Tag: news

Authored by Nouriel Roubini via Project Syndicate,

After the 2007-09 financial crisis, the imbalances and risks pervading the global economy were exacerbated by policy mistakes. So, rather than address the structural problems that the financial collapse and ensuing recession revealed, governments mostly kicked the can down the road, creating major downside risks that made another crisis inevitable. And now that it has arrived, the risks are growing even more acute.

Unfortunately, even if the Greater Recession leads to a lackluster U-shaped recovery this year, an L-shaped “Greater Depression” will follow later in this decade, owing to ten ominous and risky trends.

The first trend concerns deficits and their corollary risks: debts and defaults. The policy response to the COVID-19 crisis entails a massive increase in fiscal deficits – on the order of 10% of GDP or more – at a time when public debt levels in many countries were already high, if not unsustainable. Worse, the loss of income for many households and firms means that private-sector debt levels will become unsustainable, too, potentially leading to mass defaults and bankruptcies. Together with soaring levels of public debt, this all but ensures a more anemic recovery than the one that followed the Great Recession a decade ago.

A second factor is the demographic time bomb in advanced economies. The COVID-19 crisis shows that much more public spending must be allocated to health systems, and that universal health care and other relevant public goods are necessities, not luxuries. Yet, because most developed countries have aging societies, funding such outlays in the future will make the implicit debts from today’s unfunded health-care and social-security systems even larger.

A third issue is the growing risk of deflation. In addition to causing a deep recession, the crisis is also creating a massive slack in goods (unused machines and capacity) and labor markets (mass unemployment), as well as driving a price collapse in commodities such as oil and industrial metals. That makes debt deflation likely, increasing the risk of insolvency.

A fourth (related) factor will be currency debasement. As central banks try to fight deflation and head off the risk of surging interest rates (following from the massive debt build-up), monetary policies will become even more unconventional and far-reaching. In the short run, governments will need to run monetized fiscal deficits to avoid depression and deflation. Yet, over time, the permanent negative supply shocks from accelerated de-globalization and renewed protectionism will make stagflation all but inevitable.

A fifth issue is the broader digital disruption of the economy. With millions of people losing their jobs or working and earning less, the income and wealth gaps of the twenty-first-century economy will widen further. To guard against future supply-chain shocks, companies in advanced economies will re-shore production from low-cost regions to higher-cost domestic markets. But rather than helping workers at home, this trend will accelerate the pace of automation, putting downward pressure on wages and further fanning the flames of populism, nationalism, and xenophobia.

This points to the sixth major factor: de-globalization. The pandemic is accelerating trends toward balkanization and fragmentation that were already well underway. The United States and China will decouple faster, and most countries will respond by adopting still more protectionist policies to shield domestic firms and workers from global disruptions. The post-pandemic world will be marked by tighter restrictions on the movement of goods, services, capital, labor, technology, data, and information. This is already happening in the pharmaceutical, medical-equipment, and food sectors, where governments are imposing export restrictions and other protectionist measures in response to the crisis.

The backlash against democracy will reinforce this trend. Populist leaders often benefit from economic weakness, mass unemployment, and rising inequality. Under conditions of heightened economic insecurity, there will be a strong impulse to scapegoat foreigners for the crisis. Blue-collar workers and broad cohorts of the middle class will become more susceptible to populist rhetoric, particularly proposals to restrict migration and trade.

This points to an eighth factor: the geostrategic standoff between the US and China. With the Trump administration making every effort to blame China for the pandemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s regime will double down on its claim that the US is conspiring to prevent China’s peaceful rise. The Sino-American decoupling in trade, technology, investment, data, and monetary arrangements will intensify.

Worse, this diplomatic breakup will set the stage for a new cold war between the US and its rivals – not just China, but also Russia, Iran, and North Korea. With a US presidential election approaching, there is every reason to expect an upsurge in clandestine cyber warfare, potentially leading even to conventional military clashes. And because technology is the key weapon in the fight for control of the industries of the future and in combating pandemics, the US private tech sector will become increasingly integrated into the national-security-industrial complex.

