Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

The economies of Latin America, where the pandemic has done the most damage, will take at least until 2023 to return to pre-pandemic levels, Carlos Jaramillo, head of the World Bank’s operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, said to the Financial Times. “It will only be a gradual recovery,” he said. “I don’t think...

After struggling to gain just 4.3 percent in 2020, Israel’s TA-125 stock index already is up 6 percent this month, due to the country’s rapid distribution of COVID vaccines, analysts say. Israel’s successful vaccination campaign makes it more likely to see an economic rebound sooner than most other countries, luring investors to bet on its...

Apartment vacancies in Toronto reached 5.7 percent in 2020’s fourth quarter,  according to real estate research firm Urbanation, a 1.1-percent increase year over year and a 50-year record. During the quarter, average rents in Toronto proper dove 10 percent to $2,337, compared to a year earlier. In contrast, average rents in surrounding locales fell just...

In December, 628,000 South Koreans lost their jobs, the tenth consecutive monthly decline in employment and the greatest one-month loss since February 1999 amid Asia’s financial crisis, Statistics Korean reported. The late 90s crash erased 1.27 million jobs from the country’s payrolls. The largest share of December’s losses were in leisure and hospitality, the statistics...

Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency, must be governed by coordinated global regulations, Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, said on 13 January at the Reuters Next economic forum. Her call for controls echoed that of other policymakers in several countries. The digital currency “is a highly speculative asset which has conducted some funny...

Germany’s GDP shrank 5 percent in 2020, its worst performance since contracting 5.7 percent during 2009’s financial crisis and the second-worst since the 1950s, the country’s statistics office reported, referring to the outcome as a “deep recession.” Economists had forecast a 5.1 loss for last year. The actual decline was closer to 5.3 percent, the...

Having climbed to $900 billion globally, the market for corporate bonds is becoming increasingly risky, fund managers warned in a 16 January Financial Times article. Lending standards had become less stringent before the pandemic arrived, pushing worldwide corporate bonded debt from $575 billion in 2016 to $887 billion last June. Then, during 2020’s economic crash,...

Across Europe, investors and policymakers are expecting to see prices rise across a broad range of goods and services as central banks hold to policies of cheap money and a new U.S. stimulus initiative boosts global spending. The five-year inflation swap rate for the euro – essentially a gauge of what investors think the inflation...

Governments and central banks must not end economic stimulus programs too soon, even if inflation rates rise and economies seem to be recovering, European Central Bank (ECB) president Christine Lagarde said in 13 January comments at the Reuters Next economic forum reported by the Financial Times. Although pent-up consumer demand is likely to bring an...

Remember the mainstream media sideshow when the politicians launched the COVID War last year that wrecked the global economy, destroyed millions of businesses, and put billions out of work?  It was the “Greatest Shows on Earth” brought to you by Presstitute clowns and their sidekicks blasting across the airwaves that there was nothing to worry...