Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

PUBLIC DEBT TOPS 12 PERCENT OF WORLD GDP. The world’s governments have added about $11.7 trillion to their debt this year, equivalent to 12 percent of the global economic output, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its semiannual Fiscal Monitor report. The new debt will claim an additional 9 percent, on average, of...

As Trends Journal subscribers well know, we had forecast this trend at the onset of the COVID War. Now is big news in the mainstream business media. Fearful of the virus, unable/unwilling to pay high rents and dreading the rise of crime… no longer tethered to a downtown office location and an attendant commute, corporate...

Across Europe, governments have ramped up the COVID War with a wide range of rules that are locking up and closing down major segments of the economy. With few exceptions, across the globe, nations have sunk into sharpest economic contraction since the Great Depression. From the U.K. to Argentina, from India to South Africa, credit...

OIL INDUSTRY CUTS 107,000 WORKERS. The jobs, which disappeared from March through August, are unlikely to return, even if oil prices remain at $45 a barrel through 2021, according to an analysis by accounting firm Deloitte. The jobs were lost when the overleveraged U.S. shale oil industry crashed, shot down by a combination of plunging...

BILLIONAIRES GAINED WEALTH DURING THE ECONOMIC SHUTDOWN, During the pandemic, the wealth of the world’s billionaires grew by 13 percent to reach $10.2 trillion, topping $10 trillion for the first time, according to a study by UBS and accounting firm PwC. The previous record was $8.9 trillion at the end of 2019. Between 7 April...

REAL ESTATE INVESTORS CHOOSING SINGLE-FAMILY RENTAL HOMES. Invitation Homes, the largest owner of U.S. rental houses, has formed a joint venture with Rockpoint Group, a Boston-based property investor, to spend about $1 billion to buy another 3,500 rental properties. Invitation owns about 80,000 houses and has been spending an average of $200 million a quarter...

Nevada conventions and other gatherings can now include as many as 1,000 people, up from 50, as long as the group is separated into sections of 250 individuals, including servers, according to recently revised orders from governor Steve Sisolak. That was not good enough for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, which took its ten-day National...

Moody’s Investor Service has lowered its credit rating for New York City and New York state because of the economic shutdown’s impact on their current and future revenue. Both were downgraded one step to a rating of Aa2, which is the third-highest rating possible. “The downgrade reflects the substantial financial challenges New York City faces,...

Sales of non-essential, non-prescription items such as beauty care products etc., at drug stores have fallen as foot traffic during the shutdown disappeared. Sales of such items at CVS stores was down 4.5 percent in the second quarter, year-on-year. Walgreen’s reported sales at its non-U.S. locations slumped by 48 percent in the quarter ended 31...

Consumers have permanently traded their pre-pandemic habit of eating out on the fly for a new emphasis on healthy foods and cooking at home, food company executives told the Wall Street Journal’s Global Food Forum on 5 October. As the economic shutdown took hold, people turned to comfort food, Mark Clouse, Campbell Soup Co. CEO,...