Kat Dennings

See, "Leaked Pics of Kat Dennings."

More here, "Kat Dennings The Busty Actress."

Amazon Sales: Pools, Spas, and Supplies

*BUMPED.*

At least folks can swim in their own backyards during the lockdown, man.

At Amazon, Shopping for Pools, Spas, and Supplies.

Plus, Kaufman – 100% Cotton Velour Striped Beach & Pool Towel 4-Pack – 30in x 60in, and AmazonBasics Cabana Stripe Beach Towel - Pack of 2, Navy Blue.

Also, Outdoor Patio Synthetic Backyard Poolside Garden Black Rattan Wicker Chaise Lounge Chair Cushioned Set Adjustable with Armrest (Set of Two, Royal Blue), and Best Choice Products Adjustable Outdoor Steel Patio Chaise Lounge Chair for Patio, Poolside w/ 5 Positions, UV-Resistant Cushions - Beige.

More, SKINNY TUMBLERS 4 Colored Acrylic Tumblers with Lids and Straws | Skinny, 16oz Double Wall Clear Plastic Tumblers With FREE Straw Cleaner & Name Tags! (Clear, 4).

Still more, Coleman 24-Can Party Stacker Portable Cooler.

And, Fujifilm FinePix XP130 Waterproof Digital Camera w/16GB SD Card - Sky Blue.

Also, Banana Boat Sunscreen Ultra Sport Performance, Broad Spectrum Sunscreen Spray - SPF 30 - 6 Ounce Twin Pack.

BONUS: Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: 50 Years of Beautiful Hardcover.

Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies

At Amazon, Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies: A Novel.

Everyone Loses in the U.S.-Chinese Clash?

I was just skimming through my old copies of Foreign Affairs and came across this piece, from last year, by Weijian Shan.

It's amazing how quickly it's out of date, and badly wrong, considering the corona epidemic and its effects. President Trump has always been a nationalist on trade, and while he's been woefully uneven on China --- both praising and disparaging Beijing, often during the same press conference --- the strategy that Shan denounces is exactly what the U.S. should pursue.

Here, "The Unwinnable Trade War: Everyone Loses in the U.S.-Chinese Clash—but Especially Americans":

It is in the best interests of both the U.S. and China to move away from zero-sum thinking and put an end to the ad hoc decoupling that the trade war has threatened, argues Weijian Shan.https://t.co/oV4by2z06x

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) October 13, 2019

The trade war has not really damaged China so far, largely because Beijing has managed to keep import prices from rising and because its exports to the United States have been less affected than anticipated. This pattern will change as U.S. importers begin to switch from buying from China to buying from third countries to avoid paying the high tariffs. But assuming China’s GDP continues to grow at around five to six percent every year, the effect of that change will be quite modest. Some pundits doubt the accuracy of Chinese figures for economic growth, but multilateral agencies and independent research institutions set Chinese GDP growth within a range of five to six percent.

Skeptics also miss the bigger picture that China’s economy is slowing down as it shifts to a consumption-driven model. Some manufacturing will leave China if the high tariffs become permanent, but the significance of such a development should not be overstated. Independent of the anxiety bred by Trump’s tariffs, China is gradually weaning itself off its dependence on export-led growth. Exports to the United States as a proportion of China’s GDP steadily declined from a peak of 11 percent in 2005 to less than four percent by 2018. In 2006, total exports made up 36 percent of China’s GDP; by 2018, that figure had been cut by half, to 18 percent, which is much lower than the average of 29 percent for the industrialized countries of the Organ-ization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Chinese leaders have long sought to steer their economy away from export-driven manufacturing to a consumer-driven model.

To be sure, the trade war has exacted a severe psychological toll on the Chinese economy. In 2018, when the tariffs were first announced, they caused a near panic in China’s market at a time when growth was slowing thanks to a round of credit tightening. The stock market took a beating, plummeting some 25 percent. The government initially felt pressured to find a way out of the trade war quickly. But as the smoke cleared to reveal little real damage, confidence in the market rebounded: stock indexes had risen by 23 percent and 34 percent on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, respectively, by September 12, 2019. The resilience of the Chinese economy in the face of the trade war helps explain why Beijing has stiffened its negotiating position in spite of Trump’s escalation.

