#900 trillion notes post incoming

[malibuklaus]

[thisdaynews]

REVEALED:Nigeria records 4,919 oil slicks in six years, loses 4.5trn barrels to robbery in four years — Minister

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/revealednigeria-records-4919-oil-slicks-in-six-years-loses-4-5trn-barrels-to-robbery-in-four-years-minister/

REVEALED:Nigeria records 4,919 oil slicks in six years, loses 4.5trn barrels to robbery in four years — Minister

Dr Mohammad Abubakar, Minister of Environment, on Monday, uncovered that Nigeria recorded 4,919 oil slicks between 2015 to March 2021 and lost 4.5 trillion barrels of oil to burglary in four years.

Abubakar unveiled this at a Town Hall meeting in Abuja, coordinated by the Ministry of Information and Culture, on ensuring oil and gas foundation.

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“As indicated by the National Oil Spill Detection Agency (NOSDRA) information, the absolute number of oil slicks recorded from 2015 to March 2021 is 4,919, the quantity of oil slicks cost by assemblage is 308.

“The functional support is 106, while damage is 3,628 but to be resolved 70, giving the all out number of oil slicks on the climate to 235,206 barrels of oil. This is gigantic to the climate.

“Nigeria additionally lost around 4.75 trillion on oil exercises in the four years somewhere in the range of 2015 and 2018, as assessed by the Nigeria Natural Resources Charter.

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“A few insights have stressed Nigeria as the most infamous country on the planet for oil slicks, losing approximately 400,000 barrels each day.

“The subsequent nation is trailed by Mexico that has revealed simply 5,000 to 10,000 barrels just each day, along these lines a distinction of around 3, 900 percent.

Abubakar further added that the service held intermittent intuitive meetings with oil and gas administrators, zeroed in on the proceeded with debasement of the climate, fatalities and loss of income, owing to the standard and unremitting defacement of oil offices, especially pipelines.

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The clergyman focused on that the impacts of the annihilation of oil and gas offices had made tremendous monetary misfortunes from pipelines plant closures, just as loss of biodiversity, natural surroundings and biological harm.

Moreover, the annihilation had likewise caused corruption of soil quality, which definitely diminishes soil fruitfulness, consequently, influencing crop yields and food security.

“Additionally, expansion in air contamination and the specialist environmental change issues, general wellbeing impacts on influenced networks, social effects and loss of work, matchless quality among aggressors, setbacks, among others,” he said.

Oil pipeline defacement throughout the long term had been one of the central point contributing altogether to ecological corruption in the Niger Delta district, which represents around 70 to 80 percent of our oil and gas area that drives the economy, the clergyman noted.

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He added that the nation’s oil and gas creation represents a lot of upstream and downstream modern exercises and creation boondocks were progressively moving into remote ocean activities.

Essentially, the oil area represents more than 90% of Nigeria’s complete unfamiliar trade profit with its greater part coming from the various creating fields, situated on the land, swamp and seaward climate of the Niger Delta locale, Abubakar likewise noted.

He, hence, suggested expanding mindfulness creation on the unfortunate results of defacing of oil offices and other criminal operations.

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Such mindfulness ought to likewise be joined by expanded practical local area advancement programs for have oil networks, to incorporate abilities securing, arrangement of framework and fundamental conveniences, among others, by oil organizations and important government offices, Abubakar said. (NAN)

[dipulb3]

Wall Street is ignoring the risk of corporate tax hikes

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/wall-street-is-ignoring-the-risk-of-corporate-tax-hikes/

Wall Street is ignoring the risk of corporate tax hikes

What’s happening: Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, called the American Jobs Plan, would increase the corporate income tax rate to 28% from 21%. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also called for a global minimum corporate tax to stop a “race to the bottom,” wherein multinational firms book profits in countries with the most forgiving tax systems.

“Together, we can use global minimum tax to make sure that the global economy thrives, based on a more level playing field in the taxation of multinational corporations, and spurs innovation, growth and prosperity,” Yellen said in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

You’d expect such policy aims to spook stock investors, since higher taxes eat into corporate profits. But Wall Street roared higher on Monday. The Dow and S&P 500 closed at all-time highs.

Strategists say investors are waiting for a better sense of the dynamics shaping the coming tax debate before making decisions about their portfolios. But there’s reason to think some major reassessments may be required.

In years when both corporate and individual taxes were increased, stocks averaged returns of 2.4%, according to Julian Emanuel, chief equity and derivates strategist at BTIG. The following year averaged -0.9%. That’s compared to a long-run annual average of 7.7%.

Last summer, Dave Zion of Zion Research Group ran the numbers on how Biden’s tax could hit corporate profits. He estimated that S&P 500 companies could see a decline in earnings of nearly 10%.

Big picture: We’re still in the early stages of debating tax proposals. But unless negotiations completely break down, higher costs for companies are coming — a fact that has yet to be fully appreciated by markets.

Jeffrey Sacks, head of investment strategy in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Citi Private Bank and a member of the firm’s Global Investment Committee, told me that investors haven’t reacted strongly because of ambiguity about the details, including the timeline for when higher taxes could take effect.

The United Kingdom, which has announced plans to hike taxes on the country’s biggest companies, is a “leading indicator,” he noted. But the UK government isn’t planning to implement the increases until 2023, after the economic recovery from the pandemic has largely played out.

“We expect much the same in the US,” Sacks said.

Watch this space: The mood could change in the months ahead, as investors pivot from worrying about inflation to fretting about a new tax regime. Goldman Sachs has noted that in 2017, when former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts were being debated, investors were jolted into action just a month before the bill was passed. The impact on US markets was then felt until the middle of 2018.

Credit Suisse execs out as bank takes huge Archegos hit

The collapse last month of US hedge fund Archegos Capital cost Credit Suisse nearly $4.7 billion and two of the bank’s top executives their jobs.

The Swiss bank said Tuesday that it was likely to report a pretax loss of 900 million Swiss francs ($959 million) for the first quarter of this year after taking a charge of 4.4 billion Swiss francs ($4.7 billion) for the failure of Archegos.

Credit Suisse (CS) said that Brian Chin, its top investment banker, and chief risk officer Lara Warner would both be leaving the bank. Other members of the executive board will not receive bonuses for the 2020 financial year, and board chairman Urs Rohner will give up 1.5 million Swiss francs ($1.6 million) in compensation.

Thomas Gottstein, who became CEO last year, will remain in his job.

“The significant loss … relating to the failure of a US-based hedge fund is unacceptable,” Gottstein said in a statement. “Serious lessons will be learned. Credit Suisse remains a formidable institution with a rich history.”

Credit Suisse also said it would slash its dividend and suspend share buybacks.

Remember: Archegos imploded in March after it used borrowed money to build massive positions in stocks including media companies ViacomCBS and Discovery. Credit Suisse and Japan’s Nomura were among the major institutions exposed to losses.

It’s not Credit Suisse’s only stumble in recent weeks. Earlier in March, it froze $10 billion in investment funds connected to failed UK supply chain finance firm Greensill Capital, which provided cash advances to companies owed money by customers.

Investor insight: Bank stocks have soared this year thanks to expectations for a robust economic recovery. But not Credit Suisse. The Swiss bank’s stock is off more than 10% in 2021, while competitor UBS has jumped 21%. The KBW Bank Index, which tracks US lenders, has risen roughly 25%.

