Tag: apr 21 2020

Borrowing by governments and central banks to help national economies survive the worldwide business shutdown will push the global public debt load from its 2019 level of 69.4 percent of GDP to 85.3 in 2020, the International Monetary Fund has predicted. This calculation does not include new commercial or private debt taken on by businesses...

The world’s economy is in a recession more severe than any global financial crisis since the Great Depression, says the International Monetary Fund. The lending agency has revised its 2020 forecast, now seeing the global economy contracting about 3 percent this year, dropping about $2.7 trillion from last year’s $90-trillion output. The 3-percent forecast far...

The current economic panic first took a large swath of low-wage jobs – fast-food workers, hotel maids, and retail clerks. Now the layoffs are reaching higher. Businesses that sent office workers home to continue their jobs are now furloughing them as business disappears. Corporate lawyers reportedly are shrinking in numbers. Health care employees not on...

As the pandemic spreads, the aftermath is forcing colleges to face a future that could be markedly different from the immediate past. High tuition costs, the prospect of lifelong debt, and an uncertain job market already had many students rethinking their choices in post-secondary education, wondering if college is worth the cost. Now the economic...

Builders broke ground of 1.2 million new housing units in March, compared to 1.56 million in February. That’s a decline of about 22 percent as the U.S. housing industry enters its’ busiest construction season of the year. Construction of new single-family homes dropped 17.5 percent; apartment and condo starts plummeted 32.1 percent from last month,...

Fact or fiction? The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which artificially propped up the equity markets by pumping in several trillion dollars beginning last September, announced last week they “soon” will begin to reduce the amount of money it makes available to trading houses with short-term “repo” loans. In either a state of denial...

In March, U.S. industrial activity slowed by 5.4 percent from February, the biggest month-to-month drop since the end of World War II. Retail sales shrank 8.2 percent from February, the greatest single monthly decline since 1992 when records began to be kept. Spending in restaurants and bars was off by 25 percent, as were vehicle...

On 15 April, the dollar gained an additional 0.8 percent in value against a collection of 16 other major currencies. The dollar was strong enough to pull investors away from gold, the price of which retreated 1.4 percent on the day. Several factors drove investors to the safety of the dollar: Stimulus money from the...

The Federal Reserve’s $349-billion Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, which was designed to lend money to small businesses to fund their payrolls during the economic crisis, saw its funding claimed within minutes of applications becoming available. The Bank of America, which manages a portion of PPP money on behalf of the Federal Reserve, received over...