This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog.
This economic downturn is turning out to be far deeper and far more severe than most experts were originally anticipating. More than 22 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment benefits, and economists are telling us that the U.S. economy is contracting at the fastest rate that we have seen since the Second World War.
We are already starting to see some high profile companies move toward bankruptcy, but the real story is what is happening to thousands upon thousands of small and mid-size businesses because of the lockdowns. Many of them were barely surviving even before this pandemic, and now these lockdowns have delivered a death blow.
The restaurant industry is a perfect example. Prior to the pandemic, there were more than a million restaurants in the United States, and about half of them were independent. Those independent restaurants employed approximately 11 million workers, and now the vast majority of those workers have been laid off.
Once the lockdowns are over, it would be wonderful if all of those independent restaurants would spring back to life, but the results of a recent survey suggest that simply is not going to happen. In fact, that survey found that 28 percent of all independent restaurants are probably not going to survive if the lockdowns last for another month…
A survey released Thursday by the James Beard Association found independent restaurants laid off 91% of their hourly employees and nearly 70% of salaried employees as of April 13 – double-digit increases in both categories since March. The poll of 1,400 small and independent restaurants found 38% of have closed temporarily or permanently, and 77% have seen their sales drop in half or worse.
Perhaps most troubling: 28% of restaurants said they don’t believe they can survive another month of closure, and only 1 out of 5 are certain they can sustain their businesses until normal operations can resume.
28 percent of 500,000 is 140,000, and so if these lockdowns are not lifted soon we could be facing a scenario is which tens of thousands of independent restaurants are lost forever.
Of course, a lot of restaurants that do reopen will face a really tough struggle because the fear of the coronavirus is going to keep customers away for the foreseeable future. So even if all of the lockdowns were lifted tomorrow, the restaurant industry would still not fully recover.
Sadly, the same could be said for the fitness industry. In fact, we just learned that one of the biggest fitness chains in the nation is getting ready to file for bankruptcy…
Gym chain 24 Hour Fitness is working with advisors at investment bank Lazard and law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges to weigh options including a bankruptcy that could come as soon as the next few months, people familiar with the matter tell CNBC.
The chain is grappling with a heavy debt load, deteriorating performance and a coronavirus pandemic that forced it to shut its more than 400 clubs.
Yes, a certain segment of the population is quite eager to resume all of their normal pre-pandemic activities, but even a 20 or 30 percent drop off in revenue will be fatal for many gyms.
And the truth is that a lot of people are simply not going to be in the mood to share exercise equipment with others for a long time to come.
The entertainment, tourism, and retail industries have also been hit extremely hard by this pandemic. The other day I was quite stunned when I learned that Neiman Marcus “is reportedly ready to file bankruptcy”…
Neiman Marcus Group, one of the largest retailers in the United States, is reportedly ready to file bankruptcy amid the COVD-19 pandemic after defaulting millions in bond payments last week and furloughing 14,000 employees.
Neiman Marcus would become the first major US department store to crumble amidst the economic set backs from the coronavirus outbreak.
No, things are definitely not going to be returning to “normal” in America, and there will be a lot more big corporate names among the victims in the days to come.
At this point, even some of the most prominent corporations in the entire country are “indefinitely” sidelining their workers…
Indefinite furloughs began this weekend for more than 100,000 Disney, Best Buy and CarMax workers as businesses make cuts to survive the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent mandatory closures.
But most Americans are not in any position to handle “indefinite furloughs”.
In fact, one survey discovered that a whopping 50 percent of all Americans will run through their savings “by the end of April”…
One of the largest concerns on most homeowners minds right now is how they are going to pay bills — specifically their monthly mortgage payments. 50% of Americans reported their savings will run out by the end of April. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, 30% of homeowners had less than $1,000 in an emergency fund, with 22% reporting they didn’t have enough in savings to cover their mortgage payment for one month.