China hasn’t had a recession in the past 40 years and won’t have one in the foreseeable future, because its economy is still at an early stage of development, with per capita GDP only one-sixth of that of the United States. Due to declining rates of saving and rising wages, the engine of China’s economy is shifting from investments and exports to private consumption. As a result, the country’s growth rate is expected to slow. The International Monetary Fund projects that China’s real GDP growth will fall from 6.6 percent in 2018 to 5.5 percent in 2024; other estimates put the growth rate at an even lower number. Although the rate of Chinese growth may dip, there is little risk that the Chinese economy will contract in the foreseeable future. Private consumption, which has been increasing, representing 35 percent of GDP in 2010 and 39 percent last year, is expected to continue to rise and to drive economic growth, especially now that China has expanded its social safety net and welfare provisions, freeing up private savings for consumption.

The U.S. economy, on the other hand, has had the longest expansion in history, and the inevitable down cycle is already on the horizon: second-quarter GDP growth this year dropped to 2.0 percent from the first quarter’s 3.1 percent. The trade war, without taking into account the escalations from September, will shave off at least half a percentage point of U.S. GDP, and that much of a drag on the economy may tip it into the anticipated downturn. (According to a September Washington Post poll, 60 percent of Americans expect a recession in 2020.) The prospect of a recession could provide Trump with the impetus to call off the trade war. Here, then, is one plausible way the trade war will come to an end. Americans aren’t uniformly feeling the pain of the tariffs yet. But a turning point is likely to come when the economy starts to lose steam.

If the trade war continues, it will compromise the international trading system, which relies on a global division of labor based on each country’s comparative advantage. Once that system becomes less dependable—when disrupted, for instance, by the boycotts and hostility of trade wars—countries will start decoupling from one another.

China and the United States are joined at the hip economically, each being the other’s biggest trading partner. Any attempt to decouple the two economies will bring catastrophic consequences for both, and for the world at large. Consumer prices will rise, world economic growth will slow, supply chains will be disrupted and laboriously duplicated on a global scale, and a digital divide—in technology, the Internet, and telecommunications—will vastly hamper innovation by limiting the horizons and ambitions of technology firms...

Blue Angels Cockpit Cam

Seen just now on Twitter:

The Defense Department just released this cockpit-cam footage of the Blue Angles honor flight over NYC today. pic.twitter.com/wCkuBHy9gK

— Andrew deGrandpre (@adegrandpre) April 28, 2020

Corona Bursts U.S. College Education Bubble

Lots of students want their money back, especially at those elite private colleges.

From Rana Foroohar, at the Financial Times, "Coronavirus bursts the US college education bubble: Soaring fees, worthless degrees and dicey investments have hurt the economy":

Coronavirus bursts the US college education bubble https://t.co/JNBcPy1xhc via @financialtimes

— Rana Foroohar (@RanaForoohar) April 26, 2020

Bubbles are bursting everywhere and America’s most prestigious export — higher education — won’t be immune. Universities are like landlocked cruise ships: places with all-you-can-eat buffets and plenty of beer, but almost no way of social distancing.

Many colleges are considering running online classes into the autumn and beyond. But that requires additional resources that most are ill equipped to afford. Even before coronavirus, 30 per cent of colleges tracked by rating agency Moody’s were running deficits, while 15 per cent of public universities had less than 90 days of cash on hand.

Now, with colleges shuttered, revenues reduced, endowment investments plunging, and the added struggle of shifting from physical to virtual education, Moody’s has downgraded the entire sector to negative from stable. The American Council on Education believes revenues in higher education will decline by $23bn over the next academic year. In one survey this week, 57 per cent of university presidents said they planned to lay off staff. Half said they would merge or eliminate some programmes, while 64 per cent said that long-term financial viability was their most pressing issue. It’s very likely we are about to see the hollowing out of America’s university system.

US universities are world class. But the system as a whole is in trouble. Cost is a big part of the problem. I’ve written many times about the US’s dangerous $2tn student debt load. Soaring tuition fees, worthless degrees and dicey investments made by both universities and the government have become a huge headwind to economic growth and social mobility.