Is the NFT bubble bursting already?

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, have been all the rage. But their popularity may have already peaked.

Prices of NFTs, the digital certificates that have taken the art and collectibles world by storm, have plunged about 70% from their high point in February, my Appradab Business colleague Paul R. La Monica reports.

The average price for an NFT on Monday was about $1,256 — down from more than $4,000 in late February, according to market research site NonFungible.com. Data from The Block, another crypto research firm, shows a similar decline.

NFTs have been at the center of an investing and pop culture mania for the past few weeks, leading some to wonder if the frenzy is a market bubble fueled by the wealthy and younger traders flush with stimulus money.

See here: A JPEG file by the digital artist Beeple recently sold for $69 million at Christie’s. NFTs have helped boost the price of sports trading cards, and rock group Kings of Leon released their most recent album as an NFT. The digital tokens were even the subject of a recent “Saturday Night Live” skit.

Is this just a quick pullback, or has the phenomenon run its course? Time will tell — but even Beeple joked with Appradab’s Julia Chatterley last month that he could be the biggest winner of a potential NFT bubble.

Up next

The International Monetary Fund’s latest economic outlook goes live at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Coming tomorrow: The Reserve Bank of India unveils its latest interest rate decision, and Carnival reports results

[orbemnews]

Larry Summers Warned About Inflation. Fed Officials Push Back. Federal Reserve officials pushed back on Thursday against concerns raised by two prominent economists — Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary, and Olivier J. Blanchard, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund — that big government spending could overheat the economy and send inflation rocketing higher. Those warnings have grabbed headlines and spurred debate over the past two months as details of the federal government’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill came together. Mr. Summers in particular has kept them up since the legislation passed, saying it was too much on the heels of large spending packages last year. He recently called the approach the “least responsible” fiscal policy in 40 years while predicting that it had a two-in-three chance of precipitating either stagflation or a recession. But two leaders at the Fed, which is tasked with using monetary policies to keep inflation steady and contained, gave little credence to those fears on Thursday. Richard H. Clarida, the central bank’s vice chairman, and Charles Evans, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, both responded to questions specifically about Mr. Summers’s and Mr. Blanchard’s warnings. “They have both correctly pointed out that the U.S. has a lot of fiscal support this year,” Mr. Clarida said on an Institute of International Finance webcast. “Where I would disagree is whether or not that is primarily going to represent a long-term, persistent upward risk to inflation, and I don’t think so.” Mr. Clarida said that there was a lot of room for the economy to recover — some 9.5 million jobs that were lost during the pandemic are still gone — and that the effect of the government’s relief spending would diminish over time. He also said that while spenders had pent-up demand, there was also pent-up supply because the service sector had been shut for a year. “At the Fed, we get paid to be attentive and attuned to inflation risks, and we will be,” Mr. Clarida said. But he noted that forecasters didn’t see “undesirable upward pressure” on inflation over time. Mr. Evans told reporters on a call that he wasn’t sure what “overheating” — the danger that top economists have warned about — actually meant. “First off, there’s a conversation of is this the best way to spend money,” he summarized, adding that he didn’t have anything to say about that. “But then there’s sort of like, ‘Oh, this is so much that it is going to overshoot potential output, and there’s a risk that we’re going to get overheating, and then inflation.’” He continued: “What is the definition of overheating? It’s a great word, it evokes all kinds of images, but it’s kind of like potential output is always a strange concept anyway. Can output be too high?” Mr. Evans has been concerned for years that inflation is too tepid, rather than that it might pick up too much. Superweak price pressures can cause problems by risking price declines — which encourage saving and harm debtors — and by robbing the Fed of room to cut interest rates during times of trouble. “I kind of remember the ’70s, too,” a decade when inflation spiraled up and out of control in America, Mr. Evans said. “This isn’t the ’70s. We’ve had trouble getting inflation up.” Inflation has been weak in the United States, and in advanced economies broadly, the past two decades. To try to keep that from turning into a bigger problem, the Fed has been working to “re-anchor” consumer and market expectations to prevent inflation slipping lower. The central bank announced last year that it would begin to aim for 2 percent annual price gains on average over time, allowing for periods of greater increases. Still, no Fed policymaker wants inflation to suddenly spike, eroding consumer purchasing power. If that happened, the Fed might have to lift interest rates rapidly to slow down the economy, throwing people out of work and possibly causing a recession. That’s what Mr. Summers and Mr. Blanchard are warning about. Frequently Asked Questions About the New Stimulus Package How big are the stimulus payments in the bill, and who is eligible? The stimulus payments would be $1,400 for most recipients. Those who are eligible would also receive an identical payment for each of their children. To qualify for the full $1,400, a single person would need an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or below. For heads of household, adjusted gross income would need to be $112,500 or below, and for married couples filing jointly that number would need to be $150,000 or below. To be eligible for a payment, a person must have a Social Security number. Read more. What would the relief bill do about health insurance? Buying insurance through the government program known as COBRA would temporarily become a lot cheaper. COBRA, for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, generally lets someone who loses a job buy coverage via the former employer. But it’s expensive: Under normal circumstances, a person may have to pay at least 102 percent of the cost of the premium. Under the relief bill, the government would pay the entire COBRA premium from April 1 through Sept. 30. A person who qualified for new, employer-based health insurance someplace else before Sept. 30 would lose eligibility for the no-cost coverage. And someone who left a job voluntarily would not be eligible, either. Read more What would the bill change about the child and dependent care tax credit? This credit, which helps working families offset the cost of care for children under 13 and other dependents, would be significantly expanded for a single year. More people would be eligible, and many recipients would get a bigger break. The bill would also make the credit fully refundable, which means you could collect the money as a refund even if your tax bill was zero. “That will be helpful to people at the lower end” of the income scale, said Mark Luscombe, principal federal tax analyst at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. Read more. What student loan changes are included in the bill? There would be a big one for people who already have debt. You wouldn’t have to pay income taxes on forgiven debt if you qualify for loan forgiveness or cancellation — for example, if you’ve been in an income-driven repayment plan for the requisite number of years, if your school defrauded you or if Congress or the president wipes away $10,000 of debt for large numbers of people. This would be the case for debt forgiven between Jan. 1, 2021, and the end of 2025. Read more. What would the bill do to help people with housing? The bill would provide billions of dollars in rental and utility assistance to people who are struggling and in danger of being evicted from their homes. About $27 billion would go toward emergency rental assistance. The vast majority of it would replenish the so-called Coronavirus Relief Fund, created by the CARES Act and distributed through state, local and tribal governments, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That’s on top of the $25 billion in assistance provided by the relief package passed in December. To receive financial assistance — which could be used for rent, utilities and other housing expenses — households would have to meet several conditions. Household income could not exceed 80 percent of the area median income, at least one household member must be at risk of homelessness or housing instability, and individuals would have to qualify for unemployment benefits or have experienced financial hardship (directly or indirectly) because of the pandemic. Assistance could be provided for up to 18 months, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Lower-income families that have been unemployed for three months or more would be given priority for assistance. Read more. The $1.9 trillion measure that the Biden administration ushered through Congress added to a $900 billion relief package enacted in December and a $2 trillion package last March. Mr. Blanchard, in a March 5 post on Twitter, compared the fresh government spending to a snake swallowing an elephant: “The snake was too ambitious. The elephant will pass, but maybe with some damage.” He more recently said that he had “no clue as to what happens to inflation and rates” but that there is a lot of uncertainty and that things “could go wrong.” Mr. Summers, who led the Treasury Department from 1999 to 2001, wrote in a Feb. 4 Washington Post column that, while it was hugely uncertain, “there is a chance that macroeconomic stimulus on a scale closer to World War II levels than normal recession levels will set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.” He said in a Bloomberg Television interview last week that “we are running enormous risks.” But Fed officials don’t think big government outlays will be enough to rewrite the world’s low-inflation story. And if it does stoke a slightly faster pickup, that might be a welcome development. Mr. Clarida acknowledged that price gains were likely to speed up over the next few months, but said he expected most of that “to be transitory” and for inflation to return to “or perhaps run somewhat above” 2 percent in 2022 and 2023. “This outcome would be entirely consistent with the new framework we adopted in August 2020,” he said. Source link Orbem News #Fed #Inflation #Larry #Officials #Push #Summers #warned

[jeffrmayhugh]

The Bitcoin Halving 2020: You MUST WATCH | MASSIVE SUPPLY SHOCK | What is the Bitcoin Halving?

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

All right. Welcome back, everybody, to all coin daily on Ms Austen. In about 15 days, Bitcoin is about to go through possibly the biggest fundamental event that we have in our ecosystem today. The Bitcoin block reward having of 2020, where the number of bitcoins that are mined into existence is cut in half because as you know, there will only ever be twenty-one million bitcoin ever, ever. So Bitcoin has a fixed supply and that fixed supply is deflationary, meaning bitcoin, the first asset ever in human history has a predictable monetary supply. So in about 15 days, for the third time ever, once in 2012, once in 2016 and again coming up in 2020, the supply Gosset, the block reward the amount of Bitcoin coming into existence. Every block, which is about every 10 minutes, will be cut in half. Massive supply shock. The block reward, which is now twelve point five coins per block per 10 minutes, will decrease in half to six point two five coins per block. Now, it should be noted that the last Bitcoin will not be mined until the year twenty-one forty. So we will long be dead. Bitcoin will continue to have these having swor over the next hundred years, really showing how much of infancy we are right now in Bitcoin’s lifespan. So the 2020 bitcoin having to buy it, by all accounts is a huge event. And just another way to think about this. What’s going to happen in 15 days is today around eighteen hundred new bitcoins are minted into existence each day, worth around 11 million dollars. And most of those eighteen hundred bitcoins that are minted daily are dumped daily. The miners are constantly dumping Bitcoin, which is how they secure the network. But this does mean that it takes about 11 million dollars daily coming into the ecosystem. People buying Bitcoin for the price just to stay the same. But in about 15 days, the next having this will drop down to just about 900 BTC a day. That’s huge. That’s a massive supply shock to the ecosystem. And even if the demand of Bitcoin just stays the same, because we’ve been seeing healthy increasing growth demand in Bitcoin over the last month, if the demand just stays the same and the supply Gosset gets cut in half, what’s that going to mean for the price of Bitcoin? What’s that going to mean for you in today’s video to give you some realistic perspective? Hit the like button. If you appreciate this content. And let’s jump in. First off, just from an awareness perspective, this popped up in Bloomberg the other day. Bloomberg BusinessWeek gets set for Bitcoin having. Here’s what that means. Articles like this, which we are seeing from traditional finance, more and more means that the format is clearly on articles like this. Add to it. And while this educates a lot of people on what Bitcoin is, a lot of people from this massive blast out of awareness expect a price bump. Like I said, looking at the last month of Bitcoin, we’ve been seeing a pretty steady, healthy price bump. Now, despite this, my expectation on what the price of Bitcoin will do the day of the having, and this should be your expectation, too. Just looking at history, the price of Bitcoin will probably do nothing or possibly even dump. If we look at the first, having the price of Bitcoin really did nothing. If we look at the second having in 2016, the price of having done something before it, before the event and then dumped that day into the weeks after. And if we’re being realistic. It wasn’t until three hundred and sixty days after or even five hundred and twenty-five days after and the months leading up to it, obviously, that Bitcoin saw new all-time highs while nothing. Well, people said it was a failure. Day of the bitcoin having these supposes that supply shock, the effects price-wise don’t happen until after. This is what the common retail investor does not know yet. This is what most other crypto YouTube channels won’t tell you. That day of expecting, possibly a buy the rumour, sell the news after the 2017 2018 bear market. We saw a little first accumulation. We saw a little expansion. Right now we are in our second accumulation. Expectation wise for me. And I’m not a financial adviser. Do your own research. But we are about to enter the next official bull market. Obviously, six to 12 months after the third having and as a bitcoin holder. These are the fundamental macro big picture events that you should be able to articulate to a friend, to a family member. Now, taking into account all sides, looking at all factors for Bitcoin, the only thing that I could see that might be a little bit of a speed bump in Bitcoin’s inevitable rise is what traditional markets do. And we have been seeing, despite a record unemployment record, in fact, did record fatalities. Unfortunately, because of the trillions of dollars the global economy is printing, the US is printing, traditional markets are turning around. We are seeing right now that the curve is starting to flatten. Now, the USA has said that we’re gonna slowly start opening up the country again, which is good economically. Hopefully, the only thing that I can see that could potentially slow the party or end the party is if we open things back up and maybe this spikes back up again as we’ve seen before. So you tell me, what do you think? Down below in the comments section. But either way, in about 15 days, it will be a huge awareness. A huge reminder. The third time in history that this has ever happened. A reminder that Bitcoin has a predictable monetary supply, unlike gold, unlike any other asset in history. It is a harder form of money than gold. And yet, despite gold’s market cap being trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars more than Bitcoins today, Bitcoin’s inflation rate is about to be lower than gold. For the first time ever, right here, that speaks volumes fundamentally. You let me know what you think. But moving on, the first piece of news before Cordano, before a theorem. Let’s talk about Tasos. Tasos surpasses iOS for the first time in crypto history. Now, Tasos has surpassed iOS and not only real volume, meaning more people are trading Tasos or using Tasos, but also where was it? Also in the value locked in staking. Here is an updated chart. Tasos is now the biggest staking network. I think this is such big news because despite Tasos still being almost half of iOS is the market cap, this could be a sign of things to come of the value that people are putting in Tasos over iOS. I mean, exchanges, Coinbase exchanges all over saying, hey, if you store Tasos on our exchange, we’ll stake it for you. You can earn some passive Tasos in the process and we can all help contribute to the network and the currency. Tasos has an annual staking yield of nearly seven percent. So you get seven percent in passive income. If you stake yearly. Obviously, this is a good sign in the short term. In the long term, staking has a tendency for the rich to get richer. These exchange. The fear is that these exchanges will end up controlling these old coins. If they’re earning the most Tasos Passively, then they can then they’re in control of operating the network, essentially. Also, another fear, I would say while iOS was sort of the new hotness in 2017 2018 an optimization came with Tasos for staking in 2019 2020. There will always be a new Hoder Alte coin. Over the years, maybe we’ll see the optimization of Tasos in twenty twenty-one. 2022. Where is the staking then goes to that new old coin? But we’ll see exciting times, exciting experiments happening in the space. Next piece of news for Cordano. The data lists 1.0 has officially shipped and according to their CEO, it is receiving an overwhelmingly positive response. This is touted as a huge milestone for the Cordona ecosystem, as, unlike its previous wallet. This version of data lists is a full node wallet, meaning it can download Cardon’s entire ledger of transactions to the device. So it’s faster and it can hold more storage. And in comparison, a direct quote from Charles, comparing the old version to the new version Sinc Times for this new version. Around 50 minutes, up to an hour and a half, wallet restoration is happening and 20 to 30 minutes now to benchmark this in comparison sinc times used to be between nine to 14 hours in terms of recovery time. It previously took 14 hours. Today it took 20 minutes. So obviously huge functionality improvement for Cordano as Cordona marches towards complete decentralization. This step is crucial simply because it eliminates the need for a third party to validate the transaction. In fact, it is the wallet that can carry out the auto validation of every single transaction. So the data is 1.0 as has shipped. They’ve been working on this for about 18 months. Obviously, this is leading to the release of Chelly. They say that will happen sometime this year. I’ll keep you updated. Next piece of news. New reports are coming in that greyscale a theorem trust. So they buy a theorem and then you can invest in shares of their trust. Greyscale bought forty-eight point four, almost 50 percent of all mind. A theorem in 2020. So what is a theorems inflation rate? How many are mined? Well, currently for a theorem. When a block is successfully mined on the theory blockchain, a miner receives three ethe as a reward. After Constantinople, miners rule will receive two or three per block as a reward. Because obviously a theorem is switching to proof of stake. They say eventually just something to consider about a theorem. It’s not necessarily good. It’s not necessarily bad. It just is. Greyscale is buying half of all. One’s mind. All right. That is the video for today. My name’s Austin. Like always. See you tomorrow.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/watch-massive-supply-shock-what-is-the-bitcoin-halving/ source https://cryptosharks1.tumblr.com/post/616858990727593984

