Baltic Dry Index. 514 Brent Crude 30.97
Spot Gold 1703
Once I built a railroad, I made it run
Made it race against time
Once I built a railroad, now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Made it race against time
Once I built a railroad, now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Wall Streeters are still busy swallowing President Hoover’s version that “it’s not his fault,” and that the jobs will be back. “They’ll be back very soon, and next year we are going to have a phenomenal year,” he said.
I wonder if President Hoover would like to buy a bridge I have for sale in Brooklyn?
U.S. April Jobs Report Was Full of Records -- the Bad Kind
By Reade PickertEmployers in the U.S. shed 20.5 million jobs, 10 times the previous record decline in 1945, when the nation demobilized as World War II ended. The unemployment rate jumped to 14.7%, the highest in government records dating back to the 1940s. Data from the National Bureau of Economic Research show it’s the worst since the Great Depression era.
But the records don’t end there:
Industry Plunges
Employment in a number of industries plunged by the most ever. Payrolls in leisure and hospitality, which includes the restaurant and hotel workers who have been hit particularly hard by the shutdowns, slumped by a record 7.7 million, or 46.8%. Retail trade, professional and business services, transportation and warehousing, education and health services, and government also suffered unprecedented declines in employment.
Enormous Losses
Job losses spanned industries, often dropping by record
amounts
Source: U.S. Labor Department
Underemployment Rate
The underemployment rate, technically known as the U-6 rate, soared to an all-time high of 22.8% in data back to 1994, reflecting the scores of people who quit looking for a job because they’re discouraged about their prospects and those working part-time but desiring a full workweek.More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-08/u-s-april-jobs-report-was-full-of-records-the-bad-kind?srnd=premium-europe
No 'V'-shape return from devastating U.S. job loss, Fed policymakers say
May 9, 2020 / 2:17 AM
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As many parts of
the world’s biggest economy begin to reopen after weeks of stay-at-home orders
that slowed the spread of the coronavirus but gutted jobs, Americans should not
expect a quick return to growth, U.S. Federal Reserve officials said on Friday.
“A couple months ago I was optimistic, I was hopeful, that maybe we would have a ‘V’-shaped recovery - shut things down, clamp down on the virus, and then have a quick recovery,” Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari said in an interview on the PBS Newshour.
The virus has continued to spread across the nation, with nearly 1.3 million people infected so far and more than 77,000 dead.
With a vaccine and effective treatment unlikely for a year or two, “we are in for unfortunately a slow, long recovery” from “devastating” job losses, Kashkari said.
---- Interviewed by Fox News on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the jobs will be back. “They’ll be back very soon, and next year we are going to have a phenomenal year,” he said.
That’s not the dominant view at the Fed, which has slashed interest rates to zero, bought trillions of dollars of bonds and extended credit to local governments and businesses in an effort to prevent financial markets from imploding and keep the economy from even worse devastation.
San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, who appeared on CNN an hour later, said the Fed’s unprecedented actions, along with nearly $3 trillion committed by the U.S. Congress for rescue efforts, should help.
“What I’m hoping in the baseline is we can come back safely, we listen to public health officials, we take it slow but gradual...if we do those things and we reenter safely, then I expect us to have positive growth in 2021,” Daly said.
More
PPE shortage could delay manufacturing ramp up
Catherine Kavanaugh [///www.twitter.com/catherineKav]
May 08, 2020 09:50 AM
Manufacturing plant operators are having trouble finding
personal protective equipment (PPE) for employees as they prepare to resume
production following work stoppages related to the coronavirus pandemic.
As new health and safety protocols
are adopted, the main concern for employers is that 43 percent of workplaces
don't have enough PPE to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to a recent
weekly survey by the Canadian Association of Moldmakers (CAMM) and Automate
Canada.
Demand continues to outstrip supply
for face masks, face shields, gloves, safety goggles and hand sanitizer. The
shortages have many businesses worried about their restart scenarios.
"Of course, we want to get back
to work, but we can't help but think that the availability of PPE may be
slowing that ramp up to some level," CAMM Board Chair Mike Bilton said in
a phone interview.
"It's one thing to have the
full intent to open on May 18 for FCA or General Motors but what good is that
target if I haven't equipped my human resources and my ramp-up protocol
accordingly," Bilton added. "If I can't get the PPE I need, maybe we
better push it back a few days to be sure."
A large portion of the North
American PPE supply for masks, gloves and gowns comes from China.