Just like during the last recession, countless numbers of Americans will go from living a comfortable middle-class lifestyle to being desperately needy in just a matter of weeks.
I have been writing a lot about the absolutely massive lines that we have been seeing at food banks all over the nation, and we just witnessed another example in Miami. In one of the wealthiest areas of the entire city, vehicles were lined up for a mile as people waited patiently to receive handouts from a local food bank…
Talk about a Norman Rockwell painting idea come to life — a parade of cars filled with hungry people in Miami … smack dab in the middle of two of the city’s ritziest hotels.
Check out this surreal scene down in Miami Beach, where a MILE-long line of cars were arranged in a giant U-curve in between the W Hotel and Setai Hotel — two of MB’s most high-end go-to spots for celebrity out-of-towners … like Kim K, Justin Bieber and more.
You can see photos from that event right here, and if you look closely you will see that some of those vehicles are quite nice.
As I have warned so many times over the years if you don’t have any sort of a financial cushion you can “suddenly” find yourself in a whole lot of trouble when disaster finally strikes.
Unfortunately, we have now entered a time when there will be one crisis after another, and every new crisis will significantly escalate our woes.
For a very long time, there have been very loud warnings that our debt-fueled economic bubble would burst, and now it has happened.
The road ahead is going to be filled with immense pain, and most Americans are not going to be able to handle it.
About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations, I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and anyway that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with all many people as we possibly can.
peelowsee will single-handedly keep jeni’s in business
While businesses around the world are in collapse, China is sending in buyers with cash to snatch up the bargains? These people are just predators.
In Africa where Chinese have a foot hold, Africans pay twice as much in rent on Chinese owned properties.
Been reading a lot, this disease looks to be incurable. Get it and it’s like Hepatitis-C or Shingles, it will hide reemerge over and over, until it kills you. There is no data.
When the Chinese, CDC, NIH etc were studying SARS (also a Coronavirus); they needed a place to grow the virus. They found pig testicles worked perfectly. The virus took over the cells that make sperm and use it to flood the host with virus.
Now Coronavirus pops up, and it disproportionately kills men. Anyone want to guess what human organ Coronavirus uses to amplify itself to kill men.
Minor side effect of men infected with even minor cases of Coronavirus, they seem to end up sterile.
We are living a end of days horror movie. Any young men out there with an IQ of over a 120, have some sperm frozen for the future, before you get infected. It may be worth more than gold.
Damn this was never on any preppers list anywhere that I can ever remember. Save sperm, a pandemic may kill all humans via sterility……
This isn’t going away, it isn’t getting better, getting herd immunity, if that is even possible, may result in sterilization of nearly all men. If they create a vaccine, will it just be a weakened version, that will grow where in the human body?
If this comes down to a battle by population, looking for that tiny group that have magic immunity, then likely China will win. This disease seems to already like to attack people with type A blood, what was the blood type of the pigs testicles it grew best in……..
Does India even know there is a competition.
Latest rumor, anyone who ever got a flu shot, yup you will test positive for COVID-19 even if you never got it. Interesting coincidence. Seems they may have been spiking flu shots.
Agree: we have been completely misled and deceived about this virus. They have gradually trickled the truth out to psychologically prepare people for the bad news. Remember when they said “it’s just the flu”? Seems like a million years ago now.
1) There will be no vaccine because this thing mutates and is designed to mutate, or gain function. That means a vaccine can never work because a vaccine is very specific to the particular virus, not one that keeps mutating. The only reason there is so many pharma companies chasing a vaccine is money. They can get lots of money for research even if it goes nowhere. They still haven’t come up with an HIV vaccine and this one is way harder.
2) Was this thing designed by a woman (Shi Zhengli)? Because it certainly hates on men. See the film Children of Men because that is what we are living through.
We are witnessing the death of America’s ‘obesity economy’. Everything in America’s current economy is focused on obesity. From fattening people up with fat food, to eating at fat restaurants, to the healthcare industry that makes money off of Americans from the health problems related to obesity (diabetes, cancer, heart diseases, etc.).
