To ease inflation’s pressure on households, Poland’s government is allowing homeowners to skip mortgage payments for up to four months this year and another four in 2023. More than 500,000 homeowners in the country took advantage of the program within two days of its opening, according to the website Notes From Poland. The country’s central...
Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT
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TOP TREND 2022, DRAGFLATION: GERMANY’S RETAIL SALES CRATER
In June, retail sales in Germany fell by 8.8 percent, year over year, their fastest annual rate of decline since 1994 when records began to be kept, the Financial Times reported. Inflation ran at a record 8.5 percent for the month, discouraging consumers from making discretionary purchases, especially with energy rationing under way as Russia...
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WORLD FOOD PRICES PLUMMET MOST IN 14 YEARS
Global food prices fell the most since 2008 as Ukraine began shipping some grain again after a U.N.-brokered deal with Russia to open Black Sea ports. Ukraine is a key supplier of wheat, corn, and sunflower oil to Europe and much of northern Africa and the Middle East. A United Nations index of global food...
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WHEN THE ECONOMY FALLS JOBS GO WITH IT
Inflation and interest rate hikes are causing companies in many sectors to lay off employees. To illustrate the employment trends and the socioeconomic implications, each week we will list job losses. Jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, have increased since spring. U.S. job listings fell in June to the lowest level in nine months. The...
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SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
Each week, we report instances where the money junky hedge funds, private equity groups and the already big companies swallow another piece of the global economy. Here are some more of what the BIGS have been gobbling up and how the Bigs keep getting bigger and the rich keep getting richer. It should be noted...
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SPOTLIGHT: INFLATION
EUROZONE INFLATION SETS ANOTHER RECORD IN JUNE Inflation across the 19 Eurozone countries climbed to 8.9 percent in July, a record outstripping the 8.6-percent high mark set in June, the European Union’s statistics office reported last week. Energy prices soared again, rocketing up 39.7 percent on disruptions in Russia’s natural gas deliveries. Food prices gained...
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QUALCOMM REPORTS DROP IN DEMAND FOR PHONE CHIPS
Qualcomm, one of the world’s chief suppliers of computer chips for mobile phones, trimmed its sales forecast for this year as inflation forces consumers to curtail unnecessary spending. The reduced outlook comes even though the company reported a 36-percent sales increase in its most recent quarter, notching $10.94 billion in revenue and edging past analysts’...
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BANGLADESH ASKS IMF FOR EMERGENCY AID
Bangladesh became the latest Asian nation to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for aid in recent weeks as soaring fuel prices have depleted the country’s foreign currency reserves. “We can’t print dollars, we have to earn them,” finance minister A.H.M. Mustafa Kamal said in a 27 July public statement. “We earn dollars through the...
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NEW WORLD DISORDER TOP TREND: PAKISTAN STUMBLES TOWARD DEFAULT AS RUPEE’S VALUE SLIDES
The value of Pakistan’s rupee plunged 7.6 percent last week to 228 to the dollar, its lowest in more than 20 years and its steepest weekly slide since October 1998 as investors came to see Pakistan as the next country to follow Sri Lanka into default. The rupee’s tumble also reflected fears that the International...
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RUSSIA’S ECONOMY RISES ABOVE SANCTIONS AS CENTRAL BANK CUTS RATE
Russia’s economy has been harmed less than expected by Western sanctions that were imposed as punishment for its attack on Ukraine, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) noted in its new quarterly economic outlook report. Russian exports, including oil, “are holding up better than expected,” the report said. “In addition, domestic demand is also showing some...