Each week, we report instances where the money junky hedge funds, private equity groups and the already big companies swallow another piece of the global economy. Here are some more of what the BIGS have been gobbling up and how the Bigs keep getting bigger and the rich keep getting richer. PROLOGIS BIDS €21 BILLION...
Tag: march 29 2022
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CREDIT CARD PROCESSING FEES UNAFFORDABLE, CANADIAN BUSINESSES SAY
Seventy-eight percent of Canadian business owners are unable to afford credit-card processing fees, according to a new survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB). “While credit card processing fees for some in-store transactions have come down in recent years, this has been more than offset by the massive growth in higher costs for...
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TOYOTA SLASHES APRIL PRODUCTION BY 17 PERCENT
Facing an ongoing shortage of computer chips and lingering COVID-related economic disruptions, Toyota will cut its global production next month to 750,000 vehicles, a reduction of 17 percent. The company already has announced a 20-percent domestic production cut for April, May, and June due to shortages of materials and supplies. Toyota also will trim 10...
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EGYPT ASKS IMF FOR AID AS WHEAT, OIL PRICES SKYROCKET
Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer, has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for aid to stabilize its economy in the wake of rising prices for grain and oil, driven by crop shortages and higher prices made worse recently by Western sanctions on Russia. Egypt’s government subsidizes bread purchases for 70 million of its people....
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ARGENTINA’S INTEREST RATE HITS 44.5 PERCENT. U.S. SHOULD BE 9 PERCENT.
Argentina’s central bank has raised its key 28-day “Leliq” rate for the third time this year, this time by 2 percentage points to 44.5 percent. Last week, Argentine president Alberto Fernandez declared “war on inflation” and pledged “all necessary measures” to rein in rampant price increases. In February, the country’s inflation rate added another 4.7...
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CHINA’S NEW COVID LOCKDOWNS ADD TO SUPPLY-CHAIN DELAYS
Because of new COVID lockdowns in parts of China that are the strictest since the virus’s initial outbreak more than two years ago, 174 cargo ships were anchored off the ports of Hong Kong and Shenzhen last week, the most since 21 October, Bloomberg reported. Ships queueing off Shanghai’s docks also are becoming more numerous,...
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TOP TREND 2022: SELF-SUFFICIENT ECONOMIES. UKRAINE WAR SET THE PACE
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades,” Lawrence Fink, CEO of private equity firm Blackrock, which has more than $10 trillion in assets under management, wrote last week in his annual letter to investors. Since the 1980s, companies have shopped the world...
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POWELL’S “DUH” MOMENT: INFLATION IS TOO HIGH!
“Inflation is much too high,” Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, told the National Association for Business Economics in a speech earlier this month. No kidding. Powell’s speech, and his news about inflation, came a week after the Fed raised interest rates for the first time since 2018 in a belated attempt to...
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MIDTOWN MANHATTAN STILL HAS THE COVID BLUES
Around the U.S., about 40 percent of office workers have returned to their desks, as we report in this issue in “COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE BUST? OFFICE OCCUPANCY RATES IN TOILET,” but barely a third of desk jockeys in midtown Manhattan are back in place, according to ID card swipes counted by data service Kastle Systems....
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COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE BUST? OFFICE OCCUPANCY RATES IN TOILET
Across the country, about 40 percent of office workers are back in place on a typical workday, The New York Times reported, a COVID-era proportion reached only once before, in December 2021. Workers are more inclined to comply with employers’ back-to-the-office orders now that the Omicron variant is ebbing and governments are dropping mask mandates,...