Tag: Economic News

A Look At That Great Economy

Trump keeps telling the people of the US that this economy is great and that we all will be on easy street soon enough……(well that part was me being sarcastic…..

I would like to know where it is so great.

Jobless rates are still not good……even the last numbers were not so great….

New unemployment data came out Thursday morning, and the numbers are not sitting well with Wall Street investors. The Labor Department says 898,000 people applied for jobless benefits last week, exceeding estimates by about 70,000, reports CNBC. The figure is up more than 50,000 from the previous week and is the highest since August. The stock market opened an hour after the report came out, with the Dow down about 300 points in the early going, or roughly 1%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were down similar percentages.

“Given that we’re seven months into the pandemic now, these are still incredibly high numbers for initial claims,” AnnElizabeth Konkel of the job site Indeed tells the Wall Street Journal. Also contributing to the sour mood on Wall Street is the increase in COVID cases and continuing uncertainty about whether lawmakers in DC will be able to settle on a coronavirus relief package, per the Journal.

What part of unemployment is great for us mere mortals?

The threat of a massive new round of layoffs looms. Officials in Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, announced a new operating budget this week that includes the elimination of 659 jobs, including 130 health workers in the midst of a pandemic. Rutgers University is planning additional layoffs after the 900 layoffs and 6,400 furloughs it has already implemented. The Tropicana casino and resort in Las Vegas announced 828 layoffs while Rochester, New York schools are cutting 200 non-teaching personnel.

The predictable result of this has been hardship and poverty for millions of unemployed or partially employed workers. Several new studies have shown a significant growth in poverty, particularly in the period after the expiration of the $600 weekly unemployment supplement at the end of July.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/16/jobs-o16.html

Then there are those markets…..the game that only the wealthy get to play…..seems they are in a bit of a funk as well….

After last week’s strong performance, the stock market now can’t find any forward momentum. On Thursday, the Dow fell 19 points to 28,494, the S&P fell 5 points to 3,483, and the Nasdaq fell 54 points to 11,713. Worse-than-expected unemployment data, rising pessimism about a coronavirus deal in DC, and a continued rise in cases in the US and around the world were blamed for the market malaise, report the Wall Street Journal and the AP.

“The stimulus talk continues to be a little negative, and the virus outbreak in Europe that’s going to probably cause more shutdowns in various cities and countries, that’s a little bit of a negative, too,” said Scott Wren of the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. The day started out even worse, with the Dow falling about 300 points, though the selloff eased considerably in afternoon trading.

What do you think 8 million people think of this “great economy”?

The world’s poor have been hit the hardest by the pandemic—and in the US, that group includes 6 million to 8 million more people than it did a few months ago, according to two studies released this week. Columbia University researchers found that the number of poor people in the US actually fell in the early months of the crisis, when the $2 trillion Cares Act provided $1,200 stimulus checks and an extra $600 a week in unemployment benefits, but the gains were reversed as aid dried up, causing 8 million people to fall into poverty since May, reports the New York Times. Researchers from Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, who measured income by year instead of by month, put the number at 6 million, including 2.5 million children.

“These numbers are very concerning,” University of Chicago economist Bruce D. Meyer tells the Times. “They tell us people are having a lot more trouble paying their bills, paying their rent, putting food on the table.” The studies found that Black and Latino Americans are around twice as likely to be in poverty as white Americans. Authors of both studies found that the Cares Act had been extremely successful in keeping people out of poverty and urged Congress to consider their research when crafting future stimulus programs, the Guardian reports. “The Cares Act was very successful,” says Columbia researcher Christopher Wimer. “But one of its shortcomings was its temporary nature.”

What part of this with less than 3 weeks until the election talks of a better day to come?

My question is do the voters truly give a shit about their fellow Americans?

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How About Some Economic News?

Trump tells us that since the markets are making CEOs wealthy the rest of us are doing super good…..let me say here…there is more to an economy than what the markets do or don’t do…..but hey you believe the crap you want then don’t coming crying when it all goes to sh*t.

Markets are up….unemployment is high…..foreclosures on the rise…..food expensive…….medical expensive…..but according to Trump all is well….even good.

