I've never seen a larger disconnect between Main Street and Wall Street. Usually at this time, on holidays, obviously people spend a lot of money at restaurants and bars, hotels. Not this year. Usually shops are almost full. Not this year. Usually through the year, there's a lot of tourism going on. Not this year. And I could go on and on.
Black lives matter protests and rioting, just sweeping through city after city in US and in some parts of Europe. The amount of destruction that you're getting (just in physical destruction of property and things) is significant. And it's very difficult to find the CEO today that was bullish on the future. There's a lot of destruction across the entire value chain. This is another thing - So actually the markets are way lower as in February. But if you look at what is actually changing, what is changing markets, than markets are going up. It's literally the top five - it's Saudi Aramco, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft. Not even a surprise.
Zuckerberg and Bezos are championing the Black lives matter riots. Because it destroys retail. So who benefits? In US, you have to buy your stuff through Amazon and that's basically what you will end up doing. If your Sears goes away and if your JCPenney goes away and all those smaller mum and pop shop... what do you think happens?
I also don't think most people realize how long it takes those businesses to come back. Even if they do have insurance to pay for damages. If they don't just come back immediately, you're not gonna see those same businesses selling stuff in two or three weeks. And then consumer behavior changes. If everything in your neighborhood gets wiped out you're gonna go to the next neighborhood or you're gonna go to Amazon and you might not go back when those shops open back up. It's only a mind game.