[caplofan]

View: Millennials Face Second Age Of Underemployment In 2020

View: Millennials Face Second Age Of Underemployment In 2020

In a matter of weeks, the financial hit from the coronavirus has actually erased a years’s worth of work gains.

On Thursday, a report revealed United States unemployed claims increased by another 4.4 million, bringing the five-week overall to more than 26 million.

That’s the steepest recession for the American labor market considering that the Great Depression. More unpleasant for any long-lasting healing, nevertheless, might be those who keep their tasks however view their professions stall.

Here’s where a lesson from 2008 may be useful.For lots of millennials, the Great Recession wasn’’ t a crisis of joblessness even task stagnancy and underemployment ���– putting in less hours than wanted, or not tapping one’’ s complete variety of abilities and efficiency.

I lived my own variation of this, having actually begun my very first genuine task a month after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Grateful just to be utilized, I looked past the unglamorous job of composing profits headings from news release, which are now cranked out by algorithms.

I was generating a mid-five-figure wage and seemed like a millionaire.My thankfulness gradually calcified into aggravation as I discovered myself stuck at the exact same desk for 4 years.

I wasn’t alone. For every single story like mine there was a sales agent too dissuaded to look for that regional-manager function, a part-time retail clerk who couldn’t get a routine weekday shift, or perhaps that sorry banking expert who couldn’’ t development beyond plugging information into Excel.

All this has an expense: While the United States shed more than 30 million tasks and $10 trillion in home wealth throughout the monetary crisis, the stack of profits lost to underemployment reached $148 billion in the last 3 months of 2009, by some estimates.

The effect from the coronavirus will be even worse.

The International Labour Organization anticipates 195 million full-time task losses internationally, and anticipates a “ considerable increase” in underemployment.

As aggravating as it might be for white-collar specialists to get stuck, the hardest struck will consist of low-wage employees and the less-educated, who never ever actually discovered their feet after 2008.

That fractured bedrock indicates we’re a lot more susceptible entering into the Covid-19 decline than we were simply over a years ago.

This may look like a vigorous turn of occasions.

As just recently as February, the U.S. taped its most affordable joblessness rate in half a century.

Dig one level much deeper, however, and you’ll see why that 3.5% doesn’t inform the complete story.

A more holistic gauge of labor-market health might be the so-called U-6 classification, that includes those who aren’t working however show that they desire a task, along with those who desire full-time work however need to choose less hours.

Even in February, that figure was double the main level –– at 7%. If there’s something to enjoy, it’s the space in between these 2 numbers, states Torsten Slok, primary financial expert at Deutsche Bank Securities.

That might show the strength of any healing. Remember, however, even the U-6 classification does not catch task stagnancy amongst the completely employed.

The concept that underemployment is underappreciated isn’t brand-new. In 2019, Dartmouth College teacher David Blanchflower released the book, Not Working: Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?”

He utilizes the U.S. and U.K. workforce to show the puzzle of very little wage development and record low joblessness. Economics 101 informs us it ought to be simply the opposite —– a tight task market need to increase salary.

The catch, he states, is underemployment.

Consider Hank, the part-time employee who’s too downbeat to use to a full-time gig.

He snaps on the news and sees motivating headings about the task market. Stirred to dust off his resume, he feels fortunate to land a deal reasonably rapidly.

Since he’s been running at half-speed for so long, Hank has extremely little bargaining power when it comes to income settlements.

While it’s heartening that he’s been included to the labor force, Hank’s not contributing much to greater typical wages.

Other research study reveals simply how pernicious working listed below capacity can be.

In 2014, Tim Slack of Louisiana State University and Leif Jensen of Pennsylvania State University mentioned that underemployment continued long after the healing from the worldwide monetary crisis: After balancing 15.5% from 2002 to 2008, the rate increased to approximately 22.4% from 2009 to 2012.

It’s totally possible that we see a fairly fast rebound in joblessness once the coronavirus subsides: Deutsche Bank anticipates the figure to increase to 12% in the 2nd quarter and approximately cut in half by the end of the year.

Underemployment, nevertheless, might haunt the labor market for several years to come.

The knee-jerk policy reaction has actually been to increase welfare, including $600 to the weekly quantity provided by states, a minimum of briefly.

Comparable procedures have actually worked in the past: Every dollar of costs on the extension of such help produced $1.61 of financial activity in the very first quarter of 2009, according to the Brookings Institution.

One watershed part of the U.S.’s coronavirus relief expense was consisting of protection for gig-economy and part-time employees.

The latter might correspond to more than 25 million Americans, if not more.

Yet joblessness workplaces around the nation are so overloaded with demands –– and besieged by ancient innovation –– that there’s little time, cash or political will to dedicate resources towards opening more chances for individuals who’ve currently got tasks.

Numerous states are rapidly lacking funds.

In Connecticut, the 40-year old computer system that processes welfare can t manage four-digit payments: Adding the additional $600 will press the greatest qualified payment to $1,249, the Wall Street Journal noted.

For the out of work, the response is larger stimulus checks.

The $1,200 handout numerous Americans will get appearance generous in the beginning; if you think about a typical weekly wage of approximately $900, nevertheless, that expense purchases bit more than a week or more for numerous families, Slok notes.

For the underemployed, who have the advantage of time, an easy option would be to make job-search costs tax deductible once again –– a step that ended with the passage of the Trump administration tax cuts in 2017.

There are lots of eulogies drifting around for millennials nowadays. Now sandwiched in between 2 financial disasters, we’ve acquired a great deal of financial obligation, conserved really little and flooded into casual tasks with couple of employee securities, such as paid authorized leave and retirement advantages.