First let’s look at Q2 (Second Quarter)……

The US economy plunged at a record rate in the spring but is poised to swing to a record increase in the quarter that just ended. The Commerce Department reported Wednesday in its final estimate for the April-June quarter that the gross domestic product, the economy’s total output of goods and services, fell at a rate of 31.4%. (This estimate, the third, is down from the initial estimates of 33% and 31.7%.) The report shows a decline that is almost four times larger than the previous record-holder, a fall of 10% in the first quarter of 1958 when Dwight Eisenhower was president. The Washington Examiner reports the biggest GDP drop during the Great Recession was 8.4%. The Q1 decline was 5%.

The AP reports economists believe the economy will expand at an annual rate of 30% in the current quarter as businesses have re-opened and millions of people have gone back to work. That would shatter the old record for a quarterly GDP increase, a 16.7% surge in the first quarter of 1950 when Harry Truman was president. The government will not release its just-ended July-September GDP report until Oct. 29, just five days before the presidential election. Many are forecasting that growth will slow significantly in the final three months of this year to a rate of around 4% and could actually topple back into a recession if Congress fails to pass another stimulus measure or if a rising number of coronavirus cases sharply curtails economic activity.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news…..but inflation is already here….at least for the stuff you buy as a normal person…..

If it feels like the price of everything you buy has been soaring, that’s because it has—even as central bankers everywhere worry about the danger of deflation.
The gap between everyday experience and the yearly inflation rate of 1.3% in August is massive. The price of the stuff we’re buying is rising much faster, while the stuff we’re no longer buying has been falling, but still counts for the figures.
Economists will be relieved that the laws of supply and demand are still working, at a time when so much in the discipline is in doubt. But for investors it hangs a veil over the outlook for perhaps the single most important issue for the markets: whether we’re headed for a future of inflation, deflation or a continuation of the past decade’s lackluster price rises.
 
Have you noticed that banks can do whatever they want and never have to pay for their stealing and perjury?
 
Take JP Morgan got caught manipulating the stock and what was the penalty….a slap on the wrist and a fine…..
Following hard on the heels of revelations that major global banks have been involved in a network of criminal money laundering, JPMorgan Chase has been fined $920 million for manipulating markets on two of its trading desks.

The charges involved the practice of spoofing—quickly placing and then withdrawing buy and sell orders to give other traders and their algorithms the false impression that there is a surge of activity.

The spoofing activity covered trades in gold, silver and other metals futures markets as well as markets for Treasury bonds and cash. It covered thousands of trades and involved numerous traders and staff at JPMorgan in New York, London and Singapore.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which conducted the investigation, said traders knowingly placed orders on trading platforms they did not intend to fulfil in the hope this would trick others and enable the JPMorgan traders to obtain a better price.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/01/jpmo-o01.html

Now think back to 208….Morgan was part of the problem that cause the recession and the economic crash….and they are still doing illegal stuff and getting away with it.

And you think it is a fair and equatable system…..NOT!

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Who Controls The Nation?

We can pretend that it is the president….or Congress…..or even the people….all would be truly ignorant answers…..the real power at the helm of the nation is……the “Markets” control it all.

You really believe that it is different?

For instance Donald the Orange called off any more stim packages until after the election….and the markets fell drastically….

Stocks turned sharply lower on Wall Street Tuesday afternoon after President Donald Trump ordered a stop to negotiations with Democrats on a coronavirus economic stimulus bill until after the election. The S&P 500 index slid 1.4% after having been up 0.7% prior to the president’s announcement, which he made on Twitter about an hour before the close of trading. The late-afternoon pullback erased most of the benchmark index’s gains from a market rally a day earlier, the AP reports. The S&P 500 fell 47.66 points to 3,360.97. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 375.88 points, or 1.3%, to 27,772.76. It had been up by more than 200 points. The Nasdaq composite lost 177.88 points, or 1.6%, to 11,154.60.

The comments from the president came just hours after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell urged Congress to come through with more aid, saying that too little support “would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses.” Optimism that Democrats and Republicans would reach a deal on more stimulus ahead of the Nov. 3 election had helped lift the stock market recently. Now, investors face the prospect that more aid may not come until next year, after the new Congress is seated, says Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Baird. “This isn’t just pushing it off until after the election, this realistically is pushing it off until spring,” Delwiche said. “I don’t think this is just a one-day financial markets reaction. This really goes to the health of the recovery.”

