Author: admin

By Daphne Howland of Retail Drive

As protests against police killings of Black Americans spread worldwide, several brands pledged to join the fight for social justice.

Demonstrations erupted last week in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd, which two autopsy reports Monday listed as a homicide, after a policeman kneeled on his neck for over eight minutes.​ 

In some areas, retail stores were looted and damaged. Target and Nordstrom over the weekend closed locations in order to assess damage and ensure safety, but in statements lamented the deaths of Floyd and other recent victims and emphasized their support for the protestors’ social justice aims.

On Tuesday, Jide Zeitlin, the CEO of Tapestry and interim CEO of its top brand, Coach, went further. “We can replace our windows and handbags, but we cannot bring back George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, and too many others,” he wrote in a highly personal blog post on LinkedIn. “Each of these black lives matter.” (Emphasis Zeitlin’s.)

It wasn’t an easy letter to compose, he also said. “I sat down several times to write this letter, but stopped each time. My eyes welling up with tears. This is personal,” wrote Zeitlin, who is Black. “Over this weekend, over this last week, over a lifetime punctuated by sweltering summers of discontent.”

It is also personal for Marvin Ellison, CEO of home improvement retailer Lowe’s, who posted a public message to his employees. He noted that he “grew up in the segregated south and remember stories my parents shared about living in the Jim Crow South. During this time of Jim Crow, people of color were viewed and considered second class citizens.”

He said the company will provide resources for its leadership and support for communities. “I know many of you may be afraid as you try to determine what to say and what to do during these trying times,” he said, adding, “We need to remember that the best action we can take is to unite in solidarity and show that the legacy of racism and inequality has no place in our company, our hearts or in this world.”

What to say or do is now before many brands, especially those in fashion, according to Shawn Grain Carter, professor of fashion business management at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “Fashion reflects what is happening in the culture at large,” she told Retail Dive in an interview. “If you think about the 60s, fashion reflected the culture at large, and now we’re seeing it again in the 2020s. When you add social media, that reflection happens in a nanosecond, it’s reflected quickly and instantly. Many of these brands see this as an opportunistic way to capitalize on tragedy — but other brands have been consistent. If you don’t align your corporate values with the consumers’ core values, your brand will become nothing but a memory.”

Indeed, several brands took to social media to pledge solidarity with protestors and their dedication to change. Some also pledged donations. To name a few: Gap Inc. said it will give $250,000 to support the NAACP and EmbraceRace; Glossier will give out a total of $500,000 to Black Lives Matter, the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Equal Justice Initiative, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute and We The Protesters, plus another $500,000 in grants to Black-owned beauty businesses; Lululemon said it would give $100,000 to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which is providing bail to arrested protestors; Ulta joined others in pledging financial support but declined to say how much. 

But some brands garnered pushback on social media even so. Carter said that companies like Victoria’s Secret that remained tone deaf on social issues for so long will have trouble getting much respect now. “If you’re not going to be authentic in your messaging and your actions, consumers are very wise and savvy,” she said. “Then you have companies like Nike, who took the decision to hire Colin Kaepernick and allowed him to be the face of Nike, knowing that the NFL blacklisted him. And it resonated with consumers. This is structural discrimination and racism. People are tired of protests, they want results.”​

Nike in 2018 endured boycotts over a campaign featuring Kaepernick, who was blacklisted for kneeling during the pre-game singing of the national anthem to protest police brutality. Over the weekend, the brand posted an ad on Twitter taking back its iconic “just do it” slogan. “For once, don’t do it,” the ad read. “Don’t pretend there’s not a problem in America. Don’t turn your back on racism. Don’t accept innocent lives being taken from us. Don’t make any more excuses. Don’t think this doesn’t affect you. Don’t sit back and be silent.”

Let’s all be part of the change.#UntilWeAllWin pic.twitter.com/guhAG48Wbp

— Nike (@Nike) May 29, 2020

That didn’t help Nike be spared the wrath of the protesters who focused their looting on Nike outlets:

Nike store on Michigan Ave smashed and completely looted pic.twitter.com/IRZc4FuDBO

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) May 31, 2020

I guess ANTIFA and BLM don’t understand that Nike is a supporter of their cause. First target.

— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) June 2, 2020

Rival sportswear brand Adidas retweeted that with the endorsement, “Together is how we move forward. ⁣Together is how we make change.”

“The beautiful thing about the Adidas retweet is that it really showed the industry coming together and not trying to one-up each other — it was about doing the right thing,” Matt Powell, NPD Group vice president and senior industry advisor of Sports, told Retail Dive in an interview. “Brands have to be careful about their response. They have to make sure that their organizations are as great as they can be. There is an opportunity for businesses to “reevaluate who they want to be,” he said.

Alas, it appears that all this virtue signalling has been lost on the looters.

The Nike Store, Adidas Store, Flight Club, Round 2 and many other stores have all been broken into and looted. This is disgraceful. It really isn’t for George anymore, people are using this as an excuse to loot and destroy there “beloved cities” pic.twitter.com/oI4Lg7pwlw

— hypednewsdaily (@hypednewsdaily) May 31, 2020

Senior editor Ash Bennington hosts managing editor Ed Harrison to delve into whether the pandemonium in the U.S. will ever spread into capital markets. They analyze the historical performance of markets during times of civil unrest and explore whether U.S. equities have “priced in” the possibility that the ongoing mass protests in the U.S. could accelerate the spread of COVID-19. Ed and Ash also discuss the yield curve and retracement levels for the S&P. In the intro, Real Vision’s Nick Correa talks about the 1957 pandemic, the Eisenhower recession, and how they may intersect.

Millions around the world have pondered how the WHO could have possibly been so completely duped by Beijing during the early days of the outbreak in January, when the organization parroted lies about the virus and praised Beijing as a “model” of pandemic response. Prior reports by the Associated Press and other Western media organizations have exposed how Beijing withheld critical information about the virus (including evidence of human-to-human spread) for days while China gobbled up all the PPE and other critical medical supplies. 

On Tuesday, as the US heals from a long weekend of violence and unrest, the AP has published a new report based on the details of a never-before-reported internal call where WHO higher-ups discussed what to do about China’s obstinance, fearing a re-run of SARS. The recording reveals that Beijing didn’t immediately cooperate with the WHO, as the WHO had previously claimed, but instead dragged its feet, much to the consternation of several top officials at the UN-linked NGO.

Not only did the CCP deliberately suppress critical info about the outbreak in Wuhan (identities and other patient-related data), but Beijing also withheld a map of the virus’s genome for roughly a week after researchers finished mapping it, among other transgressions (Remember when the WHO praised China’s decision to swiftly map and share the virus genome as unassailable evidence that Beijing cares about accountability?)

When China finally released the information to the WHO, they apparently only did so because a team of Chinese researchers had shared the information with another third party.

Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus. It repeatedly thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus “immediately,” and said its work and commitment to transparency were “very impressive, and beyond words.”

But behind the scenes, it was a much different story, one of significant delays by China and considerable frustration among WHO officials over not getting the information they needed to fight the spread of the deadly virus, The Associated Press has found.

Despite the plaudits, China in fact sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for more than a week after three different government labs had fully decoded the information. Tight controls on information and competition within the Chinese public health system were to blame, according to dozens of interviews and internal documents.

Chinese government labs only released the genome after another lab published it ahead of authorities on a virologist website on Jan. 11. Even then, China stalled for at least two weeks more on providing WHO with detailed data on patients and cases, according to recordings of internal meetings held by the U.N. health agency through January — all at a time when the outbreak arguably might have been dramatically slowed.

In fact, the WHO’s congratulatory approach during the early days of the outbreak was part of a strategy to coax more information out of the government in Beijing. During transcripts of the call, American staffers at the WHO (the likely source of these leaks) complained that Beijing was giving them information “15 minutes before it appears on CCTV.”

WHO officials were lauding China in public because they wanted to coax more information out of the government, the recordings obtained by the AP suggest. Privately, they complained in meetings the week of Jan. 6 that China was not sharing enough data to assess how effectively the virus spread between people or what risk it posed to the rest of the world, costing valuable time.

