I was sleeping and a 4.2 earthquake woke me up at 4:30AM. I live in Los Angeles. So I’ve been watching the news and I just heard about another earthquake;
Q2 GDP: US economy contracted by worst-ever 32.9% in Q2, crushed by coronavirus lockdowns
At 32.9%, the second-quarter annualized contraction marked by far the worst plunge ever recorded, based on Bureau of Economic Analysis data spanning back to 1947. Before the pandemic, the worst GDP print on record was in the first quarter of 1958, when GDP fell 10.0% on an annualized basis.
This is actually worse than I expected when I started scratching my head about an upcoming “economy implosion” months ago.
Let’s call it a magnitude 9 (as big as they get) economy earthquake.
What happens next is anyone’s guess but it reminds me of the 6.9 “big one” back in 1994 when I woke up in the air because it made all of Los Angeles jump. People died, freeways (a few blocks away) fell to the ground and then some.
But this economy earthquake is relatively much worse.
Massive number of evictions? Joblessness worse than the Great Depression? Riots in the streets?
We are in uncharted waters, in a storm, with a nutcase at the helm and we just got hit by a tsunami.
Certainly tRump has to and will go in Jan 20, 2021 but I propose that the Democratic party forms an emergency war room because we are at war in real time and we need a plan to get out of this hole we are falling in. No standard operating procedures will work. We need new ideas and leadership now.
If money does not get in the hands of consumers/workers/people NOW we may go into a nightmare.
Hanging in there and crossing my fingers and toes and putting on a mask.
Update
Wall Street seems to have felt it too (they can’t ignore a 9.0). From The Street just now;
GDP data shows the biggest collapse on record for the three months ending in June, with the Commerce Department estimating a an annualized contraction of -32.9%.