Then after the fall Donald the Orange had to try and save the markets with the less than 30 days away he needs all the good news he can steal just to keep what little support he has now…..

Donald J. Trump
 
@realDonaldTrump
If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?
 
 
Nothing I like better than a decisive president….(that is sarcasm in case you missed it)…….
 
And you think you matter.
 
Think Again!
 
The telling question will be….can Trump revive the stim talks by a simple text?
 
I Read, I Write, You Know
 
“lego ergo scribo”

The Pandemic Economy

Running pandemic tally……3.5 million cases…..138,000 deaths

Here is something to think about…..A country like India with a massive population and a worse health system than the US has only 1 million cases and 25,000 deaths…..YOU explain that!

Now on to the meat of this post……

We have all heard that the economy needs to get back to doing business…..right?

But why?

I mean the economy as defined by the media is the markets and the markets are doing very well as the bodies of the dead pile up……so what economy needs to return to doing business?

There were 71,670 new cases of COVID-19 recorded, the second-worst day on record. Nearly 1,000 people lost their lives to the disease, according to official figures.

With Texas hospitals at 90 percent capacity, dozens of mobile morgues are being dispatched to the state. In Florida, 54 hospitals now have zero available beds in their intensive care units. And, amid a full-on drive to reopen schools, officials said that one third of children who were tested in Florida were positive, adding to the body of evidence that children can play a major role spreading the disease.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington reported that it estimates 224,089 people will die from COVID-19 by November 1, an upward revision of 20,000 from just one week ago.

Meanwhile, the most basic medical supplies, such as masks, gowns, gloves and disinfectants, “simply are not readily available from the usual sources our physicians use,” the American Medical Association reported.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/16/pers-j16.html

Look into your finances…..are you doing as well as the media says the markets are doing?

My guess is NO.

The Real Economy sucks……financials soar……

Reports issued by four major US banks this week have highlighted the widening dichotomy between the real economy and the financial system.

The US is set to record the worst recession since the Great Depression, threatening elevated levels of unemployment well into the future and a wave of bankruptcies. Yet the banks are raking in billions of dollars through speculative operations financed by the massive intervention of the Fed into all corners of the financial markets.

On Tuesday, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup set aside a combined total of $28 billion for current and expected losses on their loans. The second quarter provisions bring the total for the three banks for 2020 to $47 billion, more than they set aside in the last three years combined.

At the same time, two of them, JPMorgan and Citigroup, reported major increases in revenues derived from financial market trading.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/16/bank-j16.html

Please do not base your life on what the media tells you is the truth……the truth is unless you are wealthy then the economy sucks!

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But Markets Are Booming!

We hear every day just how the markets are doing (that would be stock markets not the food markets…although they are doing well as well with the increase in prices….you know profits are far more important than the well being of the people)…..

But reality is a lot different than the Fantasy that if markets are up then the economy is in great shape……that is a stupid statement that keeps getting regurgitated day after day……

Ask the 47% workers that are unemployed.

According to newly released Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures, 47.2 percent of working-age Americans were without work in May, the highest level recorded since the end of World War II.

The numbers are based on the BLS employment-population ratio, which takes the total labor force and divides it by the number of those actually working. It is a more accurate measure of joblessness than the monthly unemployment report, which only counts those actively seeking work.

At the end of May the employment-population ratio stood at 52.8 percent; it stood at 61.2 percent at the start of the year. The employment-population ratio reached a postwar high of nearly 65 percent in 2000.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/01/jobs-j01.html

Poverty is expanding….regardless what some right wing dolts try to tell you…..I have written about this some 12 years ago…..https://lobotero.com/why-poverty/

Then there is the “inequality” thing……again many years ago a blog post…..https://lobotero.com/2010/03/09/the-creeping-cancer-known-as-inequality/

The virus has done little to change the slide of the workers into poverty….and it appears that the world economy will have a bad couple of years to come thanks to the pandemic…..

