What to do about China:https://townhall.com/
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Small-town America: 'One bad season away from bankrupt'
By Salena Zito
OHIOPYLE-
“Pandemics are not the only forces that have taken a toll on this town. When the automobile came, it died a little death. When the state park came, the core of its community was elbowed out of generations of living and working, and it died another little death.
Culture, too, has toyed with its fortunes. What the baby-boom generation did to boost this town with its thrill-seeking on the Youghiogheny, millennials and Gen Z have taken away — visits for guided raft trips on the Youghiogheny declined by 40% in the past decade and a half.
The Great Allegheny Passage has certainly helped. The iconic bike trail connects Pittsburgh to Cumberland, with Ohiopyle in the middle. It also helps that Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural masterpiece, is less than 10 minutes away.
Inside Marietta’s shop, she explains that she has a map that marks where every customer who walks through her door comes from. “Last year, we had visitors from 48 states and 58 countries.” But she is worried for the future. “This whole town is one bad season away from bankrupt.”
Click here for the full story.
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“Pandemics are not the only forces that have taken a toll on this town. When the automobile came, it died a little death. When the state park came, the core of its community was elbowed out of generations of living and working, and it died another little death.
Culture, too, has toyed with its fortunes. What the baby-boom generation did to boost this town with its thrill-seeking on the Youghiogheny, millennials and Gen Z have taken away — visits for guided raft trips on the Youghiogheny declined by 40% in the past decade and a half.
The Great Allegheny Passage has certainly helped. The iconic bike trail connects Pittsburgh to Cumberland, with Ohiopyle in the middle. It also helps that Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural masterpiece, is less than 10 minutes away.
Inside Marietta’s shop, she explains that she has a map that marks where every customer who walks through her door comes from. “Last year, we had visitors from 48 states and 58 countries.” But she is worried for the future. “This whole town is one bad season away from bankrupt.”
Click here for the full story.
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Stealing the Election in Plain SightIf you were still harboring naïve notions of free and fair elections when Democrats are involved, perhaps this will help disabuse you of those fantasies. More
Julie Kelly, American Greatness
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Julie Kelly, American Greatness
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I would like to repeat that I do not believe we are on the cusp of inflation. I am sure inflation will come but there is not enough current demand and we have enough goods to meet whatever demand is there. What I do believe is, we are experiencing the largest wealth transfer ever in the shortest period of time.Corporate America is the winner and the individual middle class proprietor is the loser.
This will have a radical impact on how our republic functions from this time forward and America will never be the same and I fear China will be the winner.
Now that government has become the economy rest assured bureaucrats will fight to retain their dominance, power and control.
I pray I am wrong but I do not see a V recovery particularly if this pandemic has a recurrence in the Fall.I tend to agree with Kessler. Also, part of the reason is the government is not getting the money they are distributing in time and, as one would expect, big government is failing to deliver as promised.
But a fishing line down should mean a Polaris missile right back up, right? President Trump has even said the post-virus economy will take off “like a rocket ship.” That’s the essence of a V-shaped recovery. If we’d had a two-week house arrest—three, at max—maybe a V it would be. The unemployed return to work, stores open, new cars crank out and voilà, just like old times. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. Sad, because a short lockdown could have been enough to scare the corona out of us, instilling enough fear that we self-enforce social distancing, wear masks, distrust strangers. Mission accomplished weeks ago
What Shape Will the Rebound Take?
Don’t count on a V-shaped recovery. Up, down, up and then flat is more likely, alas. By Andy Kessler
For all us former at-home meteorologists turned self-appointed epidemiologists, predicting everything from barely a flu to an epidemic apocalypse of infection rates and ventilator shortages, I’ve got some good news. As the corona clampdown is (please) coming to an end, there’s a new parlor game sweeping the nation. Now, as newly minted armchair economists, we all get to predict the shape and span of the economic recovery. You’re in luck: I’ve got your buzzword-compliant cheat sheet and a few tips, sure to impress your isolation circle and both flatter and flatten their curves.
OK, we’ve clearly fallen off a cliff. There have been 26 million new unemployment claims in the past five weeks. The jobs chart looks like someone dropped a fishing line in the water with a dead whale attached. Same for oil prices. This means the drop in second-quarter gross domestic product will be . . . well, nobody knows exactly. Estimates are still in flux. Sixty economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal predicted an annualized decline of 25% on average, which works out to about 7% for the quarter alone.
But a fishing line down should mean a Polaris missile right back up, right? President Trump has even said the post-virus economy will take off “like a rocket ship.” That’s the essence of a V-shaped recovery. If we’d had a two-week house arrest—three, at max—maybe a V it would be. The unemployed return to work, stores open, new cars crank out and voilà, just like old times. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. Sad, because a short lockdown could have been enough to scare the corona out of us, instilling enough fear that we self-enforce social distancing, wear masks, distrust strangers. Mission accomplished weeks ago
Now there’s no going back. With airplanes idle, hotels empty, theaters going bust, stores like Neiman Marcus threatening chapter 11 and oil going subzero last week, all signs suggest serious damage to the economy.
So many economists now think we’re in for a U-shaped recovery. It’s the next one down the list, though not a bad bet. But there are lots of different types of U shapes. The letter U. Then there’s the Miami Hurricanes’ “The U” hand signal with a little more time in the basement. And for true pessimists, there’s the bathtub with a long time underwater before emerging. Short sellers like to talk about L-shaped recoveries, meaning things will never come back—but ignore them. Still, any of these U’s are possible.
But economies often don’t recover symmetrically. That’s why some talk about a hockey stick: short down slope, long up slope that keeps going and going. For those who like to brand their recoveries, there’s always the Nike swoosh. Just do it. I say get air like Michael Jordan before it really is the last dance.
Even if lockdowns ease, few shoppers will show up, then stores stop paying rent and reordering goods, mortgage payments are missed, banks start writing down bad loans or even go under, holders of collateralized debt start to fail, and the Fed stays in bailout mode. Dominoes fall and lots of people and businesses get hurt. Call it pandemic pandemonium. A financial system on the verge of collapse means a W-shaped, as in Wuhan, recovery—one that grows in fits and starts, two steps forward, one step back. Actually, if we’re locked down until June we could see, to borrow an acronym, a WWW-shaped recovery.
And what do I think? U? V? W? X, as in none? I’m glad you asked. Forget letters—the engineer in me thinks we’ll see a square root recovery: up, down, up and then flat. In other words, after hurling the economy off a cliff, we may see a short, sharp rebound comeback, the proverbial dead-cat bounce, and then basically a flatline, with zero to 2% GDP growth until the damage is assessed and the debt dominoes start to clear.
Policy matters. The yo-yo stock market just performed the double feat of an insta-bear 37% drop followed by an up-26% insta-bull. It’s confused. Provide some clarity by ending the work disincentive of unemployment benefits that exceed pay. Don’t shovel stimulus money like manure on a garden, but instead encourage businesses to hire and expand with targeted tax breaks that last a few years. We don’t have a bottomless well of stimulus funds. Deregulate by default.
It’s time to ease the economic suicide of lockdowns. Open stores, even if it means no shirt, no mask, no service. Fear and loathing are already the norm, so social distancing is here to stay. The faster we get back to an uptrend, the faster we make up for lost time. Wealth and well-being compound, and any time we’re not growing—no matter what shape—hurts society from bottom to top.
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