Many small businesses were beginning to reopen as shutdown orders began to lift last month. Now, as the pandemic gains new strength and lockdowns are being reimposed, a number of those businesses which had restocked merchandise and invested in protective equipment for workers and customers are shutting down for good. “I can’t keep doing this,”...
Tag: jul 21 2020
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RESURGENT VIRUS ROILS ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
The media’s constant refrain of rising COVID virus cases, even as the death rate declines, has thwarted investors and government officials’ expectations that the U.S. economy would bounce back strongly in 2020’s second half. With “must wear mask” rules being enforced in scores of states, the hopes of businesses… retail, hospitality, restaurants – throwing open...
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FEDERAL OFFICIALS SEE “CHOPPY” ECONOMIC FUTURE
This year already has seen investment-grade debt lose $800 billion in value and corporations default on loans worth $55 billion – a faster slide than during the Great Recession and “a wave of insolvencies is possible,” said Lail Brainard, one of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s five governors, in a speech last week. She advocated making...
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IRAN & VENEZUELA: IS WAR INEVITABLE?
Before the COVID-19 pandemic dominated headlines and the 24/7 news cycle, the Trends Journal had been continuously reporting on overt U.S. efforts to overthrow the ruling governments of Iran and Venezuela. As Gerald Celente has said many times, “When all else fails, they take you to war.” IRAN Recently, there have been dozens mysterious fires...
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LIBYA CONFLICT HEATING UP
Libya is in rubble and ruin, and wracked by civil war. It wasn’t always like that. Before it was destroyed by the Libyan War, launched in 2011 by U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and Prime Minister of England David Cameron, it was the most prosperous nation in Africa. The nation’s infrastructure, which...
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NEW TECHNOLOGY TO RECHARGE EVs ON THE MOVE
by Bennett Daviss Engineers at Stanford University have created a way to recharge electric vehicles wirelessly as they move that carries an efficiency of 92 percent, up from 10 percent that previous methods achieved. Recharging an electric vehicle wirelessly involves creating a magnetic field that activates magnetic coils in the vehicle. But that only works...
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CONGRESS OFFERS PLAN TO REMAKE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
by Bennett Daviss The National Science Foundation will be renamed, given an additional $100 billion over five years, and charged with maintaining the U.S. leadership in global technological innovation under a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate and House of Representatives. The proposal also would alter the foundation’s mission from pure research alone to add...
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NEW MOLECULE TAKES THE HIGH OUT OF METH AND COCAINE
by Bennett Daviss Scientists led by a Duke University research team have created a new molecule that weakens the high that cocaine and methamphetamines deliver to the brain. The molecule is a neurotensin, a kind of protein that moderates reward-seeking behaviors and has been known to reduce food- and drug-seeking in mice. Using a neurotensin...
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GOVERNORS RULE, RIGHTS DON’T MATTER
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered travelers arriving at New York airports from 22 states now designated on the quarantine list must complete forms with their contact information. The governor announced last Tuesday that those refusing will risk being fined up to $2,000 and be forced to appear in court and face quarantine restrictions....
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GLOBAL BUSINESSES GOING DOWN & OUT
GOODBYE, SMALL BUSINESSES. More than 110,000 U.S. small businesses closed for good during the first weeks of the U.S. economic shutdown, according to an April study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The survey, made as the shutdown’s full force was beginning to be felt, also found that: 43 percent of businesses were at...