The Atlantic is calling us the “ lost generation,” while the Journal has actually recorded the results of  economic downturn anxiety.

By mishap of birth, I had access to an education that’s opened doors– and I’ve definitely handled to discover my method.

Even with this golden passport, it took me a number of years and moving throughout continents to get where I desired.

Countless other Americans aren’t so fortunate.

  Original Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

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[philadelphiabankruptcylawyer]

The Three Main Types Of Consumer Debt

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Americans are drowning in debt. In November 2019, American consumer debt climbed to $4.17 trillion. That’s trillion with a T–twelve zeros. Chances are pretty good that you’re one of those Americans, with credit cards, a mortgage, and a car payment or two. And that’s okay–in lots of ways, debt is good for our economy.

The reality is that we are living in a consumer economy, and most of us don’t have the savings to fund large purchases. So we use credit for everything from home purchases to education to new furniture and vacations. When you spend money, the dealership or hotel doesn’t care if you’re taking out a loan, using a credit card, or walking in with a briefcase full of hundred dollar bills–you’re helping their business grow.

Growth means bigger profits, and bigger profits contribute to rising stock prices, which makes a company more valuable. Higher valuations give companies more capital (money) to invest and hire more workers, which leads to job creation and rising incomes. The more money consumers have to spend, the more inclusive and better the economy. So spending is a good thing- as long as it’s done within your means.

All Debts Are Not The Same

The three examples of debt mentioned above–home, education, vacations, and stuff–represent three different kinds of consumer debt. Consumer debt is what you owe as an individual–you’re not a business and you’re not the government. If you’re a small business owner, you know that your business debts are separate from your personal credit cards and loans.

Consumer debt falls into three categories–secured, unsecured, and a nebulous third group that isn’t easily categorized, but in general, involves a court or government debt. Which category your debt falls into matters because if you are considering bankruptcy, that third category can’t be included in a debt discharge.

Secured Debt

The most common debt in the US is secured debt–where you have pledged an asset to the lender to reduce their risk against loss. Mortgages and car loans are examples of secured debt. The lender retains actual ownership of the house and car until you make the final payment, and if you can’t make the payments they seize the asset via foreclosure or repossession.

Your secured debts have a start date and a final payment date, and typically every payment due is the same amount (if you have an adjustable mortgage the amount will change after the predetermined period) on the same day of the month, which is most often the first or fifteenth. If you’re having a tough time managing your debt, secured debt should be your priority since it’s your house and car.

Unsecured Debt

Credit cards and personal loans are examples of unsecured debt–there is no security pledged against default. Card companies consider your overall credit health when they issue a credit card, basing your credit limit on your credit score. Your bank may have given you a personal loan based on the same factors.

Credit cards, including individual store cards like Target and Best Buy, are revolving debt–you have a limit on the card, and as long as you pay the debt off or down every month you can keep using the same credit over and over again. Your minimum payment every month depends on your outstanding balance, and that payment is not enough to keep interest from piling up. Lots of people get in financial trouble when they stick to that minimum payment on several cards until their balances creep up over their limits–you should always make more than the minimum payment.

Personal unsecured debts are amortized like car loans–you have the same payment due over a period of months or years. You can’t “re-use” credit as the balance declines, but you can be assured exactly when that debt is paid off.

Other Debts That Can’t Be Discharged

As noted earlier, there are some debts that stay with your forever, or at least until you pay them in full or negotiate some sort of settlement. And these are debts that involve money you owe to or through the government. Here are some examples.

Child support and alimony

Any fines, penalties, and restitutions for breaking the law

Taxes owed to the IRS or the state of Pennsylvania

Any money you owe as the result of someone else’s death or injury because you were driving while intoxicated

Bankruptcy will not wipe those debts out, but it can help you pay them in easy monthly installments.

If you do file for either a Chapter 13 or Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you are still on the hook for these debts. In Chapter 13 you’ll continue to pay then within the plan (through the trustee) and in Chapter 7 you’ll keep paying after the bankruptcy is over.

Student Loan Debt

Student loans have turned out to be crushing debts for many Pennsylvanians, and not just recent graduates. The seismic shift in job opportunities sent many adults back to school after 2008, and they took out loans to finance their re-education. Student loans may be eligible for a bankruptcy discharge if you meet the standards of the Brunner test or the Totality of Circumstance test. For both of these, you need to show undue hardship for your family if you continue to make the payments, and that you have made some good faith effort to repay.

Student loans that were incurred through for-profit, vocational, or trade schools may be eligible for discharge if you can prove they acted in bad faith. Bad faith would be a breach of contract, fraud, or unfair or deceptive business practice.

Take Control Of Your Debt

If you’re using new credit cards to pay off old debt, it’s time to consult one of the attorneys at Cibik & Cataldo. Take a proactive approach to managing your finances before things get out of control and you’re at greater risk of losing your house or car.

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With Biden going big, Wall Street economists are growing bullish on the US economy

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With Biden going big, Wall Street economists are growing bullish on the US economy

Economists are swiftly upgrading their GDP and unemployment forecasts and pulling forward the date when the Federal Reserve will be able to lift rock-bottom interest rates. Goldman Sachs is predicting the US economy will grow at the fastest clip in more than three decades.

“That is a lot of economic juice,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told Appradab Business.

The turning point happened last month when Democrats took narrow control of the US Senate by sweeping the runoff races in Georgia. That opened a path for President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which features $1,400 stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment benefits and a $350 billion lifeline to state and local governments.

‘Summer mini-boom’

Before the Georgia elections, Zandi didn’t think the US economy would return to full employment (a strong labor market with 4% unemployment) until the spring or summer of 2023. Now, he expects that achievement to happen next spring, echoing a forecast by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

“Super-charged fiscal policy” means the argument for the US economy growing faster than its peers “seems to get stronger day-by-day,” economists at Bank of America wrote in a recent report to clients.

Oxford Economics chief US economist Gregory Daco is calling for a “summer mini-boom” in the United States and 5.9% GDP growth in 2021.

Likewise, Jefferies economists say “explosive income growth (courtesy of fiscal stimulus) is likely to propel US GDP 6.4% higher this year and nearly 5% next year.”

“If anything, our forecast might be too conservative,” Jefferies told clients in a recent note, pointing out that its view incorporates just $1 trillion of the Biden plan.

Indeed, Goldman Sachs upgraded its 2021 GDP forecast to 6.8% earlier this week because the Wall Street bank now assumes additional fiscal relief of $1.5 trillion, up from $1.1 trillion previously. If Goldman’s prediction comes true, it would be the fastest annual GDP growth for the United States since 1989, according to the St. Louis Fed.

The rosy GDP forecasts are well above what the Federal Reserve is calling for. In December, the Fed expected 2021 GDP growth of just 4.2% and said unemployment wouldn’t slip below 4% until 2023.

Double-dip recession averted

The Fed tends to be conservative with its economic forecasts. And, crucially, the Fed forecast was released at a time when political dysfunction in DC was casting a shadow over the US economy.

For months, Republicans and Democrats tried and failed to reach a deal on extending crucial unemployment and eviction benefits scheduled to lapse and providing more forgivable loans to small businesses. And then when a deal was finally reached, former President Donald Trump threatened to blow it up.

