Even the state government in California may be starting to realize that putting the economy in a deep freezer for an extended and unknown period of time might have some adverse consequences.
Just a few of the business casualties over the last few days:
New unemployment claims for week ending 5/2/20 are 3,169,000, seasonally adjusted.
The tally of new claims is 33.48 million since the economy was put in an induced coma.
That means about 1 out of every 5 people in the civilian labor force back in February are out of a job today.
I’m running out of words to describe how horribly the economy has been hit. Seem to have exhausted the adjectives that apply. We have a terrible mess and it is going to take a long time to fully recover from the lost jobs and even longer to recover consumer and business confidence.
This discussion will be posted across several of my blogs.
Expectations from economists interviewed by the WSJ, or perhaps we should say their wild guesses, are the flood of new claims will taper off in May. Will likely be months before the new jobs exceed the new unemployment claims. Will likely be years before new jobs offset the tidal waves of job losses in March, April, and May.
Summary of new claims and running total
I have prepared a running tally of the new unemployment claims, which is shown below.
Thousands upon thousands of needed health procedures were canceled in Ontario, Canada in order to make room for the massive surge of coronavirus patients which never arrived.
New study in Ontario estimates that 35 people are dead because their heart surgeries were postponed. There were 12,200 surgeries and other procedures postponed each week.
With extremely short notice, governors of Arizona and Tennessee extended the lockdown and economic shutdown in their states. California governor orders beaches closed in the county with lowest infection rate, leaving open beaches in county with three times higher rate.
Meanwhile, many other states are trying to allow their economies to re-start.
UNITED STATES (April 28, 2020) The U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels, and the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, the Thunderbirds, honor frontline COVID-19 first responders and essential workers with formation flights over New York City, New Jersey and Philadelphia, April 28, 2020. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Cmdr. Aaron Hicks/Released)
The Air Force Thunderbirds and the Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration teams ha a series of joint flyovers of multiple metropolitan areas as a tribute to all the health care providers and first responders.
Here are some photos of their appearance over New York. Since the only photos on either theNavyor USAFwebsites are from the Navy, I’ll guess that pursuit plane was Navy.
The economic statistics are rolling out to show the initial impact of the shutdown of the economy.
The collateral effect the shutdown and isolation will have on deteriorating emotional and mental health along with increased mortality due to postponed or canceled medical treatment will take years to quantify.
New stats in last few days:
3.8 million new unemployment claims this week
New unemployment claims in six weeks are now equal to 18% of the people who were working in February
CBO expects unemployment rate to average 11% for 2020
4.8% annualized drop in GDP for first quarter
New claims for unemployment
4/30/20 – Department of Labor – Unemployment insurance weekly claims – Another 3,839,000 people filed an initial claim for unemployment in the week ending April 25.
Pictures in February 2016 at Minneapolis airport. Photo by James Ulvog.
The entire aviation industry, including airlines, plane manufacturers, engine producers, and maintenance, will be devastated from the pandemic and shutting down the economy.
4/27/20 – Wall Street Journal – ‘Welcome to Your Flight, Nathan.’ Traveling During a Pandemic Means Having the Plane to Yourself – My first, second, and third reaction was to chuckle when reading an article describing multiple commercial flights with only one passenger. The description of pilots making the standard welcoming announcement that greets the sole passenger by name is funny.
Then I shuddered in fear at the absolute devastation to the entire economy from most fights being almost empty. The financial destruction will require years of recovery.
Untold numbers of airline, ground transportation, hotel, restaurant, and food vendor companies are being shattered. Incalculable numbers of companies will not survive.
A lovely sight not many of us will get to see in the near future. Photo by James Ulvog.
Work that collapse back to the airplane manufacturers…
It will be months before you can visit one of these places in California. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
The California governor has laid out some general plans on how the state eventually will be taken off lockdown. There are four overall phases stretched over the next year or more. Highlights include:
Curb side pickup from retail stores will be allowed perhaps in weeks.
In-person worship services and getting a haircut will be allowed months from now.
Stay-at-home orders will not be lifted for a year or more.
Schools may start early, perhaps even in July. That will be conditioned upon schools having the ability to maintain safe distances between students.
This discussion will be posted on several of my blogs.
The graphic provided by the state describes the four stages:
Damage from the shutdown is getting more visible; it is growing, spreading every day.
