The U.S. economy added 1.4 million jobs in August, including 238,000 temporary berths for census takers, dropping the official unemployment rate to 8.4 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Sectors hit hardest by the economic shutdown fared well: retail added 248,900 jobs and restaurants took on 133,600 more workers. The sectors...
Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT
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ETFs DRIVING GOLD RUSH
Gold futures’ 28-percent rise this year have been driven largely by $50 billion of new investment in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) backed by gold, according to the World Gold Council. ETFs made up 40 percent of the world’s gold demand in this year’s second quarter, compared to 6 percent a year previous. As a result, ETFs...
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NATIONAL DEBT HIGHEST IN 75 YEARS
The U.S. national debt will equal 98 percent of GDP by the end of this month, the debt’s largest size, compared to the size of the national economy, since the end of World War II, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported. The debt was heightened by about $2.7 trillion in new federal spending to fight...
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THE FU, K-SHAPED RECOVERY WORSENS WEALTH INEQUALITY
The economic recovery is benefitting the well-off more than those struggling to make ends meet. In July, Americans put $3.2 trillion into savings accounts; also in July, almost 15 percent of American households with children reported they lacked adequate food. A quarter of U.S. households have reported being able to pay down debt faster than...
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U.S. MARKETS FRONT
Yesterday was a down day on Wall Street. The Dow fell 632 points and the NASDAQ Composite Index slumped 4.1 percent, extending its losses over the past three trading day to 10.03 percent, pushing it into correction territory. Today’s a different story. The Dow gained 439 points, and the NASDAQ was up 2.71 percent on...
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GOING DOWN, GOING BUST, GOING OUT
AIRLINES STILL IN A TAILSPIN. Air travel is down 85 percent compared to a year ago and the public is becoming more wary, not less, of being sealed in an airplane full of strangers, surveys show, especially as new, localized virus outbreaks have occurred. In June, 70 percent of people said it would be safer...
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WILL EURO CHALLENGE THE DOLLAR?
More speculators are betting the dollar’s value will fall and the euro’s will rise than at any time before, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Positive bets on the euro have reached a record high. The euro’s continuing rally prompted JPMorgan Chase analysts on 21 August to raise their year-end forecast for the euro’s...
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BUSINESSES REJECT TRUMP PAYROLL TAX HOLIDAY
More than two dozen powerful business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have said that thousands of U.S. businesses would not participate in Donald Trump’s proposed payroll tax holiday. The groups called the plan “unworkable” and warned it could burden workers with future obligations...
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NYC’S TRANSIT AGENCY FACES TOWERING DEBT
New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), already more than $45 billion in debt for new trains, buses, and infrastructure, now needs to borrow billions more to keep operating during a slow and uncertain economic recovery. The agency projects a $10-billion operating deficit through 2021. Last year, the MTA used 16 percent of its revenue...
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AMAZON CLAIMS A BIGGER BITE OF SELLERS’ REVENUE
By charging sellers on its site various fees, Amazon is claiming about 30 percent of sellers’ revenue, compared to 19 percent five years ago, according to a study by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). The fees totaled $60 billion last year, compared to $35 billion the company made in its cloud computing division, and...