Mattel, home to Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars, posted fourth-quarter sales 22 percent below those of a year earlier as holiday sales stalled, the company said.
Category: 14 February 2023
HOUSING’S “POWER BUYERS” LOSE THEIR MOJO
During the zero interest rate and low mortgage rate COVID era’s housing boom, companies known as “power buyers” were flying high.
WAGE GROWTH SLOWS IN THE SERVICE SECTOR
The U.S. services economy is much stronger now that consumers have satiated their appetite for goods during the COVID War.
BINGO: U.S. HITS NEW RECORD TRADE DEFICIT IN 2022
Yes, the U.S. economy is doing great!
Inflation still high, wage growth sagging, and a country that was once called the Land of Opportunity has diminished to a country in which just 11 percent of its Gross Domestic Product comes from goods they manufacture.
RUSSIANS CATCH GOLD FEVER
Demand for gold bars and coins in Russia last year shot up 400 percent, a greater increase than in any other country, after it invaded Ukraine and Western sanctions battered Russia’s economy.
EVENTS CONVERGE TO PRESSURE FED TO RATES STILL HIGHER
U.S. interest rates are likely to rise higher than markets have predicted, U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said in a 7 February comment at a meeting of the Economic Club of Washington, his first statement since the Fed raised its key rate by a quarter point the week before.
DOES ISRAEL SEEK A “FINAL SOLUTION FOR PALESTINIANS?”
There is what passes for a sick joke among those who watch the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians with increasing shock over what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his thugs have been allowed to get away with.
THE COST OF IGNORANT ‘EXPERT’ POLICY MAKERS DURING COVID
The Cochrane Library recently updated its 2020 systematic review of physical interventions to reduce respiratory illnesses. The update included an additional 11 randomized controlled trials, bringing the total number of RCTs included to 78.
FUTURE AI WON’T SERVE HUMANKIND, BUT MIGHT SAVE IT OR DESTROY IT, SAYS SINGULARITYNET AI FOUNDER
Why create a sentient artificial entity which won’t serve humanity, and might destroy it?
PAPER PROMISES
It’s all Paper Promises
And they protect their seal
A preposterous proposition
That nothing is quite real