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Americans Have Already Skipped Payments On More Than 100 Million Loans, And Job Losses Continue To Escalate
Americans Have Already Skipped Payments On More Than 100 Million Loans, And Job Losses Continue To Escalate
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.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
No, The U.S. Economy Will Definitely Not Be Returning To “Normal”. In Fact, Things Will Soon Get Even Worse.
No, The U.S. Economy Will Definitely Not Be Returning To “Normal”. In Fact, Things Will Soon Get Even Worse.
2020 has been quite a year so far. It has been one nightmare after another, and yet the economic optimists continue to insist that economic activity will soon snap back to normal levels somehow. So the economic optimists aren’t really alarmed by the fact that the core areas of our major cities have been torched, gutted and looted by rioters, because they assume that all of this violence is just a temporary phenomenon and that any damage that has been done can be repaired. And they aren’t really alarmed by the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic is starting to escalate again. In fact, over the last seven days we have seen the number of newly confirmed cases around the globe hit levels that we have never seen before. They just assume that “the worst is behind us” and that the vast majority of the businesses and jobs that have been lost during this pandemic will be quickly recovered.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were actually correct?
Sadly, the truth is that economic conditions will not be returning to normal. Yes, some of the jobs that were lost will be recovered as states start to “reopen” their economies. But more than 100,000 businesses have already permanently closed during this new economic downturn, and all of those jobs are lost forever.
And yes, the level of economic activity will rise as states end their lockdowns, but it will still be much lower than it was before COVID-19 started spreading like wildfire in the United States.
At this point, even the perpetually optimistic OECD is admitting that global economic activity as a whole will be way down in 2020…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Most U.S. States Have ‘Reopened’ Their Economies, So Why Does Unemployment Continue To Spiral Out Of Control?
Most U.S. States Have ‘Reopened’ Their Economies, So Why Does Unemployment Continue To Spiral Out Of Control?
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Once states started to “reopen” their economies, the tsunami of unemployment was supposed to end. But instead, we continue to see Americans lose jobs at a pace that is far beyond anything we have ever seen before in all of U.S. history. All the way back in 1982, there was a week when 695,000 Americans filed initial claims for unemployment benefits, and that all-time record was never broken until this year. Of course we have seen monster number after monster number here in 2020, and we just learned that last week another 1.877 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits…
Filings for unemployment insurance claims totaled 1.877 million last week in a sign that the worst is over for the coronavirus-related jobs crisis but that the level of unemployment remains stubbornly high.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 1.775 million new claims. The Labor Department’s total nevertheless represented a decline from the previous week’s upwardly revised total of 2.126 million.
So even though more than 40 million Americans had already lost their jobs in 2020, there were still enough people losing their jobs last week to surpass the old record from 1982 by more than a million.
Just think about that.
Overall, a grand total of 42.6 million Americans have now lost their jobs since the pandemic began, and that makes this the largest spike in unemployment in all of U.S. history by a very wide margin.
And when the monthly employment report comes out on Friday, the official U.S. unemployment rate is expected to surpass 20 percent…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
10 Numbers That Show The U.S. Has Fallen Into A Horrifying Economic Depression
10 Numbers That Show The U.S. Has Fallen Into A Horrifying Economic Depression
The last recession was really, really bad, but it was never like this. It is time for us to face reality, and that means admitting that the U.S. economy has plunged into a depression. This is already the worst economic downturn that America has experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and we are right in the middle of the largest spike in unemployment in all of U.S. history by a very wide margin. Of course it was fear of COVID-19 that burst our economic bubble, and fear of this virus is going to be with us for a very long time to come. So we need to brace ourselves for an extended economic crisis, and at this point even Time Magazine is openly referring to this new downturn as an “economic depression”. Needless to say, there will be a tremendous amount of debate about how deep it will eventually become, but everyone should be able to agree that our nation hasn’t seen anything like this since before World War II.
In order to prove my point, let me share the following 10 numbers with you…
#1 According to a study that was just released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, more than 100,000 U.S. businesses have already permanently shut down during this pandemic, and that represents millions of jobs that are never coming back.
