TRUMP'S DEPRESSION

Meanwhile, Citigroup has promoted mass immigration as a necessary component to growing the American economy in terms of increasing GDP. A report released by executives last year championed migration into the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Germany.

Citigroup Sets Aside $7 Billion for Bad Loans as Coronavirus Crunch Hits Borrrowers

AFP

15 Apr 20202

New York (AFP) – Citigroup reported a steep decline in first-quarter profits Wednesday as it set aside around $7 billion in case of loan defaults due to coronavirus shutdown.

Net profit came in at $2.5 billion for the quarter ending March 31, down 46 percent from the year-ago period. Revenues rose 12 percent to $20.7 billion.

Citigroup’s results benefited from strong increases in fixed income and equity trading volume during a volatile period in financial markets.

But the bank joined other financial heavyweights, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, in setting aside large provisions in case of defaults following sweeping government-mandated business shutdowns to try to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

“COVID-19 is a public health crisis with severe economic ramifications,” said Citigroup Chief Executive Michael Corbat.

“While no one knows the severity or the longevity of the virus’ impact on the global economy, we have the resources we need to serve our clients without jeopardizing our safety and soundness.”

Shares fell 3.6 percent to $43.75 in pre-market trading.

Retail Sales Crash By Record 8.7% in March

Photo by Don Arnold/Getty Images

BREITBART NEWS

15 Apr 20201

The rush to purchase grocery store items was not enough to offset the shutdown’s crunch on retail sales in March.

U.S. retail sales plummeted 8.7 percent in March, a record drop as the viral outbreak closed down thousands of stores and shoppers stayed home.

Sales fell sharply across many categories: Auto sales dropped 25.6 percent, while clothing store sales collapsed, sliding 50.5 percent.

U.S. consumer confidence has plunged and the vast majority of Americans are hunkered down at home under shelter in place orders.

Grocery store sales, however, jumped by nearly 26 percent as Americans stocked up on food and consumer goods to ride out the pandemic. A category that includes mostly online sales rose 3.1 percent.

–The Associated Press contributed to this report.

oll: 90% Small Businesses Report ‘Devastating Impact’ of Shutdown, Federal Aid Faltering

1,503

Brian Ach/Getty Images for American Express

PENNY STARR

14 Apr 2020573

5:45

A vast majority of small businesses across America are suffering the “devastating impact” of the shutdown of much of the U.S. economy in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, a poll revealed.

Small Business Majority released the findings on Tuesday based on a survey of 500 small businesses nationwide that found nine out of ten businesses have been hurt by the health emergency, with 43 percent saying it has had a “severe negative impact.”

The article about the poll on the small business advocacy organization’s website said:

It’s no secret that the spread of COVID-19 around the country has already had a devastating impact on small businesses. With the economy on pause and uncertainty gripping communities across the country, Main Street has been left to cope with how to stay afloat during this unprecedented time.

While Congress allocated $350 billion in small business lending in the CARES Act stimulus package, and small businesses have been eager for these loans to get them the assistance they so desperately need, daily reports from small business owners reveal the emergency lending programs currently in place are utterly broken and will not prevent businesses from closing for good.

The poll found also found that 41 percent of small business owners have experienced a revenue decrease of 50 percent or more, 33 percent of small businesses have closed down, and 14 percent more said they planned to do so.

The press release announcing the poll results said:

One of the most alarming figures arose from reported layoffs. Of those employers who have laid off staff, 40 percent report that the layoffs were permanent and 1 in 3 businesses have laid off, furloughed or made reductions to their entire workforce.

While the administration debates the appropriate time to reopen the economy, there remains a notion that once everything reopens the small business community will bounce back to normal,” John Arensmeyer, founder and CEO at Small Business Majority said in a press release announcing the poll results. “However, our findings reveal just how far and wide the impact of coronavirus runs.”

“The COVID-19 stimulus assistance programs passed in the CARES Act do not provide the quick relief necessary to help small businesses now and in the future,” Arensmeyer said. “While Congress has already recognized gaping holes in PPP, simply plugging these gaps will not be enough.”

“What small businesses need is expanded relief programs that include direct, unrestricted grant assistance,” Arensmeyer said.

