Unemployment Soars To 14.7%

May 8, 2020 Hunter Wallace Economy, Health 21

Every angle of this medical catastrophe is going to be devastating.

CNBC:

“The impact of the coronavirus-induced economic shutdown tore through the U.S. labor market in April at historic levels, slashing 20.5 million workers from nonfarm payrolls and sending the unemployment rate skyrocketing to 14.7%, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Both numbers easily smashed post-World War II era records and help reflect the profound damage done through efforts used to combat the virus.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting payrolls to shed 21.5 million and the unemployment rate to go to 16%. April’s unemployment rate topped the post-war record 10.8% but was short of the Great Depression high estimated at 24.9%. The financial crisis peak was 10% in October 2009. …”

The cause of this is the virus.

It is the virus that has thrown a curve ball that has altered history.

It is an immutable physical reality which cannot be downplayed or ignored. When I tried to imagine the 2020s, I didn’t anticipate the virus much less that it would come this soon.

COVID-19 isn’t a black swan event. It is a gray rhino: a highly probable, high impact yet neglected threat. The federal government has always known that a pandemic was the only existential threat to the United States that was capable of destroying America’s way of life.

There are other gray rhinos out there which we have long imagined waiting to cause enormous destruction. A short list would include a megadrought in the American Southwest, the “Big One” finally hitting Los Angeles and the tsunami which will one day hit the Pacific Northwest. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was our last gray rhino. We always knew a major hurricane would hit New Orleans. A major asteroid strike like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs is a gray rhino on a longer time scale.

The American system has failed us. Liberalism chafes at any type of authority, regulation, restrictions or natural inequality. The open society is the ideal petri dish for a highly infectious virus to flourish. Capitalism is hopelessly biased toward individualism and short term profit. Democracy is also hopelessly biased toward the next election cycle. The system is incapable of planning to meet known long term threats. This is why our country was so uniquely blind and unprepared for this disaster.

Gray rhinos as imagined by Hollywood:

EARTHQUAKE

COMET/ASTEROID STRIKE

PANDEMIC

About Hunter Wallace 12392 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

20 Comments

  2. Bullshit. It is the RESPONSE to the virus, not the virus, that is destryong the economy. We’ve been through worse. Much much worse.

    • This is hilariously untrue.

      The economy has been destroyed by the shift in public behavior caused by the virus. As I said in the other article, you could reopen everything right now, but reopeners are like 20% of the public. You can’t have the same economy with 20% of the population resuming their normal lives. That’s why the economy has crashed in Sweden which never had a lockdown.

    • If mitigation procedures had not been implemented, the virus would have spread at its natural exponential rate and mass panic would have resulted. The current situation is much better than the results of mass panic.

      The true failure is that mitigation was not started in early March. The great failure is Trump/gov not acting swiftly and choosing instead , the fantasy of wishful thinking.

      Still no masks, Mr. Trump ?

    • I was hoping one of the Democratic rainbow candidates would unknowingly adopt Fritz Reinhardt’s policies, relabel them “Democracy for the People!” or some other meaningless nonsense, and let Mean Mr. Mustache’s ideas save the country. The irony would’ve been so delicious.

  4. We could’ve had most businesses partially operating, beaches in CA still open and so on, if we would’ve not sent our manufacturing base to the Turd World. Having plentiful access to PPE and testing, like in South Korea, Taiwan, etc., would have made a huge difference. But globalism and corporatism is about profit now, slashing costs now, screw the workers and their families for muh portfolio now. Short-term, reflexive thinking redux.

    Politicians aren’t known for long-term perspectives either, so instead of giving people access to places like parks and other natural spaces in some states under sensible distancing guidelines (limit group sizes, park only in every other space, maintain 6 ft. distance from others in public areas like restrooms and communal dining spaces, etc., etc.), we have the myopic egomaniacs completely forbidding use of those services. Playing catch-up due to not doing any real emergency planning put all of us in this unfortunate position.

    I agreed with the focus on mitigation (partial quarantine, in this case) because of the lack of preparation here for public health emergencies, and believe such strategies can be adapted for similar situations in the future. There’s no good reason to put people through hell and endanger lives because “that’s how it is,” which is ignorant, callous and downright sociopathic. But the lack of financial protection for the plebes is putting many in a difficult position. For example, a friend of mine in CA had the virus due to working in health care. She also gave it to her preteen daughter. Both of them have other debilitating conditions like asthma, so their recovery was difficult and not assured, even though they’re younger. My friend’s employer kept threatening to fire her during the forced time off, which didn’t help. The employer (a huge health care company) has the ability to get millions in bailout money. My friend will get unemployment for awhile if she’s fired, but fall behind on rent and other basic expenses without her full pay. Regular people are put into the economic vise and squeezed hard under these trying circumstances.

    Basically, the elites have failed us through their lack of looking beyond their insatiable need for status and resources. That leaves us to argue over the wisdom or injustice of our “betters” and their actions, without having much effect on the outcome. In the end, we’re the ones paying for their stupidity, greed and short-sightedness.

      • Hunter you have made a few references to “the Open Society” in your blog from time to time. I believe it would be instructive to your readers for you to do a short review and commentary on the book, “The Open Society and it’s Enemies” by Karl Popper. Many do not realize how much he despised any form of nationalism or that George Soros loved Karl Popper and the book when Soros was his favorite student. (And both men are Jewish)

  6. Tia Leone was a cutie though. All that pouty blonde-Ness. Yum. While silly I liked that she sought out pa at the beach. Quite a touching death scene.

    • Indeed she is very attractive. Too bad she married and divorced that perv, Fox Mulder. What a waste of good DNA.

  7. The Yellowstone caldera finally letting loose …
    Is that grey rhino or black swan or three hundred days of darkeness…
    ?
    I’m repenting now regardless.

    En arche een ho logos…!

  8. The ironic thing is that America does have unity and authoritarianism when it comes to the cultural Marxist anti-white agenda. Take gay marriage for example.

  9. Gen X and the following generations are being sacrificed so that Wall St and the Boomers can be made whole.

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