The Economic Nightmare: 50% Of All Jobs Lost 'May Be Gone Permanently'

Economic Nightmare: Nearly 50 Percent Of All The Jobs Lost During The COVID-19 Pandemic “May Be Gone Permanently”

MICHAEL SNYDER ·

When millions of Americans were losing their jobs at the beginning of this pandemic, we were told not to worry because the lockdowns were just temporary and virtually all of those workers would be going back to their old jobs once the lockdowns ended.  Well, now we are finding out that was not even close to true.  Over the last 18 weeks, more than 52 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and a very large percentage of them are dealing with a permanent job loss.  In fact, one brand new survey discovered that 47 percent of all unemployed workers now believe that their “job loss is likely to be permanent”.  The following comes from a USA Today article entitled “Almost half of all jobs lost during pandemic may be gone permanently”…

In April, 78% of those in households experiencing job loss felt that that situation would be temporarily. But now, 47% think that job loss is likely to be permanent, according to The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

What that number tells us is that we are facing the worst employment crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

All of those permanently unemployed workers are eventually going to need new jobs, but meanwhile the U.S. economy as a whole is in a free fall that is absolutely stunning.  On Thursday, we are scheduled to get the GDP number for the second quarter, and everyone is expecting that it will be really bad…

This downturn has been particularly hard on small businesses.  Just check out these numbers…

• Yelp reported 71,500 businesses that were listed on their site have closed for good since March 1.

• 80% of independent restaurants aren’t sure they’ll survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Nearly half of all small-business members of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce lost 100% of their sales or closed down completely.

In addition, we just witnessed the largest decline in wholesale inventories since the peak of the last financial crisis…

June was supposed to be the month of second-derivative beats in economic data, reaffirming the manic bid in stocks. For Wholesale Inventories it was not.

Against expectations of a rebound from a 1.2% drop in May to a 0.5% drop in June, wholesale inventories actually tumbled 2.0% MoM, the worst since the peak of the great financial crisis…

So it doesn’t look like any sort of a “recovery” is happening.

Almost 30 Million in U.S. Didn’t Have Enough to Eat Last Week

Maeve Sheehey 

Food insecurity for U.S. households last week reached its highest reported level since the Census Bureau started tracking the data in May, with almost 30 million Americans reporting that they’d not had enough to eat at some point in the seven days through July 21.

In the bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey, roughly 23.9 million of 249 million respondents indicated they had “sometimes not enough to eat” for the week ended July 21, while about 5.42 million indicated they had “often not enough to eat.” The survey, which began with the week ended May 5, was published Wednesday.

The number of respondents who sometimes had insufficient food was at its highest point in the survey’s 12 weeks. The number who often experienced food insufficiency was at its highest since the week ended May 26.

This follows deep recession resulting from the pandemic, which put millions of Americans out of work. Unemployed Americans have been receiving an extra $600 per week benefit, which is set to expire at the end of July as Congress debates a new relief package.

Other high-frequency data, including Household Pulse jobs numbers, indicate that the U.S. economic recovery may be stalling out at virus cases spike around the country and states roll back their reopening plans.

By The Numbers...Reality vs Irrational Fear

COVID-19: Who Has the Intellectual and Moral High Ground?

Jack Kerwick

In 2020, something dramatically changed—and not for the better.

The sloppy conventional rhetoric aside, it was most definitely not some “pandemic” that succeeded in undermining the economic, psychological, and communal well-being of hundreds of millions (possibly as high as 1.6 billion) of human beings around the planet.

And it was not some virus—“the Virus”—that wreaked havoc in the United States.

Rather, it is the mass hysteria over a virus fomented by materially, ideologically, and electorally-motivated political and media elites that accounts for the incalculable suffering of countless human beings.

In America, since March and courtesy of state governors and mayors, tens of millions of citizens were forced onto the unemployment rolls and numerous small business owners were forced to close their doors. As of May, at least 100,000 of them have had both their dreams and livelihoods shattered. About 40% of black-owned small businesses have had to close, with up to half of them expected to close for good.