The press release continued:

In terms of policy solutions, the poll also found that 92 percent of small business owners support direct grant assistance to aid in recovery. While the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) is in jeopardy of running out of funding this week and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) payments are stalled, it’s important to note that 86 percent of respondents support broadening financial assistance for rent, mortgage, and utility payments by not tying aid to maintaining payroll as required by the PPP program.

Several small business owners weighed in on how the coronavirus outbreak — and the federal response — has shaped up in recent weeks.

Anastasia Mann, owner of Corniche Travel in California, said:

As the owner of a travel company, our business has taken a massive hit. All business is frozen, sales are down nearly 99 percent, and as a result, I have had to reduce salaries and cut employee hours.

 I desperately want to retain my staff, and I viewed PPP as a means of keeping them employed. However, the application process was complicated, and I was asked to reapply multiple times, jeopardizing my spot in line and delaying disbursement of the money my company urgently needs.

“In the midst of the worst financial crisis our business has experienced since we opened over five years ago, we had hoped that applying for PPP would be straightforward and help would be on the way quickly,” Rebecca Winters, who co-owns Lowcountry’s Children’s Co-op with Lauren Fields in South Carolina, said. 

“However, what we experienced was anything but simple,” Winters said. “For businesses like ours to make it, Congress needs to pass additional unrestricted grant assistance before it is too late.”

The poll was conducted April 6-9, 2020 by Chesapeake Beach Consulting for Small Business Majority. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.3 percent.

The grim effects of the pandemic on small businesses is also reflected in a study done by the personal finance website WalletHub, which found that 35 percent of businesses reported that their operation cannot last longer than three months under current conditions.

WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 12 key metrics to find which states have the most impacted small businesses.

The top ten states that are most affected, from one to ten, are Hawaii, Nevada, South Dakota, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arizona, Nebraska, North Carolina, and North Dakota.

The District of Columbia’s small businesses are fairing the best, according to the study, with the others in the bottom ten, from 42 to 51 are Oregon, New Jersey, Minnesota, Illinois, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. 

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Survey: 2,100 U.S. Cities Bracing for Budget Shortfalls Linked to Coronavirus Shutdown

5

Joseph Prezioso / AFP Getty Images

EDWIN MORA

14 Apr 202017

5:36

Over 2,100 U.S. cities are expecting significant budget shortfalls this year, a testament to the widespread financial woes that the novel coronavirus pandemic and the associated mitigation efforts may trigger, a survey of local officials released Tuesday revealed.

In response to the prospective financial havoc, many of the cities are planning to cut public service programs and slash staff, including local police departments and other public safety agencies, the Washington Post and other news outlets reported.

The news outlets cited a survey of 2,400 local officials conducted by the National League of Cities (NLC), in collaboration with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Researchers found that 88 percent (an estimated 2,112) of the local officials “anticipate the pandemic will lead to painful reductions in revenue this year” that will likely trigger cuts to services, worker furloughs, and layoffs, the Associated Press (AP) noted.

National League of Cities

✔@leagueofcities

Today, we are releasing a survey w/ @usmayors that shows 88% of local leaders anticipate the #COVID19 pandemic will lead to painful reductions in #revenue this year. Cities, towns & villages need addl federal support & guidance to support our residents. https://buff.ly/2XvaywB 

Cities, counties fear losing out on US virus rescue funding

WASHINGTON (AP) — The $2.2 trillion federal rescue package could fail to deliver badly needed financial aid to thousands of smaller cities and counties where a majority of Americans live,...

apnews.com

19

8:04 AM - Apr 14, 2020

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Currently, at least 42 states and other jurisdictions across the country, together home to over 95 percent of the U.S. population of nearly 330 million, have implemented some variation of an unprecedented “stay at home” order for non-essential business personnel, a move that is having an impact on the finances of local and state governments.

On Monday, the White House Coronavirus Task Force did credit the mitigation efforts with keeping the coronavirus mortality rate low. Federal and state governments are already preparing to open the nation back up.

