Years of struggle landed J.C. Penney Co. in Chapter 11.
Now comes the hard part.
The 118-year-old retailer called its Friday filing a pre-arranged bankruptcy, meaning its restructuring plan has some support from creditors, but not enough to avoid challenges.
That’s the new normal for American retailers. Many will appear in US Bankruptcy Court this year and next, where creditors will wrangle over competing views of the companies’ futures. One faction will believe the brands retain enough value to survive bankruptcy, while another may prefer to liquidate assets and divvy up the proceeds.
As for J.C. Penney, with the fate of 846 stores and 85,000 employees at stake, talks over it promise to be tough, with a self-imposed July 14 deadline on an agreement.
“It’s certainly a messy process,” said James Goldstein, a CreditSights senior analyst. “It doesn’t help that there’s a perception among some that J.C. Penney doesn’t really need to exist, that it isn’t a company that comes through bankruptcy and continues to operate.”
One creditor, H/2 Capital Partners LLC, built a reputation during the Toys “R” Us bankruptcy in 2018 for playing a role in the company’s liquidation. With J.C. Penney, the firm has two levers to push. It’s part of a group that owns about half the department-store chain’s most senior debt, and it has a piece of the $900 million loan meant to fund J.C. Penney through Chapter 11.
“H/2 is supportive of every effort to restructure the company and believe the company should and can succeed as an ongoing enterprise with less leverage,” a spokesman for H/2 said in a statement. He said the firm had opposed the liquidation of Toys “R” Us.
It wasn’t always this way, but J. C. Penney’s heyday lives today only in nostalgia. For decades, families received circulars in the mail advertising the retailer’s back-to-school sales, triggering children who would bemoan the imminent end of summer vacation. The chain was weakened by debt, the Internet, and changing tastes. Then it was buried by stay-at-home orders that shuttered malls and cut off revenue when the coronavirus hit.
J.C. Penney declined to comment.
Late last year, the publicity-shy H/2 made a splash, perhaps inadvertently, by trying to sell its nearly $800 million stake in J.C. Penney’s $1.7 billion term loan. The block of debt was so big it caused a spike in the retailer’s credit-default swaps.
Stamford, Conn.-based H/2 is headed by Spencer Haber, whose background is in real estate finance. Haber’s resume includes Salomon Brothers, what was then Starwood Financial Trust, Lehman Brothers Holdings, and iStar Financial, according to a regulatory filing.
Okay, Salomon Brothers was what the BBC called WTC7 before it dropped into its own footprint, Lehman is known for the beginning of the crash in 2008, and I can only guess about Haber but he's among an ince$tuous group that figures prominently in what is happening now.
H/2 made its name during restructuring efforts at Toys “R” Us, said people involved in the process. The firm was a large holder of debt backing a Toys “R” Us unit that controlled a chunk of its real estate. The stores in that entity were governed by a master lease agreement. In March 2018, stakeholders worked urgently to negotiate a plan for the unit as the threat of liquidation loomed, and with it, the destiny of 30,000 retail workers.
I remember when the founder was shot, and isn't that an interesting connection in the photo?
Ultimately, the talks collapsed, and recriminations flew. Solus Alternative Asset Management was blamed by some, but it pointed a finger at the group that included H/2. In a letter to investors following its refusal to help fund severance costs for laid-off Toys “R” Us employees, Solus said the H/2 group was unwilling to negotiate and refused to discuss possible rescue plans that would involve store closures.
They look like another ruthle$$ private equity fund, the types of folks who are getting fabulously wealthy while we are all in lockdown and the ones who have economically led us to this point before the mythical COVID.
In J.C. Penney’s restructuring plan, the company would put some property into a real estate investment trust that would sell shares and function separately from its “new JCP” retail operations, but liquidation remains a real risk.
All the iconic retailers will be swept away in favor of the new technological dy$topia.
Some investors worry the retailer doesn’t have enough attractive assets to support restructuring, leaving it vulnerable to the same fate as Toys “R” Us. With so much of the retail world still closed due to COVID-19, it’s impossible to raise money by holding going-out-of-business sales at bricks-and-mortar locations.
It won't be reopening, and the malls will be used as COVID detention camps.
That's the plan, anyway.
