The Price of a Virus Lockdown: Economic 'Free Fall' in California

[Zorro]

California’s strengths — as a hub for commerce, tourism and education in the Pacific Rim — have become liabilities in the pandemic.

Locked down in their homes, the four former California governors clicked into a Zoom call and one after another described how they dealt with the crises that had defined their time in office. For Pete Wilson, it was the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Gray Davis evoked the electricity disaster that drove him out in a recall election, and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown lamented the Great Recession.

But the former governors agreed that nothing they confronted was as dire or will be more consequential than what the current occupant of the office, Gov. Gavin Newsom, now faces.

The economic collapse resulting from the coronavirus pandemic “dwarfs any problem the four of us had,” Mr. Davis recalled saying at the meeting, which took place late last month and was convened by Mr. Newsom.

“There’s no playbook,” he said. “There’s no precedent.”

California was the first state to shut down to counter the coronavirus and has avoided the staggeringly high infection and death rates suffered in the Northeast. But the debilitating financial costs are mounting every day. California has an estimated unemployment rate above 20 percent, according to Mr. Newsom — far higher than the 14.7 percent national rate and similar to the estimated rate for New York State, where the virus has hit the hardest.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/us/coronavirus-california-economy.html

[Iliyah]

1. We will be ok . .

[silverweb]

2. Yes, we will.

[BamaRefugee]

3. We can easily make up the deficit. We place huge fees on all ships coming in from China, and all

Trucks heading East. Almost everything in every Walmart and Dollar Store and Bass Pro Shops in every red state comes to our ports first.

If redneck trumphumping anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers want their crap, PAY UP SUCKERS!

[CanonRay]

4. California would be better off not being in the Union

at least with Trump in charge.