A final risk that cannot be ignored is environmental disruption, which, as the COVID-19 crisis has shown, can wreak far more economic havoc than a financial crisis. Recurring epidemics (HIV since the 1980s, SARS in 2003, H1N1 in 2009, MERS in 2011, Ebola in 2014-16) are, like climate change, essentially man-made disasters, born of poor health and sanitary standards, the abuse of natural systems, and the growing interconnectivity of a globalized world. Pandemics and the many morbid symptoms of climate change will become more frequent, severe, and costly in the years ahead.

These ten risks, already looming large before COVID-19 struck, now threaten to fuel a perfect storm that sweeps the entire global economy into a decade of despair. By the 2030s, technology and more competent political leadership may be able to reduce, resolve, or minimize many of these problems, giving rise to a more inclusive, cooperative, and stable international order. But any happy ending assumes that we find a way to survive the coming Greater Depression.

The “Virus-Fear”-trade continues to tread water despite hopeful moves in the major indices this month…

Source: Bloomberg

But Dr. Fauci’s comments overnight seemed to spoil the party for the big momentum stocks…

Source: Bloomberg

“So it’s not going to disappear from the planet, which means as we get into next season, in my mind it’s inevitable that we will have a return of the virus or maybe it never even went away. When it does, how we handle it will determine our fate,” Fauci commented overnight, adding that he was “almost certain” the virus will return in the winter.

So Fauci’s warning to the world is simple “Winter is coming”

Nasdaq was the biggest loser for a second day in a row with S&P and Dow failing to cling to unchanged as Small Caps and Trannies squeezed higher again… (another weak close)

A third day of opening short-squeeze today but the squeeze ran out of ammo fast…

Source: Bloomberg

And FANG stocks, for instance, suffered their biggest 2-day drop in six weeks…

Source: Bloomberg

Crude markets were total chaos as Index/ETF shifts and imminent futures contract rolls did not help with the front-month illiquidity…

Rather surprisingly, given the endless commentary last month-end, we have barely heard a peep from the likes of CNBC about the massive equity outperformance in April and the need for rebalancing flows against stocks and into bonds…

Which may help explain why bonds were aggressively bid today…

Source: Bloomberg

10Y broke back below 60bps intraday…

Source: Bloomberg

The Dollar dived for the second day in a row (note all the dollar selling pressure comes in Asia)…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos were generally flat today except for Ripple which surged…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold was marginally lower today (second day of dollar and gold lower together)

Total chaos in crude markets as the front-month swung violently around, only to end almost unchanged…

Finally, as consumer confidence plunged by its most ever, hunkered-down Americans show no appetite at all for a vacation anytime soon…

Source: Bloomberg

As Bloomberg notes, a record-low 32% of consumers said in April that they’re planning to take a vacation in the U.S. or outside the country, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence report showed Tuesday. While not surprising, that’s bad news for a travel industry hoping coronavirus-mitigation efforts will ease health concerns and get the economy on its feet a little quicker.

 

Jeff Gundlach isn’t the only one who thinks the market’s April rally has been way overdone.

During an interview with Squawk Box Tuesday morning, Hyman Capital Management Founder Kyle Bass said he was surprised by the market’s rebound in April, particularly since official data have shown that virtually all of the jobs created over the last ten years and then some have been destroyed.

While many retail and food-service workers might be hired back once their employers reopen, there’s still no guarantee that many of these employers will reopen.

No matter how you slice it, “economic and financial realities” of the post-corona world are too uncertain to justify anything close to the ~30% rally we’ve seen this month. Whatever happens with the unemployment rate, it’s not going to just bounce back right away.

“We’re going to have a very long grind here, trying to get these people back to work,” Bass said, referring to service-economy workers who represent the bulk of those who have lost their jobs.

“I don’t believe people are going to immediately go back to where we once were, I think it’s going to take a lot of time,” Bass said of the service economy.

Furthermore, once we reopen, there’s plenty of reason to suspect that businesses won’t bounce back, and won’t have the wherewithal to re-hire staff, especially if public officials adhere to overly draconian social distancing requirements, even as new surveillance data suggests that as many as 40% of the population in the Bronx, part of one of the biggest hot spots in the country, might already be infected.

As Bass pointed out, the economic model for most shops and restaurants simply won’t work if they can only have half the maximum number of customers at a time.

“Not at 25% or 50%,” Bass said, bringing up something that economists and talking heads have bizarrely glossed over: The American economy simply can’t sustain social distancing for more than a few months.

