More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May • Hacker News Board

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#101

Post by bobthepanda » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #87

aazaa wrote: post #37

> Bed Bath & Beyond, Famous Footwear, H&M, and the Gap, AMC and Regal movie theaters, and 24 Hour Fitness gyms have all missed payments, jeopardizing the stability of their property management companies and municipal governments that rely on property taxes, The Post's Heather Long reported. All roads lead to the Federal Reserve. Stores defaulting on rent payments starves landlords for cash. Landlords unable to servic…

The problem with betting against the dollar is that the West is to a great extent dependent on the US as a place to park its money and sell things. If the US sneezes everyone else catches a cold. > Perversely, this could be great for stocks, bonds, and other assets nominally Nominal stock values are still climbing despite the mire of bad news. > nobody in their right mind would buy 10 or 30 year Treasuries with the g…

> The problem with betting against the dollar is that the West is to a great extent dependent on the US

Not even just the West. The Asian "tiger" economies are all heavily export oriented. If China, Japan and Korea cannot sell to the US, there is no viable plan B; Europe is in no state to absorb all of that, to say nothing of poorer countries.

Chinese consumer purchasing power has certainly grown, but not enough, and if anything the Chinese social safety net is thinner than the American one and they have still not fully recovered from their lockdowns. And CNY has a long way to go before it's as liquid as USD.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#102

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

ikeyany wrote: post #46

chkaloon wrote: post #34

I am afraid we are in a real Wile E Coyote moment here. You know, where he's suspended in air for a few seconds before he goes crashing to the ground? Our crash may come in the fall when UI payments stop and the rent floats become unsustainable. About the time the second wave hits. https://66.media.tumblr.com/bbbf0aec68490ae2679ef489709c3d18...

> fragile ... the word is fragile. We've built an insanely fragile economy. Take a look. There's been no war. 100% of the (not so great) US infrastructure that was there before SARS-COV-2 is still there. We've lost about 100k people, which is horrific but in the scheme of things at "USA" scale, and with the skewed demographics, not much of a hit to the economy. And yet the economy is staggering and it's likely to get…

> We've built an insanely fragile economy.

Citation needed. Things seem to be functioning pretty well, all things considered. I can still buy virtually everything I need from the local grocery store and Amazon.

I've lived in third-world countries where regular products would be out of stock for months at a time under normal circumstances.

To me, the economy looks insanely resilient in a global pandemic.

> the mere fact of people stopping doing a bunch of stuff has the potential to cause complete economic disaster for, what 15-20M Americans?

That's just how it works, if people stop buying the stuff that 20M people produce, the work for those jobs stop existing for the moment. That's neither good nor bad, it just is. There's literally no way around it.

The problem isn't fragility or doing unnecessary things. You just need a social safety net, which Europe has been better at providing than the US, but the US could easily provide if it wanted.

If you want to have a conversation, the one to have is about social safety nets, not an "economic resilience" bogeyman.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#103

Post by 5ociety » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #61

5ociety wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because they're doing such a good job?

They don't have to be doing a perfect job for you to be able to do a worse one...

Pretty sure I could do better. Downvote me again. You're making a difference!

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#104

Post by freehunter » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #71

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #45

When the next pandemic hits, I doubt any government will dare to attempt a closure. The costs for these closures have been high in terms of economic pain. In addition, the protests, though they are justified due to the oppression the community has experienced, are likely undoing a lot of the effects of social distancing by putting a lot of people together in close proximity for hours. So in the end, we will have expe…

> undoing a lot of the effects of social distancing We've had several months of social distancing, which bought us a lot of time to ramp up healthcare and medical supply manufacturing capacity.

Honest question though... did we? Did we actually ramp up healthcare and medical supply manufacturing? I saw a lot of news about it when the pandemic first started but I still see a lot of news stories about PPE shortages.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#105

Post by PragmaticPulp » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

ikeyany wrote: post #46

chkaloon wrote: post #34

I am afraid we are in a real Wile E Coyote moment here. You know, where he's suspended in air for a few seconds before he goes crashing to the ground? Our crash may come in the fall when UI payments stop and the rent floats become unsustainable. About the time the second wave hits. https://66.media.tumblr.com/bbbf0aec68490ae2679ef489709c3d18...

> fragile ... the word is fragile. We've built an insanely fragile economy. Take a look. There's been no war. 100% of the (not so great) US infrastructure that was there before SARS-COV-2 is still there. We've lost about 100k people, which is horrific but in the scheme of things at "USA" scale, and with the skewed demographics, not much of a hit to the economy. And yet the economy is staggering and it's likely to get…

Obviously, companies that depend on crowds and foot traffic are seriously hurting right now.

