Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Lost years

Well, I think we have all realized now there is not going to be any "normal" anymore. 
The hysterical "reopen, damn it!" marches across the continent were a cry of despair against the inevitable, but now I think the truth is sinking in.
There is going to be a new Depression across North America. 
Here's a thread about what we are facing:

Trump's mismanagement - his ignorance about testing, plus his inept and corrupt support programs --will result in successive waves of Covid outbreaks across the US all summer and fall, each one killing thousands more. Everyone will just try to stay home as much as possible, so the US economy will continue to decline. Meanwhile the US government will bankrupt itself as it fights a losing battle to try to shore up the stock markets, the only economic measure Trump thinks is important.
In nine months, Biden will take over, but by then it will be too late for the thousands of businesses and bars and restaurants that will go bankrupt by next fall, after a few miserable months of trying to reopen. The companies that survive will be the ones that continue to have their employees work from home. So the downtown office towers will be empty and the owners of commercial real estate will be going bankrupt too, not to mention everyone from window washers to the people who water office plants.  Farmers across the US will  be watching their restaurant markets disappear, and they won't be able to find immigrant workers to pick their crops. 
Canada's economy won't crash as badly, I don't think -- our more effective and better run federal support programs will cushion the blow a little better for us - but still, its not going to be pretty. The US border won't be reopening for a long time yet, and our biggest trading partner won't be buying nearly as much as they used to. Tourism will be a disaster, our oil and gas industries are in free fall, and we don't know who will be buying all our agricultural exports anymore either.
If we can avoid another Great Depression, we will be lucky, I think. 
Back in 1973, journalist Barry Broadfood published Ten Lost Years - he interviewed hundreds of people about their experiences during the Great Depression and put it all into a book, and for many Canadians, it was the first time we had ever really heard about what happened to ordinary people in Canada during the 1930s, that awful time.
I have been thinking about that book a lot lately.

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