It’s global. The numbers are there for all to see. From developed to underdeveloped nations, economies are slowing down and/or contracting. The reports are making it clear the job cut trend will increase next year as we have detailed in this and previous Trends Journals.
OPEC+’s recent production cuts intended to shore up crude oil prices have cut the cartel’s share of global oil markets to 51 percent, the smallest proportion since OPEC invited other producing nations to affiliate and create OPEC+ in 2016, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported.
The Bank of England (BoE) and European Central Bank (ECB) made it clear their view of inflation is not as sunny as the U.S. Federal Reserve’s chair Jerome Powell expressed last week.
The past year’s surge in interest rates has piled record amounts of debt onto poor nations, depriving them of money needed to invest in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and other essential building blocks they need to rise out of poverty, the World Bank said in a report last week.
In advanced economies, business failures are climbing at a double-digit rate compared to last year as governments’ $10-trillion COVID-era support programs end and central banks’ high interest rates continue, the Financial Times reported.
Pictet Group, Switzerland’s oldest and most prestigious private bank for the wealthy, agreed to pay $122.9 million to the U.S. Justice Department after admitting it helped American account holders conceal their foreign assets so they could evade their tax obligations.
For the third successive meeting of its governing council, the Bank of Canada (BoC) left its key interest rate at 5 percent, saying that neither the economy nor the labor market are running at too fast a pace.
Luxury brands such as Coach, LVMH, and Richemont piled up profits during the COVID War as consumers locked down at home took comfort in treating themselves. Sales in the sector grew by 15 percent in 2022, Bain & Co. reported.
Speculation that the Bank of Japan is about to scrap its policy of negative interest rates, which has held the central bank’s key rate at -.10 percent since 2016, roiled the country’s markets last week.
António Guterres, UN secretary-general, and Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) called for an end to global subsidies of fossil fuels, which surpassed $7 trillion in 2022, according to an IMF analysis.