“Complicating the restructuring is the uncertain retail environment we are currently operating in, with the expected slow recovery for traditional department stores operating in enclosed malls,” said Dennis Cantalupo, chief executive of Pulse Ratings, an independent credit-rating and consulting firm.
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Then there is this demonic creature:
"Fed chief warns US economic recovery could stretch through end of 2021" by Alister Bull Bloomberg News, May 17, 2020
WASHINGTON — The US economy will recover from the coronavirus pandemic, but the process could stretch through the end of next year and depend on the delivery of a vaccine, said the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell.
What the f*** would he know about that?
That is not his field, and he sure as hell is not a doctor.
What is with the intersection of bank$ters, philanthropi$ts, and the Pharma health mafia, huh?
What it looks like is Powell laying the groundwork for an abysmal economy as the redesigning of life on Earth proceeds while jabbing at a vaccine (why?).
Btw, have you noticed that there is one $ector that has remained immune from COVID?
‘‘Assuming there’s not a second wave of the coronavirus, I think you’ll see the economy recover steadily through the second half of this year,’’ the US central bank chief said in an excerpt of an interview conducted Wednesday and aired on Sunday on CBS’s ‘‘Face the Nation’’ show. ‘‘For the economy to fully recover people will have to be fully confident, and that may have to await the arrival of a vaccine,’’ he said.
Oh, the second wave is a fait accompli. Just in time for kickoff so games cancelled! That will 15 yards for a personal foul, punch to the gut.
Related: Only COVID-19 Vaccine Can Save Economy
We are dealing with PURE F**KING EVIL here!
The Fed chief said people should never ‘‘bet’’ against the American economy, but he took care not to promise a swift, so-called V-shaped rebound. ‘‘This economy will recover. It may take a while,’’ he said. ‘‘It could stretch through the end of next year. We really don’t know.’’
Okay, he can go f**k himself in regarding to the disingenuous stroking of the American people, and if there is no V-shaped rebound then Trump, Pence, Kushner, and Mnuchin are all f***ing liars who should be jailed.
Powell’s remarks follow his grave warning on Wednesday that the US economy faces lasting harm from the pandemic if the government doesn’t step up. Powell can expect questions on the scale and timing of additional fiscal relief when he appears before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. He’ll also be asked to tell Americans what to expect. For all his caution, the Fed chief also had a message of hope.
‘‘I would just say this: In the long run, and even in the medium run, you would not want to bet against the American economy.’’
He makes me $ick.
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Related:
"The stock market bounced back from its worst week in nearly two months Monday as optimism about a potential vaccine for the coronavirus and hopes for a U.S. economic recovery in the second half of the year put investors in a buying mood. Stocks were already headed for a higher opening on Wall Street when a drug company announced encouraging results in very early testing of an experimental coronavirus vaccine. The stock of the company, Massachusetts-based Moderna, jumped 20%. Investors were also encouraged by remarks over the weekend from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who expressed optimism that the U.S. economy could begin to recover in the second half of the year....."
They obviously did not read the Bo$ton Globe or the article they printed.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Considering that the central bank -- the Federal Re$erve -- now has a stranglehold on America, it makes you wonder what that old thing known as the Revolution (and War of 1812) was about:
"A pale but vigorous-sounding Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to work Monday, declaring that the coronavirus that nearly killed him was like an “unexpected and invisible mugger” the British people had begun to wrestle to the floor but had not yet fully disabled. For all his determined brio, Johnson’s message to his lockdown-weary nation was somber, underscoring the hard choices that Britain faces as the economy languishes and the death toll from the virus soars above 21,000. Johnson, who was discharged from the hospital only two weeks ago, signaled that the government would keep some social-distancing measures in place for the foreseeable future. To lift them too soon, he warned, would mean “not only a new wave of death and disease but also an economic disaster.” The government has said it will reassess the lockdown May 7, and it is likely to relax some restrictions, but it is lagging badly in testing and contact tracing, which specialists view as a precondition for reverting to a more normal status, like in South Korea, which pioneered an ambitious national testing program."
Better wake up because South Korea is back in lockdown.
"Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered more insight into his hospitalization for coronavirus, telling a British newspaper that he knew doctors were preparing for the worst. The 55-year-old Johnson, who spent three nights in intensive care during his week of treatment in a London hospital after falling ill with COVID-19, told The Sun newspaper he was aware that doctors were discussing his fate. “It was a tough old moment, I won’t deny it,’’ he said. “They had a strategy to deal with a ‘death of Stalin’-type scenario.’’ Johnson couldn’t believe how quickly his health deteriorated and had difficulty understanding why he wasn’t getting better. Medical workers gave him “liters and liters of oxygen’’ but he said the “indicators kept going in the wrong direction.’ The remarks were Johnson’s most candid yet on his brush with death, though he acknowledged when he left the hospital that his fight to survive “could have gone either way,’’ as he paid tribute to the two nurses who never left his bedside for 48 hours."
That is who they are comparing him to, and I'm wondering if he was ever sick at all or whether this was all more endless stagecraft and narrative to which we are endlessly subjected.
"British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, announced the birth of a son on Wednesday, just two days after Johnson returned to work following hospitalization for the coronavirus. Johnson’s office said Symonds gave birth to a “healthy baby boy’’ in a public hospital in London on Wednesday morning, and that both mother and infant were doing well. Johnson was present for the birth but was back at work in 10 Downing St. within hours, as his government faces a deadline of next week to amend or extend the country’s coronavirus lockdown. Johnson’s office said he would take paternity leave later in the year. Conservative leader Johnson, 55, and Symonds, 32, announced in February that they were engaged and expecting a child together. At the time they said the baby was due in early summer. Johnson only returned to work Monday after suffering from a bout of coronavirus that left him dangerously ill. Symonds, an environmental campaigner and former Conservative Party staffer, also said she was sick for a week with COVID-19 symptoms, though she wasn’t tested for the virus."
WTF?
From the incredulous to the ridiculously ludicrous:
"Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Britain on Sunday that its lockdown will mostly continue through May. Some shops and schools in England could reopen in June, and restaurants might start serving again in July — but only if the novel coronavirus is deemed under control. ‘‘All of this is conditional,’’ Johnson warned in a televised address to the country from Downing Street on Sunday evening. ‘‘It would be madness now to throw away’’ all the gains achieved by the stay-home measures, in place since March 23, he said. Johnson, who was so sick from the virus that he almost died care last month, outlined a step-by-step plan to ‘‘unlock the lockdown’’ over the coming weeks and months. He said progress would be contingent on the government’s ability to perform widespread testing and to supply enough protective equipment to workers in hospitals and nursing homes, two settings where the virus is still spreading. Johnson said the government would carefully monitor the number of new cases and the infection rate from person to person. With almost 32,000 killed by the virus, Britain now has the second-largest number of reported deaths, after the United States. Starting on Monday, Johnson said, Britain would take ‘‘the first careful steps to modify our measures’’ by encouraging those who cannot work from home — but are employed in construction and manufacturing, for example — to return to their jobs. How those workers will get there is unclear; the prime minister said they should avoid ‘‘public transport if at all possible’’ but instead travel by car, bicycle, or on foot. At work, employers should establish strict social distancing measures. Residents will be allowed to spend more time sunbathing, relaxing, and exercising outdoors. The prime minister announced, with colorful graphics, a ‘‘Covid Alert Level System’’ — with levels 1 to 5 — which will shape how much or how little lockdown there will be, warning that if isolated flare-ups become wider outbreaks, ‘‘we will not hesitate to put on the brakes.’’ Level 5, he explained, denotes a catastrophic outbreak, with the virus spreading uncontrolled. Disease modelers had warned that in such a scenario, 500,000 would die and the National Health Service would be overwhelmed. Instead, with the lockdown, Britain held firm at level 4. Now, Johnson said, ‘‘thanks to your sacrifice, we are now in a position to begin to move in steps to level 3.’’
The modelers were wildly off, and ‘‘all of this is conditional,’’ said King Boris.
Beyond that, the British are getting COLOR-CODED CHARTS a la the TERROR THREAT WARNINGS in the 2000s! They must REALLY THINK the POPULATION is a bunch of IDIOTIC SHEEP over there!