“We’re going on very minimal information,” said American epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, now WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, in one internal meeting. “It’s clearly not enough for you to do proper planning.”

“We’re currently at the stage where yes, they’re giving it to us 15 minutes before it appears on CCTV,” said WHO’s top official in China, Dr. Gauden Galea, referring to the state-owned China Central Television, in another meeting.

The story behind the early response to the virus comes at a time when the U.N. health agency is under siege, and has agreed to an independent probe of how the pandemic was handled globally. After repeatedly praising the Chinese response early on, U.S. President Donald Trump has blasted WHO in recent weeks for allegedly colluding with China to hide the extent of the coronavirus crisis. He cut ties with the organization on Friday, jeopardizing the approximately $450 million the U.S. gives every year as WHO’s biggest single donor.

Perhaps the most interesting segment of the AP’s reporting came two seconds before the agency appeared to dismiss the fact that China’s prevarications during the early days of the virus violated international law (it’s okay since the WHO has no enforcement powers).

At one point, the AP insisted, apropos of nothing, that the leaked transcript doesn’t support “either the US or China”, but merely offers a picture of an organization in turmoil. Somehow, we doubt this disclaimer will dissuade Trump and the China hawks in his administration from citing the report as just the latest evidence justifying their suspicions of Beijing.

The new information does not support the narrative of either the U.S. or China, but instead portrays an agency now stuck in the middle that was urgently trying to solicit more data despite limits to its own authority. Although international law obliges countries to report information to WHO that could have an impact on public health, the U.N. agency has no enforcement powers and cannot independently investigate epidemics within countries. Instead, it must rely on the cooperation of member states.

WHO staffers debated how to press China for gene sequences and detailed patient data without angering authorities, worried about losing access and getting Chinese scientists into trouble. Under international law, WHO is required to quickly share information and alerts with member countries about an evolving crisis. Galea noted WHO could not indulge China’s wish to sign off on information before telling other countries because “that is not respectful of our responsibilities.”

After all, while we might not possess any direct evidence that the novel coronavirus leaked from a biolab in Wuhan, it’s now become abundantly cleared that Beijing lied, and people died, and the WHO failed in its mission to safeguard the public health of the most vulnerable nations.

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

For a very long time, many of us have been loudly warning the American people that this was coming. 

The mainstream media and many of our national leaders have been fanning the flames of hatred, anger, frustration and division on a daily basis for many years, and it was just a matter of time before we witnessed an eruption of violence of this magnitude.  Over the last week, we have seen protests in at least 145 different U.S. cities, and reports of rioting, looting and violence are coming in so fast that it is literally impossible to keep up with them all.  So far, at least 40 U.S. cities have imposed curfews, the National Guard has been activated in at least 15 states, and at least 4,100 people have been arrested.  On Sunday night, the violence in Washington D.C. became so alarming that President Trump was actually rushed to a secret bunker under the White House…

Agents reportedly rushed Trump to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) – which was used after the 9/11 terror attacks and is equipped with secret tunnels – on Sunday night.

Trump was moved to the bunker before more than 50 Secret Service agents were injured during the sixth night of violence prompted by George Floyd’s Monday death, the New York Times reported.

It is located in the ground below the East Wing of the White House, but its exact placement is kept secret.

To me, it is absolutely crazy that the rioters are being allowed to injure one Secret Service officer after another.

It just shows how much things have changed.  When I worked in the D.C. area many years ago, there was a tremendous amount of respect for the White House, and everyone understood that anybody that tried to mess with the White House would be dealt with severely.

In those days, anyone that attacked a Secret Service agent would have deeply, deeply regretted doing so.

But now we are apparently allowing our Secret Service agents to be “kicked, punched, and exposed to bodily fluids”…

Through Saturday and early Sunday, more than 60 Secret Service Uniformed Division Officers and special agents suffered multiple injuries from bricks, rocks, bottles, fireworks and other items hurled at them.

“Secret Service personnel were also directly physically assaulted as they were kicked, punched, and exposed to bodily fluids,” the agency said. A total of 11 injured personnel were transported to a local hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries.

What in the world is happening to this country?

