While Washington and The Street keep selling the strong job numbers, as we have detailed and continue to do so, the jobs being created are mostly in low-paying human services and hospitality sectors. Indeed, across the global economic spectrum, from manufacturing, retail, financial etc., they keep shedding jobs.
In October, for the fifth consecutive month, Germany’s factories reduced their output. Production fell 0.4 percent below September’s, which fell 1.3 percent from August.
Consolidation is the name of the “Bigs” game. The more they own the more they control... it’s the way of the power-hungry world. As we have noted since the Central Banksters started to rapidly raise interest rates, the decade’s long merger and acquisition spree is over.
From January through August this year, Walmart bought 25 percent of its imported goods from Indian suppliers, compared to 2 percent in 2018.
Sigma Holding, which owns department stores and office buildings in several countries, has declared insolvency in its native Austria, similar to filing for bankruptcy in the U.S.
The federal government spends roughly $2 billion annually to operate office spaces it owns, and $5 billion more to lease others, but up to three-quarters of that square footage is probably empty on a given day, according to a three-week study of 24 federal agencies earlier this year by the Government Accounting Office.
Since the West imposed sanctions against Russia after it invaded Ukraine, oil exports have been Moscow’s chief source of foreign revenue.
Surprising analysts, France’s economy contracted by 0.1 percent in this year’s third quarter, the national statistics agency said after revising its estimate down from an initial 0.1-percent gain.
After internal disagreements postponed its meeting from mid-November to the last day of the month, OPEC+ has decided to set no new mandatory production cut for the cartel as a whole.
Wars, lingering inflation, and persistent high interest rates will hold global economic growth to 2.7 percent in 2024, compared to an expected 2.9 percent this year, and perk up to 3.0 percent in 2025, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has forecast.