The survey of local officials found “many local governments are bracing for sharp declines in tax revenue as businesses shutter, workers lose their jobs in record numbers and tourism grinds to a halt,” the Post reported, adding:

The bleak outlook — shared by local governments representing roughly 93 million people nationwide — led some top mayors and other leaders to call for greater federal aid to protect cities now forced to choose between balancing their cash-strapped ledgers and sustaining the public services that residents need most.

…

Nearly nine in 10 cities surveyed — from smaller hubs with populations of fewer than 50,000 to the largest metropolitan areas in the country — signaled they expect a revenue shortfall. Among them, more than 1,100 cities are preparing to scale back public services, the survey found. Almost 600 cities predicted they may have to lay off some government workers amid the crunch. Local leaders in 1,000 cities said the reductions probably would affect their local police departments and other public safety agencies.

On Monday, President Trump suggested that more federal aid for states and local governments is not out of the question, telling reporters “certainly willing to look at that.”

Moreover, Trump acknowledged over the weekend that he had approved a disaster declaration for every state and most U.S. territories for the first time in American history in a bid to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

For the first time in history there is a fully signed Presidential Disaster Declaration for all 50 States. We are winning, and will win, the war on the Invisible Enemy!

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12:25 PM - Apr 12, 2020

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster declarations make federal funds available to states and territories to combat the coronavirus.

As part of the broader $2 trillion package that Trump signed into law in March, U.S. lawmakers also authorized $150 billion in aid for states and large cities plagued by the highly contagious and deadly coronavirus.

Many local leaders, however, reportedly consider the financial assistance insufficient to keep their jurisdictions running.

Referring to the restrictions associated with the aid, the Post noted:

Federal legislators apportioned the money only to assist local governments with their efforts to respond to the pandemic, not close the revenue gaps caused by the severe, sudden economic downturn. A senior Treasury official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the planning, confirmed Monday the dollars “cannot be used to cover general budget shortfalls.”

The law reportedly charged state governments with doling out the money with direct federal assistance only available to large metropolitan areas.

On Saturday, the two leaders of the National Governors Association — New York’s Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and Maryland’s Larry Hogan (R) — urged Congress to allocate additional financial assistance for state governments.

The two governors declared in a joint statement:

Congress must appropriate an additional $500 billion specifically for all states and territories to meet the states’ budgetary shortfalls that have resulted from this unprecedented public health crisis. This critical stabilization funding for states must be separate from much-needed fiscal stabilization for local governments.

In the absence of unrestricted fiscal support of at least $500 billion from the federal government, states will have to confront the prospect of significant reductions to critically important services all across this country, hampering public health, the economic recovery, and — in turn — our collective effort to get people back to work.

The two governors suggested that even more funds may be needed if the federal government seeks to rescue the most financially-strapped cities and states.

As of the time this report was submitted for publication on Tuesday afternoon, the NLC had not responded to Breitbart News’ request for a copy of the survey, reportedly focused on the early economic effects of the coronavirus.

Wall Street feasts on death

15 April 2020

Yesterday, April 14, the total worldwide deaths caused by the COVID-19 pandemic passed 126,000. In the United States, more than 2,400 people died on Tuesday, bringing the total nationwide number of victims to 26,000. These official numbers are undoubtedly substantially lower than the actual number of people who have died as a result of being infected by the coronavirus.

Not since the 1930s has the United States experienced a crisis on its soil that has had such a devastating impact on the social well-being of the American people. Images showing mass graves being dug in New York City, body bags piling up in Detroit hospitals, and endless lines of cars with drivers waiting to collect food to feed their families will be remembered like the Depression-era photos of Dorothea Lange. Tens of millions of Americans are without an income and lack sufficient savings to cover their mortgages and rent, insurance premiums, interest on outstanding loans, and other inescapable daily, weekly and monthly expenses. More than 16 million people have filed unemployment claims. It will take weeks, if not months, before their jobless checks arrive. The promised payment of $1,200 that was supposedly part of the CARES bill passed last month by Congress has shown up in very few bank accounts.

A social disaster is unfolding, and the media’s joyful invocation of “glimmers of hope” bears no relation to reality as it is being experienced by the vast majority of the population. The references to “peaks” and “plateaus” are of a largely hypothetical character. The pandemic is raging throughout the country. For millions who are still on the job, showing up for work means running the serious risk of being exposed to the coronavirus.