If you don’t believe me, take it from the New York Fed, which two years ago called out student debt and the dysfunctions of higher education as problems for the overall US economy. That’s a sad irony, given that a college degree is supposed to increase wealth and productivity. Unfortunately, the US system of higher education — like healthcare, housing, labour markets and so much else in America today — is bifurcated. Those with fancy brand-name degrees from top schools do great. So do many who attend high-quality, low-cost community and state programmes...

Keep reading.

Remote Learning Is Breaking Parents

This is too true. My 18 year old is trying to graduate high school, and this remote learning has been tough for him --- and my wife and I.

At NYT, "With Schools Shut by Coronavirus, Remote Learning Strains Parents":

Daniel Levin’s son, Linus, 7, was supposed to be doing math. Instead, he pretended to take a shower in the living room, rubbing a dry eraser under his arms like a bar of soap, which upset his 5-year-old sister, distracting her from her coloring.

As much as he tried, Mr. Levin, who lives in Brooklyn, could not get Linus to finish the math. His hopes for the reading assignment were not high, either.

“He’s supposed to map out a whole character trait sheet today,” Mr. Levin said one day last week. “Honestly, if he writes the name and the age of the character, I’ll consider that a victory.”

Ciarra Kohn’s third-grade son uses five different apps for school. Her 4-year-old’s teacher sends lesson plans, but Ms. Kohn has no time to do them.

Her oldest, a sixth-grader, has eight subjects and eight teachers and each has their own method. Sometimes when Ms. Kohn does a lesson with him, she’ll ask if he understood it — because she didn’t.

“I’m assuming you don’t, but maybe you do,” said Ms. Kohn, of Bloomington, Ill., referring to her son. “Then we’ll get into an argument, like, ‘No, mom! She doesn’t mean that, she means this!’”

Parental engagement has long been seen as critical to student achievement, as much as class size, curriculum and teacher quality. That has never been more true than now, and all across the country, moms and dads pressed into emergency service are finding it one of the most exasperating parts of the pandemic.

With teachers relegated to computer screens, parents have to play teacher’s aide, hall monitor, counselor and cafeteria worker — all while trying to do their own jobs under extraordinary circumstances. Essential workers are in perhaps the toughest spot, especially if they are away from home during school hours, leaving just one parent, or no one at all, at home when students need them most.

Kindergartners need help logging into Zoom. Seventh-graders need help with algebra, last used by dad circa 1992. “School” often ends by lunchtime, leaving parents from Long Island to Dallas to Los Angeles asking themselves the same question: How bad am I if my child plays Fortnite for the next eight hours?

Yarlin Matos of the Bronx, whose husband still goes to work as a manager at a McDonald’s, has seven children, ages 3 to 13, to keep on track. She spent part of her stimulus check on five Amazon Fire tablets because the devices promised by the city’s Education Department had not arrived.

Ms. Matos, a psychology major at Bronx Community College, said she must stay up late, sometimes until 3 a.m., trying to get her own work done.

“I had a breaking moment where I had to lock myself in the bathroom and cry,” she said. “It was just too much.”

Laura Landgreen, a teacher in Denver, always thought it strange that she sent her two sons, Callam Hugo, 4, and Landon Hugo, 7, off to school rather than home schooling them herself.

She doesn’t find it strange anymore. “My first grader — we would kill each other,” she said. “He’s fine at school, but here he has a meltdown every three seconds.”

“I need to teach other children,” she said...

Studs Terkel, Hard Times

At Amazon, Studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression.

Newport Beach Looking to Shut Down After Weekend Surge of Visitors (VIDEO)

It was bound to happen. The crowds have been massive, it not completely out of control, sheesh.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Joe Biden 'Credibly Accused' of Sexual Assault (VIDEO)

At AoSHQ, "Tara Reade's Former Neighbor Comes Forward to Say Reade Made the Same Allegation in the 90s," and "#DropOutBiden Hashtag Trends as Democrats "Grapple" With the Fact That Their Candidate Is Credibly Accused of Rape."

this is very interesting, a transcript of a call made to Larry King Live in 1993 that very much appears to be Tara Reade's mother asking what to do about a problem her daughter had with a "prominent senator" https://t.co/YAJunPFlx6

— Matt Bruenig (@MattBruenig) April 24, 2020

Jennifer Delacruz's Hot Monday Forecast

Here's the beautiful Ms. Jennifer, forecasting from home, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

Scientists Have Recreated Medieval Battles to Solve Debate Over Ancient Bronze Swords

At Instapundit, "I Love This":

Researchers commissioned the creation of seven bronze swords using traditional methods, then tested them out with the help of local experts used to setting up medieval combat reconstructions, applying techniques from the Middle Ages.

