U.S. economy shrank at record-breaking 33% last quarter, as 1.4M sought unemployment aid last week

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/30/u-s-economy-shrank-at-record.html

“The job market, the most important pillar of the economy, has been severely damaged. Tens of millions of jobs vanished in the recession.”

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[“Winning so much I’m tired of winning” anti-joke here]

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And yet the rich got more rich.

But the clock is ticking for them too.

“worst GDP reading on record”

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We’re number one in coronavirus, we’ve had the biggest economic contraction in US history. Those oldsters back in the last century wouldn’t believe the depression we’re gonna have, I can’t believe it myself. It’s gonna be huge.

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Usually I’m hesitant to pin macroeconomic disasters on presidents, but this is one of those cases where White House bungling made a bad situation significantly worse. The last time that happened was during the Hoover administration.

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But muh Dow Jones!

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At least we were able to pull through those mistakes with minimal suffering. That’s why they call it the Great Correction.

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This time, though, we don’t have anything close to an FDR waiting in the wings to not only clean things up but make them better for generations to come.

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And that’s just based on the information that’s actually been reported. A lot of states are suppressing a lot of data in hopes that the tide is going to break soon. I feel like President Biden will need to establish an independent commission to asses the actual health and economic impact. Unfortunately, we’ll probably get more mealy-mouthed “moving forward together” nonsense like we did post Great Bank Heist of the ‘10s.

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Well, if we can’t get an FDR to tide us over, is there at least a world war around the corner that can cripple the rest of the industrialized world for a decade or so and hyper-stimulate our economy? I see no down side.

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Remember kids - there’s no reason it had to be this bad. That’s the result of national policies coming from the White House. Something could have been done to prevent this - and you can do something to prevent more of this come the first Tuesday in November.

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MAGA…

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Just waiting for the next quarter showing more decline. The stock markets are just out of step with reality.

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Same as it ever was.

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https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FluidMammothBeaver-size_restricted.gif(image larger than 4096KB)

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Not true: U.S. economy shrank at record-breaking 33% last quarter
True: U.S. economy shrank at a shocking 33% annual rate

Please don’t confuse the two. They are very different.

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Thats like saying I died from being shot in the chest vs shot in the head

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Last month I went and read the transcripts of FDR’s fireside chats just to remind myself that yes, there have been US political leaders willing and able to communicate complex, unpleasant, necessary information on an ongoing basis to people who won’t easily understand it in a way that leads to positive outcomes and actions with less panic and uncertainty.

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I think Sanders has that same ability. It’s one of the reasons young people were drawn to him: he wasn’t condescending toward them and he wasn’t afraid to share hard truths about what’s going to happen if there aren’t serious changes made.

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I do not understand the market at all, and have been told that a few huge companies are supporting the valuation rigjht now. (Amazon, Google, etc are doing really well) I have to think that cannot go on, and when the economic reality hits, the crash will make 1929 look like a blip. But again, I don’t understand it at all.