Socialism, Republican Style

[vientomas]

Article written April 15, 2020. Our "ally" Saudi Arabia, and our enemy Putin, consipred to crush the shale industry. And...this was pre-covid. Add a dash of pandemic and all bets are off.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Many-Shale-Companies-Are-Already-On-The-Brink-Of-Bankruptcy.html

Who said Trump's playing 3 dimensional chess? Trump's playing checkers and getting his milk money stolen from him by the smart kids while he is wearing a "kick me" sign on his back. Pathetic.

[wsurfer]

Quote from the Art of the Deal:

Most people are surprised by the way I work. I play it very loose. I don’t carry a briefcase. I try not to schedule too many meetings. I leave my door open. You can’t be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you’ve got too much structure. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops.

It seems as though this is how he approaches his Presidency as well

[mac]

Trump’s increasingly desperate efforts to try to “boost” the economy so he can be reelected are doomed because most people can see that he hasn’t managed the pandemic well enough to make consumers confident. As the immediate benefits of the CARES Act are exhausted (or given to the Catholic Church and Mitch’s wife’s family), we will start to see an accelerating series of foreclosures in the commercial real estate, hotel, and residential markets.

The delusions of the right wingers here that Trump has managed this are only amusing in a sick sort of way. The economic tsunami is on its way.

[vientomas]

Es no bien:

Delinquencies among borrowers for past-due mortgages are soaring, a sign that Americans are struggling to pay their bills amid a wave of layoffs and lost income from the coronavirus pandemic.

Mortgage delinquencies surged by 1.6 million in April, the largest single-month jump in history, according to a report from Black Knight, a mortgage technology and data provider. The data includes both homeowners past due on mortgage payments who aren’t in forbearance, along with those in forbearance plans and who didn’t make a mortgage payment in April.

At 6.45%, the national delinquency rate nearly doubled from 3.06% in March, the largest single-month increase recorded, and nearly three times the prior record for a single month during the height of the financial crisis in late 2008, Black Knight said.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/05/21/coronavirus-mortgage-delinquencies-surge-1-6-m-april/5231835002/

[vientomas]

Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps?

Between 2006 and 2014, about 10 million Americans lost their homes to the foreclosure crisis. Today, upwards of 20 million U.S. renters are poised to be evicted between now and September, according to Emily Benfer, the chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force Committee on Eviction.

At present, the impending flood of evictions is partially dammed by a federal moratorium that covers one-fourth of all renters, the $600 federal unemployment insurance bonus, and the recent dispersion of $1,200 coronavirus relief checks. But even with these protections, a great many renters are being washed out of their homes while millions more accrue onerous debts. Roughly one-third of U.S. households have not made their full housing payments for July, according to a survey by the online retail platform Apartment List. In New York City, one-quarter of all renters haven’t paid their landlords since March.

This is in part because fiscal aid has not reached everyone in need (many state unemployment insurance systems have failed to keep pace with applications; many workers do not qualify for federal unemployment benefits; and others were reliant on informal work), and the federal moratorium on evictions does not cover most renters. But it is also because the federal moratorium doesn’t actually have an enforcement mechanism. Fifteen states have passed legislation requiring landlords to verify that their buildings aren’t covered by the federal ban before seeking to remove their tenants. In all other states, the obligation lies with the tenant, which is to say a renter must verify that their building is covered by the moratorium and prove it in court.

People facing eviction do not generally have much disposable income available to cover legal bills; in fact, many struggle to muster the data or internet connection necessary for attending the videoconference hearings that have taken the place of eviction courts throughout much of the country.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/coronavirus-recession-evictions-crisis-congress.html