In addition to these heinous acts, the “peaceful protesters” in D.C. decided that it would be a really good idea to deface the Lincoln Memorial and the National World War II Memorial…

The iconic Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. and the National World War II Memorial are among the landmarks in the nation’s capital that were vandalized amid weekend protests and defaced with graffiti.

‘In the wake of last night’s demonstrations, there are numerous instances of vandalism to sites around the National Mall,’ the National Park Service for the National Mall said in a tweet on Sunday along with photos of monuments covered in graffiti.

This isn’t about George Floyd anymore.

At this point, the protests have been taken over by radical leftists that are seeking to use this crisis as an opportunity to promote violence.

And others are simply taking advantage of the cover provided by these protests to commit crimes that they wouldn’t normally be able to commit.  For example, the looting that we have been witnessing in New York City has been unprecedented…

In New York City, despite clashes in lower Manhattan, police seemed to abandon much of the island to looters, who ransacked some of the most valuable retail real estate on the planet.

Best Buy. North Face. Coach. Kate Spade. Apple.

After 10 p.m., rioters in Union Square ignited boxes outside the Strand bookstore. They were captured on video smashing the windows of a Walgreens pharmacy and looting a GameStop store.

And in Chicago, the looters have been hitting store after store “in broad daylight”…

In Chicago, there was plenty of looting in broad daylight. A drive from The Loop to the city’s Deep South Side saw nearly every block feature at least one battered business. One beat cop bemoaned to The Daily Beast, “These aren’t protesters, they are opportunists. They are just destroying and looting because it’s the cool thing to do.”

Does this not sound exactly like what I have been warning my readers about for years?

If you do a search for “civil unrest” on The Economic Collapse Blog, you will get 13 pages of results.

If you do a search for “rioting”, you will get 11 pages of results.

And if you do a search for “looting”, you will get 10 pages of results.

Why do you think I included these sorts of violent protests in The Beginning Of The End?  Needless to say, it wasn’t just to entertain the readers.

I have been endlessly warning that these things were coming, and now they have arrived.

Others have been loudly sounding the alarm as well.  For example, former police officer Marty Breeden shared the following back in April…

I saw many of our large metropolitan areas in complete and total chaos.

It was absolute insanity!

Rogue gangs banding together and creating ABSOLUTE havoc!!

Looting, rioting, murdering….

People running for their lives.

I saw great fires on both large and small buildings.

The violence was staggering to my mind.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.

And even though rioters viciously attacked and vandalized CNN headquarters, CNN and other mainstream media outlets continue to apologize for their behavior.  On Saturday, CNN’s Don Lemon actually suggested that these riots could be “some sort of mechanism for a restructure in our country”…

“We don’t know what’s happening in this country right now,” Lemon said. “Perhaps this is some sort of mechanism for a restructure in our country or some sort of change in our country for us to deal with whatever we need to deal with in this country as we look at pictures on the right of burning and pictures on the left of looting.”

He went on to lament the situation but said it could be indicative of those with “no other option” and “nothing left to lose.”

“This is quite actually sad to watch,” he said. “And it is an indication indicative of the pain and the sadness in this country — of people who feel they have no other alternative but to exhibit this behavior in our country, no other option. When you have nothing to lose, you have nothing to lose.”

No, our country is not being “restructured”.

What is actually happening is that our country is literally coming apart at the seams, and a lot of us have been warning that this would happen for many, many years.

Of course these riots come at a time when our nation is already dealing with a huge global pandemic and a historic economic collapse.  The following comes from the Seattle Times…

America experienced a wave of burning cities in the aftermath of a racial killing in 1968. America was hit by a pandemic in 1918 that killed even more people than the 102,000 who have died of the coronavirus. America was battered by a Great Depression in the 1930s and laid low by a Great Recession just a decade ago. America has never experienced all of this kind of tumult in the same moment. It is more than the system can bear, and people grieve for the country.

As I have warned my readers more times than I could possibly count, we have entered the time of “the perfect storm” and global events are going to continue to accelerate.

Just when you think that one crisis has passed, something else is going to happen.  We are going to witness one major event after another, and everything that can be shaken will be shaken.

