Posted on 04/23/2020 2:45:40 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Brussels (AFP) - The eurozone economy is suffering an "unprecedented" collapse according to a PMI index released Thursday by analysis firm IHS Markit.
"The eurozone economy suffered the steepest falls in business activity and employment ever recorded during April as a result of measures taken to contain the coronavirus outbreak," it said.
The company's purchasing manager's index (PMI) dived to a record low of 13.5 in April, from the previous all-time low of 29.7 in March, confirming private sector gloom that is savaging the 19-nation eurozone.
A reading below 50 signals a contraction.
IHS Markit said the service sector bore the brunt of the hit, with hotels, restaurants and travel-related firms faring the worst.
Manufacturing also saw a record fall however, because of staff and material shortages and severe supply chain disruptions.
Employment plummeted for the second month running -- "service sector jobs were slashed at the steepest rate yet witnessed by the survey, while the drop in manufacturing payrolls was the sharpest since April 2009."
Prices for services and goods fell at their fastest rate in a decade.
“The extent to which the PMI survey has shown business to have collapsed across the eurozone greatly exceeds anything ever seen before in over 20 years of data collection," IHS Markit's chief business economist Chris Williamson said.
"The ferocity of the slump has also surpassed that thought imaginable by most economists, the headline index falling far below consensus estimates."
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
Who could have ever guessed that if governments stop the economy using the monopoly on force it has that it will actually lead to the stopping of the economy?
We truly are led by the dumbest among us.
JoMa
Great piece on German TV last weekend....a major farm tractor manufacturer in Germany was having a telephone conference with four folks (outside of Germany) who provide items for the tractor assembly. The German shop was completely shutdown and the employees were begging for a chance to return to work.
The other nations supplying parts....all had different worries and bans in place. No one was showing any real enthusiasm for April, and most figured mid-May before they’d start to ship parts out again.
Farmers, who had the cash to buy the tractors....can’t do much except watch events as they unfold.
Sadly, that's true. Watch them. Listen to them. They are dull normal lunatics. All the better to serve their globalist, authoritarian masters.
Listening to them and following their lead makes for a whole new level of stupid. Unfortunately, you've seen that kind of stupidity in abundance even right here on FR in recent weeks.
The Eurozone...particularly Germany and Italy..were showing big problems even before the Wuhan Flu.
Sweden did a minimum against COVID-19. They still have an economy.
It could well be concluded that with lockdown the cure was worse than the disease....amputating the leg to cure a rash.
Ya think? Halt most commerce and that is usually going to be the result. Coming to a USA near you.
The reaction around the world to a disease that at worst would kill off far less than 1% of the total population, primarily hitting the most elderly and unhealthiest, is to turn the world into Starnsville Wisconsin.
Yup,
I turned off
The Lights,,,
And It Got Dark!
.
Idiocracy is
A Documentary.
Governments choked businesses to death and then they wonder why tax revenues stop coming in, really? They chopped down their orchard and now they cry because they do not have apples. We are led by morons.
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