Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

TOP TREND, NEW WORLD DISORDER: INFLATION IN RICH NATIONS IS HARDEST ON THE POOR A food bank in Norway has seen demand rise 30 percent this year compared to the first half of 2021, itself a year that saw more people in the oil-rich nation needing help to have enough food. U.S. food banks also...

WESTERN INVESTORS FLOCK BACK TO CHINA After China ended its widespread anti-COVID lockdown in early June, foreign investors poured money back into the country’s equity markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed in the U.S. that concentrate on Chinese stocks netted $4 billion of new capital last month, according to Blackrock; Chinese ETFs...

Purveyors of luxury goods such as LVMH, Prada, and Richemont, recovered early from the COVID crisis, with many of the firms boosting prices by as much as 20 percent on some items since the beginning of 2021, The Wall Street Journal noted. Now investors think the high life might not be so rich. Share prices...

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 new job losses: CAA acquired ICM and will be releasing 105 ICM employees. Novartis cuts 8,000 jobs or 7.4 percent of its 108,000 strong workforce. Substack...

Fewer commercial properties will change hands and property values will plunge in Europe and the U.K. as investors enter a “new paradigm” of rising interest rates and a global economy in turmoil, Brad Hyler, who manages $52 billion in property in Britain and Europe for private equity firm Brookfield Asset Management, said in a Financial...

Prices for computer memory chips, which skyrocketed during the COVID crisis and its aftermath, fell 11 percent during this year’s second quarter compared to a year earlier, the first such drop in two years, market research firm TrendForce reported. Memory chips are used in virtually every electronic device and make up about 28 percent of...

European Union (EU) rules limiting the amount of debt member nations can carry and capping the size of their national debts are now “obsolete” in the face of rampant inflation, COVID-related borrowing, and the impact of the Ukraine war and Western sanctions, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said last week in a Financial Times...

The 25 members of the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) governing council that sets interest rates thought they were ready to flip the switch on their well-publicized quarter-point rate hike this month. “They were wrong,” the Financial Times reported. The problem: borrowing costs have risen for European Union countries with feeble economies, especially Italy, leading to...

Seeing an economic slowdown in China and fearing a worldwide recession as central banks hike interest rates, commodities investors are bailing out into dollars and other safe harbors. Copper was trading barely above $7,500 a ton last week, down 25 percent from its peak last fall above $10,700. Copper continued to plunge on Monday, 11...

Getting what they asked for by putting sanctions on Russia, German officials are rationing hot water, dimming street lights, and closing swimming pools as natural gas prices continue to soar after Russia cut back natural gas exports to Europe last month. “The situation is more than dramatic,” Axel Gedaschko, head of GdW, a federation of...