Most jobs in America are currently ‘obesity’ jobs. Good riddance to see them go. What will emerge after will be ‘lean’ jobs and a ‘lean’ economy. A lean economy will no longer have the wealth to support all the obese people, the vast numbers of obese black people.
To be blunt, these people will die in large numbers. It might be from the ‘Rona’ or it will just be from the complications of untreated obesity, but gone they will be.
In time, when the President re-starts immigration, the people hired will be skinny, smart people from Europe and Asia. They will re-populate America with a smart, nimble population. As for the obesity epoch, that will be for historians to write about just like they write about other freakish times in history. People will marvel at full colour pictures of obese black women and wonder how anyone found them attractive, people waddling around WalMart in ugly clothes and with corpulent bodies.
Smart asians (orientals) aren’t moving to the west. The only “asians” america will continue to get is low i.q brown asians from south east asian countries. This country is already filled with useless eaters from all over the planet, especially from latin american countries. The country is pretty much gone at this point.
Sadly, I think you are right. We had a window to attract the most beautiful and smart Asians and that window may now have closed.
All the more for Canada and Scandinavia if they can lose the addiction to Islam.
Frank seems to have found the silver lining? except there are just a many obese white wigger water buffalo hefers at Wally World.
“People will marvel at full colour pictures of obese black women and wonder how anyone found them attractive, people waddling around WalMart in ugly clothes and with corpulent bodies.”
The thing that I am most both amazed and made to feel extremely queasy about – when I spot these black water buffalo heifers in Wallymart – is how they will always have 2 or 3 little black crumb crunchers in tow.
I always ask myself – what sort of male creature who was put on this Earth by Mother Nature – could manage to jimmy up the necessary level of ‘enthusiasm’ and then be able to maintain that ‘enthusiasm’ long enough to impregnate a 450 lb water buffalo heifer like those I see in Wallymart?
My thoughts too! Where is the sex drive to chase that??
I can certainly understand male attraction to European, Asian and Latino women, but obese, EBT mamas? Nope.
Enough with the race crap. Wake up.
How about if CEO’s of pharmaceutical companies and labs were arrested for shipping their tests to China in order to get around the safe guards in place in our country? They have the Chinese create a virus so the labs here can use the info to make a mandatory vaccine for the world. Billions! They’re gonna make billions! If they don’t kill us off first. And eventually, there will be that one mistake, that one virus, that’s does. It’s only a matter of time.
As a note of introduction, I took time to thoughtfully read each of your comments. Please be open, considerate and show me the same respect.
I’m not new to this site, as I began reading around 2007, but have recently returned after not viewing regularly in quite some time. As a result of monitoring this site and being observant to conditions around me, I’d classify me in the “mild” prepper range (six months of food storage and such). Respectfully, I’d classify myself as better prepared than most.
While I believe the articles on this site are sound in wisdom and practical in advice, the comments you’re leaving IMHO make you sound like unintelligent, racist hicks (with all due respect).
We should all look out for one another, be considerate of the fact that each person in our respective communities has unique circumstances they’re dealing with and try to provide positive, constructive feedback as it relates to each article posted, hitch is meant to advise and inform the readers.
Please know that abusive name calling and the generalization of specific ethnic groups makes those that comment appear petty, inconsiderate and above all ignorant.
In times of crisis, I would hope that our common goal would be to educate and not berate and make those in a less fortunate position feel less worthy or disrespected. Food for thought and something I believe we all need to contemplate. Stay safe.
Texas Gal: Thank you for your comment. You are like a breath of fresh air. Too much character assassination going on these days. This country has a lot more critical problems. Nice to see thoughtful and insightful commentary.
Texas Gal: Don’t know if the reply I sent went through, but I wanted to thank you for your respectful and insightful remarks.
Thanks again