And yet, in the midst of this immense crisis, there is one small segment of society that has richly prospered during this time of troubles.

Just over three weeks ago, on March 23, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 18,591. During the previous five weeks, as the seriousness of the pandemic was being gradually and reluctantly acknowledged, the Dow had fallen nearly 35 percent from its February 13 high of 29,551.

Since March 23, two numbers have risen in tandem: COVID-19 deaths and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (along with other major markets' averages such as the S&P and NASDAQ).

On March 23, the number of pandemic victims in the US had reached 556. Over the next four days, Congress hastily enacted its multi-trillion-dollar bailout of financial and corporate institutions and investors. The “CARES Act” was signed into law on March 27. On that day, the DJIA closed at 21,636. Expectation of the imminent passage of the bailout had lifted the market nearly 3,000 points in just four days. But between March 23 and March 27, the number of pandemic deaths in the United States nearly tripled, rising to 1,697.

During the week of March 30, there was a further explosive rise in pandemic victims. By Friday, April 3, the number of victims reached 7,139. Throughout the weekend, the media sought to prepare the public for a further rapid rise in the death toll. But there was also a distinct change in the tone of the media narrative. Phrases such as “hopeful signs,” “turning the corner,” and, inevitably, “glimmers of hope” became part of the media’s propaganda repertoire. This was combined with an increasingly aggressive campaign for a more or less rapid return to work.

Throughout the week, the rapid rise in the death toll revealed the expanding dimensions of the social tragedy. The rise in the stock market averages reflected the financial elite’s expectation, having been gifted trillions of dollars by the government, that it will profit from this crisis and emerge wealthier and more powerful than ever.

By Monday, April 6, the number of COVID-19 deaths reached 10,895. The Dow closed at 22,679. By April 9, the death toll had climbed to 16,712. The Dow closed at 23,319. And yesterday, as the number of dead went beyond the staggering 26,000 mark, the investors and speculators joyfully watched the Dow gain another 569 points and close at 23,935.

Let the reader pause over these numbers. Since March 23, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed, according to official statistics, more than 25,000 lives in the United States. During the same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen more than 30 percent.

On the surface, there is nothing in the economic news that justifies the extraordinarily rapid rise in the markets. In fact, all available information indicates that the global impact of the pandemic may prove to be as serious and long-lasting as the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Yesterday morning, the International Monetary Fund issued a report titled, “The Great Lockdown: Worst Economic Depression Since the Great Depression.” Written by chief IMF economist Gita Gopinath, the report describes the prevailing situation as “a crisis like no other,” and forecasts a prolonged decline in global economic growth. “This makes the Great Lockdown the worst recession since the Great Depression, and far worse than the Global Financial Crisis [of 2008–2009].” The report continues:

The cumulative loss to global GDP over 2020 and 2021 from the pandemic crisis could be around 9 trillion dollars, greater than the economies of Japan and Germany, combined.

Clearly, it is not current economic projections that have fueled the euphoria on Wall Street; and it is highly unlikely, as the global contraction grows ever more severe, that the current rally can be sustained. But for the time being, the euphoria is being driven by the trillions of dollars of free and unsupervised money that is being provided by the Federal Reserve; and by the expectation that the crisis will provide the corporate-financial oligarchy within the United States as well as in Europe with an opportunity to restructure the capitalist economy and class relationships in a manner that facilitates the accelerated transfer of wealth into the coffers of the capitalist class.

But there is another factor that will counteract the euphoria; and that is the growing social resistance of the working class, which is developing its own ideas about how the American and global economy should be restructured and wealth redistributed.

As pandemic deaths continue to rise

Trump calls on states to move quickly to reopen their economies

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump seemed to back off from his plan to establish a new White House “Opening Our Country” task force and instead announced that he would be teleconferencing with corporate leaders, politicians and all 50 state governors this week to initiate a back-to-work plan that would be implemented on a state-by-state basis.

Trump announced his stepped-up drive to force workers back to work, under conditions of rising infection and death tolls and an abysmal lack of testing and on-the-job health safeguards, at his daily coronavirus task force press conference. As he made his announcement, governors in the Northeast and the West Coast were joining together to plan out their own return-to-work programs.

