The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia, and its other allies, known collectively as OPEC+, have agreed to cut daily oil production by two million barrels a day in an attempt to lift oil prices back up above $100 a barrel in the face of a weakening global economy.
The European Central Bank’s [ECB’s] governing council is expressing concern that inflation in the Eurozone, which ran recently at 10 percent, will become “self-reinforcing” and last for years as the euro remains weak and governments pump stimulus money into national economies to soften the impact of soaring energy costs, the Financial Times reported.
Dragflation: Economic growth declining and inflation rising... plus the pressure of interest rate hikes that are drying up the cheap money pool are causing companies in many sectors to lay off employees. Job cuts in September came in at 29,989, up 46.4 percent from a month earlier. Job cuts have jumped 66 percent year on year in September according to the Challenger report.
During what normally is the busiest time of year, ocean cargo lines are canceling sailings due to lack of demand as retailers cancel orders or place no new ones.
More than 15,000 German stores face bankruptcy brought on by energy prices that have risen an average of 147 percent since the beginning of this year, the German Retail Association (HDE) said last week.
German factories turned out 0.8 percent fewer goods in August than in July and 2.9 percent less compared to February, just before Russia invaded Ukraine, the national statistics office reported.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reduced its expectation for global economic output for the fourth time this year, paring it to 3.2 percent this year and 2.9 percent in 2023.
Last week, Japan’s government spent ¥2.84 trillion, the equivalent of $19.7 billion, to keep the yen’s value from falling even further against the dollar.
During the last week of September, no new apartments were sold in Hong Kong, an island with almost 7.5 million people, the Financial Times reported.
On 29 September, the Bank of England (BoE) suspended its plans to tighten monetary policy and bought £1 billion in government bonds to stabilize the nation’s debt and pension markets after new prime minister Liz Truss announced her government would initially borrow more than £72 billion to subsidize household energy bills.