As for the modeler:
"Britain’s health secretary said Wednesday that national lockdown rules were “for everyone,” after one of the government’s key scientific advisers quit for receiving secret visits from his girlfriend amid the coronavirus pandemic. Imperial College epidemiologist Neil Ferguson developed models that predicted hundreds of thousands would die unless the UK imposed drastic restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus. His advice was key in triggering Britain’s lockdown in March. Under the rules, people are barred from visiting friends and family that they don’t live with. Ferguson quit the government’s scientific advisory panel late Tuesday after the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that a woman he is in a relationship with had crossed London to visit him at his home. Ferguson said in a statement that he had “made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action.”
It's the standard do what we say, not what we do bit (and what does he know about COVID that you do not? That it is a fiction?).
He also predicted more than 2 million dead here, and the way the pre$$ and authority is flogging any and all deaths, they may just get there.
Uh-oh, alarm went off:
"On Sunday, the prime minister announced, with colorful graphics, a ‘‘Covid Alert Level System’’ — with levels 1 to 5 — which will shape how much or how little lockdown there will be, warning that if isolated flare-ups become wider outbreaks, ‘‘we will not hesitate to put on the brakes.’’ Level 5, Johnson explained, denotes a catastrophic outbreak, with the virus spreading uncontrolled. Disease modelers had warned that in such a scenario, 500,000 would die and the National Health Service would be quickly overwhelmed. Instead, with the current lockdown, Britain held firm at level 4. Now, Johnson said, ‘‘thanks to your sacrifice, we are now in a position to begin to move in steps to level 3.’’ He did not use the term ‘‘second wave,’’ which infectious-disease specialists say could strike if countries loosen measures too quickly. Johnson said the country passed ‘‘the initial peak — but it is coming down the mountain that is often more dangerous.’’ Johnson introduced a new government slogan Sunday, which has led to some head-scratching and was widely panned on social media. The old slogan, throughout the seven weeks of lockdown, was ‘‘stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives,’’ putting the priority on keeping the National Health Service from being overwhelmed. The new slogan is ‘‘stay alert, control the virus, save lives.’’ Many were asking, ‘‘Stay alert for what?’’ and ‘‘Control the virus how?’’
By not going back to work?
"Low-skilled workers in the UK, urged back to work by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have one of the highest rates of death from the virus. Research from the Office for National Statistics found that nearly two-thirds of the 2,500 fatalities analyzed were men, with security guards, taxi drivers and chauffeurs, bus drivers, and chefs joining builders among those most at risk."
Most of them are black.
"Britain has the third-highest coronavirus death toll in the world after the British government published new figures Wednesday that include deaths outside of hospitals. After factoring in deaths in all settings such as care homes, the number of people in Britain who have died after testing positive for the virus has now hit 26,097, way ahead of the 21,678 announced on Tuesday. Until now, hospital deaths have been reported daily, while deaths in nursing homes and other settings were reported separately on a weekly basis. Under the new measurement, the UK has leapfrogged Spain and France in Europe, with only Italy ahead. The United States has the world’s highest death toll."
The UK overtook Italy in deaths, and HowTF did that happen when China has had only 4,634 deaths?
"In separate, stark warnings, two major European leaders have bluntly told their citizens that the world needs to adapt to living with the coronavirus and cannot wait to be saved by the development of a vaccine. The comments by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson came as nations around the world and US states are both struggling with restarting economies blindsided by the pandemic. With 36 million newly unemployed in the United States alone, economic pressures are building even as authorities acknowledge that reopening risks new waves of infections and deaths. Pushed hard by Italy’s regional leaders and weeks in advance of an earlier timetable, Conte is allowing restaurants, bars, and beach facilities to open Monday, the same day that church services can resume and shops reopen. ’’We are facing a calculated risk, in the awareness . . . that the epidemiological curve could go back up,’’ Conte said late Saturday. “We are confronting this risk, and we need to accept it, otherwise we would never be able to relaunch.” Conte added that Italy could ‘‘not afford” to wait until a vaccine was developed. Health experts say the world could be months, if not years, away from having a vaccine available to everyone despite the scientific gold rush now on to create such a vaccine. “We would find ourselves with our social and productive fabric heavily damaged,” Conte said. Italy’s economy is forecast to contract 9 percent this year due to the coronavirus amid a long, strict lockdown.
I don't even know where to begin there. The pulling away from a vaccine could be seen as a good sign from these leaders; however, I am not apt to trust them given their craven behavior so far.