By analysing the marks and indents left on the weapons by the mock battles, and comparing them with a close-up study of 110 ancient Bronze Age swords found across Great Britain and Italy, the team was able to show that the patterns of wear did indeed match up with real combat techniques – indicating these weapons weren’t just ceremonial items...

Playmate Iryna at the Beach

Here's the phenomenal lady again, pushing boundaries.

Wow!

Topless beach should I? 😍 LINK IN BIO and lmk https://t.co/h2hVh3vfMn pic.twitter.com/racqkkFVrl

— playmateiryna (@IrynaIvanova) April 24, 2020

Also, fully nude here, sheesh.

Cal State Fullerton is One of First in the Nation to Announce Fully Online Education for Fall Semester

I'm waiting to hear if my college is going to full online instruction in the fall. Our summer session for 2020 is already set for fully online remote teaching. It's a matter of time before more local colleges make such announcements, and so far Cal State Fullerton is the first in California.

At the Orange County Register, "Cal State Fullerton to start fall semester with virtual classrooms":

Cal State Fullerton announces plans to start fall semester with virtual classrooms https://t.co/T8VStdt8UY

— O.C. Register (@ocregister) April 20, 2020

Cal State Fullerton plans to start the fall semester with virtual classrooms and will gradually ease restrictions when it is safe to do so, officials said Monday, April 20, in a virtual town hall for faculty and staff.

“We are assuming in the fall we will be virtual,” Provost Pamella Oliver said. “And of course, that can change depending on the situation, depending on what happens with COVID-19. But at this point that is what we are thinking.”

Oliver said the decision came amid a number of concerns, including the state’s ability to do sufficient testing and case tracking for the coronavirus to make sure it is safe to lift the shelter-in-place order for faculty, staff and students.

As for plans to gradually open the 40,000-student campus, the university must be able to ensure adequate physical and social distancing and also take into account that there could be spikes of the virus in the future that would require flexibility, she said.

The town hall, moderated by CSUF spokeswoman Ellen Treanor, also included President Fram Virjee, Vice President for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande and David Forgues, vice president of human resources, diversity and inclusion, answering questions from faculty and staff. Another virtual town hall for students is scheduled for Wednesday.

When making the decision to reopen, the university will heed the advice of state officials, the Chancellor’s Office, the Orange County Health Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Forgues said.

The campus will look much different at that time, he said. Masks, gloves and other protective gear will be required or highly encouraged. Workplaces and classrooms will be configured based on social distancing, and faculty and staff may be required to work on a rotation or staggered hours or days, he said...

Still more.

Encinitas Cracks Down on Beachgoers (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Cooped-Up Coastal Californians Swarm the Beaches."

Authorities down in San Diego country are not cool. At all.

At 10 News San Diego:

Cooped-Up Coastal Californians Swarm the Beaches

When I'm out at the beach, I don't want worry about wearing a mask and "social distancing" at least six feet from everybody. What's the fun of it, unless you're going down there by yourself? Which I do sometimes now that I'm in my older years.

But as a teenager? No way. You're not going to quit putting sunscreen on your girlfriend's booty, nor stop throwing her in the water. Who wants that?

In any case, the verdict's still out on how well visitors kept to the state's social distancing protocols.

Meh. People are cooped-up and just want to have some fun in the sun, and enjoy a little freedom.

At LAT, "Ventura and Orange County beaches fill up as people seek relief from the heat and weeks of staying home."

Did Coronavirus Hit Earlier?

In January, I had the worst flu I've every had. I was down for at least a week, laid out in bed, only drinking Seven-Up and eating Cheesehead string cheese sticks now and then.

My oldest son keeps saying I had COVID then, but my symptoms were classic flu-like. Just major, major cough and congestion, and I was expectorating the super yucky dark green mucus. I literally thought I was going to hospital, although I wasn't in much pain beyond the coughing, which was harsh.

Anyway, I just sent my son this piece, and he's yucking it up, telling my he's 95 percent sure I had corona, lol.

