After losing money in five of the last six years, home insurers are raising premiums but offering less coverage for the price as they try to rebuild their profits, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT – Aug 8 2023
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REMOTE WORK HAS DAMAGED U.S. PRODUCTIVITY, STUDIES SHOW
Employees working remotely are no more productive than they were when spending five days a week in the office and workers spending all their time at home are less productive than before the COVID War, according to several studies, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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SHARE BUYBACKS ARE OUT, CORPORATE REINVESTMENT IS IN
While the economic outlook was cloudy, corporations plowed their cash into buying their own shares to maintain share prices.
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WORRY SIGN: MAJOR INVESTORS HOLDING ON TO CASH
Asset managers are having a hard time persuading endowments, foundations, pension funds, and other large investors to stop sitting on their cash, according to the Financial Times.
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AMERICANS SINKING INTO DEBT
Americans have charged a record $1 trillion to credit cards and other forms of revolving debt, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis announced last week.
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DEATH OF THE DOLLAR: FITCH’S DOWNGRADE THE BEGINNING OF THE END
After holding a AAA credit rating for decades—the highest possible—the U.S. saw its rating downgraded by Fitch Ratings to AA+, prompting a series of critical comments from government officials and other notable executives.
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FITCH DOWNGRADES U.S. CREDIT RATING DUE TO DEBT, PARALYZED GOVERNANCE
Fitch Ratings knocked down the U.S.’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ last week, citing the country’s ever-growing debt load and an “erosion of governance,” especially in fiscal management.
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U.S. ADDS FEWER JOBS IN JULY THAN PREDICTED. GOOD NEWS FOR INTEREST RATES?
The U.S. economy sprouted 187,000 additional jobs in July, slightly lower than the 200,000 that many economists had expected and well below 2022’s average of 400,000 a month.
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JUNK-RATED COMPANIES KEEP SELLING BONDS BUT ON TOUGHER TERMS
American Airlines, Six Flags, and other companies whose credit ratings have been down-rated to junk keep selling bonds. New issues this year through early August have totaled $91 billion, Bloomberg calculated, 35 percent more than the same period a year ago.
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DOWNGRADE A WARNING SIGNAL OF LOOMING DEBT CRISIS; CONGRESS PARALYZED TO ACT
Fitch’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating set Democrats and Republicans in Congress to bickering over which of them caused the downgrade: Democrats for spending too much or Republicans for not raising taxes to cover the expenses they voted into the budget.