#2 The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is now projecting that U.S. GDP will shrink by 42.8 percent during the second quarter…
A new GDP forecast from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta for the three months through June estimates an unprecedented drop of 42.8 percent. The bank describes the data as a “nowcast” or real-time, compared with the official government report of GDP, which is dated. The first-quarter preliminary data, which showed a 4.8 percent dip, included a limited period of impact from COVID-19.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
We Are Witnessing Economic Carnage Like We Have Never Seen Before, And The Economy Is Going To Continue To Bleed Jobs
We Are Witnessing Economic Carnage Like We Have Never Seen Before, And The Economy Is Going To Continue To Bleed Jobs
Now we are up to 33.5 million jobs lost. In just 7 weeks, the U.S. economy has been completely turned upside down, and the numbers are unlike anything that we have ever seen before. On Thursday, the Labor Department announced that 3.17 million Americans filed initial claims for unemployment benefits last week. That brings the grand total for this crisis up to 33.5 million, and that figure absolutely dwarfs what we witnessed during the last recession. And as I discussed yesterday, even the mainstream media is now admitting that millions of those jobs are never coming back.
Yes, some Americans will be going back to work now that the lockdowns are being ended, but for now it is being projected that the job losses will continue to surpass any gains that are made by workers that are returning to their old jobs.
In fact, one prominent economist told CNBC that it will likely take until mid-June before the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits each week falls below a million…
At the current pace, the week claims numbers should fall below 1 million by mid-June, according to Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “We’re very hopeful that June will see the beginnings of a rebound as states begin to reopen,” Shepherdson said.
To put that in perspective, prior to this year the all-time record for a single week was just 695,000.
So even when we get down to a million new claims each week, that will still be a catastrophic level.
And the truth is that these numbers don’t even tell the entire story. Because state unemployment websites have been so overwhelmed, there are vast numbers of unemployed Americans that still have not been able to successfully file claims.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The UN Is Now Admitting That This Coronavirus Pandemic Could Spark Famines Of “Biblical Proportions”
The UN Is Now Admitting That This Coronavirus Pandemic Could Spark Famines Of “Biblical Proportions”
What the head of the UN’s World Food Program just said should be making front page headlines all over the globe. Because if what he is claiming is true, we are about to see global food shortages on a scale that is absolutely unprecedented in modern history. Even before COVID-19 arrived, armies of locusts the size of major cities were voraciously eating crops all across Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, and UN officials were loudly warning about what that would mean for global food production. And now the coronavirus shutdowns that have been implemented all over the planet have brought global trade to a standstill, they are making it more difficult to maintain normal food production operations, and they have forced countless workers to stay home and not earn a living. All of this adds up to a recipe for a complete and utter nightmare in the months ahead.
David Beasley is the head of the UN’s World Food Program, and on Tuesday he warned that we could actually see famines of “biblical proportions” by the end of this calendar year. The following comes from ABC News…
The coronavirus pandemic could soon double hunger, causing famines of “biblical proportions” around the world by the end of the year, the head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.
Beasley warned that analysis from the World Food Programme, the U.N.’s food-assistance branch, shows that because of the coronavirus, “an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people.”
He described what we are facing as “a hunger pandemic”, and he insisted that urgent action must be taken in order to avoid a nightmare scenario.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Uh Oh: U.S. Layoffs Rise 38 Percent – Highest Level For August Since 2009
Uh Oh: U.S. Layoffs Rise 38 Percent – Highest Level For August Since 2009
We continue to get more numbers that indicate that U.S. economic activity is really starting to slow down. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of layoffs in the United States was 38 percent higher in August than it was in July. A 38 percent increase in one month is more than just a little bit startling, and many believe that if this momentum continues we could soon be facing an avalanche of job losses similar to what we witnessed in 2008. And without a doubt, all of the other economic numbers that have been rolling in lately also confirm that the U.S. economy is heading into harder times. But is our country ready to handle another major economic downturn?
Even though there have been moments of difficulty over the past decade, we truly haven’t seen anything like this since the last recession. In fact, the latest job cut numbers that we just got from Challenger, Gray & Christmas are the highest that we have seen during any August since 2009…
Employers also announced the most layoffs of any August since 2009, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said.
Job cuts rose 38 percent over July, with 53,480 positions to be slashed from employer payrolls, led by workforce reductions in health care, which had been a mainstay of recent job creation, the tech sector and manufacturing.
So why is this happening?
Well, certainly there are many factors at play, but Andrew Challenger has singled out “the trade war” as one of the biggest reasons…
“Employers are beginning to feel the effects of the trade war and imposed tariffs by the US and China,” Andrew Challenger, the firm’s vice president, said in a statement.
Other nations are really starting to feel the effects of the trade war as well. This week, Germany reported a startling drop in new manufacturing orders…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
FedEx Is Talking As If A Global Recession Has Already Begun – And The Numbers Back That Up
FedEx Is Talking As If A Global Recession Has Already Begun – And The Numbers Back That Up
“Slowing international macroeconomic conditions” is just a fancy way to say that the global economy is in big trouble. For months, I have been warning that economic conditions are deteriorating, and we just keep getting more confirmation that we are facing the worst global downturn since the last financial crisis. For the second time in three months, FedEx has slashed its revenue forecast for this year. In an attempt to explain why revenue is declining, FedEx’s chief financial officer placed the blame squarely on the faltering global economy. The following comes from CNBC…
The multinational package delivery service reported declining international revenue as a result of unfavorable exchange rates and the negative effects of trade battles.