Beyond that, the $cientific gold ru$h seems to indicate a $cam -- especially when my governor refers to everything as “a really impressive story so far,” and that we are “playing this game — and it’s a real one — with the virus and the economy at the same time, and it’s really important for people to step up and recognize and understand that this game’s not over and once again to rise to the occasion.”
As the daily press conferences take there toll, it looks like Charlie is slipping. It's a damn drill, an "exercise." The terminology is the tell.
"For his part, Britain’s Johnson, who was hospitalized last month with a serious bout of COVID-19, speculated Sunday that a vaccine may not be developed at all, despite the huge global effort to produce one. “I said we would throw everything we could at finding a vaccine,” Johnson wrote in the Mail on Sunday newspaper. “There remains a very long way to go, and I must be frank that a vaccine might not come to fruition.” Johnson said Britain was taking “baby steps” toward reopening, “trying to do something that has never had to be done before — moving the country out of a full lockdown.” “Despite these efforts, we have to acknowledge we may need to live with this virus for some time to come,” Johnson wrote. The Conservative leader said the UK needs to find new ways of controlling the virus, including more testing for people who have symptoms and tracing the contacts of infected people. One minister said Sunday that 17,200 people had been recruited to be contact tracers. Coronavirus has infected more than 4.6 million people and killed more than 312,000 worldwide, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University that experts say undercounts the true toll of the pandemic. The United States has reported more than 88,000 dead in the pandemic and Europe has seen at least 160,000 deaths."
That's the same thing the governor of New Hampshire said.
"As the coronavirus continues to infect people across Britain in what will likely turn out to be Europe’s worst outbreak, the government has come under criticism from scientists, who say it has neglected the fundamentals of epidemic control. Hundreds of outbreak specialists have questioned the U.K’s pandemic response, ridiculing the government’s claim of “following the science.” “There was a sense of fatalism and I think the government ruled out containment options that should not have been ruled out,” said Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, “and now we have to deal with the fall-out.” The fallout includes a death rate that has reached 28,446. That is only slightly less than in Italy, Europe’s worst-hit nation with 28,884 confirmed deaths. For weeks, the UK was focused on widespread testing, setting itself the goal of conducting 100,000 tests per day by the end of April. It met the target but has failed to keep the number at that level. Epidemic specialists warned Britain’s overwhelming focus on testing ignored an equally essential element of outbreak control: the tracking and isolation of contacts of cases. Allyson Pollock, a public health doctor at Newcastle University said Britain ignored basic World Health Organization guidelines on outbreaks. “The government put far too much weight on testing and the strategy now seems quite confused,” she said. That follows an already delayed response to the pandemic. Britain’s department of health said recently it would train 18,000 people to track contacts of cases to monitor the virus’s spread, and aimed to have them in place by mid-May, but it has not released details of how the program will work. Such lack of precision, specialists worry, could lead to a feared second wave of disease....."
Are the political puppets breaking their $trings?
They are not out of the woods yet, but.....
"UK employers have been told they face prosecution if they fail to comply with rules designed to keep staff safe from coronavirus as they return to work. The government is trying to encourage people who can’t work from home to return to their workplaces beginning Wednesday as it seeks to reopen the economy. That effort depends partly on people believing that it’s safe to go back amid the threat of a second wave of the virus. Maximum penalties for breaching UK health and safety rules include unlimited fines or prison."
From there you can plot your revenge:
"No, it’s not your imagination. The rise of COVID-19 has brought a big drop-off in those annoying robocalls, according to YouMail. The British-born, Stanford-trained software engineer doesn’t just want to stop those infuriating calls; he wants the callers to suffer as we have suffered, and maybe a little more. Joshua Browder, a British-born, Stanford-trained software engineer, wants revenge, and he has written some software that’s designed to get it....."
Time for a moment of silence:
"Britain held a minute’s silence Tuesday for all front-line workers who have died from the coronavirus, as the government extended its testing program and concerns mounted about the rising death toll in care homes. As clocks struck 11 a.m., senior political leaders, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, joined hospital and nursing home staff in observing the silence. London’s transport networks came to a halt as workers honored colleagues who have died from COVID-19, and the bells of Westminster Abbey went silent. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said 85 front-line workers in the National Health Service had died from the virus, while another 19 have died in care homes. “These are the nation’s fallen heroes, and we will remember them,” Hancock said at the government’s daily briefing. The minute’s silence had been campaigned for by the Unison union, the Royal College of Midwives, and the Royal of College of Nursing, many of whose members have complained about insufficient supplies of personal protective equipment."
