{"id":209974,"date":"2020-05-19T09:42:48","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T14:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/?p=209974"},"modified":"2020-05-19T09:44:17","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T14:44:17","slug":"the-new-normal-aint-gonna-to-be-too-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/blog\/the-new-normal-aint-gonna-to-be-too-good\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cNew Normal\u201d Ain\u2019t Gonna to Be Too Good!"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a lot at stake as far as where the country \u201clands\u201d after the COVID-19 crisis has passed. Will the new normal be better or worse for the majority of Americans?\u00a0 And what we can do to make sure it\u2019s a whole lot better than Trump\u2019s disastrous \u201cbest economy in the history of the world?” The COVID-19 crisis exposed our country\u2019s growing economic inequality and seemingly never-ending structural racism. Unfortunately, there\u2019s reason to think they\u2019ll both get worse; but right now, I\u2019ll focus on economic inequality.<\/p>\n

Total retail sales dropped 16% in April after an already terrible March, and May is unlikely to be much better, despite the country beginning to \u201copen up.\u201d If small companies go bankrupt and disappear, big companies will get even bigger and more powerful. Just this week, J.C. Penny, a department store which served as an \u201canchor\u201d in hundreds of malls across America, filed for bankruptcy<\/a>, joining others such as Neiman Marcus and J. Crew. J.C. Penny claims it will emerge from chapter 11 \u201ca stronger retailer,\u201d but that\u2019s pretty much what they all say before fading away and taking their jobs with them. We\u2019re talking major consolidation, which means less competition, along with lower wages, and most likely, fewer jobs as well.<\/p>\n

Sears, once the biggest retailer of all, prior to Walmart, went bankrupt back in fall of 2018, and many more are now slated to follow. In all, it\u2019s estimated that 100,000 stores will close in the next five years, and at that point e-commerce will probably represent at least a quarter of retail sales. (Amazon\u2019s share of e-commerce is already closing in on half of that number\u201444%!<\/a>) I can\u2019t defend Sears or J.C. Penny; horribly mismanaged companies that had been in steady decline for years (I died more than 150 years ago, and I wouldn\u2019t be caught dead wearing most of their clothes!). As for Neiman Marcus, I agree with you mortals who called it \u201cNeedless Markup\u201d\u2014good God, what conspicuous evidence of inequality! But the point is, there are no new players on the horizon, no new competitors to take on the likes of Amazon and Walmart.
\n\"Amazon<\/p>\n

Do We Really Want the Whole Country Working at Amazon?’<\/h2>\n

If unemployment stays high, if the recovery is as slow as most economists increasingly predict, what incentive do giants like Amazon and Walmart have to maintain wages, along with overtime and health benefits? Amazon may be increasing its base pay and overtime rates now, when it needs the extra employees to handle the crunch, but do we really believe that will continue? (Just this week Amazon announced it was cutting overtime pay in Canada<\/a>; isn\u2019t it a good bet the US will be next?) Walmart has announced plans to hire 150,000 new associates and give $550 million in cash bonuses, but do we think that will continue once the COVID-19 crisis is over and ALL of the competition is gone?<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s more efficient to ship every conceivable item in the known universe out of Amazon\u2019s warehouses, but what about the people who lost their jobs at retailers all across America? Even if Amazon could hire them all, do we really want the whole country working for Amazon?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe it\u2019s more efficient to ship every conceivable item in the known universe out of Amazon\u2019s warehouses, but what about the people who lost their jobs at retailers all across America? Even if Amazon could hire them all, do we really want the whole country working for Amazon?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":209977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209974"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209981,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209974\/revisions\/209981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}