The governors of seven eastern states—New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Massachusetts—announced on Monday that they would work together to gradually loosen social distancing rules and reopen non-essential industries that had been closed due to the pandemic.

President Donald Trump departs after speaking about the coronavirus in the Rose Garden of the White House, Tuesday, April 14, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The governors of three West Coast states—California, Washington and Oregon—also announced a similar pact on Monday. All but one of the 10 governors, Charles Baker of Massachusetts, are Democrats.

The bipartisan character of the drive to reopen business without having brought the disease under control was underscored by presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s op-ed piece in Monday’s New York Times, headlined “My Plan to Safely Reopen America.”

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday congratulated both Trump and the Democratic governors for moving to lift the restrictions on profit-making. In an editorial headlined “Reopening the Economy, at Last,” it said:

“At long last our political leaders are considering how they can reopen the American economy they put into a destructive coma. Let’s hope this overdue process doesn’t devolve into another fight between governors and President Trump that will confuse Americans and slow the return to normal economic life.”

The editorial went on to complain that “The focus for weeks has been on the course of virus infections, the danger of overrun hospitals, and the death toll.”

In a similar vein, the Washington Post published an editorial with the headline, “The next phase: Can we find a way to begin reopening even as we live with the virus?” The newspaper’s owner, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, has made billions off of the pandemic, with Amazon stock hitting a new record high on Tuesday.

At his Tuesday press conference, Trump barely sought to conceal in whose behalf he was pushing for a rapid return to work. He hailed the record surge in the stock market since the passage last month of the bipartisan multi-trillion-dollar corporate bailout bill, and predicted that the markets would not only recoup their losses from the near-shutdown of the economy and the explosive growth of unemployment, but would soon hit new highs.

He then listed dozens of S&P 500 corporations with which he would be consulting on Wednesday, including the top firms in agribusiness, banking, defense, energy, the hedge fund and private equity sector, the restaurant and food industry, transportation, telecommunications, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, health insurance, high tech and the professional sports leagues.

The total wealth of the CEOs with whom he will be plotting the back-to-work drive is in the tens of billions, enough to provide a significant number of the masks and personal protective gowns that are desperately needed by health care workers, grocery workers, logistics workers, transit workers and others for whom the lack of such equipment is fueling disease and death.

He said he would be consulting with “thinkers” from such right-wing institutions as the Heritage Foundation and the Hoover Institution, and named individuals including right-wing economist Arthur Laffer and the Iraq War conspirator Condoleezza Rice. On Friday he plans to meet remotely with religious leaders. On Thursday he is to meet with the governors in all 50 states to lay down the guidelines for the reopening of their states.

He did not mention a single doctor, public health expert or scientist in the long list of consultants.

Trump said different states would reopen on different dates, but he was convinced some would begin lifting restrictions even before May 1.

It is one thing, however, to announce a premature return to work. It is another thing to carry it out. The ruling class is well aware of the seething anger in the working class over the catastrophe that has been inflicted on it as a result of the incompetence and indifference of the entire political and economic system.

Workers have rebelled against being forced to work under unsafe conditions, with wildcat strikes and protests being organized by autoworkers, nurses, Amazon workers, grocery and Instacart workers and food processing workers.

The entire political system is being discredited, as trillions are funneled to bail out the financial oligarchy while nothing serious is being done to organize mass testing and provide needed hospital beds and ventilators. Nearly 17 million workers have filed for unemployment benefits over the past three weeks, and millions more have had their pay cut. The bailout bill has done next to nothing to provide income for workers who live paycheck to paycheck, resulting in the appearance of massive food lines across the country for the first time since the Great Depression.

The crisis has fueled tensions and conflicts within the ruling class and the state. The Northeast and West Coast governors have called for a gradual reopening of the economy and promised expanded testing to head off a new surge in infections and deaths. On Monday, Trump reacted angrily to their actions, declaring that governors had no authority to determine how the restrictions would be lifted, and that as president, he had “total authority.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo responded to Trump’s assertion of unconstitutional and authoritarian powers by declaring that Trump was not a king and the states had powers within the constitutional framework of the United States. However, far from mounting a defense of democratic rights, by the time of his daily press conference Tuesday morning, Cuomo was calling for a partnership with the fascistic occupant of the White House.