However, many other industries are still business as usual. E-commerce businesses might actually be doing better than ever.

I tried to schedule a few contractors to get work done recently, thinking they’d have additional openings with the slowdown. Turns out, they’re booked farther out than ever. Everyone else working at home had the same idea to schedule that work.

This will clearly shake a lot of businesses, but the real question now is which ones survive and which ones can’t come back. I suspect a lot of the businesses that don’t make it were nearing the end of their viability anyway.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#106

Post by jotm » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

ohyes wrote: post #52

chkaloon wrote: post #34

I am afraid we are in a real Wile E Coyote moment here. You know, where he's suspended in air for a few seconds before he goes crashing to the ground? Our crash may come in the fall when UI payments stop and the rent floats become unsustainable. About the time the second wave hits. https://66.media.tumblr.com/bbbf0aec68490ae2679ef489709c3d18...

This is an interesting analogy because the roadrunner just runs without looking and everything works out fine. Wile E. Coyote only has problems because he is aware of what a huge mistake he’s made. I don’t know what the behavior analogous to road runner is in an economic sense. Perhaps suspending capitalism? I can’t imagine anyone going along with that.

Going with this analogy, what if the government partnered up with banks and offered huge loans to everyone, with minimal interest and the ability to postpone repayment for months/years.

Since money is a human invention, if everyone pretends that these are not handouts but just a lot of debt, the economy can keep going and those loans will be repaid slowly or it will be a figure somewhere of how much debt the public is in.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#107

Post by Wowfunhappy » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

chkaloon wrote: post #51

icedchai wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't worry about it: it's an election year. Those UI payments will just get extended another 6 months.

Not if Mitch can help it, unless, of course, his eventual KY challenger starts climbing in the polls.

I think the GP's point is that since it's an election year, "Mitch" will eventually give in. Mitch McConnell is many things, but I wouldn't count "stupidity" among them. And although his personal seat is quite safe, he clearly wants his party to stay in power.

I'm actually more concerned about what happens if Biden wins in November, and the Republicans feel incentivized to let the economy crash and burn.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#108

Post by russellbeattie » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

Both of the movies The Big Short and Too Big To Fail have a moment where they're watching people come out of a subway or walk down the street, and say something like, "They don't have any idea what's about to hit them."

It sort of feels like that now. Lots of normality still. There is definitely something not right about the stock market not feeling the impact of millions of unemployed and more than half of retail stores missing rent payments.

Maybe there's macroeconomic explanations involving credit and the Fed. Maybe the stock market is in fact disconnected from the general economy as a whole, and is really just a plaything for giant corporations and the 1%. Maybe it's not as bad as it seems. Maybe everyone's betting on a V shaped recovery after the virus fades. But as we saw during the financial crisis, everything seems fine until it isn't - then things go pear shaped in a hurry.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#109

Post by PragmaticPulp » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #78

ikeyany wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fragile ... the word is fragile. We've built an insanely fragile economy. Take a look. There's been no war. 100% of the (not so great) US infrastructure that was there before SARS-COV-2 is still there. We've lost about 100k people, which is horrific but in the scheme of things at "USA" scale, and with the skewed demographics, not much of a hit to the economy. And yet the economy is staggering and it's likely to get…

> There's been no war. 100% of the (not so great) US infrastructure that was there before SARS-COV-2 is still there. The infrastructure may not be physically destroyed, but it is effectively out of commission. Same with everything from warehouses to meat cutting plants. You could make the same argument if a gas attack were used on a factory instead of a bomb.

Are you actually seeing out of commission infrastructure in your city or your business?

I’ve seen virtually no impact on the services I depend on locally (except toilet paper for a few weeks). Some supply chain delays on the business side, but it’s delays due to temporary shutdowns rather than permanent factory closures. The orders are still coming through a few weeks later than expected.

Re: More than half of American retailers didn't pay their rent in April and May

#110

Post by mperham » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

fooey wrote: post #59

chkaloon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if Mitch can help it, unless, of course, his eventual KY challenger starts climbing in the polls.

I think the GOP is more likely to start trying to implement austerity measures than they are to try to help people. They've been building up a drum beat about debt and deficits over the last several weeks

> They've been building up a drum beat about debt and deficits over the last several decades

FTFY