Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

Home prices in New Zealand have leapt 43 percent since the COVID War began, with the median home price now 10 times the median personal income, the Financial Times reported. The island nation has experienced one of the world’s biggest home price booms, which now is weakening as the country’s central bank continues to raise...

Home prices in 70 major cities across China continued to slide in May, dropping by an average of 0.79 percent from a year previous, despite banks’ and local governments’ efforts to revive demand as the country’s real estate industry continues to work its way out of financial near-collapse. Prices ticked down 0.17 percent from the...

China’s economic output grew slightly in May after most of the country’s two-months-long anti-COVID restrictions were eased, allowing people back to work and to stores. Industrial production expanded 0.7 percent year over year, reversing April’s 3-percent slump amid the lockdowns. Consumer spending decreased 6.7 percent in May compared to a year earlier, easing back from...

Russia’s oil output crashed immediately after it invaded Ukraine and Western allies slapped sanctions on Russian exports. However, it since has risen, in May adding about 130,000 barrels a day to a total of 10.55 million as countries continue to boost imports to lower their own fuel prices, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported and...

For more than a year, central banks called inflation “temporary” or “transitory,” waiting too long to raise interest rates while inflation soared far beyond their targets, and now are racing to catch up, hiking interest rates by startling amounts and at a rushed pace that push the global economy toward recession.  That record was summarized...

It has been relatively recently that U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and treasury secretary Janet Yellen have publicly admitted (sort of) that they misread inflation’s trajectory. They had projected that inflation would sink to their 2-percent target rate by the end of this year; they now see it at 4 percent by 2023 and...

Last week, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) once again decided to hold its key interest rate at -0.10 percent and to continue its daily purchases of government bonds carrying a 0.25-percent yield. Today, the yen hit its lowest level against the U.S. dollar since October 1998. The decision to forcibly hold bond rates low and...

One of Donald Trump’s successes as president was to reduce the U.S.’s trade deficit with China—but apparently not. The reason: the official figures fail to include “de minimis” shipments direct from China to individuals in the U.S. that have a value under $800, The Wall Street Journal noted. “De minimis” is a Latin term meaning...

Inflation and interest rate hikes are causing companies in every sector to lay off thousands of employees, a clear sign that a recession is coming. Rising mortgage rates and declining home sales are shrinking brokerages’ profits. Demand was 17 percent lower than expected in May. Compass is laying off 10 percent of its 4,800 person...

Six in ten top corporate executives expect a recession within 12 to 18 months, according to a May survey by the Conference Board, and another 15 percent think one has already begun in the areas of the world in which they operate. Late last year, only 22 percent of executives polled expected a recession. A...