Other stuff

Economic stats show rapid disintegration of economy. Collapse in physical and emotional health won’t be this easy to calculate.

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.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

The shutdown will be relaxed, one way or another.

Time to use the other side of those signs. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

If the politicians don’t start relaxing the lockdown and letting people pay their rapidly accumulating bills, bunches of people are going to take the initiative and do so on their own.

I sense there is a limited time for those in power to start loosening the extreme restrictions or people are going to start ignoring parts of the rules.

At a deeper level, the concern I have is what’s referred to as the “social contract.” Government gets its authority from consent of the governed.

If a large number of people get to the point of concluding the rules in places like California and Virginia are unnecessarily severe and are causing more health, mental, social, and economic damage than they prevent, people will conclude our leaders have broken the contract.

If we get to that point, respect for law and respect for public officials will decline. That is not a good place to go.

 

Next two articles point out a small number of people who have already reached that conclusion:

4/20/20 – Daily Wire – “Social Shredding”: Defiant Residents Grab Shovels, Dirt Bikes After Cali Authorities Dump Tons of Sand In Skateparks For ‘Social Distancing’ – Officials in San Clemente California noticed teenagers were committing the grave sin of skating in the city’s skate park. Well, that is patently unacceptable, so the city dumped 37 tons of sand into the skate park in an effort to shut down the skating. Since the park is at the beach, sand was readily available.

Well, the city officials did not take into consideration the incredible level of creativity present in humans, especially Americans.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

The horrid news just keeps on rolling.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

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.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

More sectors of the economy being destroyed by shutdown of the economy.

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.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

A reminder of previous government pronouncements before they are pushed down the memory hole.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

We can now see an extensive effort to re-write the story of the shutdown of the economy. Before that is accomplished it is necessary to put a number of factors on the table so they don’t disappear down George Orwell’s 1984 memory hole.

4/13/20 – American Institute for Economic Research – Liberation From Lockdown Now – Article discusses recent explanations and how we got to this point.

We need to remember this uncomfortable information before it is removed from the discussion.

I shall quote one paragraph from the article to keep the information alive before it is erased from the record. The early advice from the experts was:

“For a family sitting around the dinner table tonight,” said Dr. Nancy Messionnier, a spokesperson for the CDC on January 17; “this is not something that they generally need to worry about.”

Let’s not forget the next sentence:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Some states start to open up at the same time California may be locked up for months.

image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Some states are already loosening some of the shutdown restrictions.

The ‘indicators’ announced by California, Oregon, and Washington indicate it may be months before any parts of the economy are allowed to revive.

Washington state and Texas show the stark contrast in approached.

(This discussion will be posted at several of my blogs.)

4/19/20 – USA Today – US reopening: What states are relaxing social distancing restrictions and moving away from lockdowns? – Several states have already dialed back parts of the lockdown. Others have announced dates to do so. A summary of the small steps:

  • Now – Florida, Minnesota, Vermont
  • April 24 – Texas Montana
  • May 1 – Ohio, Idaho, North Dakota

Californians will stay in lockdown for a very long time

4/14/20 – Office of the governor – Governor Newsom Outlines Six Critical Indicators the State will Consider Before Modifying the Stay-at-Home Order and Other COVID-19 Interventions

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Additional indications of economic destruction from the shutdown.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Here are a few articles in the last few days describing the economic catastrophe that is expanding daily as we watch. Estimate is out that one out of four employees in Los Angeles are out of work. Higher education as an industry is in danger.

4/14/20 – American Enterprise Institute – The International Monetary Fund’s coronavirus reality check – The IMF expects a worse downturn than the ‘08/’09 Great Recession.  Global output is expected to have a US$9 trillion loss in output from what would have been expected.

For the US and Europe the loss will be equal to two years worth of economic growth.

4/17/20 – LAist – LA’s Latest Unemployment Numbers Are Staggering. An Estimated 1.3M Jobs Have Already Been Lost – Percent of LA county residents who are employed is estimated at 45%. That is down from 61% in March. The difference is 16%. Divide that by the 61% employed prior month indicates 26% of the people working a month ago are now unemployed. Data is from researchers at USC.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

More attacks on constitutional freedoms.

This dream of so many elected politicians is flagrantly illegal. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Because a large and growing number of elected officials do not have a functional awareness of the Bill of Rights, I will recite the first and second amendments to help them out. Will then cite merely a few of the recent violations thereof.

Article I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Article II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

 

..the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

4/17/20 – NJ.com – Woman charged for organizing protest of Murphy’s coronavirus stay-at-home order – (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago