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Biggest Layoffs in US Banking History: Analyst Predicts Banks to Cut 200,000 Jobs

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Biggest Layoffs in US Banking History: Analyst Predicts Banks to Cut 200,000 Jobs

A Wells Fargo analyst has predicted the largest “reduction in U.S. bank headcount in history.” Banks are expected to cut 200,000 jobs as they strive to improve productivity and efficiency amid rising competition from fintech and non-bank financial institutions.

US Banking Sector to Experience Biggest Headcount Reduction

An analyst with Wells Fargo, Mike Mayo, has predicted that U.S. banks would cut 200,000 jobs, or 10% of employees, over the next decade, the Financial Times reported Monday. He explained:

This will be the biggest reduction in U.S. bank headcount in history.

Mayo said that low-paying jobs are most at risk, such as those in branches and call centers as banks adapt to the new realities following the coronavirus pandemic. He added that job cuts have been necessary as technology companies and non-bank lenders increasingly gained market share in the payment and lending business over the past years.

The analyst further commented, “If I was giving advice to my kids, I’d say you probably don’t want to go into the financial industry.” He noted that technology and customer or client-facing roles are probably the only areas that will see growth, emphasizing that “It’s likely to be a shrinking industry.”

“Digitisation accelerated and that played to the strength of some fintech and other tech providers,” Mayo said, elaborating:

Banks must become more productive to remain relevant. And that means more computers and less people.

What do you think about the massive layoffs in the banking sector predicted by the Wells Fargo analyst? Let us know in the comments section below.

Economists Predict Great Depression II for US Economy: Fast or V-Shaped Recovery Unlikely

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Several economists have predicted where the U.S. economy is heading. One said it would take a miracle to keep the recession from turning into another Great Depression. Some believe that a fast or V-shaped recovery is unlikely. Meanwhile, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly told President Trump the opposite, predicting that the U.S. economy will have a V-shaped recovery.

Great Depression II

A number of strategists and economists have predicted a gloomy outlook for the U.S. economy as unemployment swells to unseen levels since the Great Depression. Data released last week shows that one in six Americans are out of a job as the coronavirus crisis deepens; approximately 26 million people have filed for jobless aid in five weeks. Chris Rupkey, managing director and chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank, was quoted by Yahoo Finance as saying:

At this point it would take a miracle to keep this recession from turning into the Great Depression II.

On Sunday, White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett told the media: “We see an unemployment rate that approaches rates we saw during the Great Depression … During the Great Recession we lost 8.7 million jobs in the whole thing. Now we’re losing that many every 10 days.” At the worst point during the 2008 financial crisis, 15.35 million people were unemployed.

“It is going to take years not months to put these pandemic jobless workers back to work at the shops and malls and factories and restaurants across the country,” Rupkey opined, noting that the job losses in the last five reports were “more than the entire Great Recession a decade ago.”

Economists Predict Great Depression II for US Economy: Fast or V-Shaped Recovery Unlikely
MUFG managing director and chief financial economist Chris Rupkey believes that “it would take a miracle to keep this recession from turning into the Great Depression II.”

The MUFG economist further stated: “Net, net, jobless claims are warning that the worst isn’t over yet for the American economy with businesses and consumers alike being sucked down into the abyss of the pandemic recession.” He concluded, “The risks to the outlook are that the economy is digging itself such a big deep hole that its ill become harder to climb back out of it.”

Fast or V-Shaped Recovery Unlikely

A growing number of economists and analysts, including Rupkey, have explained that a fast or V-shaped recovery of the U.S. economy is unlikely. A V-shaped recovery involves a sharp decline followed by a sharp rise back to its previous peak.

ING chief international economist James Knightley explained last week that job losses are spreading beyond retail and hospitality sectors into suppliers and other industries, Yahoo Finance conveyed. Due to the covid-19 fear, people may remain reluctant to go shopping or eat at restaurants, so employment is not going to rebound quickly. “As such, it would be another signal that a V-shaped recovery for the U.S. economy is highly unlikely,” he was quoted as saying.

Sharing his gloomy view of the U.S. economy, BNY Mellon chief strategist told the publication: “We’re sitting here today at a 17% unemployment rate, which is a disaster for the country … Because the longer this goes on, the greater the likelihood that those individuals… become detached from their employers.” Glassdoor senior economist Daniel Zhao was also quoted as saying:

Today’s report shows the labor market is almost certainly pushing into new territory, jolting the unemployment rate up above the Great Recession’s 10% peak and wiping out more jobs than we’ve gained in the recovery.

However, some people are saying the opposite, predicting a fast or V-shaped recovery. President Donald Trump, for example, told the media Friday that Apple CEO Tim Cook has predicted a V-shaped recovery for the U.S. economy following the covid-19 outbreak.

Recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declared a global recession, the worst one since the Great Depression. The Federal Reserva Bank of Chicago’s monthly index indicates that the U.S. economy entered into a recession in March. In addition, many banks have forecasted severe recession with billions in loan losses, tanking their profits.

Do you think the U.S. is heading into another Great Depression? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Economists Predict Great Depression II for US Economy: Fast or V-Shaped Recovery Unlikely appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Homeowners Can’t Pay: US Lenders Prepare for Catastrophic Real Estate Market

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Homeowners Can't Pay: US Lenders Prepare for Catastrophic Real Estate Market

The coronavirus has managed to seep into every facet of the global economy and it seems nothing will escape its financial wrath. During the last two weeks as unemployment levels have skyrocketed in the U.S.; analysts, economists, and wealth managers have been warning about another subprime mortgage crisis. Most of these observers believe there’s no doubt the real estate market will collapse again, as economists understand that the loss of jobs, wages, and severe reduction of business activity has devastated the American economy.

Also read: US Real Estate in Jeopardy – Analysts Predict Housing Market Crash to 29-Year Lows

Real Estate Industry Will Suffer from Unemployed Homeowners Who Can’t Pay Loans and Renters Who Can’t Pay Landlords

There are a number of individuals and organizations that predict the covid-19 economy will destroy the American housing market and it might be far worse than the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. One of the biggest reasons people think that the real estate economy is about to be hit hard is because of the number of U.S. citizens that are unemployed right now. This has caused mortgage borrowers to stop paying loans due to not having funds. Debtors who are landlords are suffering too, as renters cannot come up with the money to pay monthly rent expenses because they are out of work. At the time of publication, estimates note that roughly 40% of New York tenants may not be able to pay their rent this month which in turn hurts the landlord paying the mortgage.

Homeowners Can't Pay: US Lenders Prepare for Catastrophic Real Estate Market
Many economists think the housing market could sink in the near future because of restrictive measures like social distancing and the economy shut down. U.S. unemployment spiked considerably by 6.6 million in one week and over 3 million the week prior. Because homeowners can’t pay their loans and renters cannot pay landlords, economists envision a massive subprime mortgage crisis that will be more devastating than the last.

Estimates from Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi note that 30% of Americans with mortgages might not be able to pay their loans. Zandi says that figure is around 15 million American households and it could grow worse if the economy is shut down through the summer months. Property owners and renters are concerned about the unpredictable economy and a great majority of earners are seeing a smaller paycheck thanks to fewer shifts, hours, and layoffs across the board.

Homeowners Can't Pay: US Lenders Prepare for Catastrophic Real Estate Market

The U.S. government’s safety nets are not working and the ones that are available only cover a fraction of homeowners. Many Americans are upset because government-backed home loans through the FHA, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and the VA are allowing deferred payments for mortgages. In some instances, these lenders are allowing up to a year of deferred payments. But government-backed loans only cover 60% of the nation and the 40% leftover have traditional real estate loans with banks.

The Airbnb Bubble: Some Airbnb Super Hosts Have 10+ Mortgages

Similarly, property owners who rent might not get monthly payments for a very long time. As individuals in the U.S. are finding themselves out of work, they can’t pay the rent to their landlords. Some renters and politicians in various states are calling for an emergency rent freeze and eviction moratorium until the covid-19 threat is behind us.

Homeowners Can't Pay: US Lenders Prepare for Catastrophic Real Estate Market
Some speculators are concerned that the Airbnb market will cause a negative domino effect on the housing industry. While the coronavirus is causing people to stop renting from Airbnb hosts it will crush Airbnb ‘super hosts’ who have upwards of ten mortgages.

Landlords with mortgages could be crushed as the Rental Housing Finance Survey (RHFS) estimates there are more than 22.5 million rental properties nationwide. Some economists think that super hosts from Airbnb could cause the housing market to buckle as well, thanks to the unwinding Airbnb rental economy. Mega or ‘super hosts’ are Airbnb landlords who mortgaged multiple homes in order to profit on the platform’s rental market.

“Watch the real estate market, my neighbor is an Airbnb super host,” tweeted Spencer Noon. She is on forums with other hosts [and] many of them have 10+ mortgages. 0 guests are booking their properties [and] they are running out of cash.”

Homeowners Can't Pay: US Lenders Prepare for Catastrophic Real Estate Market

From Predicting a ‘Booming Spring Real Estate Market’ to a ‘Catastrophic Buying Season’

Even small banks and real estate lenders are being told by the government they have no idea how long the industry shut down will last. “Nobody has any sense of how long this might last,” explained Andrew Jakabovics, an executive from Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit affordable housing group. “The forbearance program allows everybody to press pause on their current circumstances and take a deep breath. Then we can look at what the world might look like in six or 12 months from now and plan for that.”

Homeowners Can't Pay: US Lenders Prepare for Catastrophic Real Estate Market
Unemployment rates continue to soar. If people can’t work, then they can’t afford rent and homeowners can’t afford to pay mortgage loans either.

On March 21, news.Bitcoin.com reported on how Lendingtree’s chief economist Tendayi Kapfidze predicted a complete “shutdown in the housing market.” Today, Kapfidze says with the government in “bailout everyone mode,” they probably will try to stop mass foreclosures. “I expect policymakers to do whatever they can to hold the line on a financial crisis,” Kapfidze told the press. “And that means preventing foreclosures by any means necessary,” he added.

In addition to the looming subprime mortgage crisis; office, retail, industrial, and multi-family homeowners invested a lot of upfront funds expecting a good season in the spring. “If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s how quickly everything can change. Just weeks ago, mortgage lenders were predicting the biggest spring in years for home sales and mortgage refinances,” Bloomberg’s recent real estate coverage explains. Meanwhile, on April 2nd, financial publications wrote: “Real estate spring buying season could be catastrophic.”

Even the President Is Looking for a Loan Deferral

Throughout the covid-19 economy, wealth managers and economists are curious about which safe-haven asset will society be confident in during the financial meltdown. While many predict precious metals will be the avenue, history shows that during the 2007-2008 subprime mortgage crisis bullion markets were manipulated by central banks.

Reports highlight that Donald Trump’s company has asked Trump’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, for some leniency toward repaying some of his loans. “These days everybody is working together,” explained Eric Trump, the U.S. president’s son, and executive of the family business. “Tenants are working with landlords, landlords are working with banks. The whole world is working together as we fight through this pandemic.”

The current black swan event, covid-19 may call for a black swan asset like bitcoin because it’s not manipulated as easily as real estate property and precious metals. Traditionally, investing in real estate outperforms a myriad of other investment assets, but cryptocurrencies have outshined property investment by a longshot. In fact, in contrast to real estate investment which gained 70-100% in ten years, BTC gained 8.9 million percent over the last decade.

Moreover, analysts can clearly see that office, retail, industrial, and multi-family investors will take a big hit from the covid-19 economy. Even U.S. President Donald Trump is having issues coming up with funds to pay for his Florida properties and his administration asked Deutsche Bank and Palm Beach County to give him leniency.

What do you think about the real estate industry’s hardships in the near future? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

The post Homeowners Can’t Pay: US Lenders Prepare for Catastrophic Real Estate Market appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?

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Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?

Hyperbitcoinization has been defined as “a state where bitcoin becomes the world’s dominant form of money.” But what actually needs to happen for bitcoin to ‘go viral’? As it turns out, a hyperbitcoinization event may be more likely than many suspect, especially in the current economic climate. However, there’s one big caveat: it requires human action.

Also read: Disney World Economics: How Coronavirus Could Be Used to Justify a Global Financial Reset

Contagious Currency

The current covid-19 panic and pandemonium gripping the world has brought economic issues to the forefront of conversation, as economies across the globe are stunted by government orders to shutdown. Whether this is the best way to contain a contagion is hotly debated, but the paranoia about getting sick has stretched so far as to even touch the safety of paper cash.

Some nations, China and the U.S. among them, have been quarantining and disinfecting physical cash, for fear that it could spread the covid-19 virus. This potential transmission vector is viewed as an important threat, and many businesses across the globe are encouraging customers to use contactless payment systems in lieu of the dirty paper stuff.

There’s even been a buzz in the bitcoin space about this being an argument for crypto adoption. But for bitcoin to catch fire and really spread around the world in viral fashion, a number of factors must be present.

Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?

Conditions Necessary for Hyperbitcoinization

In order for “Bitcoin-induced currency demonetization” to take place, three main factors must be present so that a competing money “will rapidly lose value as bitcoin supplants it.”

Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?
Unemployment insurance claims from the state of Texas illustrate a remarkable spike in job losses due to covid-19 shutdowns, and have resulted in processing systems being overwhelmed. Source: bizjournals.com

Loss of Faith in Established Systems: Individuals across the globe are losing jobs and losing trust in their governments, their monetary systems, and in many cases, the broader global economic paradigm itself. Before covid-19 showed up, the world was already in the throes of widespread protest and unrest surrounding corrupt governance and economically unviable situations at a systemic level.

Now states have leveraged coronavirus to justify shutting down innumerable businesses and halting critical industry, many more are asking questions, and some are losing faith in the Modern Monetary Theory magic, which says that you can always “just print more money” when times are hard. The thing is, you can’t “just print more” goods and services. As currencies across the globe lose value, hyperinflation is also not an entirely impossible outcome, meaning dollars could potentially turn into valueless scraps of paper.

Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?

Viable Alternatives to Fiat: Bitcoin is permissionless, fast, borderless, low-fee, and decentralized. While the issue of which version of bitcoin would best serve as a global money is debated, the critical fact is that an alternative to government fiat does exist, has active use cases, and is at this point time-tested. It is also hard-capped in supply and looks promising as an inflation-resistant asset.

Further, with governments now in development and research for CDBCs (central bank digital currencies) even so-called “normies” are being primed for understanding how crypto and digital assets work. The corona zeitgeist is one that includes mainstream media buzz about a “digital dollar” and “digital yuan.” This presents a unique window of opportunity for a shift away from fiat currencies.

Open Markets: Of all the prerequisites for hyperbitcoinization, this is arguably the trickiest, and will be dealt with more in-depth at the close of this article. Suffice to say that without the ability for individuals to transact freely and voluntarily no currency — not even national currencies like the yen, dollar, or peso — can be successful.

Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?
Nobel Prize-winning mathematician and economist John Nash

‘Ideal Money’

Late Nobel Prize Laureate John Nash, an American mathematician known for — among numerous other accolades — being the namesake for game theory’s Nash equilibrium, developed a notion he referred to as Ideal Money.

Ideal Money would be, simply put, a money whose value is not foundationally subject to political special interests and conflicts of interest like the USD, and which is not inherently subject to inflation. Loosely comparing modern economic planners with Bolshevik communists, Nash once wrote:

So there may be an analogy to this as regards those called ‘the Keynesians’ in that while they have claimed to be operating for high and noble objectives of general welfare what is clearly true is that they have made it easier for governments to ‘print money’.

Nash’s words sound hauntingly on target today, as we witness nations like the U.S. create unprecedented amounts of fiat out of thin air, ignoring that eventually, someone must pay the piper.

Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?

Though Nash had his own ideas about what might best constitute this so-called ideal, the renowned mathematician did not rule out bitcoin.

In fact, he wrote in his paper Ideal Money: “My personal view is that a practical global money might most favorably evolve through the development first of a few regional currencies of truly good quality. And then the ‘integration’ or ‘coordination’ of those into a global currency would become just a technical problem.” Nash went on:

But the famous classical ‘Gresham’s Law’ also reveals the intrinsic difficulty. Thus ‘good money’ will not naturally supplant and replace ‘bad money’ by a simple Darwinian superiority of competitive species. Rather than that, it must be that the good things are established by the voluntary choice of human agencies.

Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?

Human Action: The Final Ingredient

It is interesting that Nash describes “a few regional currencies of truly good quality” coming together someday via technical integration. Could this be an unintended, prescient nod to bitcoin, blockchain, and the various integrations and ideas the crypto space has seen over the years like atomic swaps and network interoperability?

Only time will tell. What is certain, and what Nash notes explicitly in the passage, is that no matter how seemingly fit the conditions, no exodus from the broken world of fiat can happen without voluntary human action.

This is a tricky thing. Those that use bitcoin know its value and utility, but they are limited in some ways as to how they can leverage digital cash due to enforced regulations. Those that don’t know about crypto in a meaningful way remain the unable-to-act majority, presenting a two-faced challenge. Standing in the way of hyperbitcoinization, then, is the obstacle of “going viral” and that of forced censorship. The first obstacle shouldn’t be hard to overcome, on surface view. The second is more daunting.

Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?

According to marketing group Outgrow, novelty and “information gaps” play a major role in determining what type of content goes viral online. The group notes:

Researchers have found that a part of our brain actually feels rewarded by novel ideas rather than the familiar. When consumers feel they’ve been led to a new notion or concept, their brains flood their bodies with dopamine.

A lack of desperately sought info — or “information gap” — can also lead to virality, according to the group, when that info is found.

So in this context of the current mass unemployment, crashing stock markets, and an increasingly questionable world reserve currency, emotions, which are another major indicator for virality, are running extremely high. And lo and behold, there is a novel proposed solution which fills the info gap of the “what is good money” question.

Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event?

Still, there’s something of a catch 22. If the masses aren’t using it, it’s not going to be very useful in a situation like this. If they don’t start, a dire situation like this is bound to perdure, and repeat. Whether in compliance with laws and regulations or otherwise, individual actors have proven bitcoin’s strength by trading regardless, and such use is required to show the world bitcoin’s utility.

From feeding the hungry in Venezuela and South Sudan during a global crisis with borderless BCH, to making money for survival by selling goods peer-to-peer with no middleman or political permission, bitcoin is virtually unconfiscatable. It allows a shift from the broken fiat paradigm if individuals so choose. This core utility is what could ultimately trigger hyperbitcoinization, and what a “digital dollar” can’t hold a candle to. Then there might be a real shot at a peaceful, sound, and sensible global economy.

Do you think hyperbitcoinization is possible? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Making Bitcoin Go Viral: Could Endless Printing Trigger a Hyperbitcoinization Event? appeared first on Bitcoin News.