And as companies like the Los Angeles Lakers continue to gobble up much of the funding that was supposed to go to small businesses, much of the stimulus – both fiscal and monetary – might simply flow straight to the top of the pyramid, leaving everybody else worse off than they were before.

“In a perfect world maybe we’ll be back to 7-10% unemployment,” Bass said.

Bass bet big against the yuan and other southeast Asian currencies (including the Hong Kong dollar, which remains pegged to the dollar despite all the tumult that unfolded in the city last year) last year, a trade that has probably paid off nicely for him as the dollar has continued to strengthen. If it wasn’t for the Fed “kitchen sinking” its asset purchases, Bass suspects the market would be in a much different place.

“The Fed has come in and done everything that it possibly could and then some,” he added. “The Fed’s buying everything but equities.”

And if things don’t improve quickly enough, as Bass suspects, pretty soon, the Fed might start buying equities, too – even if Secretary Mnuchin thinks that’s “highly unlikely.”

 

 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

With coronavirus antibody tests just days away from approval, the country is about to be flooded with millions of tests to determine if individuals have already been exposed to the virus and presumably have immunity from it.

The development is key for researchers to understand both the scope and spread of the virus as well as how close we may be to a type of “herd immunity.” That public health breakthrough however could trigger some difficult legal questions. First and foremost, what if you are not part of the herd?

The country may soon have to deal with a new concept of bias: antibody or immuno discrimination.

There is a growing and urgent need to get this economy rolling as the virus outbreak subsides. President Donald Trump is correct that destroying this economy will ruin the lives and dreams (and yes health) of tens of millions of citizens. It could reduce the horizon for an entire generation saddled with crippling debt and reduced markets.

Recovery will occur only to the degree that people feel comfortable about getting on airplanes, trains, buses, restaurants, and other closed spaces. With a vaccine projected as still a year away, the population could soon be divided into the immunized and the potentially contagious.

If you are in the later group, the question is whether you can be denied certain services.

It is not as far-fetched as you might think. Take the airlines. Planes need to be near capacity to be profitable as a general rule. Social distancing on an airplane is not economically viable. One solution is to require proof of antibodies in your system with one of these available tests. Indeed, the airlines this week floated the idea of a required blood test. That conversely would create barriers to those who are immuno signatures.

Various countries are already using tracking technology to identify carriers and the same technology can be used to distinguish those who are immune. In Moscow, the government has issued “digital permits” to travel that bars others from public transport and even car traffic.

Our legal system is poorly suited for discrimination based on antigens. The discrimination laws focus on immutable characteristics like race and there are both constitutional and statutory protections for those singled out for their religion, gender, sexual orientation, and other classifications. This is not an immutable characteristic but one based on the status of a person’s immunity from a virus.

The other area of relevant law covers quarantine powers in a pandemic. However, those laws and cases focus on confining the contagious, not the potentially contagious.

This issue could actually become more acute once a vaccination is available. The imposition of a mandatory vaccine would be necessary to prevent a renewed outbreak. Putting aside the logistics of vaccinating over 300 million people, many will object or fail to comply. They will continue to represent a fertile population for the virus to take hold. There are three ways to maximize immunization.

• First, make it mandatory.

• Second, convince people that they need it.

• Third, give him an incentive or disincentive in complying.

The first option will turn on a 1905 case where the Supreme Court upheld a state mandatory vaccination program of school children for small pox in Massachusetts. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), the Court found that such programs are the quintessential state power rather than a federal power. It also held that “every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.” States are allowed to subject citizens to restraints to protect “general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State.” The Congress should fund a national vaccinations program and leave mandatory compliance orders to the states.

The second option is already well-established in the minds of most citizens. A deadly pandemic helps. However, we continue to be ministers die who defied orders against large services and young people who put spring break above survival concerns. There will continue to be a percentage of citizens who simply do not believe the virus will touch them or faith or youth will protect them.

That leaves the third option. If people face limitations on travel and employment, a rational actor is likely to comply even if they see little need to do so otherwise. Yet, such a system of proven immunization will create an insular group of the immune deficient. In Jacobson, the law focused on children and the penalties were being blocked from school and a small fine. With the coronavirus, a state would have to compel the population at large of every age.

Some may raise religious or other constitutional rights to refuse a vaccine. The states will have a strong argument that this is not a case of simply self-inflicted harm like those who handle snakes as a matter of faith. By not complying, individuals are fueling the spread to others, particularly more vulnerable populations. In 1922, the Court ruled in Zucht v. King that a school system does not violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in denying school to students who refused for any reason to be vaccination.