More recently, it was determined that 55% of all small businesses have closed permanently.

Shocker of shockers, the internment camp into which Americans’ homes, towns, and states have been transformed in the name of “Flattening the Curve!” and “Saving lives!” proved itself a most unfriendly environment for business.

Unsurprisingly, this rapid, astronomical rise in unemployment brought about by The Internment of 2020 has correlated with similarly astronomical rises in rates of other social ills: domestic violence, specifically the physical mistreatment of women and children; drug and alcohol abuse; and suicide.

Accordingly, the Internment has led to a “mental health crisis,” as anxiety, depression, and despondency have also spread and deepened.

All of those “little platoons,” as Edmund Burked described those associations, those various communities to which we belong and that, constituting as they do our very identities as the unique persons that we are, invest our lives with meaning and purpose, have been ruptured. 

 In some cases, it’s quite possible that they have been permanently undermined, as neighbor has turned against neighbor and relative has turned on relative for failing to observe “Social Distancing” protocols. Family members who may live no more than a matter of minutes from one another have gone all of these months without physical contact and, most tragic—most criminal—of all, the oldest, frailest, and sickest among us have been made to spend their remaining days alienated from their loved ones.

It is not just cynical and opportunistic politicians and media figures who are responsible for all of this suffering. It is as well those millions who contributed to the hysteria by endorsing it that must shoulder some responsibility for the evisceration of people’s lives. As is undoubtedly the case for most of the True Believers (i.e. those to whom I have referred as “Corona Walkers”), that genuine fear of contracting the Virus motivates them to “mask-shame” and the like may suffice to mitigate their culpability, but only to an extent. There is a simple, straightforward, and readily demonstrable reason for this.

First, their fear is irrational. They should no more fear, to the paralyzing degree to which they do in fact fear it, contracting this virus than they should fear contracting any virus, or getting into a car accident on the way to work.

Yet the irrationality of their fear in this instance is not a sufficient condition for hanging around their necks the immeasurable harm to have been visited upon their fellow Americans via The Internment. Everyone, yours truly included, has irrational fears with which to contend. The possession of, even the possession by, irrational fear need not necessarily reflect poorly upon a person’s moral character.

No, what implicates the Masqueraders, we may call them, is that they are willing to impose upon others the costs, the cataclysmic costs mentioned above, of shouldering the Masqueraders’ irrational fears.

Consider the following summary of all of the relevant research to date that’s been conducted by distinguished immunologists, virologists, epidemiologists, and other medical specialists from around the world:

(1) As Big Media continues to keep the scare going by reporting upon alleged increases in COVID cases, given the partisan prejudices of the vast majority of “journalists,” it is unsurprising that it fails to note that these alleged increases are accompanied by a diminishing mortality rate.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself just last week estimated that the actual rate of infection in America is anywhere between six to 24 times the number of confirmed cases. Covidtracking.com informs us that, at present, there are 4.1 million confirmed cases in the United States and 137,655 COVID deaths.

Therefore, by the CDC’s own reckoning, there are anywhere between approximately 24 million and 98 million COVID cases.

And, thus, the mortality rate of COVID is anywhere between .0056 and .0014.

What this in turn means is that of those who contract the Virus, 99.44%-99.86% survive.

At the very most, the overall lethality rate (IFR) of the Virus is .1%.

One-tenth of one percent.

The lethality rate of the Virus is that of the seasonal flu.

Yet, because of this, America, along with other countries, has indefinitely shut down.

More...

Weaponizing Space :

Why the US really accuses Russia & China of weaponizing space

Finian Cunningham

Washington has made startling accusations that Russia & China “have already turned space into a war-fighting domain,” but what’s really going on is the US is attempting to distract from its own controversial space militarization.

There is also a sequence of events reflecting Washington’s increasingly hysterical hostility towards Russia and China in which all events are perceived through an obsessive American lens of “hybrid warfare.”

