AVERAGE AMERICANS CAN’T AFFORD AVERAGE NEW CAR Even though computer chips have been in short supply, car makers had enough on hand to work through the spring and summer and even to make April a particularly strong sales month in the United States Now, those stashes of chips are gone and auto companies can only...
Tag: oct 19 2021
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SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GET BIGGER, RICH GET RICHER
THE TOP 1 PERCENT IS RICHER THAN THE ENTIRE MIDDLE CLASS The richest 1 percent of U.S. households holds more wealth than the population earning from the 20th income percentile to the 80th, which encompasses the middle class, the upper middle class, and much of the working class, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve report...
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SPOTLIGHT CHINA. CRASH COMING? RECOVERY AHEAD?
CHINA: EMPEROR XI IN CHARGE China is on the move; it has big plans, and so does the man at its helm, President Xi Jinping. To help facilitate those plans, he has eliminated term limits on the presidency and put himself in a position to serve a third term, during which he hopes to further...
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SPOTLIGHT: BITCOIN BOUNCES BACK
SEC POISED TO ALLOW BITCOIN FUTURES ETFs The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will not block Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offered by Proshares and Invesco from starting to trade this week, insiders told Bloomberg. The odds are 75 percent that the SEC will approve at least one Bitcoin ETF this week, analyst Noelle Acheson at...
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FLORIDA HOTELS LOSING BILLIONS. IT WILL WORSEN
Hotels in and around Orlando, Fla., will see 2021 revenues from business travelers 81.5 percent below 2019’s, a loss of $2.27 billion and 44,000 jobs, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA). Miami’s lodging industry will be down 62.6 percent in business travel, with revenue from that customer base falling $830 million from...
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WORKERS STAYING HOME: COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE DISASTER LOOMING
Go back to 2020. Remember the bullshit line after politicians lockdown the nation? “It’ll come back.” Remember the bullshit line that they were locking down the nation to “Flatten the curve”? No curve was flattened and the lockdowns continued. Yet, throughout 2020, the word was that after Labor Day, people who had been locked up...
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COMMUNITY BANKERS: HOUSING MARKET CRASH COMING?
Seventy-eight percent of community bank executives believe the U.S. housing market will crash at some point in the next four years, according to a survey published last Wednesday by software firm MANTL and Wakefield Research. Home prices have risen 18.1 percent in the 12 months ending 31 August, according to data service Corelogic, the fastest...
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“STRUCTURAL CHANGES” IN WORKFORCE AS MILLIONS QUIT THEIR JOBS
What has been called the “Great Resignation” became greater in August, with 4.3 million Americans, about 2.9 percent of the entire workforce, quitting their jobs during the month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That number tops the 2.7 percent that quit in July and sets a record for the monthly “quit...
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NO KIDDING! GOLDMAN GANG CUTS ECON. OUTLOOK
Goldman Sachs has cut its 2021 forecast for U.S. economic growth from 5.7 percent to 5.6 and trimmed its 2022 outlook from a 4.4-percent GDP expansion to a flat 4 percent. The economy will suffer as the U.S. Federal Reserve gradually ends its $120-billion monthly bond-buying program, in place since March 2020, with the ongoing...
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NEW JOBLESS CLAIMS FALL BELOW 300,000
New claims for unemployment benefits fell for the second consecutive week, this time to 293,000, the first time they have slid below 300,000 since March 2020 and approaching the 225,000 weekly average that prevailed before the COVID virus took hold. The new number beat the 319,000 average predicted by economists Bloomberg had surveyed. Continuing claims...