At the last minute, Trump signed the $900 billion relief package into law, averting economic disaster.

“Without that, we would be in a double dip recession,” said Zandi, the Moody’s economist.

Slammed by the pandemic, the US economy limped to the end of 2020 and started this year slowly. In December, employers cut jobs in for the first time since the spring. And the United States added just 49,000 jobs in January.

Jobless claims remain alarmingly high. Another 793,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment benefits last week alone. For context, that is above the worst levels of the Great Recession.

Vaccines to the rescue

But there are glimmers of hope on the pandemic. Although Covid deaths remain unthinkably high, hospitalizations and cases have retreated.

Critically, the rollout of coronavirus vaccines is accelerating. Out of a total of 66 million vaccines distributed, about 70% have been administered, according to Morgan Stanley.

And Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told NBC News Thursday that the United States may be able to vaccinate most Americans by the middle or end of summer.

All of this has allowed states including California, New York and New Jersey to relax health restrictions crushing restaurants and other small businesses.

That’s not to say the pandemic is over. In fact, one risk is that new Covid-19 variants force US states and cities to once again tighten health restrictions.

Low-wage workers are still hurting badly

Against this backdrop, many economists are urging Washington to push ahead with plans for aggressive fiscal stimulus.

“Foot flat on the accelerator, please,” Zandi, the Moody’s economist said. “Policymaking 101 says err on the side of doing too much, rather than too little.”

Doing too little risks worsening America’s inequality problem. That’s because this recession, more than prior ones, disproportionately hurt low-income workers in hard-hit sectors such as restaurants, childcare and hospitality.

Employment levels of low-wage workers (those making less than $27,000 per year) is still down more than 20%, according to the Opportunity Insights Economic tracker. By contrast, employment levels of those making more than $60,000 per year are above pre-crisis levels.

“Biden’s team is unlikely to break out the champagne over reaching full employment if it isn’t evident across income and racial groups,” economists at Bank of America wrote in a report to clients.

However, Danielle DiMartino Booth, a former Fed official who is now CEO of Quill Intelligence, worries the focus on providing income, instead of investing in infrastructure and reskilling workers, will make the country addicted to stimulus.

“The economy is going to turn into this dependent patient, always waiting for the next injection,” Booth said.

‘Bring it on’

Some economists, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, have warned there is a risk that Washington overheats the economy by injecting too much support.

“You could have quite the inflation scare in the next few months that will test the bond market and the Fed,” Booth said.

And that in turn would spook the red-hot stock market.

Fed watchers are moving up their timelines for when the central bank will be able to end its emergency policies.

Citing “signs of a firmer inflation outlook,” Goldman Sachs now expects the Fed to start “tapering” its asset purchases in early 2022 and to raise interest rates in the first half of 2024.

Zandi isn’t losing sleep over inflation, mostly because the United States is far from full employment.

“It’s a vastly overstated worry,” he said. “Bring it on. Our biggest problem for more than a decade has been low inflation. Higher inflation would be a high-class problem to have.”

[mfinoltd-blog]

MINING NON-TRADITIONAL DATA IS KEY TO BRIDGING INDIA’S CREDIT GAP

A less discussed side effect of demonetization is that banks are now sitting on an unprecedented sum of surplus deposits, an amount they are struggling to deploy efficiently. Since demonetization,the central bank has amassed a total of Rs.15.28 lakh crores by the last count in June, meaning that 99 percent ofscrapped currency notes have been deposited. To spur more borrowing, banks have cut interest rates for deposits and loans – even the humble savings account has not been spared, with interest rates being reduced for the first time in six years, from 4 to 3.5 percent.

With the voracious appetite for credit in both India’s MSME sector and the large unbanked/underbanked retail segments, it might seem like a relatively straightforward exercise to match this excess money supply with pent-up demand. But historically, credit has never been readily accessible to the masses. One of the reasons is that processes and regulations, though well-intentioned, have made catering to these segments rather difficult.

Both business and retail consumers suffer as a result of this regulatory bottleneck. India’s 57 million MSMEs employ 120 million people and contribute 45 percent of the nation’s industrial output, but a lack of financing proves to be the biggest impediment to their growth, with the estimated credit gap hovering around Rs 2.93 trillion.

Information asymmetry: A challenge for banks

Though India has established itself as one of the world’s largest emerging markets in the last decade, its informal economy continues to play an essential role in its growth. Since most businesses in the informal economy are cashbased, they have little to none of the paperwork creditors traditionally rely on to assess the risk of the loan. Thus, lenders are unable to resolve the information asymmetry they face and refuse to provide the necessary credit.

Even the few businesses that do keep the required records struggle to generate the cash flow necessary to prove their credibility and offer up collaterals. The lack of traditional documentation makes them unattractive for lenders who are likely to prioritize borrowers who can offer proof of their ability to repay these loans.

The challenges are no different when it comes to procuring a personal loan. The credit risk of an individual borrower is measured based on a CIBIL score range between 300 and 900 – primary indicators being the applicant’s employment stability, monthly salary, and most importantly, documented credit-related activities from formal lenders. EMI and credit card payments, outstanding balance, pending loans on the borrower’s name; these are some of the details used by potential lenders to create a snapshot of a person’s credit-worthiness, all of which an individual in a cash-based economy is unlikely to have.

Alternative data – A new approach to underwriting loans

While it is impossible to guarantee a borrower’s intention to repay a loan, lenders can look beyond financial data and utilize an applicant’s non-traditional data to assess a borrower’s credit risk better. Non-traditional data points from an applicant’s digital footprints include information from social media platforms, e-commerce transactions, bill payments, telecom data, location history, etc… Big data analytics and machine learning can leverage the contextual information and provide insights into the creditworthiness of borrowers. For instance:

• Electricity bills, internet bills or house rental receipts- timely payments suggest the potential borrower has a strong sense of responsibility and is unlikely to be a wilful defaulter • Social media posts that borrowers write/like/share allow banks to understand borrowers’ interests and thoughts – posts that reflect irresponsible behavior, for example, are potential red flags for lenders • LinkedIn profiles can help identify a potential borrower’s stability based on the number of jobs held and the time spent at each job • Consumers’ transaction histories on e-commerce platforms can help banks get a grasp of users’ lifestyle patterns and discretionary incomes • Psychometric profiles help lenders assess borrowers’ personality traits and indicate their willingness to repay loans • Digital wallets used by merchants have a trove of data, like the volume and value of their sales, the level of repeat customers, and the number of daily transactions processed – these trends can indicate the long-term viability of a business. • Social media interactions between a small business and its target audiences demonstrate the quality of relations businesses maintain with their customers.

Ushering in growth

Alternative data has emerged as a promising method of verifying borrowers’ identities as well as their intent and ability to repay. This new age lending process enables traditional lenders to access previously untapped lending opportunities while expanding credit to underserved segments.

Easy access to formal and low-cost credit will contribute significantly to GDP, economic growth and a rise in standard of living. MSMEs currently contribute to 8 percent of GDP, but with access to finance and technology, their contribution is estimated to more than double to 20 percent.The Indian economy is expected to be the world’s second largest by 2040, and financial inclusion will play a crucial role in attaining this growth.

Fintech start-ups in the past few years have started to intervene on multiple levels to bridge the credit gap and redefine the underwriting process to assess credit risk. Banks and fintech start-ups working together can make huge strides in solving existing bottlenecks, putting assets in the hands of those who can create change in the communities that have invested in them.

