Tag: mar 23 2021

As we reported in the Geopolitical section of this Trends Journal,  as evidenced by last week’s meeting with U.S. and Chinese government officials, Beijing will not take orders or follow rules set by Washington. (See our new article, “CHINA TELLS U.S TO FU.”) And, as we have forecast, the 20th century was the American century...

The U.K.’s flagship air carrier may sell its nine-building campus abutting London’s Heathrow Airport, the company has said. The move would respond to employees’ desire to work from home and would raise desperately-needed cash for International Consolidated Airlines Group (ICA), the airline’s parent company, which reported a record £7.4-billion loss last year and is in...

Two days after Turkey’s central bank raised a benchmark interest rate, Recip Erdogan, the country’s president, fired Naci Agbal, the bank’s governor, whom Erdogan had appointed to the post in November. Erdogan gave no reason for dismissing his chief banker. After Agbal was sacked, Turkey’s lira lost as much as 14 percent of its value...

Last week, Brazil became the world’s biggest economy to raise its benchmark interest rate.  The country’s central bank boosted its rate from a record-low 2 percent to 2.75 percent as inflation reached 5.2 percent, its fasted pace in four years, rising close to the top of the bank’s target range. The move exemplifies a risk...

In a surprise move, Russia’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate from 4.25 to 4.5 percent, the first rate adjustment in more than two years. The rise is intended to ward off inflation, which is rising faster than expected, bank governor Elvira Nabiullina explained in comments quoted by the Financial Times.  Russia’s economy has...

Japan’s central bank has expanded its acceptable range for bond yields from 2 percent on either side of zero to 2.5 percent, giving it greater flexibility to respond to changes in economic conditions. It also abandoned the ¥6-trillion lower limit of its budget for buying exchange-traded funds but held the program’s ¥12-trillion ceiling in place...

Calgary-based Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) will buy the Kansas City Southern railroad for $28.9 billion in cash and stock, CP announced on 21 March. The deal marks the first major change in North America’s rail ownership in more than 20 years. The purchase, Canadian Pacific’s largest in its history, will give it control of the...

Rogers Communications Inc., with 10.9 million customers for its wireless, cable TV, phone, and Internet services, announced plans to buy the $5.34-billion Shaw Communications Inc. for $16 billion. The resulting company will spend C$2 billion over five years to spread 5G wireless networks across Canada and C$1 billion to bring high-speed Internet service to rural...

Global gasoline demand has peaked and will never return to its 2019 levels, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its new five-year forecast. Increasing fuel efficiency among new vehicles and the steady, if slow, entry of electric cars into the market will more than offset the return of demand as the world’s economy recovers...

A worsening worldwide shortage of computer chips is hampering the production of everything from cars to PlayStations, according to major manufacturers. Samsung blames a “serious imbalance” in semiconductors globally for an uncertain outlook for its phone production and may delay by a year its introduction of a new Note phone.  Volkswagen says the chip shortage...