He said: “The president will have no fight with me… This is no time for politics, and it is no time to fight. I put my hand out in total partnership and cooperation with the president. If he wants a fight he’s not going to get it from me.”

Trump seemed as well to have had second thoughts about provoking an immediate constitutional confrontation with the states. At his Tuesday press conference he did a 180-degree turn and said each state would decide for itself how and when to reopen.

The Democratic governors in no way represent a progressive or democratic opposition to Trump. Workers in their states will face brutal and deadly conditions if they are forced back to work without a massive deployment of resources to ensure their safety. At the same time, millions of workers who have been laid off will never get their jobs back, and many will he hit with wage cuts and speedup.

States and cities across the country are preparing massive cuts in schools, social services, pensions and public employee jobs to impose huge deficits from lost revenues on the backs of the working class. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio has already announced a hiring freeze and budget cuts, and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has threatened a return to bankruptcy and the imposition of a new emergency financial manager. Both are Democrats.

For all the Democrats’ talk of a “safe” reopening of their state economies and the need for sharply expanded testing, isolation, contact tracing and care of those infected, they have done nothing to put these conditions in place, and have no intention of doing so in the future. This is because the corporate oligarchy is implacably opposed to the diversion of the required resources from their money-mad pursuit of personal enrichment.

Talking out of both sides of his mouth, Cuomo said on Tuesday that his group of governors in the Northeast would begin to reopen businesses only under conditions of mass testing. He then said: “How do you start to do the massive testing that we’re going to have to do here? And that we don’t have the capacity to do today? The capacity does not exist.”

A man skates on the sidewalk while wearing a mask and carrying bags in Los Angeles, California, on March 20, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

ECONOMY

Retail Sales in America Plunge to Record Low in March

'Many businesses are operating on a limited capacity or have ceased operations completely,' says Census Bureau

BY TOM OZIMEK

April 15, 2020 Updated: April 15, 2020

Print

U.S. retail sales suffered a record drop in March as the COVID-19 outbreak forced businesses to close and people to shelter indoors, setting up consumer spending for its worst decline in decades.

“Due to recent events surrounding COVID-19, many businesses are operating on a limited capacity or have ceased operations completely,” the Census Bureau said in its advance retail and food sales report, published April 15 (pdf).

The Bureau said advance estimates of retail and food services sales for March came in at $483.1 billion, a drop of 8.7 percent from the previous month. This is the biggest decline since the government started tracking the series in 1992.

The figures are adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes.

People stand in line outside a fish market in New York City on April 10, 2020. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

The biggest month-over-month drop was in clothing and clothing accessories, which plummeted by 50.5 percent in March. Compared to a year earlier, sales in this category fell by 50.7 percent.

CCP VIRUS SPECIAL COVERAGE

“The economy is almost in free fall,” said Sung Won Sohn, a business economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “We will see the bottom when the coronavirus infection rates stabilize. It’s going to be a pretty deep bottom from which to come up.”

While food services and drinking place sales fell by 26.5 percent in March compared to February, grocery stores saw a surge in month-over-month sales in March, spiking by 25.6 percent.

The increase in grocery store sales may be associated with multiple reports of panic buying amid fears of shortages and lockdowns due to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

“In general consumer spending is going to look about as bad as it has ever been, although there will be some categories of resilience,” said Tim Quinlan, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina. “The panic buying at grocery stores cannot offset the retrenchment in spending that we will see in other categories.”

An employee wearing a mask rings up a customer’s purchase at a store in Chicago, Illinois, on April 8, 2020. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images)

Compared to March 2019, overall retail sales in March 2020 fell by 6.2 percent. The report also revised February retail sales figures upwards by 0.1 percentage points, which now show a drop of 0.4 percent compared to January sales.

Percent change in retail and food services sales from previous month, from advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for March 2020. (U.S. Census Bureau)

Economists have made bleak predictions for consumer spending in the second quarter, with estimates as low as a 41 percent rate of decline, Reuters reported.

The dismal forecasts come despite a historic $2.2 trillion fiscal package, replete with stimulus checks for families and relief for businesses.

Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

Employees of a supermarket wear face protection as they disinfect a shopping trolley in Vienna on April 6, 2020. (Roland Schlager/APA/AFP/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve released industrial production and capacity utilization figures on April 15 (pdf), which show a month-over-month drop of over 5 percent.

“Total industrial production fell 5.4 percent in March, as the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic led many factories to suspend operations late in the month,” the Fed stated, referring to a month-over-month drop.

The data also shows that manufacturing output fell by 6.3 percent, with the motor vehicles and parts category posting the biggest fall of 27.2 percent.

Reuters contributed to this report.

What Will Change After the Virus Crisis?

Will the “New World Order” really just go gently into that good night?

April 15, 2020 

Bruce Thornton

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

We’ve reached that point in the Wuhan pandemic when we start talking about how the world will change after the crisis passes. The impact on everything from the media to globalism is being reassessed, and prognostications about the future, both good and bad, are being promulgated. But those hoping for improvement are likely to be disappointed, just as those who said “this changes everything” were after the terrorist attacks on 9/ll. To quote Adam Smith, “there is a lot of ruin in a nation,” as stubborn inertia created by entrenched vested interests and received wisdom protect the status quo.

The media’s performance during the virus crisis has been par for the course in their unhinged zeal to damage the Trump administration, which has made the president’s attempt to handle the crisis even more difficult. From claims that Trump called the outbreak a “hoax,” to accusations that his comments about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine were “snake oil,” the media have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on their usual repertoire of fake “facts,” anonymous leaks, bought-and-paid-for “experts,” dishonest editing, and outright lies––even to the point of impeding treatment that might save lives.

Worse yet, they have reinforced China’s propaganda about the origins of the virus and the regime’s claim of great success in fighting it. Indeed, the media have become so shameless that they contradict their own statements in a few weeks or even days––telling the public the virus wasn’t serious, then criticizing Trump for not taking it serious enough while they hysterically portrayed it as the end of times.

One would think that such blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy might lead to reform, particularly given plummeting numbers of viewers and being ranked last in polls about the trustworthiness of public institutions. Not a chance. The degeneration of the media is irreversible, for it has been corrupt for decades now in its partisan biases. In the Sixties, the bias became more open in the coverage of the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Their disdain for conservatives was obvious in their treatment of Republican presidents from Nixon to Reagan to both Bushes.

But it became blatant during the two terms of Barack Obama, when all pretenses to objectivity and balance were dropped in the media’s refusal to vet him as a candidate and their unwillingness to report his failures in both domestic and foreign policy, not to mention their embarrassing sycophancy and lapdog groveling. The candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump pushed them over the edge, but they had been dancing on it for a long time.

Given how deeply this professional malfeasance has penetrated the industry, it is beyond shame and reform. Indeed, their coverage of the Wuhan virus outbreak is laying down yet another fake predicate like Russia “collusion” and Ukrainian “quid pro quo” for their upcoming one-sided, partisan coverage of the presidential election.

Next, our relationship with China seems ripe for a transformation. There is no doubt that China’s cover-up of the outbreak last December turned it into a pandemic. Charles Lipson in Real Clear Politics succinctly summarized China’s misdeeds:

The Chinese Communist Party, like all dictatorships, maintains tight control over information. It gives out only what helps the regime, hides whatever hurts it, spews propaganda, and cracks down on anyone who speaks out of turn. The Wuhan doctors who first sounded the alarm bells were immediately silenced. Science labs, which decoded the viral structure, were shut down and their data destroyed. China still won’t share vital information about how the virus works and how it affects different populations. Reporters, both professional and amateur, who mentioned the pandemic were suppressed. Some international reporters were expelled. Some locals have not been seen again.

And China lied about person-to-person infection, corrupted the World Health Organization, and is still reporting dishonest numbers of dead and infected in China.

But why should we now be shocked about the nature of a totalitarian, thuggish regime? For all its gleaming skyscrapers and gigantic economy, its leaders are still Orwellian in their control of the government, and its censorship and intense surveillance of its citizens. Plus, China still occupies Tibet, violates international law in the South China Sea, ignores international tribunals that condemn their behavior, and has imprisoned about a million Muslim Uighurs, trying to brainwash them out of their faith––crimes against the “rules-based international order” whose champions only occasionally and feebly mention these offenses. In fact, China was recently rewarded with a seat on the Human Rights Council even as the pandemic they created still rages.