Morehttps://www.plasticsnews.com/news/ppe-shortage-could-delay-manufacturing-ramp
Top JPMorgan Investment Officer: It Will Take ’10 to 12 Years’ for U.S. Employment Levels to Return
Leia IdlibyMay 7th,
2020, 12:09 pm
J.P. Morgan
Chief Investment Officer Bob Michele predicted it will take
10-12 years after the pandemic for U.S. employment to get back to its
pre-coronavirus level, insisting it won’t be as simple as turning the economy
back on.
“No, it’s
not that simple … it’s going to take years, or longer to get back to where we
are, or where we were,” Michele said on Bloomberg when asked if reopening would
be as simple as “turning on the lights.”
Michele
noted that there was a huge error when predicting unemployment numbers, as
millions of Americans are losing their jobs amid the pandemic. He then compared
unemployment rates during the coronavirus outbreak to the 2008 financial
crisis.
“When you
look at the congressional budget office forecast for the end of 2021, they have
unemployment at 9 percent, so sure, materially better than where we’re going to
peak in the high teens, but during the peak of the financial crisis,
unemployment hit 10 percent,” he said. “So even looking out a year and a half
from now, we’re still going to be roughly where we were at the peak of the
financial crisis.”
Michele
questioned what would happen when the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) runs
out of money and predicted that even when the economy reopens, Americans will
not be spending the same way they did before the virus hit, which could lead to
another round of layoffs.
“One of the
things we did was to just predict a downdraft in the second quarter, somewhere
around 10 percent, so call it 38 to 40 percent annualized, and say that’s the
trough, and then start this journey back up to the longterm trend rate,” he
added. “To catch up to the longterm trend rate that’s been in place, call it
1.5 percent, pre-crisis, to fill that output gap, we estimate it will take ten
to twelve years.”
Michele noted that it took the U.S.
economy 8.5 years to reach the long term trend line following the financial
crisis, so he was confident in his projections.
The Results Are In for the Sharing Economy. They Are Ugly.
Lyft, Uber and Airbnb depend on travel, vacations and gatherings. That’s a problem when much of the world is staying home.
OAKLAND, Calif. — The coronavirus pandemic has gutted the so-called sharing economy. Its most valuable companies, which started the year by promising that they would soon become profitable, now say consumer demand has all but vanished.
It is not likely to return anytime
soon.
In earnings reports this week, Uber
and Lyft disclosed the depth of the financial damage. The companies said their
ride-hailing businesses all but collapsed in March, the last month of the first
quarter, as shelter-in-place orders spread through Europe and the United
States.
The red ink extends beyond ride
hailing. The home-sharing company Airbnb, which investors valued at $31
billion, had planned to go public this year. Instead, the company has slashed
costs and raised emergency funding, and on Tuesday it
laid off 1,900 employees, about 25 percent of its staff. It also reduced its
revenue forecast for this year to half of what it brought in last year.
“While we know Airbnb’s business
will fully recover, the changes it will undergo are not temporary or
short-lived,” Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s chief executive, wrote in a memo to
employees.
More
Rental Car Companies Slash Order, Deliver Another Blow to Auto Industry
Rental car companies likely to cut 1M new vehicles this year.
Devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, the travel industry is struggling to survive – and that is likely to make things more difficult for the auto industry.With airports and hotels all but empty, only those with essential needs still traveling, rental car companies like Budget and Avis have seen business tumble by as much as 90% since a near-nationwide lockdown began in mid-March. Industry giant Hertz announced on April 20 that it would lay off more than a third of its 29,000 North American employees while working to restructure $17 billion in debt.
With few reservations, Hertz and the rest of the rental car companies also are taking steps to reduce one of their biggest budget line items. And that could mean cutting back the acquisition of nearly 1 million new cars, trucks and crossovers this year, according to a new forecast by J.D. Power.
“Demand for rental replacements has basically gone away,” Jonathan Banks, a senior analyst with Power, said during a media webinar this week.
The situation is dire enough that General Motors has agreed to cancel the order for some vehicles earmarked for Hertz Global Holdings, Avis Budget Group and Enterprise Holdings, according to a report by the Bloomberg news service. The three rental firms won’t take delivery of new vehicles until at least July, Bloomberg said, referencing an unnamed source.
Separately, Hertz said in a public filing on Tuesday that it does not expect to add any new vehicles to its fleet through the end of 2020.
Hyundai confirmed it has agreed to similar cuts in the delivery of vehicles originally bound for rental firms. And Toyota officials also confirmed rental car sales have plummeted.
