Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

Russia’s GDP shrank by 4 percent in this year’s second quarter, Rosstat, the country’s statistics agency, reported on 12 August. Russia’s economic productivity contracted much less than predicted during the first full quarter after it invaded Ukraine and after an array of Western sanctions had been laid against it. Economists had predicted a median 7-percent...

Britain’s economy shrank by 0.1 percent in this year’s second quarter, the national statistics agency reported, after growing 0.8 in the first quarter. Analysts had foreseen a 0.2-percent reduction. Spending on services puckered by 0.4 percent as COVID-related testing and vaccinations wound down, cutting back health care expenditures. Overall, consumers spent 0.2 percent less during...

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 important job losses from various sectors. Warby Parker cut 63 corporate staff members Peloton cut 800 staff, hiked prices and shut down stores Best Buy is...

Each week, we report instances where the money junky hedge funds, private equity groups and the already big companies swallow another piece of the global economy.  Here are some more of what the BIGS have been gobbling up and how the Bigs keep getting bigger and the rich keep getting richer. It should be noted...

RATE HIKES ENCIRCLE THE GLOBE The world’s central banks collectively added almost 1,200 basis points, or 12 full percentage points, to interest rates in July, Reuters reported. Central banks managing five of the ten most-traded currencies added 325 basis points. The so-called G10 group of industrialized countries have piled on 1,100 points to their key...

AP Moller-Maersk, the Danish shipping company that moves 17 percent of the world’s seagoing cargo, reported its 15th consecutive quarter of rising earnings last week but warned that such smooth sailing is likely over. Although the company raised its gross revenue forecast to $31 billion this year, it also warned that growth in container shipments...

In July, inflation in Turkey edged up to 79.6 percent from 78.6 percent in June and has further to climb, Bloomberg reported. In Istanbul, the country’s most populous city, prices in July virtually doubled over the past 12 months, notching a 99-percent gain. Turkey’s central bank now says inflation will peak at 85 percent in...

After setting a record pace in 2021, the number and value of mergers and acquisitions are at their lowest in five years, excluding 2020 when COVID-related lockdowns slammed the economy shut. In the U.S. this year, about $1 trillion worth of deals were made through 31 July, Dealogic reported, 40 percent below last year’s level....

Hong Kong has entered its second recession in three years. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted Hong Kong’s economy would contract 0.2 percent in the second quarter. Instead, it shrank by 1.4 percent on top of a 3.9-percent contraction in the year’s first quarter. About 65,000 Chinese visited Hong Kong from the mainland in 2021,...

Europe increased its imports of Russian diesel fuel by 22 percent in July, year over year, to almost 700,000 barrels a day, the Financial Times reported. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 19-country European Union (EU) has vowed to end imports of Russian natural gas by the end of this year, of Russian diesel by...