Related: More than 360 struggling British care homes to fall into hands of secretive US tycoon
Dear Britons, it is none other than Spencer Haber!
WTF?
Time to get out of England:
"In Britain, officials and tourism boards discouraged people from visiting popular tourist spots on the first weekend since lockdown rules were eased in England. Stricter rules remain place in other parts of the UK, and English daytrippers have been warned against crossing into Scotland or Wales."
Can't fly to Ireland, either:
"Plans to slash as many as 12,000 jobs at British Airways, a scale of cuts unseen since the coronavirus struck, threaten fresh damage to the economy and put Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a tight spot. The staff reductions, amounting to almost 30 percent of the workforce at Britain’s former state-owned airline, are part of a restructuring aimed at shrinking the group for a downturn that it reckons could last for years. The UK has ruled out a broad bailout of the aviation industry, asking firms to first tap all commercial avenues to raise funds to protect taxpayer interests, with the government assisting only as a last resort."
The tight spot is the seat spacing, and doesn't that violate social distance orders?
"British Airways owner IAG SA said it plans to go ahead with plans to cut up to 12,000 jobs, while its CEO Willie Walsh castigated the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. The decision to quarantine travelers, along with Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s recent statement that “big, lavish international holidays” likely weren’t be possible this summer, “have seriously set back recovery plans for our industry,” Walsh said in a letter to the chairman of the UK’s transport committee."
Maybe you can catch a flight on another airline:
"Ryanair said the UK’s intention to quarantine visitors for 14 days is unscientific and unenforceable, as the carrier announced plans to resume almost 1,000 flights a day starting in July. The Irish low-cost airline, which has grounded most of its fleet since late March, said it would institute passenger temperature checks, require masks. and prohibit lines for toilets as it restarts about 40 percent of its flights. Lavatories will be made available on request, Ryanair said in a statement."
This guy was on the passenger manifest:
"Britain’s Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed Irish nationalist politician Gerry Adams’s convictions for trying to break out of prison in the 1970s, handing a long-awaited legal victory to the former Sinn Fein leader....."
He had the most unlikely allies:
"More than 170 years ago, the Choctaw Nation sent $170 to starving Irish families during the potato famine. A sculpture in County Cork commemorates the generosity of the tribe, itself poor. In recent decades, ties between Ireland and the Native American tribe have grown. Now hundreds of Irish people are repaying that old kindness, giving to a charity drive for two tribes suffering in the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Tuesday, the fund-raiser has raised more than $1.8 million to help provide clean water, food, and health supplies to people in the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Reservation, according to organizers, though it was not clear how much of the money has come from Irish donors. Many donors cited the generosity of the Choctaws, noting that the gift came not long after the US government forcibly relocated the tribe and several other American Indian groups from the Southeastern United States, a march across thousands of miles known as the Trail of Tears that left thousands of people dead along the way. Gary Batton, chief of the Choctaw Nation Oklahoma, said in a statement Tuesday that the tribe was “gratified — and perhaps not at all surprised — to learn of the assistance our special friends, the Irish, are giving to the Navajo and Hopi Nations.” The Navajo Nation has had one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the United States. There had been more than 2,700 cases and 70 deaths as of Monday, according to the Navajo Nation."
The Navajo are now under lockdown:
"All the roads into this city on the edge of the Navajo Nation are closed. The soldiers at the checkpoints have their orders: Outsiders must turn around and drive away. Cities across the country have closed down businesses and ordered residents to remain at home, but the threat of the coronavirus in Gallup became so serious last week that Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham invoked the state’s Riot Control Act to lock down the entire city. The downtown of shops, bars, and Indian trading posts is now nearly deserted. The lockdown comes as state and local authorities grapple with one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the United States on the nearby Navajo Nation, the country’s largest Indian reservation, and a surge in detected cases in places near the reservation. As of Sunday, the Navajo Nation had reported a total of 2,373 cases and 73 confirmed deaths from the virus. With a rate of 46 deaths per 100,000 people, the tribal nation has a higher coronavirus death rate than every state in the country except New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. While Gallup is not within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation, the city of 22,000 serves as a regional hub for the Navajo and other nearby Native American pueblos."
