnover has slumped by 40% on average this year and in some cases by over 60%…”
“A string of developments in Turkey’s struggling economy sector have prompted the Erdoğan administration to attach its last hopes to assets abroad, as well as undeclared, unregistered cash within the country.
“The central bank has spent tens of billions of dollars of its foreign exchange reserves defending the Turkish lira, which has been repeatedly hitting record lows in the last few weeks…”
“Thousands of Israelis Protest Against Netanyahu as Business Owners Rejoin Dissent.
“Self-employed and business owners joined demonstrations in protest of government response to COVID-19: ‘If we were bleeding at the start of the crisis, now we are dying’.”
“As mass protests return in Middle East and North Africa, Europe must rethink its approach:
“A decade on from the Arab Spring, it is clear that the EU’s strategy of working with existing regimes in its Southern Neighbourhood has delivered neither stability and security…”
“Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari spoke to the nation about the unrest that has gripped the country in recent days without making any mention of the deadly shooting of peaceful protesters that prompted international outrage…
“The shootings have been widely condemned, but he did not speak of them at all during his address.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/22/nigeria-unrest-gunfire-heard-smoke-seen-rising-in-lagos
“A number of African countries have recently been contesting decisions by credit rating agencies.”
https://qz.com/africa/1921741/africa-covid-debt-crisis-worsened-by-poor-data-moodys-fitch-sp/
“Well-intentioned [?] efforts to improve food security in Africa and elsewhere are instead increasing small farmers’ dependence on global agribusinesses without raising their incomes, and making farming systems less resilient.”
“Argentine bondholder groups slammed the government on Thursday over economic policies they said were undermining investor confidence in the country, which emerged from a sovereign default in September after a $65 billion restructuring.
“Two of the groups involved in that debt revamp said in a statement that policies since then had “failed to restore confidence” and instead had “dramatically worsened the country’s economic crisis.” Bond prices have dropped sharply since the exchange.”
“Consumer confidence in Brazil fell in October for the first time in six months, a survey indicated on Friday, with persistent worries over the COVID-19 pandemic weighing heavily and suggesting that the economy’s recovery may be losing steam.”
“Venezuela, once Latin America’s largest oil producer and a founding member of OPEC, has seen its economically vital oil industry collapse triggering one of the worst economic and humanitarian crises of the century…
“A key impact of the collapse of the petroleum industry is a severe shortage of fuels, magnifying the hardships faced by ordinary Venezuelans and causing the economic crisis to spiral out of control.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-End-Of-Venezuelas-Oil-Era.html
“Thailand’s ‘Hunger Games’ Crisis Is About The Economy:
“Things have gotten so surreal… that the government is barring the three-finger salute from “The Hunger Games” and policing selfies shared on social media. This is where Thailand finds itself as its economy slips into recession.”
“Myanmar’s second lockdown drives hunger in city slums:”
“With nothing left to sell, her husband, an out of work construction labourer, has resorted to hunting for food in the open drains by the slum where they live on the outskirts of Myanmar’s largest city.
““People are eating rats and snakes,” Ma Suu said through tears. “Without an income, they need to eat like that to feed their children.””
“More people are going hungry as the pandemic disrupts supply chains, cripples economies and erodes consumer purchasing power…
“Next year “is frightening us beyond imagination,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley said in an interview. “In the immediate short term, we have got to have the private sector step up and fill in this gap. If they don’t, it’s going to be catastrophic.””
“Across the world, and above all in Britain, the Americas and southern Europe, recent research shows that millennials are more dissatisfied with the performance of democracy than previous generations.
“Moreover, the gap has only worsened with time.”
“Deluge of central bank funding upends typical market reaction to economic downturns:
““Everything has been turned on its head,” observed Matt King, global head of credit strategy at Citigroup. Rather than focus on fundamentals, investors “spend their time looking at central bank liquidity” and the level of inflation-adjusted Treasury yields for guidance…
https://www.ft.com/content/498313d1-0e4e-4810-87c8-cda1f651c375
“Covid Crisis Strengthens U.S. Dollar’s Role in Global Economy:
“Overseas borrowers have flocked to the dollar this year at a record pace, with sovereigns from Indonesia to Colombia and companies from Nissan Motor Co. to Manila’s water utility racking up sales of $1.29 trillion.”
“The world needs to be prepared for a “long slog ahead” as global markets attempt to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, with central banks only able “to do so much,” said Randall Kroszner, former governor of the US Federal Reserve in an exclusive interview with Yahoo Finance UK.”
You can read the previous ‘Economic’ thread here and visit my Patreon page here. I’ll be back on Monday with a ‘Climate’ thread.
Another wonderful day in the age of chaos and collapse. Thanks for putting this together!
You are very welcome. JP