Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

Restaurants, most of which remain shut to public traffic, made up about 70 percent of the U.S. seafood industry’s market. Although consumers are buying more fish at grocery stores to eat at home during the lockdowns – an increase of 40 percent, to $1.4 billion from early April through early May – it makes up...

Harley Davidson, the Milwaukee motorcycle maker, has restarted its factories in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania but will make only its most popular models for the rest of this year and offer only a limited range of options. It also has told about 70 percent of its 698 dealers they will not receive any new bikes from...

The U.S. economy will take at least through 2021 to recover from the current shutdown, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said. Massive unemployment and a lack of investment capital will be the main drags on the recovery, it noted. It projects GDP will be 11.2 percent less in the current quarter than in the first...

During the Great Recession, the U.S. Federal Reserve bailed out several major banks twice: the Fed gave the banks bailout loans and grants, then hired them to manage loans and grants given to other financial institutions, as reported by Wall Street on Parade. For example, investment bank Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion in loans from...

Almost 15 million credit-card holders entered formal “hardship” programs in April to defer or reduce their payments, according to the Transunion credit-reporting agency. Almost three million auto loans were placed in similar programs. The troubled credit card accounts total about 3 percent of those Transunion tracks, 100 times more than the 0.03 percent a year...

About 47.5 percent of Americans live in a household that has lost income since February, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Another 37 percent expect to lose income in the next four weeks. Households reliant on tourism or the energy industry for income were hardest hit. In tourist-dependent Hawaii, for example, 60 percent of households...

Happy Days are here again? All those millions who dumped stocks following the lockdowns of economies around the world are counting their losses following a remarkable reversal that has pushed the S&P 500 up 34 percent from its 23 March low. President Trump tweeted today: “Stock Market up BIG, DOW crosses 25,000. S&P 500 over...

The Target discount store chain saw sales ramp up 10.8 percent in its quarter ending 2 May, with online sales soaring 141 percent, compared to a gain of about 1 percent at brick-and-mortar outlets. Sales spiked as consumers stocked up on staples when the economic shutdown began, then spent more freely on electronics and clothing...

Taxpayers are liable for the Fed’s $6.98 trillion in loans. Each of the 12 banks that make up the U.S. Federal Reserve System are owned by member banks in the region of its jurisdiction. Unlike corporations for which stockholders are on the hook to pay for corporate losses, taxpayers – not member banks – will...

Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes have been stuck around 0.66 percent, not far from their mid-March historic low of 0.5 percent, indicating that investors foresee a gloomy economic future. The yield now is near half of its previous historic lows. The low yield on long-term debt signals that investors see the treasury buying bonds...