Millions of Americans Expect to Lose Their Homes as Covid Rages

(November 23, 2020)

Millions of Americans expect to face eviction by the end of this year, adding to the suffering inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic raging across the U.S.

About 5.8 million adults say they are somewhat to very likely to face eviction or foreclosure in the next two months, according to a survey completed Nov. 9 by the U.S. Census Bureau. That accounts for a third of the 17.8 million adults in households that are behind on rent or mortgage payments. ...

Roughly half of households not current on their rent or mortgage payments in Arkansas, Florida and Nevada think there’s a “strong chance” of eviction by early January. This equates to more than 750,000 homes where an eviction is the biggest worry, according to the survey.

By metro area, the threat of eviction is most pressing in New York City, Houston and Atlanta.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-23/millions-of-americans-expect-to-lose-their-homes-as-covid-rages

#housing #eviction #homelessness #covid19 #PostCovid #EconomicJustice

When you see those with trappings of former wealth seeking handouts and begging, you're witnessing collapse

A particularly obtuse commenter elsewhere wrongly and spitefully claims that "only in America" will you see people with cars lined up for food, and going further to blame their predicadment on car ownership.

Automobiles are a durable asset lasting years, often decades. They're effectively required to function within much of the US, as are communications and computers (or mobile phones). People will hold on to the essentials of life because to lose them makes slipping further into the pit of poverty. And hardly just in the United States.

People need to eat every day. When they lack the means to buy food, in a monetised economy, they will beg.

The fact that people with the trappings of previous wealth, or mere sufficiency, are reduced to begging for food or seeking out handouts is not a sign of a healthy economy, nor of irrational consumerism. It's a symptom of sudden and sharp decline. Of societal collapse.

This is committing the fallacy of Maslows Car, much like Maslow's Smartphone or Maslow's Swimming Pool.

#MaslowsSmartphone #poverty #collapse #PostCovid

What's with increasing "back to the office" arguments? Real Estate and Finance interests

A pretty uninspired blog post and HN discussion ask, and all but completely miss the point of "Why do so many people want us back in the office?".

Commercial real estate interests -- landlords, building management and services companies, but most especially banks and finance companies with a toe in the $2.5 trillion office market, a sizeable fraction of the total $14--17 trillion+ commercial property market (https://www.reit.com/data-research/research/nareit-research/estimating-size-commercial-real-estate-market-us), and all the interrelated securities backed by or tied to it --- have a profound interest here. Leasing volume fell by over 50% per some reports, which is of course huge.

You'll find articles addressing this, largely in the business and financial press, e.g.,

"Coronavirus set to usher in big changes at U.S. offices"
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-officespace/coronavirus-set-to-usher-in-big-changes-at-u-s-offices-idUSKBN21Y334

"Pandemic exposes ‘severe stress’ in commercial property financing"
https://www.ft.com/content/e4b2302b-76c5-494a-8560-e6d24de9358f

"Suburban Philly offices feel the brunt of COVID-19’s economic toll"
https://www.inquirer.com/business/suburban-office-distressed-debt-defaults-covid-coronavirus-cmbs-center-city-20200823.html

"COVID-19 and real estate: How the coronavirus is impacting the AEC industry"
https://www.bdcnetwork.com/covid-19-and-real-estate-how-coronavirus-impacting-aec-industry

"United StatesOffice Outlook – Q2 2020" https://www.us.jll.com/en/trends-and-insights/research/office-market-statistics-trends

Contrast the outlook as of October 2019: "base fundamentals indicate that the US CRE market remains on a strong footing,' from Deloitte: "2020 commercial real estate outlook"
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/financial-services/commercial-real-estate-outlook.html

That's not to say that sandwich shops and individual workers and managers don't have concerrns, but their voices are far more relatable and telegenic than faceless megabanks. Even genuine and spontaneous statements can be repeated and amplified by other interests.

#covid19 #PostCovid #OfficeSpace #RealEstate

Simon Rattle: "In the long run, I don’t expect orchestras to continue flying around the world."

I think a lot will change. I assume that intensive tours around the world will no longer be possible in the next five years. The London Symphony Orchestra should be on an incredible 99 days on tour next year. And I haven’t counted the national guest concerts yet. This is by no means sustainable, even if the orchestra can only survive in this way. In the long run, I don’t expect orchestras to continue flying around the world.

(German Q, English A.)

https://invidio.us/watch?feature=emb_title&v=PKIIfOQXI1Q

#PostCovid #NewNormal #SimonRattle #Covid19

Snare Space

Comas of temporarily abandoned cruise ships—maritime ruins in an age of COVID-19—have been popping up on the outer edges of Caribbean islands, visible in satellite photos of the sea.

Ships from Carnival, Celebrity, and Royal Caribbean now form a strange new archipelago, a network of ships “spread out loosely in three groups spanning some 30 miles” west from the Bahamas, The War Zone explains. …

...

[W]hat strikes me here is how the failure of a particular business model has had near-immediate spatial effects, verging on apocalyptic surreality: an overnight surplus of ships and their workers, with nowhere to go, are, for the indeterminate future, a kind of stateless micro-polity, inconveniently flagged to countries unwilling to offer support and unable to dock or disembark in intermediate nation-states for fear they might spread COVID-19.

In fact, as that New York Times link, above, points out, “An estimated 150,000 crew members with expired work contracts have been forced into continued labor aboard commercial ships worldwide to meet the demands of governments that have closed their borders and yet still want fuel, food and supplies.” 150,000! “The result has been a string of desperate emails, text messages and calls to shore. Pleas to governments have gone unanswered.”

-- Geoff Manaugh, May 7, 2020

The similarity in appearance of the ships to a field of tobacco mosaic virion particles is worth noting, as here:

Source: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/5-tobacco-mosaic-virus-tem-biology-pics.html

http://www.bldgblog.com/2020/05/snare-space/

#CruiseShips #travel #covid19 #EconomicImpacts #TheNewNormal #PostCovid