So, will unleashing a global pandemic that has taken hundreds of thousands lives and seriously damaged the world’s economies be the final offense that ignites a change in our relationship with Beijing? Probably not. American businesses from tech to Hollywood to the NBA have done good business with China, taking advantage of its cheap labor and huge market, and acquiescing to the regime’s illiberal and mercantilist demands. Indeed, business has been so good that China’s violations of international protocols such as those of the World Trade Organization, including illegal dumping of products, the theft of intellectual property, and weaponizing of companies like 5G provider Huawei, have been ignored.

These economic ties and dependencies are deeply implicated in the West’s economies, and attempts to reform them are stoutly resisted, as we have seen with the heated criticism of Trump’s tariffs war and attempts to force China to play by the rules. Even now, despite China’s malign role in creating the pandemic, we hear calls for increasing cooperation with China, rather than holding it to account, coming from the Davoisie in business, academe, and government agencies.

Finally, the problem of China is at the center of criticisms of globalism or “moralizing internationalism” or the “rules-based international order.” The long-developing return of repressed nationalism is evident in the election of Donald Trump and his “America First” credo;

Brexit and the election of the Eurosceptic Boris Johnson as Prime Minister; the success of other populist/nationalist parties in Europe; the rapid violation of the once-sacred Schengen Zone and return to national border controls, and the pushback against the transnational EU and Eurozone financial regimes that has been strengthened by the pandemic and its exorbitant cost.

Exhibit one, however, in the indictment of globalism is China’s role in the pandemic, which has starkly exposed the internationalist delusions about the power of free global trade and transnational institutions and covenants to create the old Kantian dream of the peace and prosperity that would follow from lessening the power and influence of sovereign nations by subordinating them to technocratic global elites. China’s involvement in trade with the West, its growing GDP, and its membership in the World Trade Organization have not transformed it into a liberal democracy  and truly free market economy.

Rather, China’s predatory economy and oppressive government have merely proved yet again the fundamental flaw of globalism: believing that all the world’s people want to be like us and enjoy freedom and prosperity, rather than to pursue their own interests and beliefs radically different from ours. The globalists have confused the potential for the peoples of the world to become like us, with the inevitability that they eventually will.

We’ve had over a century of empirical evidence that the foundational assumptions of the “rules-based international order” are flawed. The serial failures of international agreements and institutions from the First Hague Convention of 1899 to the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 that created the EU, from the League of Nations to the United Nations, are ample evidence that diverse peoples with diverse, often conflicting identities and aims based on custom, mores, religious beliefs, and traditions are not so eager to abandon them and become Westerners.

Of course, given the outsized power and global reach of the West, those peoples will make a pretense of endorsing our liberal notions and use the vocabulary of human rights and political freedom.  And they like our antibiotics and advanced weaponry. But they join transnational institutions like the UN or sign multilateral treaties like the WTO not because they believe in the principles those institutions supposedly embody, but because they find them useful for pursuing their own particular aims and interests often inimical to our own. Just witness WHO’s eagerness to do China’s bidding and confirm its egregious propaganda campaign to shift the blame from its own responsibility for the outbreak.

Given that long record of failures followed by even greater expansion of the “rules-based international order” since the end of the Cold War, it’s unlikely that the Wuhan virus will lead to a significant rollback of that order’s reach and power. Too many powerful interests are served by it––corporations, popular culture, high culture, universities, think-tanks, journalists, and the whole global technocratic elite that fancies itself superior to the parochial citizens of diverse nations. And don’t forget, we the people have become hooked on cheap goods.

I hope I’m wrong, because the reckoning due for China and its globalists enablers is a consummation devoutly to be wished. And if the current economic disaster worsens, we may see a critical mass of voters demand that at least the U.S. as much as possible decouple economically from China. Or we may see a reaction much more sinister and dangerous. But either way, the “new world order,” as George Bush senior called it, will not go gently into that good night.