“Slowing international macroeconomic conditions and weaker global trade growth trends continue, as seen in the year-over-year decline in our FedEx Express international revenue,” Alan B. Graf, Jr., FedEx Corp. executive vice president and chief financial officer, said in statement.
The use of the word “trends” implies something that has been going on for an extended period of time, and obviously FedEx doesn’t expect things to get better any time soon if they have cut profit projections twice in just the last three months.
And FedEx certainly has a lot of company when it comes to having a gloomy outlook for the global economy. In one recent article, Bloomberg boldly declared that the global economy is in the worst shape it has been “since the financial crisis a decade ago”…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Thousands More Stores Are on the 2018 Retail Apocalypse DEATH LIST: Are your local stores on the list?
Thousands More Stores Are on the 2018 Retail Apocalypse DEATH LIST: Are your local stores on the list?
Every year, it seems like more and more retail outlets are going out of business, resulting in the loss of jobs and local supplies. Last year, hundreds of stores closed, and this year, even more shops are scheduled to shut their doors for good.
The 2018 Death List
This year, in an effort to save their businesses, the following retailers will close hundreds of their stores, according to Fox Business.
- Abercrombie & Fitch: 60 more stores are charted to close
- Aerosoles: Only 4 of their 88 stores are definitely remaining open
- American Apparel: They’ve filed for bankruptcy and all their stores have closed (or will soon)
- BCBG: 118 stores have closed
- Bebe: Bebe is history and all 168 stores have closed
- Bon-Ton: They’ve filed for Chapter 11 and will be closing 48 stores.
- The Children’s Place: They plan to close hundreds of stores by 2020 and are going digital.
- CVS: They closed 70 stores but thousands still remain viable.
- Foot Locker: They’re closing 110 underperforming stores shortly.
- Guess: 60 stores will bite the dust this year.
- Gymboree: A whopping 350 stores will close their doors for good this year
- HHGregg: All 220 stores will be closed this year after the company filed for bankruptcy.
- J. Crew: They’ll be closing 50 stores instead of the original 20 they had announced.
- J.C. Penney: They’ve closed 138 stores and plan to turn all the remaining ones into toy stores.
- The Limited: All 250 retail locations have been closed and they’ve gone digital in an effort to remain in business.
- Macy’s: 7 more stores will soon close and more than 5000 employees will be laid off.
- Michael Kors: They’ll close 125 stores this year.
- Payless: They’ll be closing a whopping 800 stores this year after recently filing for bankruptcy.
- Radio Shack: More than 1000 stores have been shut down this year, leaving them with only 70 stores nationwide.
- Rue 21: They’ll be closing 400 stores this year.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
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More Job Losses Coming to U.S. Shale
More Job Losses Coming to U.S. Shale
With the recently concluded nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries, oil prices have already started heading downward on sentiments that Iran’s crude oil supply would further contribute to the already rising global supply glut. The economic crisis in Greece, OPEC’s high production levels and China’s market turmoil have created more pressure on oil prices, making a price rebound look highly unlikely in the near future.
So, with the prices of both Brent and WTI moving towards $50 per barrel, the short to medium-term outlook for oil remains mostly bearish. This is bad news for the U.S. shale sector which is already dealing with rising debt and the ever-increasing risk of default.
A recent Bloomberg report stated that U.S. driller’s debts stood at $235 billion at the end of first quarter of 2015, which is quite worrying. Does this mean that the U.S. oil sector is likely to witness a lot more layoffs than we have seen so far? Surprisingly, a recent IHS study had revealed that the U.S. shale sector has been boosting job creation in addition to supporting around 1.7 million jobs in U.S.
All this as the overall unemployment rate in U.S. has been declining since previous years. But with rising negative sentiment pertaining to oil prices, is U.S. the shale sector prepared to face one of its biggest tests yet? Will the industry be able to sustain another long period of low oil prices or will it once again resort to trimming its workforce?
Related: Shale Industry May Need A Complete Rethink To Survive
Low oil prices will most likely result in more job losses
Since the oil price collapse of last year, we have seen how oil field services and drilling companies have slashed thousands of jobs in order to reduce costs and cut their operational spending. Some of the major oilfield companies like Schlumberger, Halliburton and Weatherford have already announced close to 20,000 layoffs as of February 2015.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