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has significantly increased its forecast for the contraction in global economy, warning that it will take a cumulative $12 trillion hit over 2020–2021. Updating its forecast yesterday, the IMF said the global contraction for 2020 would be -4.9 percent, some 1.9 percentage points below the forecast it issued in April.

It said the COVID-19 pandemic “has had a more negative impact on activity on the first half of 2020 than anticipated, and the recovery is expected to be more gradual than previously forecast.” Overall, this would leave 2021 gross domestic product (GDP) some 6.5 percentage points lower than the pre-pandemic projections of 2020.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/25/imfr-j25.html

We have an election approaching…you can help change the trajectory of the economy by voting……and it needs a change….

Trump’s nationalism is clear, but is U.S. capitalism turning nationalist too?

Broadly, U.S. employers neither think nor care much about racism. Some use it to divide employees, keep them from unifying around workplace issues, labor unions, unwanted political initiatives, etc. Most ignore it unless and until gross racism brings victims and anti-racists into the street in ways that threaten their commerce or the economic status quo. Then lip service against racism flows. Corporations make mostly cosmetic adjustments hyped by major public relations efforts. At best, a few genuine, usually marginal improvements are achieved in racial integration and the excruciatingly slow decline of institutional racism.

US global capitalist leadership of the last 50 years is now in decline

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Remember That Vaccine?

This should have been posted 3 weeks ago but the events on the ground became more important for a time…..

Good news for the treatment of the virus and especially for the markets….a company, Moderna, and the peasants danced…….https://lobotero.com/2020/05/21/covid-19-miracle-of-miracles/

Who will benefit the most from this new “miracle drug”?

Moderna for one……

Moderna’s stocks skyrocketed 30 percent after the media touted the company’s announcement that eight participants in its coronavirus vaccine trial had elicited neutralizing antibodies after receiving the mRNA vaccine as a cure for the pandemic. The Dow shot up over 900 points in the resulting stock market frenzy, and Moderna’s stock rose to a peak of $87 per share before it settled at above $80 on closing. The company’s value swelled to $29 billion despite not having had any products in the markets to date.

Over the weekend, CNN Business reported that Moderna’s chief financial officer, Lorence Kim, “exercised 241,000 options for $3 million on Monday. He then immediately sold them for $19.8 million, creating a profit of $16.8 million.” In a similar maneuver, Moderna’s chief medical officer, Tal Zaks, spent $1.5 million on options, then immediately sold the shares back for $9.77 million, netting a profit of $8.2 million.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/26/vacc-m26.html

While we wait for the Moderna to make as much ill-gotten gains from economic news…there are treatments being used to fight this pandemic….

Aggressive public health measures to stem the tidal wave of coronavirus infections have left people isolated, unemployed and wondering when it will all end. Life probably won’t go completely back to normal until vaccines against the virus are available, experts warn.

Researchers are working hard on that front. At least six vaccines are currently being tested in people, says Esther Krofah, chief executive of the FasterCures center at the Milken Institute in Washington, D.C.  “We expect about two dozen more to enter clinical trials by this summer and early fall. That is a huge number,” Krofah said at an April 17 briefing. Dozens more are in earlier stages of testing.

In unpublished, preliminary results of a test of one vaccine, inoculated people made as many antibodies against the coronavirus as people who have recovered from COVID-19 (SN: 5/18/20). The mRNA-based vaccine induces human cells to make one of the virus’s proteins, which the immune system then builds antibodies to attack. That study was small, only eight people, but a second phase of safety testing has begun.

As we wait for a vaccine, here’s a snapshot of potential COVID-19 treatments

And the Covid-19 saga continues….just like the profits for the health industry.

Speaking of profits…….the bill for his treatment….

Flor, 70, who came so close to death in the spring that a night-shift nurse held a phone to his ear while his wife and kids said their final goodbyes, is recovering nicely these days at his home in West Seattle. But he says his heart almost failed a second time when he got the bill from his health care odyssey the other day.

“I opened it and said ‘holy [bleep]!’ “ Flor says.

