Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

Canada gained 157,100 jobs in September, far exceeding analysts’ expectations and regaining all three million jobs lost to the COVID War, Reuters reported. The jobs report makes it much more likely the Bank of Canada (BoC) will now boost interest rates to lasso inflation, now running at 4 percent, twice the bank’s target rate. However,...

Central banks are beginning to face the very real prospect of national economies shaped by slowing growth and rising prices, a fiscal disease which we term, Dragflation, which we reported on last week in articles “ANALYSTS WRONG. NOT STAGFLATION, IT WILL BE DRAGFLATION” and “Spotlight: Inflation Spreads” (5 Oct 2021). To head off the emergency,...

Vietnam has imposed one of the world’s most stringent lockdowns in Ho Chi Minh City and its environs in an attempt to curb the COVID virus’s Delta variant, a move forcing several businesses to produce their goods in other countries. That message was delivered to Vietnam’s prime minister last week in a letter signed by...

The government-run Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) filed a criminal complaint against the Inflation Research Group (IRG), after theYreported that Turkey’s inflation rate is near 40 percent, not the 19.5 percent claimed by the country’s government and central bank. A prosecutor is investigating the complaint, which alleges the group violated rules by failing to publish its...

Supply disruptions will last longer than initially thought, according to the heads of four of the world’s largest central banks, who spoke at a 29 September panel discussion. Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, expressed frustration that logistics tangles were hampering the world’s economic recovery and helping to drive inflation “well above target,”...

Despite supply chain chaos and a pending energy crisis, citizens of the 19-country Eurozone are spending at a rate not seen since the COVID virus arrived, the Financial Times reported. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s real-time data tracking system showed spending at or above pre-COVID levels in most Eurozone countries, the group reported. ...

Widespread power outages across China, the worst in more than a decade, forced the first contraction in the country’s manufacturing center last month since February 2020. The government has imposed power quotas on many factories, forcing them to operate part-time as Beijing seeks to manage short supplies of electricity while also cutting back its infamous...

Major investors, including Blackrock, Bridgewater Associates and Pacific Investment Management, are shrugging off the financial crisis that has struck Evergrande, China’s largest property developer, and sent a wave of anxiety through global financial markets earlier this month, according to The Wall Street Journal. Evergrande announced earlier this month that it might not be able to...

The global auto industry will build 7.7 million fewer vehicles this year, costing the companies $210 billion in sales, according to research firm AlixPartners, which had forecast a loss of only 3.9 million vehicles earlier this year. The persistent shortage of computer chips has led the firm to nearly double its previous estimate of lost...

The COVID War’s travel bans and other restrictions have had an “enormously detrimental effect on the wellbeing and safety” of the world’s transport workers, with such “mistreatment” further straining “crumbling” global supply chains, the International Chamber of Shipping and several other transport industry groups wrote in a letter to the United Nations General Assembly meeting...