Mobile Banking

[phgq]

Envisioning a relevant, responsive, reliable House of the people

#PHnews: Envisioning a relevant, responsive, reliable House of the people

MANILA -- The House of Representatives for the 18th Congress has set its vision to become a real “House of the people” that is bent on prioritizing key measures that would help provide Filipinos with a safe and comfortable life.

Upon taking the chamber’s helm, Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano vowed to make the House “relevant, responsive, and reliable” by changing negative perceptions and restoring the waning trust of the public.

“Let us do what is right. People love their congressmen, but they love to hate Congress. This is something I ask all of you: In unison, let us change that because this is the ‘House of the People’,” he said in his speech after being sworn in as the nation’s 22nd Speaker.

Cayetano emerged victorious in a tight speakership battle with major contenders, such as Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco, Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, Davao del Norte Rep. and former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, and even Davao City Rep. and presidential son Paolo Duterte.

However, the top position of power in the House comes with a price as Cayetano must honor a 15-21 term-sharing deal with Velasco.

Under the term-sharing agreement brokered by President Rodrigo Duterte on July 22, Cayetano would hold the post for 15 months, or up to October next year, after which Velasco takes over for the final 21 months.

With already five months in, the incumbent Speaker has so far displayed stellar performance as made evident in his high trust and approval ratings that reflect restoring public trust in Congress.

House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez noted that for the first time ever, a Speaker of the House received an 80-percent trust rating and 76-percent approval rating in the latest survey of Pulse Asia conducted in December.

“I share the belief of the majority of our people that the House of Representatives did a marvelous job in its First Regular Session. Our people have spoken. They are in approval of and satisfied with the performance of their congressmen under the leadership of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano,” Romualdez said. “I am elated that Filipinos are now appreciative of the hard work exerted by their representatives in Congress. They have seen how congressmen rolled up their sleeves and buckled down to work from the first day of the 18th Congress.”

Romualdez, who chairs the House Committee on Rules, said the chamber processed a total of 900 measures in 32 session days -- or an average of 28 measures per day -- as a commitment to deliver the legislative agenda of President Duterte.

Among the priority measures were the postponement of the May 2020 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections to December 2020 and the establishment of Malasakit Centers as one-stop shops for financial and medical assistance, both of which had been signed into law.

Romualdez highlighted that the record time approval of the proposed 2020 PHP4.1-trillion national budget was one of the major achievements of the House for the first regular session of the 18th Congress.

“We were able to steer the approval of the 2020 national budget in record time through creative initiatives never before experienced in the House of Representatives,” he said. “Committee hearings for the budgets of various departments and offices were held simultaneously, from day to night, Monday to Friday.”

To avert another scenario of a reenacted budget, senators and congressmen comprising the bicameral conference committee approved on December 11 the final version of the 2020 national budget.

The national government was forced to operate under a reenacted 2018 budget from January to mid-April this year because of the Senate and the House’s squabble over supposed insertions and realignments made by some lawmakers in the PHP3.757-trillion budget for 2019.

Vital tax measures were also approved on final reading by the lower chamber, such as the bill amending the Foreign Investment Act of 1991, the Passive Income and Financial Intermediary Taxation Act (PIFITA), and the Corporate Income Tax and Incentive Rationalization Act (CITIRA).

Meanwhile, another tax proposal that seeks to increase the tax on electronic cigarettes and impose higher duties as contained in the Package 2 Plus B of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program, is up for the President’s signature.

“These bills are important parcels of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program that is required to help reach the A Credit Rating goal of the Duterte administration,” Romualdez said.

He attributed the House’s productivity to both the majority and the minority’s “tough work ethic in doing their jobs creditably,” underscoring that “democracy” is at work in the chamber.

“Your congressmen, both from the majority and the minority, worked feverishly in the committee and plenary levels just to get the job done on time. The minority congressmen were given almost 80 percent of the total time allotted in plenary for interpellation,” Romualdez said. “With democracy at work in the House, we manage to craft a national budget that is truly a collaborative product of hard-working legislators. No pork, no parking, and no delay. With the swift approval of the 2020 budget, we are confident that we will meet the country’s economic target of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent growth for this year up to 2020.”

Other bills approved on third and final reading include proposals that would benefit public sector workers, particularly the proposed Salary Standardization Law 5 and the lowering of the optional retirement age of government employees to 56 years old.

Perfect vision for 2020

Cayetano noted that the year ahead represents a “perfect vision” towards the House’s goal of uplifting the lives of Filipinos, which is the core of most of the priority legislative measures.

“What we can do is focus on things that matter. Arts, sports, culture are always part of education. (These) teach us hard work, discipline, teamwork, so there are things that we can really do,” Cayetano said. “Kung ano man ang ilagay natin sa edukasyon, sa health, sa peace and order, sa defense, hindi naman masasayang yun (Whatever we put and allocate for education, health, peace and order, defense, would not be wasted).”

Romualdez said for 2020, the House would pass important measures, such as the creation of new departments -- a Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Employment and a Department of Disaster and Resilience -- as well as the bill allowing the Department of Health to set and approve the bed capacity of its retained hospitals nationwide.

“Our focus right now is to work hard in legislation and pass all the measures needed to improve the living condition of our people. That is the marching order from the President,” he said. “We are busy with our work, and we intend to keep it that way. We all have roles to play, and we are just glad to be given the opportunity to serve.” (PNA)

  ***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Envisioning a relevant, responsive, reliable House of the people." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1089469 (accessed December 27, 2019 at 06:00PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Envisioning a relevant, responsive, reliable House of the people." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1089469 (archived).

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All Assignments Help

Get help for All Assignments Help | Just Question Answer. We provide assignment, homework, discussions and case studies help for all subjects of All Universities for Session 2017-2018. ACC 206 | Assignment Help | Just Question Answer

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Recent Question 20

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An incomes policy is designed to

1. Suppose person A forms his inflation expectations as the average of this period’s inflation and last period’s inflation, whereas person B forms her expectations rationally (i.e., by using all information plus knowledge of how the macroeconomy operates). Suppose the economy is in equilibrium at its NRU and the Fed surreptitiously increases the money growth rate from 6 percent to 9 percent increasing inflation during the year from 4 percent to 6 percent and lowering unemployment slightly. At the end of this year it becomes clear what the Fed has done; at this point A’s and B’s expected inflations are a) 5% and 6% b) 5% and 7% c) 6% and 6% d) 6% and 7% Suppose the economy is at its natural rate of unemployment of 6% with a real output of $900 billion, but policymakers plan to reduce inflation from 8 percent to 4 percent gradually over a period of six years by creating a recession.