At NYT, "Amid Signs Coronavirus Came Earlier, Americans Ask: Did I Already Have It?":

A coroner in Illinois told me he believes coronavirus cases have been missed. Included in the undercount: himself. https://t.co/UgF3fLSSvC

— Julie Bosman (@juliebosman) April 24, 2020

New revelations have left people wondering about ailments early this year. Doctors are thinking back to unexplained cases. Medical examiners are looking for possible misdiagnosed deaths.

CHICAGO — In January, a mystery illness swept through a call center in a skyscraper on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Close to 30 people in one department alone had symptoms — dry, deep coughs and fevers they could not shake. When they gradually returned to work after taking sick days, they sat in their cubicles looking wan and tired.

“I’ve started to think it was the coronavirus,” said Julie Parks, a 63-year-old employee who was among the sick. “I may have had it, but I can’t be sure. It’s limbo.”

The revelation this week that a death in the United States in early February was the result of the coronavirus has significantly altered the understanding of how early the virus may have been circulating in this country. Researchers now believe that hidden outbreaks were creeping through cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle and Boston in January and February, earlier than previously known.

The new timeline has lent credence to a question on the minds of many Americans: Did I already have the coronavirus?

The retroactive search is happening on many levels. People who had suffered dreadful bouts with flulike illnesses are now wondering whether it had been the coronavirus. Doctors are thinking back to unexplained cases. Medical examiners are poring over their records looking for possible misdiagnosed deaths. And local politicians are demanding investigations.

Brian Gustafson, a coroner in Rock Island County, Ill., said he had no capability to perform post-mortem coronavirus tests, but firmly believed that coronavirus deaths and illnesses were missed across the country during weeks, early this year, when the authorities believed the virus was mainly overseas.

Included in Mr. Gustafson’s suspicions of an undercount: himself. He is convinced that he had the coronavirus in January, when he was so crushingly tired and feverish, he could scarcely summon the strength to walk to the bathroom from his bed.

“I think it was here long before we knew it,” said Mr. Gustafson, who is also a nurse and said he believes that he contracted the virus from one of the recently deceased people who was brought to the coroner’s office long before anyone in Illinois was looking for positive coronavirus cases. “That’s the only logical thing I can think of.”

Some people have spent part of their days sheltering at home going over the details of their bouts with what could have been the coronavirus. In Rothschild, Wis., Tommie Swenson and his girlfriend, Tammy Swikert, keep thinking of the illness they contracted during the winter that spread widely through their village of 5,000 people.

It was nothing like the flu, said Mr. Swenson, a retired truck driver. Milk and soda tasted funny, or like nothing at all. He could barely sleep at night, he had such a rattling cough and felt a crushing weight on his chest.

“We talk about it all the time,” Mr. Swenson said. “What if we did have the coronavirus? Are we immune to it now, or are we going to catch it again? What does this mean?”

Infectious disease experts say the answer is complicated. Many believe that between five and 20 times more people have been exposed to the coronavirus than have tested positive, and there is a growing body of data to support that...

Still more.

I never lost my sense of taste or smell, so I'm still not convinced I had it. But no doubt there were corona deaths way before anyone appreciated the seriousness of the pandemic, or its deadliness.

To Survive, Independent Bookstores Get Creative

I'm actually enjoying working from home. I needed a break anyway. I was having anxiety attacks at the beginning of the semester, unrelated to corona, and my teaching was suffering from the decline of my health --- a first in my career.

And while there's no replacement for the dynamic interaction of the classroom setting, I've adapted pretty well to teaching online. Things have been going surprisingly well with my teaching, considering I've never done remote instruction before. I'm kind of proud of my progress. Frankly, it's been mostly self-learning. The training for distance education on my campus was extremely limited --- literally two hours of training on Canvas and faculty members were sent out on their own, the very week of the campus lockdown, to sink or swim.

In any case, amid all the lockdowns and social distancing, I miss going to bookstores perhaps the most. That, and stopping off at the sports bar in the afternoon to quaff an IPA and read a novel before heading home.

The bars will open back up, especially those that offer curbside pickup for food and alcohol orders (like B.J.'s Pizza in Irvine).