How could they even think of reopening?
Time to unload:
"A cluster of ships with American oil has been heading to a small terminal in southern Ireland as buyers search for places to store crude in the wake of a global demand slowdown. Since April, four vessels carrying a total 2.4 million barrels of American oil have set sail for the Bantry Bay terminal operated by Zenith Energy Management, according to ship tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. Two of those tankers, which loaded oil on the US Gulf Coast, were originally set for the Netherlands and the UK, but were rerouted to Bantry Bay. The US oil deliveries last month were the first ever for the facility."
Better keep a close watch as they pump out.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
"Powell says central bank will use wide range of tools to support US economy" by Craig Torres Bloomberg News, May 18, 2020
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank is prepared to use its full range of tools and leave the benchmark lending rate near zero until the economy is back on track.
“We are committed to using our full range of tools to support the economy in this challenging time even as we recognize that these actions are only a part of a broader public-sector response,” Powell said in prepared remarks released Monday ahead of his virtual hearing before the Senate Banking Committee. “We expect to maintain interest rates at this level until we are confident that the economy has weathered recent events and is on track to achieve our maximum-employment and price-stability goals.”
Powell was scheduled to appear before lawmakers for a virtual hearing at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Washington with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the Senate’s first quarterly CARES Act Report. “We expect economic conditions to improve in the third and fourth quarters,” Mnuchin said in prepared remarks posted on the Senate panel’s website Monday.
That's not what Powell said Sunday, you f**ing $cum!
Why isn't Bill Barr jailing them (oh, that's why)?
Working with the Treasury, the central bank has launched unprecedented support for markets and the economy since mid-March as businesses shuttered and Americans stayed home to limit the spread of the coronavirus. It has slashed interest rates to nearly zero and unveiled nine emergency lending programs, supporting everything from corporate to municipal credit markets as it tries to stabilize access to financing.
Notice which came first (markets) and the$ the "economy," followed by debt, credit, loans, whatever -- and NO MENTION of WORKERS!
Powell has also nudged Congress to consider more fiscal support beyond the $3 trillion in aid already passed and has said the Fed is willing to do more, if needed, to support the economy. “We’re not out of ammunition by a long shot,” he told CBS’s “60 Minutes” show in an interview aired Sunday. “We can enlarge our existing lending programs. We can start new lending programs if need be.”
What is it they say about doing the same thing and expecting a different reaction?
MORE F**KING CREDIT is NOT the AN$WER when most businesses are going bankrupt and the jobs are gone! They are talking about a 22% unemployment rate -- and that's con$idered a good thing!
Much of Powell’s prepared testimony was a review of programs put in place by the central bank.
For all the support, just about every indicator of the US economy shows history-making declines as economic activity slammed into a sudden stop as households sheltered in place. Employers cut 20.5 million jobs last month, tripling the unemployment rate to 14.7 percent, the highest since the Great Depression.
Powell said the scope and speed of the downturn “are without modern precedent and are significantly worse than any recession since World War II.”
The Fed is still trying to launch four of the nine credit facilities, including one aimed at Main Street that will buy bank loans extended to mid-size businesses. The facility is one of the riskiest and most challenging programs the Fed has undertaken, given the diversity of businesses that are likely to borrow.
It will be a jump ball for the loot.
--more--"
“We are committed to using our full range of tools to support the economy in this challenging time . . . ” said Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve (Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press/File 2020/Associated Press)
Wow, what evilne$$.
Right above that article was this:
$500 billion Treasury fund meant for virus relief has lent barely any money, oversight commission finds
The Globe just implied last week that all the loan programs were $ucce$$ful, so WTF?
Who pocketed that money?
During supposed boom time for e-sports, two companies receive over $2 million in PPP loans
These guys are getting perilously close to French Revolut!on time.
I have never been one to advocate that, and still don't; however, I will NOT stand in the way of the mob to defend evil $cum, either, and you have to admit it is a lot more cost-effective than jailing them at Gitmo for the rest of their lives.
Pay no mind to that; he works there, and it's only his way of $aying he loves you.
Also see:
J.C. Penney to close more than 190 stores
Just a brief talking point is all.