An additional factor is the intensified US demand to include China in arms control talks with Russia, which resumed this week.

The claim made against Russia and China by Christophe Ford, a State Department arms control envoy, comes against the backdrop of President Trump announcing the establishment of a new Space Force Command earlier this year. That move by the Trump administration flies in the face of decades-long advocacy at the United Nations by Russia and China to keep weapons out of space.

The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty forbids weaponization in the outer atmosphere. Thus, America’s renewed efforts through its Space Force Command are arguably illegal. Allegations from Washington that Moscow and Beijing have turned space into a war-fighting domain appear to turn reality on its head.

Karl Grossman, a professor at the State University of New York who has written extensively on the subject, says that Russia and China have consistently advocated for the expansion of the existing UN treaty to ban not only the placement of weapons of mass destruction but also for a prohibition on any weaponization in outer space.

“The United States has repeatedly voted against this effort, essentially casting a veto at the UN,”Grossman said.

It would seem therefore that America’s claims are motivated by a need to obscure its own controversial militarization of the “final frontier.”

More...

Terry James: Peace And Safety In Perspective

Peace and Safety in Perspective

Terry James

The prophetic cry for peace and safety is almost always seen as involving fear generated by the threat of the breakout of war. Particularly, the prophecy is thought to be scheduled to emerge to the forefront of end-times conditions as Christ’s return nears.

Further, that almost universal cry is believed by many to be centered around the fear of war breaking out because of Israel confronting its immediately surrounding, hostile neighbors.

The following prophecy by the apostle Paul frames the matter:

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. (1 Thessalonians 5:1–3)

The apostle’s use of pronouns makes it clear that he delineates between the people he is addressing (fellow believers) and “them”—those upon whom sudden judgment is scheduled to fall.

And, incidentally, this is exactly the same pronouncement Jesus makes upon the rebellious generation when He next catastrophically intervenes. (Read Luke 17:26–30.)

This means that the judgment of God is meant for those who don’t know Christ for salvation and who will be crying for “peace and safety” when the “day of the Lord” is introduced by a “thief in the night” intervention. 

The question then arises: Why does Paul say that “of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you”?

He then goes on to tell us that we know perfectly well that the ‘thief in the night” experience will introduce the day of the Lord. He says further that this time will be marked by “they” who will be crying for “peace and safety.”

This being a heads-up to us—Paul’s “brethren”; that is, Christians—it is essential to understand the matter of “peace and safety.” This is how we can know the general time frame of the “thief in the night” event.

Folks, that’s the time of the Rapture!

We should, Paul tells us, “know perfectly well” that when they are crying “peace and safety,” the Rapture is at hand. Judgment will then fall on those who aren’t our “brethren,” the lost who will be left behind when Jesus calls to the Church.

We’ve been hearing for decades the “cry for peace and safety.” The efforts to bring about peace in the world, particularly, in the Middle East, are legendary. The effort has been never ending, yet there are wars and rumors of war, and the quest goes on.

I want us to consider this matter from a different perspective for a moment.

There is a cry for peace and safety by the world’s populations at this very time in history. As a matter of fact, the fear of war being waged by the tiny entity called COVID-19 is so great that it shut down the entire movement of earth’s peoples for the most part. It has more than 90 percent of people in America believing they must wear masks to survive the battle against the coronavirus.

Media and governments tell us we must stay sheltered and apart from each other until a vaccine is developed and vaccinations are mandated and injected. The world is crying “peace and safety” in a way never witnessed. They want freedom of fear from an enemy they can’t even see.

Christians are also crying for “peace and safety.” It is, however, for a much more profound sort.

Almost every email I receive from those who look at the world through the lens of Bible prophecy are expressing their wishes for Christ to Rapture His own. They want to escape the things they see about to overwhelm this judgment-bound planet. They want the peace and safety offered by the glory of Heaven. It is a righteous cry for help.