I'm not so sure about bookstores, though. In addition to Amazon, I've been buying books at my local favorite, the Bookman in Orange.

In any case, at Business Week, "Independent Bookstores Get Creative to Survive the Long Lockdown":

To survive the coronavirus lockdown, independent bookstores are getting creative https://t.co/EhVhbczE3n

— Businessweek (@BW) April 25, 2020

After several days of hunkering down at home in late March, this reporter decided it was time to seek out a few literary diversions to keep the coronavirus blues at bay—some novels for myself, mysteries for my 13-year-old, a nonfiction thriller for a friend’s birthday. Learning that Walden Pond Books, my favorite independent bookstore in Oakland, Calif., was closed but still taking orders for pickup, I phoned in my list and rode my bike to the normally laid-back shop. On the door was a very unmellow admonition: a cardboard sign blaring “DO NOT TOUCH DOOR HANDLE!!”

After putting on yellow rubber kitchen gloves, I knocked on the window, then stood several feet back. Soon a lone employee wearing a mask cracked open the door and asked for my name. I whispered it. A few minutes later, he reappeared carrying a brown paper bag and handed over the sanitized goods. Before taking it, I looked furtively around, half expecting to see cops.

“Two-thirds of my staff is laid off right now,” says Paul Curatolo, Walden Pond’s co-owner and manager, explaining the reason behind the shop’s speakeasy-like pickup strategy. “I can’t pay them for work I don’t have. But for every day that we’re closed, we are getting more phone calls.”

With much of the nation under strict stay-at-home orders, independent bookstores—which rely largely on foot traffic, browsing, and impulse buying—are struggling like never before. Amazon .com Inc. has long dominated book sales, and many independent shops are Luddite operations that lack robust websites, much less e-commerce operations.

To survive, they’ve had to get inventive in a hurry. Like Walden Pond, many are taking orders over the phone, then providing curbside pickup similar to the virus-impacted restaurants operating carryout only. Wheatberry Books in Chillicothe, Ohio, has launched a virtual storytime for children. Magic City Books in Tulsa is shipping curated “literary care packages” and announced a series of virtual author events. And scores of others, including Taylor Books in Charleston, W.Va., are turning to fundraisers via GoFundMe to stay afloat.

While the number of independent shops in the U.S. belonging to the American Booksellers Association is now more than 1,800, up from about 1,400 in 2009, the business is often fragile even in the best of times. Now the trade group warns that the Covid-19 crisis has put some of its members in grave danger, and many have embraced e-commerce in a bid to weather the long shutdowns.

“There’s been a drop in overall book sales as most bookstores are closed to the public right now, except for deliveries and curbside pickup, but a significant increase in online sales,” says Allison K Hill, chief executive officer of the booksellers’ association. “The online sales aren’t very profitable, though, as the cost to manage them is high and the margin is thin. Many independent bookstores will be dependent on government relief, fundraising, and support from their communities to survive.”

Many independent shops don’t have the staff, or the bandwidth, to constantly update websites, much less manage the inventory, shipping, and customer-service challenges that an e-commerce expansion brings...

Keep reading.

When the Bookman lost its lease at its Tustin Avenue location sometime back, the owners opened up a GoFundMe page to help finance the move to a new location. It took a while, but the store did reopen about a year ago at its current location on West Katella Avenue.

I picked up a book the other day. The store offers curbside pickup. You order by phone or online, and then phone ahead when you're ready to pick up. I got over there to pick up and the guy comes out with a mask on to hand me my book. It was unwrapped. I kicked in a large tip on top of the price, and sometime in the next few days I'm going to make a huge donation of books I'm currently cleaning out of my library.

That's the best I can do right now, other than to make more cash donations. Bookman's not opening up a GoFundMe page this time around, or if so I haven't heard about it. I don't know if a second time around would save the business.

So, support your local bookstores folks. Who knows how long the big corporate chains will last? Barnes and Noble might be going the way of Borders before you know it.

Coronavirus Slams the Behemoths of the Retail World

For department stores, things may never be the same --- particularly for those that survive.