Most importantly, in 1944 in Prince v. Massachusetts, the Court upheld such mandatory programs because “the right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death.”

The coronavirus vaccination program would be broader but still rely on the same precedent. Congress can impose limits on interstate travel and the Transportation Security Administration could impose entry requirements but gate areas. The question is whether private businesses like airlines could also make vaccination or immunity a condition for customers. Airlines are part of a regulated industry and could face difficulty in the unilateral imposition of such conditions.

Thus, while states are key to mandatory vaccinations, the federal government would be key to allowing travel restrictions and other barriers to the noncompliant. In doing so, the restrictions would have to trump the right to travel and other constitutional rights. The coercive impact on individuals would be extreme. Noncompliant and non-immune citizens would be isolated physically and socially. Moreover, to make such a system work, there would have to be an easy form of proof of immunization or vaccination – a type of antibody passport.

In the end, the federal and state government may decide to accept a certain level of noncompliance and resulting contraction of the virus. If this is a slowly mutating virus, a second wave may be manageable with therapeutics and ramped up resources. However, if the country wants to impose a mandatory program, it will have to deal with a new status dividing the population between the immune and non-immune.

Two weeks ago, we reported that an odd, if familiar, decoupling had re-emerged in the market where following the torrid rebound in the market, carbon-based traders (also known as humans) and fundamental hedge funds, have been skeptical of the rally and unwilling to chase stocks higher, were in fact selling stocks, while the strong upward momentum in risk was just the catalyst to turn technical investors, CTAs and other momentum-chasing machines and robots bullish. As a result, we noted that a situation had emerged where “Record Human Hedge Fund Selling Meets Furious Robot CTAs Buying“, a divergence where for now, at least, the machines are winning.

To be sure, this wasn’t the first time we had seen such a temporary decoupling: in late July 2019, we wrote that “An Unprecedented Market Divergence: Robots Are All In Stocks As Humans Flee“, which however last only a few days before a violent quant snapback slammed stocks, while the ensuing repo crash in Sept 2019 forced the Fed to step in with “Not QE” to bailout markets and hedge funds. In short, the humans were right, and it was only more Fed bailouts – which ended up with Powell eventually nationalizing the entire market – that prevented a historic crash.

Fast forward to today, when more strategists are starting to notice that the market euphoria in recent days has been almost entirely due to algos and robots.

As Nomura’s Masanari Takada writes overnight, global equity markets extended their gains yesterday, briefly pushing the S&P above 2,900 as governments and central banks around the world have been taking bold steps to prop up national economies, and with more and more observations being made to the effect that the coronavirus pandemic has passed its peak, investors are probably finding it an unappealing time to enter into bearish trades: “barring some unexpected market-negative news, conditions look conducive to a spontaneous recovery in investor confidence”, Takada writes.

However, as the Nomura quant next adds, and seemingly echoing what we first said in mid-April, “the buying of equities we are seeing has a strongly technical flavor, as it is apparently being led by trend-following algos (CTAs, risk-parity funds), including by way of short-covering.”

And, as we also noted two weeks ago, while “machines may be getting back into the market, human investors appear to be taking their time. With human market participants staying at home (both literally and figuratively), the machines have proceeded on their own to systematically buy up equities.“

Within the realm of machines, one notable buyer is the risk-parity industry, which after getting crushed at the start of March is starting to dip its toe back in, and according to Nomura, “risk-parity funds appear to have slightly upped their allocations to DM equities and EM equities in the context of their month-end rebalancing, and have been buying equities accordingly.” This is happening sooner than Takada had expected, given that equity market volatility is still high. However, as the Nomura trader suggests, it is best to assume that risk-parity funds are buying equities simply as the default alternative to the high-yield bonds they have been selling. The portfolio weights that risk-parity funds are assigning to high-yield bonds are now down to their lowest levels since 2013, so risk-parity funds’ buying of equities (for lack of a better alternative to high-yield bonds) looks likely to take a breather soon.

Meanwhile, echoing what his co-worker Charlie McElligott said earlier, Takada notes that trend-chasing CTAs are also dipping their toes into chasing US equity futures markets up. And similar to Charlie, who earlier said that CTAs will turn 100% bullish if the S&P closes above 2,901, Takada estimates that CTAs have swung net long in S&P 500 futures and have just finished closing out their short positions in Russell 2000 futures. The rally staged by the Russell 2000 yesterday (27 April) presumably pulled CTAs into a short squeeze.

Besides the return of trend-followers in the US, CTAs appear to be taking an early bite out of anticipated rebound in European equities. According to Nomura, the supply-demand dynamics among CTAs look much the same in European equity markets, as CTAs are now either square or slightly net long in most EMEA equity futures markets. At this point, FTSE 100 futures, IBEX 25 futures, and RTS futures are the only EMEA equity futures markets in which CTAs are still net short.

Meanwhile in Germany, CTAs are now clearly tilted net long in DAX futures, even if this net long position looks divorced from economic fundamentals. Considering the downward trajectory of the Ifo Business Climate Index, Takada cautions that “what we are seeing is arguably a classic bear market rally.”

In parting, we will note that many have pointed out the sharp drop in market volumes in recent weeks. Nomura also highlights this, saying that liquidity in equity futures markets in general has yet to truly recover.

In other words, even the smallest buying intentions now have an outside impact on the market, with conditions such that “a flow of orders in the same direction can upset the balance of supply and demand and thereby cause wide price swings.”

As Takada concludes, while it is true that there is “increasing talk of resuming economic activity in Germany and other major economies in the region, trend-following algos, by getting in early, have already eaten into some of the potential for a stock market reversal associated with such a resumption of economic activity.”

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Is America, in lockdown, with 26 million unemployed and entering a new depression, up for a confrontation and Cold War with China?

For that appears to be where the GOP wishes to lead us…

According to Politico, a 57-page memo from Mitch McConnell’s senatorial committee instructs GOP candidates to blame the coronavirus pandemic on China, commit to stand up to China, end U.S. dependence on Chinese manufacturing and tell voters “my opponent is soft on China.”

“China is not an ally, and they’re not just a rival — they are an adversary and the Chinese Communist Party is our enemy,” reads one of the talking points.

Sunday, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas echoed the memo, charging that China’s leaders wanted the coronavirus to spread because they “did not want to see their relative power and standing in the world decline.”

Cotton went on:

“It’s a scandal to me that we have trained so many of the Chinese communists. If Chinese students want to come here and learn Shakespeare and the Federalist Papers — that’s what they need to learn from America; they don’t need to learn quantum computing and artificial intelligence from America.”

The Wall Street Journal ran back-to-back editorials last week urging a more confrontational stance toward Beijing and endorsing GOP plans for new defense spending on U.S. air and naval forces in the Western Pacific.

Cotton and the Journal are not wrong in their characterization of China’s behavior. It is belligerent toward its neighbors and hostile toward the United States.

• China has indeed sent student-spies to study at U.S. universities.

• Under cover of the coronavirus crisis, Beijing is moving to strip the 7 million people of Hong Kong of the rights they were guaranteed when the British departed.

• The Uighurs of Xinjiang are being persecuted and coercively cleansed of their cultural and religious beliefs.

• The Peoples Liberation Army seeks to intimidate Taiwan by sending military aircraft near the island.

• China’s warships have harassed Vietnamese, Malaysian, Philippine and Indonesian commercial vessels to assert its claim to the entire South China Sea.

• Chinese propagandists have accused the U.S. of creating the coronavirus crisis that broke out in Wuhan last winter.

JFK may have been inexact when he observed:

“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”

But that is an accurate description of how China has conducted itself since it unleashed the Wuhan virus upon the world.

But why did Americans, after a 40-year struggle with another “Evil Empire,” ever believe differently about the Communist Party of China?

Under the code of that party, the morality of an act is determined by whether it advances or retards the goals of the regime: expansion, conquest and domination.

As President Ronald Reagan undiplomatically observed in an early press conference, Communists reserve to themselves “the right to lie, cheat and steal,” which is pretty much how the Chinese Communists have been behaving toward us since we reengaged with them in 1972.

What course does the Journal recommend that we pursue?

“Freedom of navigation exercises” by U.S. naval and air forces are “not enough to secure the Western Pacific from Chinese domination.”