Let’s take heart with great anticipation as we see that day approaching. Let’s look with thoughts of the “blessed hope” of Titus 2:13 at the balance of the prophecy Paul left believers with before he departed Heaven through the Romans’ sword of beheading.

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do. (1 Thessalonians 5:4–11)

4.1 Quake Hits Northern California

Magnitude 4.1 earthquake rattles Northern California

 EVAN WEBECK

Some early risers in the Bay Area felt a minor earthquake shake about 75 miles north of the bay just before 5 a.m. Wednesday.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a magnitude-4.1 quake was recorded near Cobb Mountain, north of Santa Rosa, about 1.3 miles below ground at 4:57 a.m.

Within 30 minutes, more than 100 people, including a smattering in San Francisco, reported it at the USGS Did You Feel It website.

Latest quakes

As of Thu, Jul 30, 2020 1:23 PM

Past	Count
Day  Week  Month	9 27 88

Quake details

1. M 2.7 - 1.2 miles N of Pacoima - 3 hours ago
2. M 2.6 - 1.9 miles N of Pacoima - 3 hours ago
3. M 2.7 - 1.2 miles NNW of Pacoima - 4 hours ago
4. M 3.8 - 0.6 miles NNE of Pacoima - 4 hours ago
5. M 3.1 - 1.2 miles N of Pacoima - 6 hours ago
6. M 2.5 - 1.9 miles NW of Pacoima - 6 hours ago
7. M 4.2 - 1.2 miles N of Pacoima - 6 hours ago
8. M 3.9 - 13.7 miles NE of San Ardo - 14 hours ago
9. M 2.7 - 3.1 miles NNE of Hamilton City - 16 hours ago
10. M 2.6 - 3.7 miles NE of Fort Bragg - 3 days ago
11. M 2.6 - 3.1 miles NNE of Hamilton City - 3 days ago
12. M 2.5 - 6.8 miles SSW of Brentwood - 3 days ago
13. M 2.5 - 18.6 miles SE of Bodie - 4 days ago
14. M 2.6 - 6.8 miles ENE of Milpitas - 4 days ago
15. M 2.6 - 13.7 miles WSW of Furnace Creek - 5 days ago
16. M 2.9 - 7.5 miles SSE of Tres Pinos - 5 days ago
17. M 2.6 - 10.6 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 5 days ago
18. M 3.0 - 1.2 miles SE of Aromas - 6 days ago
19. M 2.5 - 7.5 miles N of Coso Junction - 6 days ago
20. M 2.7 - 11.2 miles N of Olancha - 6 days ago
21. M 2.6 - 10.6 miles NE of Upper Lake - 6 days ago
22. M 2.9 - 1.2 miles ESE of Aromas - 6 days ago
23. M 2.7 - 15.5 miles WNW of Ludlow - 6 days ago
24. M 2.5 - 13.7 miles SE of Santa Cruz Is. (E end) - 6 days ago
25. M 2.5 - 10.6 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 6 days ago
26. M 3.7 - 11.8 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 6 days ago
27. M 2.7 - 10.6 miles SE of Lone Pine - 7 days ago
28. M 2.5 - 9.9 miles NNW of Ocotillo - 7 days ago
29. M 2.5 - 4.4 miles NW of The Geysers - 7 days ago
30. M 3.0 - 10.6 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 8 days ago
31. M 2.6 - 6.8 miles N of San Simeon - 8 days ago
32. M 2.8 - 11.2 miles N of Olancha - 8 days ago
33. M 3.7 - 10.6 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 8 days ago
34. M 2.7 - 8.1 miles E of Mammoth Lakes - 8 days ago
35. M 2.8 - 8.1 miles S of Tres Pinos - 8 days ago
