Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

All but a handful of nations are announcing extreme steps to save their economies. BRITIAN: The Boris Johnson administration has unveiled a £350-billion plan, equal to about 15 percent of the UK’s GDP, to guarantee cheap loans to every business needing cash. Small businesses can draw from a separate £5-million pool with no interest due...

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have called on developed nations to aid the world’s poorest countries as they struggle with the virus pandemic and its economic wake. More than 75 countries have asked the agencies for help since the coronavirus pandemic began. The IMF has pledged $40 billion in aid; the World...

According to the mainstream media, the nations of Africa and South America are now seeing COVID-19 cases “spike.” But, in fact, considering the living conditions in these nations and the list of widespread chronic diseases, plus serious illnesses and starvation, the numbers add up to next to nothing relative to total population. As for COVID-19,...

Governors around the country have ordered businesses to close unless they’re “essential.” But what business doesn’t consider itself essential, if only to the owners and workers? Some choices are obvious: banks and laundromats, places where people buy groceries and gasoline, prescriptions. But are buying house paint and hardware products “essential” in a time of mass...

Everyday brands that define the American consumer landscape lack the cash to survive for long in a shuttered economy, and they are grasping for ways to sustain themselves until customers are allowed to return. The Cheesecake Factory and Subway restaurant chains have notified landlords they can’t afford to pay April’s rents because their eateries have...

The U.S. Federal Reserve is already playing the stock market indirectly by accepting stocks as collateral from banks for short-term loans. A growing number of analysts expect the Fed to start buying stocks itself if the U.S. economy weakens more significantly. “If there were any [major] dislocations, [the Fed] will go into whatever nook and...

The U.S. Federal Reserve system now owns about 15 percent of the roughly $17 trillion worth of U.S. treasury securities, making it the treasury’s biggest single creditor. The Fed’s stake has increased by $650 billion in the last month. On 23 March, Fed chair Jerome Powell said the central bank would place no limits on...

Last week, President Donald Trump signed into law the $2.2-trillion Federal Relief Program, the biggest money-pumping scheme in history. Following is our analysis of “what’s in” and “what’s not.” On 29 March, three days after the plan passed Congress, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin declared, “We’re going to kill this virus, reopen the economy, and in...

As Trends Journal subscribers well know, Gerald Celente had forecast the “Greatest Depression” a year ago to date. Celente said central banks, including the U.S. Fed, would continue to lower interest rates to zero-to-negative percent. And, minus a “wild card,” the “Greatest Depression” would strike by March 2021. “Donald Trump will be Herbert Hoover, 2021!”...

With the COVID-19 panic grabbing the headline news and with nations in lockdown, long forgotten are the massive protests sweeping the world against corrupt governments, violence, crime, and the lack of basic living standards. Indeed, the world was sinking into the “Greatest Depression,” as we have clearly delineated in the Trends Journal over the past year. Now,...