Tag: jan 5 2021

As we have forecast, the 20th century was the American century – the 21st century will be the Chinese century. The business of China is business; the business of America is war. While America spent countless trillions waging and losing endless wars and enriching its military industrial complex, China has spent its trillions advancing the...

On 28 December, meeting in a rare session between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the New York State legislature overwhelmingly passed a ban on almost all evictions in the state for 60 days. The measure renewed a ban, implemented by order of Governor Andrew Cuomo, that was set to expire at the end of 2020...

Shoppers’ visits to physical stores were 39.1 percent fewer on the Saturday before Christmas this season compared to the same day in 2019. For the entire pre-Christmas weekend, foot traffic in stores plummeted 40 percent year on year, according to data from Sensormatic Solutions, a tech firm tracking store visits. The firm had predicted traffic...

COMPANIES SHEDDING OFFICE SPACE AT RECORD RATE. As we had forecast when the COVID War began, the economic shutdown will hit commercial real estate hard. Beginning with Silicon Valley last February, they were the first to tell their employees to work from home.  And what a boost it was for them, as the tech-heavy NASDAQ...

As painful as it was to hear her talk during her stint as Chairwomen of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 2014 into 2018, it was reported that Janet Yellen, Joe Biden’s choice to be treasury secretary, raked in more than $7 million in speaking fees during 2019 and 2020.  Among those paying to hear Yellen...

Municipal bonds, usually among the safest places to store money, may no longer be so secure. The months-long economic lockdown has robbed city and county coffers of expected income, leaving them without funds to meet many of their obligations, perhaps including bond payments. Since March, cities’ revenue fell 21 percent from the same period in...

The oil and gas industry will lead others in corporate defaults in 2021 and is likely to fail to make $15 to $18 billion in bond payments this year, ratings agency Fitch has predicted. The amount is more than twice as many companies in health care and manufacturing are expected to miss; those sectors are...

The new fiscal stimulus passed by Congress in the final days of 2020 likely will strengthen an economic rebound that will occur during the second half of this year. The program sends a $600 cash stipend to most U.S. adults and adds $300 to weekly unemployment payments for 11 weeks. The plan also extends other...

U.S. corporations borrowed a record $2.5 trillion in bonded debt in 2020, sending the American business sector’s debt-to-earnings ratio to another record high, surpassing the one set last year, Bank of America has reported. However, corporations show signs of being increasingly unable to repay those loans. One measure: the growing number of so-called “zombie companies,”...