Anyone that has been surprised by these riots hasn’t been paying attention.  We have been warned over and over again that these things were coming, but most of the country did not want to listen.

Now that the economy has collapsed, a deadly pandemic is sweeping the land and riots are breaking out in most of our major cities, hopefully more people will start to listen.

Because the truth is that time is running out for America, and there is no future for our once great nation if we stay on our present course.

As the world braces for yet another night of protests as governors from Texas to the northeast insist that they would never allow the military to unload on American citizens (technically, active-duty military aren’t legally allowed to perform ‘policing’ functions, per federal law), police in LA say they’ve arrested a man caught impersonating a member of the national guard.

The man, identified as 31-year-old Gregory Wong, was arrested wearing military clothing and carrying a rifle and handgun near Los Angeles City Hall early Tuesday, after he was spotted by National Guard troops who noticed something unusual about his attire, and alerted police, per NBC News.

As one local reporter said, Wong was “armed to the teeth”, and likely intent on committing an extremely violent act.

BREAKING: @FOXLA has learned that LAPD arrested 31 y/o Gregory Wong in DTLA this AM while dressed as/impersonating National Guard. He was armed to the teeth and was booked on assault weapons charges. LAPD says federal charges may come next. Sources confirm this photo. @FOXLA pic.twitter.com/NPp8mFuh9x

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) June 2, 2020

The reporter added that he had a line on Wong’s motives – was he Antifa? Or a white supremacist, perhaps? – but was reluctant to share his information until it had been “triple-confirmed” – an honorable instinct, we must say, given that reporters spreading sensational falsehoods has become a staple of contemporary crises.

ARTICLE: https://t.co/Yumu5qQPAK
We have potential information on his motive but I am waiting to triple confirm before reporting this. Stay tuned for further info. Working all sources on this. @FOXLA

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) June 2, 2020

Wong was booked on suspicion of manufacturing or possession of an illegal assault weapon, records showed, thought technically impersonating a police officer is a crime.

Authored by Andrew Moran via LibertyNation.com,

The United States was waiting for the zombie apocalypse. The country was given a coronapocalypse instead. But could the two events merge and provide the nation with a dangerous economic trend? Corporate America’s worst-kept secret had been the swelling number of zombies kept on life support and hidden away during the boom phase of the business cycle. Now that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the fault lines underneath the economy, the zombification may accelerate due to a toxic concoction of Federal Reserve stimulus and congressional relief. Will zombies leave their graves, searching for freshly created US dollars and feasting on the carcass of the ailing marketplace?

The Walking Dead

A zombie company is a business that requires perpetual bailouts to keep its doors open, or it is a deeply indebted firm that can only repay the interest on its debt. The zombification has been eating away at Japan and China, and now it is gradually infecting the US economy. What’s worse is that American zombie businesses employ about 2 million people, according to new Arbor Data Science figures.

Workers employed by zombie companies are found in many different industries. Arbor’s research found that the top five sectors by employee headcount were:

• Industrial conglomerates: 233,000

• Hardware, storage, and peripherals: 193,000

• Energy equipment and services: 185,000

• Hotels, restaurants, and leisure: 153,000

• Software: 142,000

But could the fragility of the market cause a huge number of workers to file for unemployment benefits? It might seem counterintuitive, but it has become a lot easier for these businesses to be resuscitated.

One institution has been supplying these walkers with brain nourishment: the Federal Reserve.

Feeding the Undead

Zombies have been finding it easier to borrow for a combination of reasons. The first is that interest rates are historically low, so it can be less difficult to repay the interest on the debt and use the cost savings to keep the lights on. The second is that the US central bank has taken unprecedented action by acquiring corporate debt through the secondary exchange-traded fund (ETF) market.

Put simply, if it were not for accommodative monetary policy, these firms would have otherwise shut down by now. Once again, the Eccles Building is refusing to allow the invisible hand to rein in the excess for fear a liquidity crisis, credit crunch, and every other fancy way of saying we are in a dilly of a pickle.

