Total unemployment benefit claims reached 33.48 million, five times the previous 1982 spike according to the the Department of Labor. Large companies are continuing to layoff workers even as the nation struggles to re-open for business. As US Person posted before, the pandemic was the trigger event for what many analysts saw as the impending financial crisis surrounding unprecedented levels of corporate debt. Once again, the government was forced to dump huge piles of fresh, fiat dollars to prevent total economic collapse. The central bank plowed $2.3 trillion into Wall Street in seven weeks. It also handed out $440 billion to foreign banks, notably the Bank of Japan. $2,000 for you? Not so much. But we may be charitable enough to let you mortgage your Social Security benefits for a hamburger today.
Apparently, this "helicopter money" from the Fed encouraged investors to subscribe to new corporate bond issues, which helped out a lot of companies like Boeing to avoid a liquidity squeeze. According to Wolf Richter, "investors bought up everything with ravenous appetite, in part lured by the higher yields, and in part lured by the hope that they could sell it to the Fed for a profit." The Fed never actually bought private junk securities, it only said it could. But nothing like the possibility of profits to attract a ravenous capitalist. Now, previously debt-laden corporations are even farther down the hole. What will the plutocrats do next time a crisis rolls around? Can they simply pile debt upon debt, ad infinitum? Corporations are not sovereign governments, which can create money as needed. So, the great financial experiment continues.
US Death Toll (est.): 102,000. "Unmatched and unrivaled testing"--Total Douche at Monday press rant:
