EUROPE - The European Union's old wounds have been exposed by coronavirus in a potentially fatal blow, France's former European affairs minister Elisabeth Guigou has warned. EU officials in Brussels have repeatedly urged national capitals to show solidarity, but the health crisis has only underlined existing divisions and tensions between member states.

USA - We recently detailed how when America’s white collar work force returns to their offices, business complexes, and sky scrapers, their experience in the post-COVID ‘reopened’ work space is likely to resemble something more like an airport security check zone, complete with invasive protocols like frequent temperature checks and ‘social distancing’ and health surveillance, as well as Plexiglass enclosed cubicles and HR-style enforcement monitors.

USA - There’s been a concerted effort recently among the oligarchs I like to call The Davos Crowd to demonize cash. From hedge fund manager Ray Dalio pronouncing ‘Cash is trash’ earlier this year to the fear-mongering surrounding COVID-19 making people fearful of dealing in cash because it might be tainted the anti-cash rhetoric has been amped up to eleven.

USA - Within the past several days, large earthquakes have been striking all along the outer rim of the Pacific Ocean, and many are wondering if all of this activity could potentially be building up to something really big.

JAPAN - Japan has been rocked by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake, USGS has confirmed. The epicentre of the earthquake was off the coast of Ibaraki prefecture, north of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. No tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. It comes after a 5.2 earthquake struck just over 50 miles from Fukushima, which is home to 300,000 people, in February.

USA - Anyone that was hoping for a “quick recovery” for the US economy can forget about that right now. Yes, many states are attempting to “reopen”, but in most cases it will be a multi-stage process that takes many months to complete. Meanwhile, fear of COVID-19 is going to keep many Americans from conducting business as usual even after all of the restrictions have been finally lifted. Even now, many of the stores, restaurants and movie theaters that have reopened are seeing very, very few customers.

USA - On Thursday we noted that April orders for class 8 heavy trucks fell a staggering 73% year over year, and 44% from March - the worst order numbers on record as coronavirus shutdowns have put the trucking industry on the cusp of a "freight cliff" according to a FEMA report obtained by Politico. Unsurprisingly, truck drivers have suffered an absolute bloodbath - losing approximately 88,300 jobs in April alone, according to Business Insider, which notes that it's the largest single-month loss of trucking jobs on record. And while truck drivers are considered "essential" workers amid the coronavirus pandemic, a collapse in freight volumes - of which nearly 75% of are moved by truck - has resulted in the devastating loss of jobs as the economy remains at a standstill.

USA - American soil. Those are two words that are commonly used to stir up patriotic feelings. They are also words that can't be taken for granted, because today nearly 30 million acres of US farmland are held by foreign investors. That number has doubled in the past two decades, which is raising alarm bells in farming communities.

USA - A significant group of cardinals, bishops, and Catholic leaders have signed a declaration denouncing unjustified government coercion of citizens over coronavirus. Under the “pretext” of the Covid-19 epidemic, “the inalienable rights of citizens have in many cases been violated and their fundamental freedoms, including the exercise of freedom of worship, expression and movement, have been disproportionately and unjustifiably restricted,” states the text, which bears the signatures of three cardinals, nine bishops, seven priests and theologians, 20 journalists and writers, ten medical doctors, 16 lawyers and judges, 28 university professors and intellectuals, and 14 associations.

USA - For a long time I warned that our economic bubble would burst and that we would plunge into a nightmarish economic collapse. Now it has happened, and it turns out that fear of COVID-19 was the “black swan event” that triggered the collapse. The ironic thing is that COVID-19 is not even close to the worst thing that is going to happen to us. But it was more than enough to topple our incredibly fragile economic system, and now tens of millions of Americans are deeply suffering.

US Debt crosses the $25 trillion mark and continues to rise... rapidly.

USA - Today's jobs report was, as expected and as previously discussed, absolutely horrific, although as Bank of America points out there was one silver lining which Larry Kudlow quickly latched on to: with 72% of jobs lost being reflected as temporary layoffs, workers should be able to be more seamlessly rehired as the economy reopens. However, the longer this pandemic goes on, the more likely that what was temporary becomes permanent, and as we pointed out in a previous post, even baseline cases see unemployment not returning back to normal until 2022 or later. Offsetting this "good news", however, there was one especially scary aspect of today's jobs report that has not gotten enough publicity, namely that as BofA writes, the employment to population ratio plunged to a record low, with only 51.3% of the population working. Inversely, this means that in April, 49% of the US population was not working.

USA - As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wage a silent war across the country, American farmers are being forced to pour out milk, crush eggs, toss fresh fruits and vegetables, euthanize livestock and plow under perfectly robust crops. Meanwhile, financially beleaguered Americans are lining up at food banks in unprecedented numbers, humanitarian leaders fear a global starvation pandemic is burgeoning, and grocery store shelves are sparsely filled. So what has gone wrong? A dramatic dip in demand, weak links in the highly consolidated supply chain, and decades of industry monopolization, experts say. “A large portion of our food is now produced for restaurants, hotels, schools, and institutional users, about 50 percent. Those markets have effectively closed up, and there is not enough demand for home use now,” Dan Glickman, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute and former US Secretary of Agriculture, told Fox News. “Nor is the supply chain set up for this rapid transformation.”

IRAN - Iran is desperately trying to buy millions of tonnes of wheat, corn and soybeans to shore up its grain reserves amid fears food supplies are being devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, insiders have claimed. An agriculture ministry source said Iran needed to import 4 million tonnes of wheat, 1.5 million tonnes of barley, 700,000 tonnes of raw sugar and 4 to 5 million tonnes of corn, in the Iranian year ended March 2021. Competition for international commodities is heating up as governments move to buy more to shore up their reserves, spurred into action by lockdowns which have slowed supply chains and prompted export curbs. Food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies including animal feed are exempt from US sanctions, re-imposed in 2018 after the United States pulled out of Iran's nuclear deal with six world powers.

USA - Roughly one out of every four Americans who hold a credit card — nearly 50 million people — saw their credit limits slashed or accounts involuntarily closed altogether by lenders over the past month, according to a new survey. CompareCards, the Lending Tree site that conducted the survey, was so struck by the high numbers that they ran the survey a second time to be assured of the fallout to cash-strapped consumers hit with staggering unemployment due to the coronavirus crisis. Lenders are reportedly trying to avert losses amid staggering unemployment from the coronavirus crisis.