Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. shot up 24.7 percent in July from June’s pace, the biggest monthly gain since 1968 when records began to be kept. It also was the fastest pace since December 2006, before the Great Recession struck. There were 1.5 million homes for sale at the end of July,...
Tag: aug 25 2020
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10 PERCENT OWN THE MARKETS
Yes, the rich, as we have been reporting by the numbers, are getting richer. According to the Federal Reserve, most stock profits go to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, who owned 87 percent of the available shares in this year’s first quarter. The proportion was 82.4 percent in 2009, after the Great Recession’s shakeout....
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FED MUM ON TIMING OF MORE CHEAP MONEY
The U.S. Federal Reserve has said repeatedly that it and Congress will need to do more stimulus lending and spending to ensure an economic recovery, but the Fed has said nothing about when the additional stimulus might be needed. Officials have said only that more explicit comments on timing will be “appropriate at some point,”...
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NEW DATA SHOWS FALTERING ECONOMY
In the week ending 15 August, 1.1 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits, 135,000 more than in the previous week. Also, 543,000 self-employed persons, contractors, and other workers not eligible for state unemployment insurance applied for support to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program. More than 11 million people were enrolled in that program...
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BOLIVIA: ANTI-GOVERNMENT REBELLION GROWS
As we reported extensively in the Trends Journal, Jeanine Áñez, a relatively unknown Vice President of the Bolivian Senate, took over as interim president of Bolivia last November after the forced resignation of President Evo Morales who had been accused of voter fraud in the October 2019 election. Morales, a former coca farmer, took office in...
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ISRAEL CONTINUES PALESTINIAN PURGE
On 19 August, Israeli military jets conducted their ninth straight night of air strikes in the Gaza Strip. Israeli leaders claimed this massive bombing was a reaction to “incendiary balloons” and riots on the ground. According to reporting from the Mint Press, “Most recent cases of incendiary balloons were not the work of Hamas, but...
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CUOMO GETS BOOK DEAL TO WRITE FAIRY TALE
Before the coronavirus broke out, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had a 47 percent approval rating. When he began to lock down the NY in March to fight the COVID War and was the big star on his daily TV press conferences, by 10 April, a poll conducted by FiveThirtyEight showed his approval rating surged...
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CUOMO BANS DANCING, DESTROYS RESTAURANTS
King Cuomo, the Governor of New York who granted himself Executive Powers, has decreed that no dancing is to be allowed in bars, restaurants, and even at weddings. Also banned are darts, pool, billiards, and karaoke. And according to regulations recently posted on the state liquor authority’s website, music is only allowed to be played...
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THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
There’s a well-known phrase (in English): There’s an “elephant in the room.” It refers to an obvious problem or situation that most people see but don’t want to talk about or acknowledge. There’s an “elephant in the room” has particular relevance in the ongoing economic devastation, personal anxiety, and over-reaching restrictions imposed by politicians and...
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BACK TO SCHOOL OR BACK HOME?
Wear masks, don’t wear masks, get tested for COVID, get your temperature checked, social distance, close cafeterias, teachers wear shields, shields between student’s desks… all the New ABnormal in schools around the world. For others, school days are at home. Here’s the opening paragraph of an article in last Wednesday’s New York Times based on...