The total tab for his bout with the coronavirus: $1.1 million. $1,122,501.04, to be exact. All in one bill that’s more like a book because it runs to 181 pages.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/inspiring-story-of-seattle-mans-coronavirus-survival-comes-with-a-1-1-million-dollar-hospital-bill/

Be Well….Be Safe….Be Informed….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Pandemic News

It is the weekend and I bet you have had very little info on the pandemic since the protests began…..Am I right?

IST wants to help keep you up-to-date….

Confirmed cases–1.9 million

Deaths–110,000

Protests Deaths–at least 12  (names included here…https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/03/at-least-12-have-died-in-nationwide-protests-heres-who-they-were/#74cc181b9b32)

And let us not forget the 44,000+ that have been arrested and the treatment they may encounter.

Now the pandemic news we all have been waiting on…..

The globe is suffering with this virus and the responses that have been muted…..

The globe continues to see daily cases of COVID-19 exceed 100,000 per day, with close to 6.4 million cumulative cases. Total deaths are approaching 380,000 as the pandemic is settling in the Americas for the present moment. In response to a question as to whether the virulence of the virus seems to be waning, both Drs. Michael Ryan and Maria Van Kerkhove rejected such claims. The genetic studies do not support such a mutational shift. Instead, they attribute the change in the numbers to public health measures that have thus far been employed.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/02/coro-j02.html

The only people making out like bandits without guns are the corporations and billionaires….plus the workers are losing ground every day thanx to the capitalists…..

Another 2.1 million workers in the United States filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the US Labor Department. This brings the total number of workers filing for jobless benefits to 40.8 million in the ten weeks since the pandemic led to the closure of much of the country’s economic activity in mid-March.

This number, which substantially understates the real scale of joblessness, is still a shocking 24.7 percent of the country’s labor force of 164.5 million people. Economists expect that May’s official unemployment rate, which will be released next Friday, will hit 20 percent, up from 14.7 percent in April.

Estimates of the real jobless rate exceed the historic record of 24.9 percent set in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression. Millions of jobless workers are not counted in the official toll because they are undocumented immigrants, self-employed or so-called gig workers. Others not counted include those working part-time jobs and those who have given up looking for non-existent jobs. In addition, millions are not counted as unemployed because overwhelmed state agencies have not processed their claims, depriving them of any jobless benefits.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/29/pers-m29.html

Chicken CEOs got caught with their wallets showing……

One of America’s top chicken industry CEOs could be caged for up to 10 years as part of a federal antitrust investigation. Pilgrim’s Pride CEO Jayson Penn was indicted Wednesday along with former company vice president Roger Austin for alleged price-fixing, the Wall Street Journal reports. Mikell Fries, president of Claxton Poultry Farms, and vice president Scott Brady were also indicted. Prosecutors say the men, part of a “network of suppliers and co-conspirators,” conspired to fix prices and rig bids on the “broiler chickens” that were sold to grocery stores and restaurants between 2012 and 2017, reports CNN. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

“Particularly in times of global crisis, the division remains committed to prosecuting crimes intended to raise the prices Americans pay for food,” Makan Delrahim, assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, said in a statement. “Executives who cheat American consumers, restaurateurs, and grocers, and compromise the integrity of our food supply will be held responsible for their actions.” Shares in Pilgrim’s Pride fell 16% after the indictment and other chicken producers, including Tyson, also saw major drops. Penn is the highest-profile exec to be indicted by the antitrust division since former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, who died in a car crash the day after he was indicted in 2016, Bloomberg reports.

Thanx to all the lay-offs and unemployment….consumer spending is way down…..

US consumer spending plunged by a record 13.6% in April as job cuts from virus paralyzed economy.

And yet with all the horrible economic news Trump is still leading Biden…and Biden is losing his grip…..

U.S. President Donald Trump is trusted more than Democratic nominee Joe Biden to handle the economy, polls show, even with more than 40 million Americans filing jobless claims and growth stalled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Some Biden supporters fear that vulnerability could intensify if Trump becomes the face of an economic recovery as the country re-opens after shutdowns, giving the Republican president’s re-election prospects a boost when he needs it most.