The cuts come as no surprise to those watching the travel industry as a whole. A broad consensus among experts is that things could take 18 to 24 months to return to normal. A new survey by travel industry research firm Longwoods International found that 82% of Americans have changed travel plans for the next six months due to concerns about the coronavirus. Fully 50% plan to cancel trips, according to the study which targeted 1,000 American adults. Another 45% plan to reduce travel.
Other research has shown a marked shift to “staycations,” or to travel relying on personal vehicles rather than by air, rail or boat, major sources of business for rental car companies.
For all of 2020, Power analyst Banks said he expects rental car companies in the U.S. to acquire no more than 1 million new vehicles, down from a pre-pandemic forecast of at least 1.9 million.
That’s a serious setback for an industry that depends on fleet sales overall to account for about 20% of its annual volume – and for rental companies to make up the largest single source of those fleet sales. Losing nearly 1 million sales would alone account for about a 6% decline compared to the 17.1 million vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2019.
Finally,
some good UK economy news, two oldie part timers are working full time again in
the UK flour trade. Sadly their new business model doesn’t scale well, although
it is far safer than WeWorks current business model.
One-Thousand-Year-Old Mill Resumes Production to Supply Flour Amid Pandemic
In April alone, the Sturminster Newton Mill ground more than one ton of wheat
By Alex Fox
smithsonianmag.com
May 8, 2020 11:53AM
With stay-at-home orders in effect across the United
Kingdom, bulk buyers and consumers alike have been purchasing much more flour
than normal, according to the National Association of British & Irish Millers
(NABIM).To help meet this spike in demand, a 1,000-year-old English flour mill has resumed commercial production for the first time in decades, reports Jason Lewis for the Bournemouth Daily Echo.
The Sturminster Newton Mill has occupied its picturesque spot on the banks of the River Stour in North Dorset since 1016. It earned a mention in the Domesday Book—a survey of England penned in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror—and was reportedly updated during the Elizabethan era in 1566, writes the Washington Post’s Cathy Free. Shut down in 1970, the mill was converted into a museum run by the Sturminster Newton Heritage Trust in 1994.
Millers Pete Loosmore and Imogen Bittner typically operate the mill-turned-museum a total of two days per month, producing just enough to provide visitors with small souvenir bags of flour, according to BBC News. But when the pair heard that grocery stores were running out of flour, they realized the water-powered mill could make a real difference.
“When COVID-19 struck, all of the local shops ran out of flour very quickly,” Loosmore, a 79-year-old retired art teacher whose grandfather worked at the mill for more than 50 years, tells the Post. “We had a stock of good-quality milling wheat and the means and skills to grind it into flour, so we thought we could help.”
Sturminster Newton runs on a 25-horsepower water turbine installed in 1904. The turbine replaced two water wheels fitted in 1849 and capable of producing a combined output of 12-horsepower, according to the museum. When fully operational, the mill can produce 66 pounds of bread flour per day, reports James Frater for CNN.
In April alone, the mill ground more than one ton of wheat—the equivalent of what would normally be a full year’s supply for the museum, according to the Daily Echo.
“[W]e have got through the whole of that ton in two to three weeks and we’re still chasing more and more grain,” Loosmore tells BBC News. “It’s been nice to bring the place truly back to life and back into something like it used to be when it was working six days a week.”
Per the Post, Bittner and Loosmore have already sold hundreds of three-pound bags of artisan flour. All proceeds are being invested back into the mill, making up some of the shortfall lost when the steady flow of school groups and tourists that usually frequent the museum stopped altogether.
“We’re only doing this while the crisis lasts,” Bittner, a 63-year-old artist who started milling 18 months ago, tells the Daily Echo. “... [I]t’s not only helping us, but the local community because there is a shortage of flour.”
More
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1000-year-old-mill-grinds-again-supply-flour-uk-180974830/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=202000508-daily-responsive&spMailingID=42459632&spUserID=NjUwNDIzNTUzNDE0S0&spJobID=1760800303&spReportId=MTc2MDgwMDMwMwS2
This weekend’s musical diversion. The very underrated, unfortunate French
composer Jean-Marie Leclair. Not many great composers end their days the
subject of a still unsolved murder mystery.
J.-M. LECLAIR: Violin Concerto in F major Op. 7/4, Les Muffatti
Jean – Marie Leclair (1697 – 1764)
Once I built a tower up to the sun
Brick and rivet and lime
Once I built a tower, now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Brick and rivet and lime
Once I built a tower, now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: 24,346 +26 Down. NASDAQ: 8,890 +162
Up. SP500: 2,912 +89 Down.
The NASDAQ has rebounded to up. The S&P and the DJIA remain down. But
the game is now totally rigged by the Fed.
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