36. M 3.3 - 7.5 miles S of Tres Pinos - 9 days ago
37. M 2.7 - 39.2 miles WNW of Ferndale - 9 days ago
38. M 2.6 - 9.3 miles NW of Truckee - 9 days ago
39. M 2.6 - 1.9 miles NNW of Redway - 10 days ago
40. M 2.7 - 1.9 miles NNW of Redway - 10 days ago
41. M 3.6 - 6.2 miles W of Grapevine - 10 days ago
42. M 3.0 - 18.0 miles SE of Bodie - 10 days ago
43. M 2.9 - 47.2 miles W of Petrolia - 11 days ago
44. M 3.5 - 18.6 miles SE of Bodie - 11 days ago
45. M 2.6 - 43.5 miles W of Petrolia - 12 days ago
46. M 2.7 - 33.6 miles W of Ferndale - 12 days ago
47. M 2.9 - 7.5 miles NE of Ridgecrest - 13 days ago
48. M 2.6 - 3.1 miles SE of Valle Vista - 15 days ago
49. M 3.0 - 11.2 miles SE of Ocotillo Wells - 15 days ago
50. M 2.7 - 11.8 miles ESE of Little Lake - 16 days ago
51. M 2.5 - 2.5 miles NW of The Geysers - 16 days ago
52. M 2.5 - 7.5 miles SW of Searles Valley - 16 days ago
53. M 2.8 - 8.7 miles SSE of Tres Pinos - 16 days ago
54. M 2.8 - 17.4 miles SE of Bodie - 16 days ago
55. M 3.6 - 9.9 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 16 days ago
56. M 2.5 - 11.2 miles S of Trona - 16 days ago
57. M 3.6 - 18.6 miles SE of Bodie - 16 days ago
58. M 2.9 - 3.1 miles ESE of Carpinteria - 18 days ago
59. M 2.5 - 18.0 miles SE of Bodie - 18 days ago
60. M 3.0 - 3.7 miles SSE of Pedley - 21 days ago
61. M 2.6 - 3.7 miles ESE of Redwood Valley - 22 days ago
62. M 2.6 - 2.5 miles S of San Juan Bautista - 22 days ago
63. M 2.6 - 17.4 miles SE of Bodie - 23 days ago
64. M 2.9 - 19.9 miles SSW of Hayfork - 24 days ago
65. M 3.2 - 6.2 miles N of Borrego Springs - 24 days ago
66. M 2.9 - 6.8 miles SW of Ridgemark - 24 days ago
67. M 3.0 - 11.2 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 24 days ago
68. M 2.6 - 9.9 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 24 days ago
69. M 2.6 - 9.9 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 24 days ago
70. M 3.0 - 21.8 miles ENE of Lucerne Valley - 25 days ago
71. M 2.7 - 9.9 miles SE of Petrolia - 25 days ago
72. M 4.0 - 1.2 miles NW of The Geysers - 25 days ago
73. M 3.4 - 16.2 miles WNW of Ocotillo - 25 days ago
74. M 2.8 - 10.6 miles SSE of Lone Pine - 25 days ago
75. M 2.6 - 9.3 miles SSW of Searles Valley - a month ago
76. M 2.7 - 55.3 miles W of Petrolia - a month ago
77. M 3.2 - 18.6 miles SE of Bodie - a month ago
78. M 3.1 - 1.2 miles NE of Prattville - a month ago
79. M 2.9 - 15.5 miles SE of Bodie - a month ago
80. M 2.5 - 16.2 miles SE of Bodie - a month ago
81. M 2.6 - 3.7 miles W of Ocotillo - a month ago
82. M 2.7 - 18.0 miles SE of Bodie - a month ago
83. M 2.7 - 5.0 miles S of Idyllwild - a month ago
84. M 2.6 - 9.9 miles SSE of Tres Pinos - a month ago
85. M 3.4 - 7.5 miles SSW of Toms Place - a month ago
86. M 2.7 - 7.5 miles SSW of Toms Place - a month ago
87. M 2.6 - 1.2 miles SW of Ridgemark - a month ago
88. M 2.6 - 2.5 miles N of Westmorland - a month ago