Biden is expected to release a large-scale recovery plan in the coming weeks. Democrats are watching closely to see if his message matches the moment, saying the party’s presumptive nominee needs to ramp up criticism of Trump’s response to the pandemic and show leadership for moving forward.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-biden-idUSKBN2351AC

Two thoughts…..what could Joe put in his “Recovery Plan”?  And second….why would Trump still be favored with the economy after he has crapped on everything that made it a great one?

Then there are the wealthy that are making billions during the pandemic……

The American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Michael Strain wrote an op-ed in the New York Times recently explaining how “The American Dream Is Alive and Well,” and that in his opinion this nation has, “bigger issues than inequality.” Strain’s piece is part of the paper’s new pandemic-era series called “The America We Need” and engages in a set of impressive mental gymnastics to conclude that it ought to be of no concern that the rich are getting richer and that it would be better to focus instead on, “the relatively slow rate of productivity growth,” or “the long-term decline in male employment.”

Michael Strain is incredulous over our fixation on the concentration of wealth at the top, asking, “Do Americans really care as much about inequality as the attention by media and liberal politicians suggest?” He adds, “Given that income inequality has been stagnant or declining over the most recent decade, the timing… is odd” for a conversation “about whether inequality suggests that capitalism itself is broken.” However, inequality continues to steadily rise—a fact it seems the pro-free-market American Enterprise Institute is hoping we ignore.

For America’s Wealthiest, the Pandemic is a Time to Profit

Thanx to the virus lock down our sewers are paying the price…..

Mayor Jim Kenney kicked off a recent briefing on Philadelphia’s coronavirus response with an unusual request for residents: Be careful what you flush. Between mid-March, when the city’s stay-at-home order was issued, and the end of April, most of the 19 sewer and storm water pumping stations in Philadelphia experienced clogs from face masks, gloves, and wipes residents had pitched into the potty, Kenney said. “Please do not flush any of these items down the toilet,” the mayor said. Officials in other US cities and rural communities—and the Environmental Protection Agency—have issued similar pleas as wastewater plant operators report a surge of stopped-up pipes and damage to equipment, the AP reports.

The problem has sharpened the longstanding clash over whether wipes are suitable for flushing. While drain clogs aren’t new, most of the more than 15 cities contacted by the AP said they’ve become a more costly and time consuming headache during the pandemic. “When everyone rushed out to get toilet paper and there was none … people were using whatever they could,” said Pamela Mooring, spokeswoman for DC Water, the system in the nation’s capital. In Houston, officials say sanitary sewer overflows jumped 33% between February and March in Houston because of clogs from rags, tissues, paper towels, and wipes.

A Tip….the 3Ps….put only puke, poop and pee in the toilet and you will have no problems.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That Economy That We Were Promised

Trump has been promising that the US economy will make a comeback as soon as we remove ourselves from virus lockdown.

But let’s look at the economy…..(a subject that most Americans will glaze over at the mention of the issue)….

The unemployment continues…..42.6 million unemployed workers….

Continuing claims, which provide a clearer picture of how many Americans remain unemployed, totaled 21.5 million, a gain of 649,000 over the past week, also worse than Wall Street expected.

The insured unemployment rate, which is a simple measure of those collecting benefits compared with the total labor force, rose 0.5 percentage points to 14.8%.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/weekly-jobless-claims.html

GDP is down……

Consumption is way down…..

Why has the media not reported this story….it is an important one…

A Bloomberg analysis released Tuesday estimates that nearly a third of the unemployment benefits owed to jobless Americans have not yet been paid out, a finding critics described as a “scandal” deserving of more media attention as millions of people struggle to afford basic expenses due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The Treasury disbursed $146 billion in unemployment benefits in the three months through May,” Bloomberg reported. “But even that historic figure falls short of a total bill that should have reached about $214 billion for the period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on weekly unemployment filings and the average size of those claims.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/03/should-be-bigger-news-analysis-finds-nearly-one-third-owed-unemployment-benefits

The media refuses to report anything that would turn the people from believing in the system we have….

The hunger will continue because of the unemployment status…..

A poll released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week revealed that at least nine million American households that include children are unsure whether they’ll be able to access enough food in the next four weeks and millions more are experiencing housing insecurity during the coronavirus pandemic.

The bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey, taken between May 14 and 19, asked respondents about their loss of employment, food security, overall health, and other issues they are facing during the pandemic.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/over-9-million-us-families-fear-they-cant-afford-food-next-month-census-survey

There is so much fiction being passed as news these especially when it involves the economy…..some of the “news” is pure fiction and has been for many years….

One of the favorite myths they perpetrate is that ‘wages are sticky downwards’. That means that in conditions of recession or worse, because workers won’t accept lower wages the recession tends to continue. If only workers would allow wage reductions it would mean business would have more disposable income (from wage cost savings) on hand. Business would then reinvest the extra income. Investment would rise. Workers would be rehired. Wage income would then recover and the economy would grow from more investment and consumption

Two Fictions of Mainstream Economics

Sadly the ignorance around the economy for most Americans will keep the so-called “Dream” out of reach…..

Just one in five American voters want to expand government control over the economy after coronavirus, according to a new the Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen.

The results come as Congress and the White House negotiate over how to continue to respond to the economic crisis around the coronavirus, amid rising unemployment and shuttering businesses.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/only-1-5-american-voters-want-expand-government-control-over-economy

Pure fantasy that the media and the government continue to push….and as usual YOU will be screwed by believing the LIES.

So when can we expect the recovery that Trump has said would be immediate once the country re-opened…..

……..how soon can we expect a recovery? There’s a range of predictions — from one year to 10 — but forecasters agree it will be slow going.

As promised!  Another lie to add to the expanding codex of lies.

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“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–25May20

Today we remember our veterans and those lost in combat…..I will wait for the traditional day….

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News success for our workers (sarcasm)….nearly 40 million unemployed….

More than 2.4 million people applied for US unemployment benefits last week, per the AP. That means roughly 38.6 million people have now filed for jobless aid since the coronavirus forced businesses to shrink their workforces, the Labor Department said Thursday. The figure is slightly below last week’s revised total of 2.7 million claims, notes the Wall Street Journal. An additional 2.2 million people sought aid under a new federal program for self-employed, contractor, and gig workers, who are now eligible for jobless aid for the first time. The continuing stream of job cuts reflects an economy that is sinking into the worst recession since the Great Depression. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated this week that the economy is shrinking at a 38% annual rate in the April-June quarter. That would be by far the worst quarterly contraction on record.

During April, US employers shed 20 million jobs, eliminating a decade’s worth of job growth in a single month. The unemployment rate reached 14.7%, the highest since the Depression. Millions of other people who were out of work weren’t counted as unemployed because they didn’t look for a new job.

What better time than a pandemic to lay-off health care workers…..(again…sarcasm)……

Even as American deaths from COVID-19 exceed 90,000 and frontline health care workers are needed more than ever, hospitals and other medical facilities, guided by market forces, are closing or laying off large sections of their workforces.

The US Commerce Department reported at the end of April that health care spending by consumers had dropped by 18 percent during the first quarter of 2020. This is the largest drop since records began in 1959, contributing substantially to the annualized 4.8 percent decline in US gross domestic product. Morgan Stanley forecasts a breathtaking 37.9 percent decline in GDP during the second quarter

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/22/hosp-m22.html

An update…..the number of deaths should read 96,000+…….

But not to worry those parasites on Wall Street are still making money hand over fist while the rest of us suffer…..

While many Americans are facing financial hardship due to the coronavirus outbreak, US billionaires saw a boost in net worth in the first two months of the pandemic, according to a new report.

According to the report, published on Thursday by the left-leaning think tanks Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, the total net worth of all US billionaires got a $434 billion boost since March 19, when many US states were placed on lockdown.

According to Forbes, 623 billionaires live in the US, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, investor Warren Buffett, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison. The report indicates that just those top five billionaires saw their wealth increase by a total of $75.5 billion, or 19%. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-billionaires-434-billion-richer-during-pandemic-report-2020-5

Ain’t an oligarchy great?  (Once again…..sarcasm)….

Sorry for the bad news…..someone has to tell you since the government does not want to….

Be Well….Be Safe….Be Informed

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Not Since The Great Depression

That is what is being said about the jobs loss thanks to the virus were are currently fighting…..our economy has lost 21 million jobs…..that is a rate of 14.5%……..

