The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits sank to 348,000 in the most recent reporting week, the U.S. labor department announced. The figure, the fourth consecutive weekly decline and the lowest since 14 March, 2020, beat the 363,000 forecast by economists that Bloomberg had surveyed. Continuing claims numbered 2.82 million, barely...
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WILL FED SLOW BOND-BUYING?
Later this year, the U.S. Federal Reserve will begin to curtail its $120-billion monthly purchases of government and mortgage-backed bonds, according to minutes of the Fed’s Open Market Committee on 27 and 28 July. “Most participants noted that, provided the economy were to evolve broadly as they anticipated, they judged that it could be appropriate...
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WILL DELTA VARIANT CUT GROWTH FORECASTS?
Last week the word was that U.S. equity markets softened as investors face a growing likelihood that the COVID virus’s Delta variant will slow economic growth and possibly end the markets’ current record-setting bull run. That’s what we had forecast and the Financial Times reported. Figures showing U.S. retail sales slowing, a slowdown in China’s...
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KNIVES ARE OUT FOR SPACs
After a meteoric rise, the market for SPACs is plunging back to Earth. (See “Gamblers Dump SPACs,” Trends Journal, 25 May 2021.) A SPAC is a company that makes no product, performs no service, nor markets anything other than itself. Investors buy shares, often priced at $10 each, and the money is put into a...
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CHINA PUSH FOR ‘COMMON PROSPERITY’
Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced he is pushing the Communist Party agenda that will attempt to further entrench itself in society by promoting equality and “common prosperity” for all its citizens. The Wall Street Journal reported that the slogan has grown in popularity as Xi pushes to build on the party’s foundation of empowering...
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NO E.U. WELCOME MAT FOR AFGHAN REFUGEES
The New York Times reported last Thursday that NATO members are finding themselves torn over the prospect of an influx of refugees from Afghanistan. Many fear a repeat of 2015 and 2016, when waves of asylum seekers from the wars in Syria and Iraq fled into Europe (See “Migrant crisis: Pass the blame,” 23 April...
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TALIBAN “INHERITS” $83 BILLION IN U.S. ARMS, MATERIAL
A group of 26 Republican senators has written to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanding a full accounting of the weaponry and equipment that was allowed to fall into the hands of the Taliban upon the collapse of the Afghan government and army, which followed quickly on the heels of the withdrawal from Afghanistan of...
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WILL TALIBAN CASH IN ON $1 TRILLION WORTH OF AFGHAN MINERAL WEALTH?
The Taliban, which took over Kabul with ease last week, now finds itself sitting on top of a fortune in mineral wealth that is coveted by major world players, including China. Afghanistan, which is considered one of the poorest countries on the planet and survives on donations, is actually sitting on mineral deposits of about...
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BIDEN ON AFGHANISTAN: “FUCK THAT”
This past week, the Presstitutes have been working overtime to try and assign blame for the swift fall of Kabul to the Taliban that’s sitting on about $1 trillion in mineral deposits and a stockpile of U.S. weapons left behind worth billions… that U.S. taxpayers paid for. But regardless who suffers most politically, the fact...
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MORE THAN 1,000 KILLED IN MYANMAR SINCE COUP
As we have been reporting in the Trends Journal, since 1 February, tens of thousands of protesters in Myanmar have taken to the streets to fight for democracy after a military coup overturned recent election results and arrested the civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who reportedly won by a landslide this past November. On...