At NYT, "The Death of the Department Store: ‘Very Few Are Likely to Survive’":

All those rumors about Neiman Marcus going bankrupt? They are just the beginning. With @sapna - https://t.co/GrnWzSMciw

— Vanessa Friedman (@VVFriedman) April 21, 2020

American department stores, once all-powerful shopping meccas that anchored malls and Main Streets across the country, have been dealt blow after blow in the past decade. J.C. Penney and Sears were upended by hedge funds. Macy’s has been closing stores and cutting corporate staff. Barneys New York filed for bankruptcy last year.

But nothing compares to the shock the weakened industry has taken from the coronavirus pandemic. The sales of clothing and accessories fell by more than half in March, a trend that is expected to only get worse in April. The entire executive team at Lord & Taylor was let go this month. Nordstrom has canceled orders and put off paying its vendors. The Neiman Marcus Group, the most glittering of the American department store chains, is expected to declare bankruptcy in the coming days, the first major retailer felled during the current crisis.

It is not likely to be the last.

“The department stores, which have been failing slowly for a very long time, really don’t get over this,” said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University’s Business School. “The genre is toast, and looking at the other side of this, there are very few who are likely to survive.”

At a time when retailers should be putting in orders for the all-important holiday shopping season, stores are furloughing tens of thousands of corporate and store employees, hoarding cash and desperately planning how to survive this crisis. The specter of mass default is being discussed not just behind closed doors but in analysts’ future models. Whether or not that happens, no one doubts that the upheaval caused by the pandemic will permanently alter both the retail landscape and the relationships of brands with the stores that sell them.

At the very least, there is expected to be an enormous reduction in the number of stores in each chain, which once sprawled across the American continent like a pack of many-headed hydras.

Department store chains account for about 30 percent of the total mall square footage in the United States, with 10 percent of that coming from Sears and J.C. Penney, according to a January report from Green Street Advisors, a real estate research firm. Even before the pandemic, the firm expected about half of mall-based department stores to close in the next five years.

Even as they have worked to transform themselves for e-commerce with apps, websites and in-store exchanges, the outbreak has laid bare how dependent the department stores have remained on their physical outposts. Macy’s said on March 30 that after closing its stores for nearly two weeks, it had lost the majority of its sales.

The Commerce Department’s retail sales report for March, released last week, was disastrous. Overall retail sales numbers for this month are expected to be even worse, given that some stores were open for at least part of March.

Retailers have begun taking extreme measures to try to survive. Le Tote, a subscription clothing company that acquired Lord & Taylor last year from Hudson’s Bay, said in a memo on April 2 that the chain’s entire executive team, including the chief executive, would be let go immediately. It also suspended payments of goods to vendors for at least 90 days, citing “immense pressure on our liquidity position.”

Macy’s, which also owns Bloomingdale’s, extended payment for goods and services to 120 days from 60 days and, according to Reuters, has hired bankers from Lazard to explore new financing. Jeff Gennette, the chief executive, is forgoing any compensation for the duration of the crisis. The company was dropped from the S&P 500 last month based on its valuation.

J.C. Penney has hired Lazard, the law firm Kirkland & Ellis and the consultancy AlixPartners to explore restructuring options, according to two people familiar with the matter, and confirmed that it skipped an interest payment on its debt last week. It is expected to make a decision on what to do, including potentially filing for bankruptcy, within a few weeks, one of the people said.

But none of them were in as immediate dire straits as Neiman Marcus, which has both an enormous debt burden — about $4.8 billion, thanks in part to a leveraged buyout in 2013 by the owners Ares Management and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board — and a raft of expensive rents in the most high-profile shopping destinations, signed during boom times.

In late March, Neiman stopped accepting new merchandise and furloughed a large portion of its approximately 14,000 employees as the rumors of bankruptcy began to swirl. Its chief executive, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, announced that he was waiving his salary for April. The brand denied to vendors and its own employees at its sister brand Bergdorf Goodman that it was engaging advisers to explore a bankruptcy filing, but on April 14, S&P downgraded Neiman’s credit rating. Last week, the retailer did not make an interest payment that was due on April 15, angering bondholders and further fueling suspicions that a bankruptcy filing was imminent. A spokesperson for Neiman Marcus declined to comment...

Still more.

Danielle Mason

Wow!

Danielle Mason #Zoo + en https://t.co/Xvo1OiHdco pic.twitter.com/GZ6yWdDjo9

— Fotos de Famosas (@fotosdefamosas) March 29, 2020