(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The coronavirus pandemic and the depression that follows will leave the U.S. with a lot of unpayable debts. Consumers who lose their jobs will have difficulty making payments on credit cards, auto loans and student loans. Businesses that lose sales will default on loans and bonds.In a bygone era when the economy was less dependent on a web of debt obligations, this might not have mattered as much. But the U.S. economy has loaded up on debt over the years:This doesn’t mean that the U.S. is living beyond its means; the vast majority of this borrowing is money that Americans owe to each other. But it does indicate that the modern economy is built on a sort of just-in-time financial supply chain, in which the solvency of businesses and households depends on the prompt arrival of a vast number of debt-service payments from other businesses and households. Disrupt...
Costco Wholesale Corporation’s (COST) sales fell in 1.8% in April as stay-at-home orders tied to the coronavirus pandemic left more shoppers at home.Net sales slid 1.8% to $11.39 billion in the four weeks ended May 3 versus the year-ago period, even as e-commerce sales surged almost 86%. Same-store sales dropped 4.7% in April, including a 3.3% decline in U.S. same-store sales. In the thirty-five weeks ended May 3, net sales rose 7.8% to $107.64 billion year-on-year.“Stay-at-home orders, social distancing restrictions and some mandatory closures led to decreased traffic and sales in our warehouses,” Costco said in a statement.Costco said that limited service in its travel and food courts, closures of most of its optical, hearing aid and photo departments, as well as lower gas sales all “negatively impacted” April sales by an estimated 12 percentage points. The company added that about 70% of the impact was related to gas sales.Costco shares...
(Bloomberg) -- For more than two decades, Zimbabwe has been trying to break ground on a giant coal-power complex by the world’s biggest man-made reservoir. China just agreed to get the $4.2 billion project underway.The development near the southern shore of Lake Kariba is good news for Zimbabwe, where a collapsing economy and erratic policies have deterred foreign investment for the past 20 years.But it flies in the face of a growing global consensus that has seen financial institutions from Japan to the U.S. and Europe shun investments in coal projects. That retreat leaves the way open for Chinese companies—many with state backing—even at the risk of undermining the spirit of China’s international commitments to fight climate change.“We are very pleased that the project is going ahead, especially as major banks in the world are forced to stop financing coal-fired power stations,” Caleb Dengu, chairman of RioZim Energy, the company that owns...