The monthly jobs report is out at 8:30am ET Friday, when we’ll find out just how grim the April employment numbers are. The March report was “shocking,” without even showing the true brunt of the coronavirus pandemic’s impact since the relevant surveys end mid-month. Media outlets are frequently using words like “devastating” to describe what’s in store for the April report. It’s not unexpected, of course, as millions upon millions have been filing for unemployment for weeks, but as the New York Times explains, it’s the monthly report more so than the weekly unemployment numbers that is generally scrutinized “for evidence of how the economy is evolving.” More:

  • Just how bad? CNBC reports that the report is expected to show that the US lost a record 21.5 million jobs last month. We could also see the highest unemployment rate since 1939, at the end of the Great Depression and shortly before World War II.
  • More on that unemployment rate: Analysts are predicting it’ll hit 16%, which would indeed make it the worst rate since the Great Depression. But they say it could range anywhere from 11% to 20% due to the way individuals are surveyed by the government. It also depends on whether furloughed employees identify themselves as employed or unemployed.
  • A preview: ADP’s April payroll report was released Wednesday, and showed 20.2 million private-sector jobs lost.
  • Perspective: The Washington Post reports that if 22 million jobs are shown to have been lost, as some analysts expect, that’s “the equivalent of all those added over the past decade” and 10 times more than the previous record, set during World War II. During the Great Recession, the worst monthly job loss was 800,000, in March 2009.
  • What the report will tell us: “It’s understood leisure and hospitality and retail have seen a large displacement of workers, and that’s apparent in the claims numbers,” but the job report details showing what other industries are most affected will be very telling, says an expert. “The extent that has spread across the economy will tell us a lot, and the more it has spread, the more challenging it will be to return to normal.” If the losses remain mostly contained to industries directly affected by the pandemic, recovery could be quicker.
  • But it still won’t show the full picture: As NPR notes, not only have millions more jobs once again been lost since the surveys for the report were taken in mid-April, the unemployment rate “includes only people who are actively looking for work and those on temporary furlough, ignoring millions more who have been involuntarily idled by the pandemic.”
  • A sobering read: The aforementioned Times piece, written by Neil Irwin, who has covered the monthly jobs report release for 13 years, is worth a read in full. “And now, in a single month, a decade’s worth of progress—measured, in my case, by waking up early on 120 or so Friday mornings and analyzing tables that showed gradual, consistent hiring—has vanished,” he writes. “The employment situation summary at the start of this year was the best it had been in the 13 years I have obsessively tracked these numbers, and a lot of good things were starting to happen for a lot of people as a result. And now, it’s gone.”

If you do not like that analysis then here are a couple other sources to look at…..

https://apnews.com/623da121a91a4951b3bcde201a46120d

Ask yourself one question….how can such a dire prediction have the markets still doing well…..who does the economy represent?  I know the answer….do you?

Most Americans think it is too early to push for this re-opening of the Trumpian minions…..

In their latest poll (conducted May 3-5), The Economist/YouGov found that only 11 percent of adults believed it was safe to end social distancing and reopen businesses right now. Six percent said it would be safe in about two weeks, and another 19 percent said it would be in a month or so. A plurality (29 percent) thought it would take several months, and 15 percent even said a year or longer. A Morning Consult survey taken April 29-30 found that just 20 percent of registered voters thought the economy should reopen in April (i.e., immediately) or May, 37 percent said June or July, 16 percent said August or September, and 12 percent said October or later. And a May 5 poll from Global Strategy Group and GBAO for left-leaning firm Navigator Research found that 60 percent of Americans opposed reopening the country in the next few weeks, versus 36 percent who supported it. Finally, a May 2-5 poll by Civiqs for Daily Kos asked respondents flat out whether they supported having a stay-at-home order in place in their state: Sixty-five percent said yes, and 29 percent said no.

Most Americans Think It’s Too Soon To Return To What Life Was Like Pre-Pandemic

And yet……we are starting to allow people to return to the economy…but they suggest they continue to wear masks…..there is NOT enough cops to enforce that rule….so be prepared for the next surge of cases.

You Asked For It…..You Got It!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”