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• Retail sales by some U.S. shopkeepers in March were prodigiously bad. The revenue rung up by clothing and accessory stores was only half February’s level. Versus the month prior, motor vehicle and parts dealers and furniture stores had their earnings slashed by one-quarter. Moving in the opposite direction, though, were grocery stores, where sales soared by more than a quarter. Rumors of shortages prompted panic buying.
• The first wave of giant job losses in the U.S. (and Canada) occurred in the leisure and hospitality sector. Now it’s being reported that sales by U.S. ‘food services and drinking places’ (i.e., bars and restaurants), were -23% in March compared with February.

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• The mayors of New York and Los Angeles have announced there will be no major league sports events or concert stage shows in their cities until 2021 at least. As Liza Minnelli would sing, “Start spreading the news …”
• When I think of the Big Apple, something that couldn’t happen today comes to mind, the Occupy Wall Street movement. Protesters have been sidelined by the coronavirus and shelter-at-home directives. Ingenuity will always prevail, though. Protesters today, rather than walking a picket line with a placard, are approaching the targets of their disaffection in a vehicle, honking the horn and vocalizing through a lowered window.
• If past momentous economic events are any indication, the current tough times won’t be objectively comprehensible until they’ve been given a proper name (e.g., Great Depression, Great Recession). What’s my nomination for the best handle to describe our present circumstances? … the ‘corona coma’ contraction.

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• Do you remember the Greek financial crisis and how, for years, there was the danger that Greece’s enormous debt would destroy that country and, domino-like, cause the fall of several other nations, as well as some banks? Within the next couple of years, there will be a slew of countries mirroring Greece’s earlier plight.

• In poorer countries without the clout of the Federal Reserve, the European central bank or only a few other major central banks, running up debt and printing money to ease the pain of ‘social distancing’ will carry a cost that will be nigh on impossible to bear. Included in such a list will be several of OPEC’s less prominent members (with Saudi Arabia being most prominent), such as Algeria, Libya, Congo and Ecuador (Venezuela’s already down for the count). They’re being pummeled by a double whammy, the second of which is an extraordinarily low price for the main product they sell and export, oil.

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• The following distills an assessment of the economy made by Moody’s Analytics. In this clock-stopped world we’re living in, all forms of tourism and commuter travel are down, reducing the demand for hotel rooms and refined oil (gasoline), which also means less need for exploration and extraction activity. The official names of the three most affected and interconnected industrial sectors are ‘transportation and warehousing’ (including air and cruise ship transport), ‘leisure and hospitality’, and ‘oil and gas extraction’. If your local economy is disproportionately dependent on one or more of those sectors, the speedbumps along your road ahead have added inches in height.

• Three important sidebars to social distancing have freed up hospital beds for use by coronavirus patients. The stay-at-home edict has meant fewer traffic accidents and a reduced number of road-warrior injuries. Also, violent crime has taken a break. Instances of broken ribs, bruised fists and knife or gunshot wounds requiring medical attention are in remission. And finally, with everyone indoors, sports injuries are at a minimum.

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• On the far side of this pandemic-induced economic freeze, how much will pervasive worrying about a second (or even third) wave of coronavirus infections slow the recovery? Current speculation is that even if COVID-19 runs its course through the spring and early summer, it might roar again when the warmer weather begins to chill in the fall. (Some viruses thrive more in cooler rather than warmer environments.)

• If there are next waves, each one is likely to be less severe and of shorter duration than the current one, since by then the supply of medical gear (ventilators, etc.) will have been vastly expanded. Also, a great deal of experience will have been gained in how best to deal with the silent and invisible intrusion.

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• The first impacts from coronavirus-caused shutdowns of factories in China cropped up in the February foreign trade statistics. The U.S. goods and services trade shortfall down-scaled to less than half a trillion dollars for the first time in three-and-a-half years, dating back to September 2016. China accounted for only one-third of the deficit in the latest month, versus its usual 45% to 50%. Mexico’s slice of the U.S. trade deficit, however, climbed above 20%, a historically high bite.

• It’s taken for granted that if we all stay home for a while, at least we’ll have plenty to watch on Netflix, Crave, Prime, etc. The downloadable and quick-steaming entertainment sites do have vast inventories of movies, series and documentaries to catch up on. As for new material, though, film and TV productions have been shut down just like other industries throughout the economy. For example, taping of Gray’s Anatomy wrapped up several episodes before its ‘de rigueur’ season-ending cliffhanger. Certain ‘tinseltowns’ are especially vulnerable as Klieg lights are dimmed (Hollywood, Atlanta, Toronto and Vancouver).

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• Nothing says ‘social distancing’ like robotics. One reaction to the international supply chain interruptions that have been caused by the spread of the coronavirus will be a move towards de-globalization of manufacturing. This won’t necessarily be of huge benefit to domestic labor, however. An already intensive and expanding usage of machine labor on production lines will be given an additional shot of adrenaline.
• Machines will also be doing more of the ‘grunt’ work in other segments of the economy. Warehouse operations to support online retail sales will increasingly go the robotics route, as will the outdoor and/or underground extraction activities of resource sector firms. Nor will construction be left out of the shifting paradigm, although the pathway is likely to lead along a different but nearly parallel track. With respect to the building of structures, mechanization will become more prevalent through modular assembly.

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