Hospitals and surgeons have been devastated by stopping what is considered ‘non-essential’ care. Many hospitals may go under. Going under is what farmers are starting to do with their crops. After a panic like we are in, who has liability if anyone gets sick and thinks they caught the bug in a store, restaurant, or business?
With the ongoing shutdown we are getting way out there onto dangerously thin ice. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
We are past the point where the damage caused by the lockdown is greater than the damage caused by the coronavirus. The damage could start compounding. Here are just a few of the recent articles making this point:
4/22/20 – The Hill – The data is in – stop the panic and end the total isolation– A medical doctor says it is time for our leaders to examine the evidence instead of hypothetical guesses and then carefully let the country start operating again. He cites five factors ignored by people who want to keep the country in ongoing lockdown:
Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.
Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.
Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.
Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.
Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.
Keep in mind California will probably be on lockdown until August and Virginia may be locked down until a vaccine is in use.
Two severe medical problems are being caused by and will be prolonged by the severe lockdown.
A deep freezer, used for keeping large volumes of meat and vegetables frozen. That’s where the economies of California and Virginia are going to be stored for a long time. Image (but not commentary) courtesy of Adobe Stock
Virginia may be closed down tight for up to 24 more months.
California may not open up until August.
August.
There will be incalculable medical, emotional, and financial damage in California and Virginia from the lockdown. More on that momentarily.
This discussion will be posted on several of my blogs.
Good news
On the bright side, getting most attention for opening are:
Texas
Georgia
Other states are thawing because they also don’t want to bankrupt everyone, destroy all the hospitals, further tear down overall health levels, and permanently cripple their economy. List includes:
Will the Grim Reaper get more business from the coronavirus or the shutdown?
Every additional day of the shutdown is causing horrible damage. Not only is the economy suffering with record high unemployment, soon-to-be record high bankruptcies and shuttered businesses, but also there is now and will continue to be a decline in overall health. We will see increased mortality from other causes because of the shutdown. The damage to our freedoms is widespread and immeasurable.
Point made by the author of the column linked below puts it this way:
This is not a trade-off between lives and the economy. It’s a trade-off between lives and lives.
In a series of articles over the last week I attempted, in my own feeble way, to describe the wide ranging damage we are watching grow every day.
The question our governors and mayors urgently need to consider is whether we have already passed the point at which there will be more damage (including deaths) from the shutdown than from the coronavirus.
This post will be published on several of my blogs.
He draws the analogy to a hurricane expected to make landfall at category 5 but deteriorated to a bad thunderstorm the morning it landed. In that analogy the cat 5 which was expected to land on the entire country only hit New York, New Orleans, and Detroit.
The news feels like we are moving ever deeper into an over-the-top dystopian novel. Unfortunately this isn’t fiction.
Another 4 million unemployment claims last week and ongoing attacks on the First Amendment.
About the only job specialty in the country today with bright growth prospects in the near term is trial attorney.
(This post will cross-published on several of my blogs.)
New unemployment claims
4/23/20 – Department of Labor – Unemployment insurance weekly claims – an additional 4,427,000 people filed their initial claim for unemployment in the week ending April 18. Here is another article in case link is dynamic.
This is on top of the four previous weeks of horrible levels of new claims.
Here is a summary of the unreal news. Recap shows number of new claims for unemployment for the last five weeks with a subtotal. The number of people who were unemployed in March is then listed with my estimate of the total unemployment now.
Hat tip to Behind the Black for the legwork identifying additional sectors of the economy that are collapsing. Large segments of the economy I haven’t mentioned before:
Home sales
Housing construction
Apartment rentals
Clothing production
Flower trade
Damage to these sectors won’t immediately heal the moment state governors decide they will allow the economy to come back to life out of its induced coma.
Imagine all that frantic hustle and bustle of Denver airport back in 2018 dropping by 95%. Photo by James Ulvog.
I can barely type fast enough to keep up with the adverse impact on the economy or freedom. Can barely keep up with the news about entire sectors of the economy collapsing. Most recent sectors I’ve learned about: airlines and the entire health care system. Since drafting this post last evening, learned about the destruction in the clean energy industry and saw some stats on the devastation in the restaurant sector.
This post will be printed on several of my blogs.
Airlines
4/20/20 – NewsMax –Big 3 US Airlines May Cut More Than 100,000 Jobs by Fall– At the moment passenger loads are frightening – article says domestic flights are averaging 10 passengers and international flights are averaging 24 people plus crew.