Instead, the Journal says the U.S. “may need to start recognizing claims of countries like Vietnam to make China pay a price for further expansion. The U.S. should also try to maintain its defense pact with the Philippines’ mercurial President Rodrigo Duterte.”

The Journal seems to be suggesting that we formally recognize and back Vietnam’s claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea. None of these islands belongs to us?

Why should the U.S. Navy risk a clash at sea by making us a party to these latest quarrels halfway around the world?

Vietnam is a country of 95 million people. Like China, it is also Communist. The Philippines have more than 7,000 islands and 100 million people. Indonesia has 17,000 to 18,000 islands and is the fourth-most populous nation on earth with 267 million citizens.

Cannot the nations that share the South China Sea with China acquire coastal navies to defend their own waters? Why is the Journal volunteering the U.S. as Coast Guard of the South China Sea?

The Journal argues that with Chinese nationalism rising under Xi Jinping, “It’s more important than ever for the U.S. to signal that it considers the independence of Pacific states a vital interest and isn’t retreating.”

The independence and borders of these states is undeniably vital to them. But how is that vital to us, 8,000 miles away, on the other side of the Pacific? This is power politics, pure and simple.

Vegas is in trouble. Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak tweeted Monday he will be reopening the state’s economy in the near term. Sisolak knows if stay-at-home public health orders are extended, casinos, restaurants, and other entertainment businesses might not survive.

Vegas’ McCarran International Airport, a gauge on tourism flow to the strip, recorded a massive halving of tourists by plane in March when compared with March 2019. 

That’s a staggering drop in tourism by flight to the strip, and it’s devastating for the region as nearly 1 in 3 jobs in the state are tied to tourism.

Coronavirus lockdowns in the state, along with international flight restrictions, have pushed Vegas to a near breaking point.

AP News says the strip is usually “busy, always noisy, never sleeps… you can now hear birds chirping.”

“It’s crazy,” said Chris Morehouse, an Elvis impersonator, who compares the shutdown to “the end of the world.”

We noted above, the state is hugely tourism sensitive, with 1 in 3 jobs tied to tourism, leisure, hospitality, and the gambling industry. Workers are set to lose $7.7 billion in wages and salaries over the next year and a half if the tourism industry stays shut between one to three months.

Nearly 343,000 residents in the state have filed for unemployment benefits in the last five weeks. This means Nevada’s unemployment rate is right around 17%. As for Vegas, the unemployment rate could be significantly higher. Already, folks in the city have protested being out of work, reported NBC Vegas. 

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman calls the statewide shutdown of casinos “total insanity.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Goodman recently said, “being closed is killing us already, and killing Las Vegas, our industry, our convention and tourism business that we have all worked so hard to build.”

AP notes that casino closures are likely to extend into May, with no concrete timeline of reopening.

A Kimberly Ireland,49, a bell desk dispatcher at the Mirage casino-resort who was recently laid off, said she’s living off savings and unemployment.

“Money is running out. It’s getting low for the majority of us,” Ireland said.

She hopes work will reopen, but understands Vegas is not ready to return back to normal:

“Everybody wants to get back to business. Everybody wants to get back to semi-normal,” she said. “I just don’t think it’s safe.”

And with companies barely offering hazard pay and medical supplies, many workers are figuring out that collecting unemployment in a pandemic is much safer than working. 

Victor Chicas, a restaurant server in the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel, already facing financial hardships before the pandemic, including insurmountable debts and foreclosure on his home, had to cut his cable and internet and drain his pool to lower his electricity bill.

And what’s worse is that MGM Resorts International just canceled bookings at its Las Vegas hotels for between May 1 and 21, suggesting that closures will continue through next month. The earliest reservations are on June 1 through MGM’s website, according to Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Boyd Gaming, Caesars Entertainment, and Station Casinos are other resorts that will start accepting reservations starting on May 15.

And the difficult question that no one wants to answer is how the hell do casinos reopen in an era of social distancing?

Vegas casinos are mass ordering “rona guards.”

Vegas casinos are mass ordering these ‘Rona guards, according to a source pic.twitter.com/PD1Qqc7phB

— Las Vegas Locally 🌴 (@LasVegasLocally) April 27, 2020

Marriot International is “rolling out enhanced technologies over the next few months, including electrostatic sprayers with hospital-grade disinfectant to sanitize surfaces throughout the hotel.”

Like the airline industry, Vegas could take years to recover.