The recent ethics outcry over stock trades by Robert Kaplan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which we detailed in “Bankster Bandits Get Rich Playing the Inside Track” (14 Sep 2021), were foretold by information in his financial disclosure forms covering 2020, Wall Street on Parade (WSOP) reported. Kaplan reported in the document...
Tag: sept 21 2021
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ITALY: NO JAB, NO JOB
Italy has become the first country to propose that all workers in the public and private sectors, including gig workers and the self-employed, show “health passes” to continue their employment. The mandate, which would take effect in October, would require every worker to show proof of vaccination against the COVID virus, being in recovery from...
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VIRUS SPEEDS AUTOMATION: BYE, BYE WORKERS
The COVID War has sped retailers’ conversion to automation, permanently dooming many of the 1.7 million jobs in leisure and hospitality and 270,000 retail slots that disappeared during 2020’s economic crisis. The Toast restaurant group and other eateries are moving to order management software that lets diners order from their tables over their phones instead...
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RESTAURANTS FACE BLEAK WINTER
The wave of diners returning to U.S. restaurants this summer has receded, leaving the industry dealing with labor shortages, rising prices for scarce supplies, and would-be customers who have chosen to bunker at home again amid the surging Delta virus, as we reported in “Worker Shortages, Virus Hobble Restaurants’ Recovery” (14 Sep 2021). Eighty-four percent...
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DELTA SPREAD FAILS TO QUELL CONSUMER SPENDING
U.S. retail sales rose 0.7 percent in August from July, despite the Delta virus’s surge, Forbes reported. Sales were expected to slip 0.85 percent, according to a consensus of economists polled by FactSet. However, more of that spending was done online and less at restaurants. Online sales bumped up 5.3 percent, month over month, while...
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RENTS SOARING: WHAT’S NEXT?
U.S. apartment rents jumped an average of 10 percent in August, year over year, after climbing 13 percent from January through July, as we reported last week in “Rents Soar as Investors Buy Properties and Raise Rates” (14 Sep 2021). August’s hike, the first year-on-year double-digit increase in more than two decades, was reported by...
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ARGENTINA’S PERONIST PARTY THRASHED
Argentina’s ruling Peronist party suffered sweeping defeats last week during the country’s midterm primary and political observers point to Buenos Aires’ decision to enforce strict COVID-19 lockdowns that did a better job at stopping its economic growth than preventing infections. “We know there’s a lot of sadness and pain in the country, and not a...
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WAR CRIMES FOR KOSOVO ARMY COMMANDER, SILENCE FOR MULTIPLE U.S. WAR CRIMES
Salih Mustafa, the former Kosovo Liberation Army KLA unit commander, is on trial in The Hague stemming from Kosovo’s 1998-1999 war and faces allegations that he murdered and tortured suspected collaborators with enemy Serbs. “You will see the victims of Mr. Mustafa were fellow Kosovo Albanians…They were not enemies of the state of Kosovo, they...
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FU: XI REFUSES FACE-TO-FACE MEETING WITH BIDEN
Following the U.S. deal to sell Australia nuclear submarines, Chinese President Xi Jinping refused to meet with President Joe Biden after the U.S. leader hinted at the possibility during a phone call last week with Xi. President Xi used “a less abrasive language than his top diplomat had done this year but his overall message...
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U.S. LAUNCHES COLD WAR 2.0: CHINA LAMBASTS “COLD-WAR MENTALITY”
The Trends Journal has reported extensively on President Biden’s approach to China, a country he sees as the U.S.’s top international challenge. (See: “TOP TRENDS 2021: THE RISE OF CHINA,” “BIDEN RAMPS UP PRESSURE ON CHINA,” and “BIDEN VS. CHINA’S BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE: U.S. LOSES.”) We’ve written that the 20th century belonged to the U.S., but the...