In May, the Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, which the U.S. Federal Reserve views as the most reliable gauge of inflation, shot up 3.4 percent compared to a year earlier, the U.S. commerce department reported. This represents the biggest 12-month increase since April 1992, according to CNBC. Separately, the department reported that also in...
Tag: jun 29 2021
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CONSUMER SPENDING STRONG
Consumer spending on goods in May rose 20 percent from February 2020’s amount, with spending on services only 1 percent below pre-shutdown levels. With inflation on the rise, overall spending maintained April’s volume, when consumers paid 0.9 percent more for goods and services than in March. Spending on recreation grew 3.5 percent last month, the...
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PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK: THE AMERICAN WAY
Once upon a time – before American politicians stole the people’s money to enrich the military industrial complex and sent its young men to fight and die in endless wars, and killed its manufacturing sector by outsourcing its production to those “dirty commie countries” – America was the unrivaled “Land of Opportunity.” Those days are...
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SPACs: DANGER AHEAD
Investors will learn “a pretty expensive lesson” when they see that some companies that have gone public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) played “fast and loose with their projections” to “create castles in the sky,” James Chanos, founder of hedge fund Kynikos Associates, said in a statement quoted by the Financial Times. Chanos, known as...
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ISRAEL HAS TESTED DIGITAL SHEKEL, OFFICIAL ADMITS
Israel has conducted a test of a digital shekel, the national currency, Andrew Abir, the Bank of Israel’s deputy governor said, apparently inadvertently, during a panel discussion at the Fair Value Forum hosted this month by research college IDC Herzliya. Later, Abir downplayed the test’s importance. “I had previously estimated that the chance of having...
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ETHIOPIA UPDATE: TIGRAY FORCES RETAKE CAPITAL CITY
In a stunning turn of events after a months-long war, Tigrayan forces on Monday overtook the region’s capital Mekelle after Ethiopian forces fled the city, reports said. “They invaded us. Abiy is a liar and a dictator, but he is defeated already,” one person celebrating in the streets told The New York Times. “Tigray will be an...
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DELTA VARIANT THROWS NEW OBSTACLE IN WAY OF EU RECOVERY
Vaccine distribution was supposed to be the golden ticket for the European Union to reopen and revitalize its battered economy after a year of COVID-19 shutdowns, but the Delta variant and its ability to spread has jeopardized any smooth road to recovery. PORTUGAL: The Delta variant has been blamed on about 70 percent of new...
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VARIANTS FORCE NEW RESTRICTIONS IN ISRAEL, AUSTRALIA
The governments of Australia and Israel put new restrictions in place in response to the spread of COVID-19 and the Delta variant that has raised concerns about the effectiveness of vaccines. “We are now starting to see increases in transmission around the world,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, said. A...
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FAUCI CALLS DELTA VARIANT GREATEST RISK FOR RETURN TO NORMAL LIFE
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the emerging Delta variant a cause for great concern and said it is the “greatest threat in the U.S. to our attempt to eliminate COVID-19.” The variant was first reported in India and is up to 80 percent more transmissible...
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MASK MANDATES AND SOCIAL DISTANCING SHOULD CONTINUE DUE TO VARIANTS, WHO SAYS
Dr. David Nabarro, the special envoy on COVID-19 for the World Health Organization, said in an interview Thursday that new variants of the virus will continue to emerge in the population so protective measures like wearing face masks and practicing social distancing should be implemented indefinitely. “We will go from Delta to Lambda and then...