This crisis should finally make everybody realize that there needs to be self-sufficiency for EVERY individual and the country. We must decouple our manufacturing reliance on other countries, to the greatest extent possible, and fully develop our economic infrastructure to produce in our homeland.
Collapsing Consumer Demand
As the pandemic spreads, people are being instructed to "shelter in place" and practice physical "social distancing," with the result being the economy is shutting down. Small- and medium-sized businesses, especially in the retail and service industries, are without customers and being forced to close their doors, not sure they can reopen anytime soon, if at all.
The outlook is precarious for businesses closed by the pandemic -- they will not just magically re-appear after the pandemic. With the disappearance of customers, businesses are being forced to lay off workers, or entire staffs through no fault of their own. This especially impacts service sector work that is a large part of the economy. Landlords face a wave of missed rent payments from tenants who were ordered by public officials to lock their doors to slow the rate of infection transmitted by gatherings of customers and workers. As a lot of small- and medium-sized businesses are essentially wiped out, not to recover, our economy will be much different afterwards.
With workers being separated from their workplaces, consumers from shopping malls, diners from restaurants, travelers from airlines, cruises, hotels and resorts and much more, the economy is becoming comatose. With fear widespread, people are going into survival mode.
The collapse of consumer demand and spending also is spreading and deepening rapidly in national industries. Demand for travel-related spending, leisure, out-of-home entertainment, etc. has been impacted. Except for healthcare, consumer demand for personal services and pastime diversions has ground to a halt.
Along with brick-and-mortar malls and merchants, which have been forced to close, restaurants and storefront services also have shut down and are deserted. Social entertainment is suspended everywhere. Even grocery stores, an essential sector of the economy, are experiencing empty shelves, and consumption in basic necessities is precarious.
Decline in demand also is impacting businesses that set up higher-skilled employees to work from their homes. They are furloughing workers as sales revenue plummets. This includes business services and professional workers such as lawyers, architects, consultants, advertising professionals, software specialists, and workers in financial services, real estate, media and telecommunications, audio-video electronics, entertainment-production and post-production, and other industries where it is feasible for employees to work from home. Increasingly, demand and revenue for these business sectors is declining and is not enough to sustain employee pay and pay for basic operational obligations their facilities require, such as rent, building and grounds maintenance, utilities, equipment leases, etc.
A report from the Commerce Department showed retail sales- and food services-spending dropped 8.7 percent in March, a new record as consumers reined in spending. This is more than two times worse than the previous record drop of 3.9 percent in November 2008. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP).
Bankruptcies will soar in the coming months because of the way our economy has been completely disrupted since February.
Education has been driven to online resources and home-schooling, but not all families have the resources and materials necessary to cope.
Online purchasing is now developing huge backlog and delivery problems. Online consumer behavior is frenetic and online shopping is sure to permanently gain an even bigger share of buyers' purchases, while surviving store merchants and their employees experience darker times.
Our interstate distribution trucking system, which everyone relies upon, could easily be threatened as truckers grow increasingly susceptible to infection due to their work conditions. Without truckers, merchants will be unable to receive merchandise and food.
Services provided by state and local government are declining as tax revenue plunges, requiring necessary worker furloughs and other cost reductions.
Precaution is the new norm.
Unemployment
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