But it is the entire market that is taking advantage of a desperate Fed. US companies are borrowing at the fastest pace in history year-to-date, issuing more than $1 trillion in new bonds, according to Bank of America Global. This is about double the number from 2019 during the same period. This eyebrow-raising number highlights two important facts in this environment: Companies are borrowing more cheaply than anybody would have anticipated last year, and investors are being paid so little to fund operations in an uncertain market.

MarketWatch alluded to AutoNation as a struggling company that recently borrowed $500 million from the bond market. The national chain of car dealerships posted a $232.3 million net loss in the first quarter, but it still attracted investor interest due to its 4.4 percent yield. Under present conditions, traders know that their investment is insured, because the central bank could just swoop in and rescue a troubled asset to avoid a powder keg from going off.

And it is not just Fed chair Jerome Powell going on a bond-buying spree. There is still obviously a demand for all kinds of bonds—investment grade and junk status—and this is fueling the rise of moribund companies that are gorging on debt. The undead can roam the streets for several more years if this is the de facto monetary policy.

Zombification

In Tokyo and Beijing, the typical walking dead are the banks. In the postcoronavirus economy, it is evident that the next generation of zombies will be cruise lines, retailers, and airlines. In a truly free market, these industries would eliminate a large number of companies, but because of cheap money and an accommodative Fed, that is not going to happen. Many of these businesses are also benefiting from creditors waiving or loosening previous debts, allowing some of the world’s largest organizations to reach noteworthy agreements with lenders.

This is terrible news for Main Street, because now capital is being misallocated and transferred to unproductive enterprises. Businesses—large or small—with high growth prospects may not see their visions realized, because the money is going to prop up the Marriotts and Vail Resorts of the world.

With the death of small businesses potentially nigh, the entrepreneurial spirit may wither away before it even has a chance to be zombified, because it cannot access as much liquidity as the big boys.

Money Printer Go Brrr

The ramifications of these whatever-it-takes and money printer go brrr policies will only be felt in a few years, when the Fed chooses to tighten up and remove the training wheels. We have seen what happens when the Fed scales back its quantitative easing efforts: triple-digit losses on the stock market and ballooning debt-servicing payments. If this ever happens, a tidal wave of debt defaults and bankruptcies will swallow the US. Should the central bank refrain from embarking upon a prescription of tightening, a new type of economy will be born: the anti-productivity economy, comparable to Japan in the 1990s and China today. You could even make a movie out of it: Big Trouble in Little Tokyo: Dawn of the American Dead.

Oil prices soared once again today on hopes that OPEC+ producers are heading toward a consensus on extending output curbs. However, as Bloomberg notes, oil’s rally is prompting some U.S. producers to open their taps once again.

“If everybody magically decides to turn the taps back on and lets the oil back to the surface, now you’ve got 1.5 million to 2 million barrels a day that needs to find a home,” said Stewart Glickman, an energy analyst at CFRA Research.

So once again, all eyes on inventory data to see if last week’s surprise surge in crude stocks was an outlier or a start of a new glut…

API

• Crude -483k (+3.5mm exp)

• Cushing -2.2mm

• Gasoline +1.7mm (-800k exp)

• Distillates +5.9mm (+2.8mm exp)

After last week’s surprise build, analysts expected another rise in crude stocks in the latest week but instead API reports a small 483k draw…

Source: Bloomberg

“While supply cuts can help clear the stockpiles and support the prices, the mid-to-long term recovery depends upon significant factors including the consumer confidence, vaccine development (to prevent a second peak), the trade tensions between the U.S. and China and, in a way, the U.S. elections,” said Mihir Kapadia, chief executive officer of Sun Global Investments.

“Global trade has been hurt by political factors the last three years, and unless significant change happens this end of the year, protectionism will only escalate and disrupt everything from supply chains to regional demand,” he said in emailed commentary.

Futures settled at their highest since March 6 on Tuesday, the day the Saudi-Russian alliance broke down just as a global pandemic dimmed the outlook for demand.

And hovered around $36.80 ahead of the API print holding that level after the surprise draw…

Critically, the rapid rise in oil has ruined any chances of long-term strength as shale producers begin to pump again: “It will be a question of how much price gains do you really want with the risk of the return of U.S. shale oil?” said Olivier Jakob, managing director of Petromatrix GmbH.