2. If the sacrifice ratio is 3, relative to maintaining full employment, what is the cumulative loss in output this recession will entail? 91 a) $30b or less b) more than $30b but less than $60b c) more than $60b but less than $90b d) more than $90b

3. If Okun’s law says that an extra percentage point of unemployment above the natural rate corresponds to a drop in output of 2 percentage points, what unemployment rate will the economy be required to experience over these six years? a) 6% or less b) more than 6% but not more than 7% c) more than 7% but not more than 8% d) more than 8%

4. Wage/price controls allow us to a) control what is produced in the economy b) move more quickly down the long-run Phillips curve c) stop inflation without decreasing the rate at which money is growing d) deal with inflation without losing the efficiencies of the price system

5. An incomes policy is designed to a) increase everyone’s real income b) redistribute income from the rich to the poor c) increase the actual income of the unemployed d) curb inflation without reducing aggregate demand

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BUSN 412 WEEK 2 In the News…

This project is intended to provide current material for class discussion and review. This material must relate to your Course Project subject. To receive full credit for this requirement, submit the In the News during Week 2. The project may draw on items from the online environment—newspapers, magazines, and websites—to provide current (i.e., within the last year) examples of course-related topics (i.e., Business Strategy from this week’s reading assignment). Relevance and probable interest to the class are especially welcome. These items should be accompanied by a one- to two-page report (using bullet points).

Be sure to use specific course concepts from this week’s readings in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. Examples are: Competitive Intelligence (pg. 42-44), Demographics (pg. 47–50), Porter’s 5 Forces (pg. 55–68), Value Chain Analysis (pg. 81–93), Resource Based View (pg. 93–102), Balanced Scorecard (pg. 107–110), Human Capital (pg. 127–136), and Social Capital (pg. 137–144).

Be sure you include the news article or a summary, as well as the 1- to 2-page report using bullet points that fully addresses the following points in this order.

The organization you have chosen for your Course Project by name,

why and how the news material is important and relevant to the course content using specific course concepts from this week’s assigned reading by citing the name of the concept and the page it is located on in the textbook, and

what practical managerial implications the material has.

Submit your assignment to the Dropbox, located at the top of this page. For instructions on how to use the Dropbox, read these step-by-step instructions.

See the Syllabus section "Due Dates for Assignments & Exams" for due date information.

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BUSN 412 WEEK 3 DISCUSSION 1 Mission Statement

Mission Statement

Post your Course Project organization’s mission statement here, if you can locate it. If not, post what you think it might be. How do you think its mission statement has focused the organization? How hard was it to find the mission statement? What value do you see the mission statement providing to the organization and how might it be made better, if at all?

What do you like to do? Do you brush your teeth because you are supposed to or do you do it for yourself. Or, do you do it for a dozen little reasons. Often we don’t even pay attention to why we do what we do. We are in autopilot mode for many decisions we make on a daily basis. Companies can operate the same way. A mission statement serves many purposes. What are some of them? What are some of the pro’s and con’s of a mission statement? Can you pick one for a company you know or work for and share it with us here. What does this statement say about the company?

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POL 300 Week 10 Quiz 5 Question 1 4 out of 4 points Greece and Turkey turned to international law because

Answer

Question 2 4 out of 4 points

"Diplomatic immunity" means that diplomats

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Question 3 4 out of 4 points

The _________ war crimes trials set the precedent for human-rights and later war-crimes laws and trials.

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Question 4 4 out of 4 points

Israel used a(n) _____________ in trying Adolph Eichmann.

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Question 5 4 out of 4 points

International law developed as

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Question 6 4 out of 4 points

The domestic U.S. case Missouri v. Holland illustrates that

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Question 7 4 out of 4 points

Countries can now claim an exclusive economic zone ______ miles beyond their territorial waters.

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Question 8 4 out of 4 points

Unlike domestic law, international law requires states to

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Question 9 4 out of 4 points

Nixon’s 1972 visit to China was a form of _________ recognition.

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Question 10 4 out of 4 points

International law has _________ in common with domestic law.

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COM 403 Week 5 Learning Team Assignment Cultural Norms In Communication (USA and Mexico)

COM 403 Week 5 Learning Team Assignment Cultural Norms In Communication (USA and Mexico)

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ETH 125 Week 9 Final Project, Part II

Write a 500- to 750-word additional response that adds to your completed Final Project Part I, completed in Week 8 that answers the following questions: • Describe possible ways the government and or media may foster a climate of acceptance and cultural pluralism in the United States? • Summarize three ways individuals in the United States can work together to reduce prejudice and increase appreciation for diversity? Format the paper consistent with APA guidelines. Submit the assignment to the Assignment Files tab.

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JUS 521 WEEK 3 DISCUSSION 2

Discuss the mobility doctrine. Is this a direct infringement on individual liberties? Should the doctrine be updated to fit the modern world? Explain your reasoning.

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E-commerce

E-commerce is growing by leaps and bounds, propelling business further into the information age with each passing day. People just like you and me clicked our mouse and purchased approximately $10 billion in merchandise during 1999. The U. S. Department of Commerce forecasts Internet retailing will exceed $50 billion within the next two years, and business-to-business e-commerce will top $1 trillion. With millions of transaction taking place, it is inevitable that contract disputes will arise, and common rules to authenticate and confirm the integrity of electronic documents and their signers are of paramount importance.

On September 16, 1999, Governor Gray Davis signed Senate Bill 820 making California the first state to adopt an electronic contracting law. The law went into effect January 1, 2000. Its primary purpose is to "ensure that electronic contracts (records and signatures) have the same legal effect as their hardcopy counterparts." In addition, the law legalizes electronic signatures and even extending the electronic signature, under certain circumstances, to satisfy requirements that a signature be notarized. The law, however, only applies to transactions where the contracting parties have agreed in advance to be bound by an electronic transaction.

Maybe the law’s most extreme fault is that it fails to cover all transactions. The following contracts are excluded:

• Wills, codicils, and testamentary trusts. • Certain transactions governed by various consumer protection laws (for example, notice of mortgage late fees, non-judicial foreclosure notices, and statements of finance charges). • Any transaction under the Automobile Sales Finance Act or the Vehicle Licensing Act. • Some retail installment sales contracts.

Even with these shortcomings, the law undoubtedly will have a significant effect on the future of contract law in California and the nation. Exactly what that effect will be, however, remains to be decided in the courtroom. In the following section, we will examine some of the issues. 1. What will be the long-term impact of electronic contracting on the nation’s business? 2. What are the potential pitfalls you see with electronic contracting? In your own words, please post a response to the Discussion Board and comment on other postings. You will be graded on the quality of your postings.

Visit: – tinyurl.com/yaotpode

CJS/220 CJS220 CJS 220 WEEK 2 ASSIGNMENT 1

Structure of the Courts Review Ch. 4 of The Courts in Our Criminal Justice System. Write a 200- to 300-word response comparing the court system of the state in which you live and the federal court system. If you are not a resident of the United States, choose any state- court system to compare with the federal court system. Compare these two systems by structure, source of laws, and the types of cases that are heard. Format your response consistent with APA guidelines. Click the Assignment Files tab to submit your assignment.

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HIS 356 Week 4 Individual Assignment African Independence Worksheet

African Independence Worksheet

Use the worksheet provided and choose two African countries to compare independence movements. You must use at least five sources, of which two must be primary sources. You may use MyHistoryLab, the University Library, or credible websites to locate primary sources. Primary sources include documents, images, maps, or news reports. If you choose to include images or maps, please include those with your answers to the appropriate question. Each answer should be 150 to 200 words.

How did the Pan African Movement start to alter the world- opinion about African independence?

How did the Africans use World War I and World War II to move their countries toward independence?

How did the Christian churches introduced to the Africans help them in their struggle for independence?

Which groups had the most to gain by gaining independence for their country?

Select one country that had to fight for their independence and give a short synopsis of the struggle.

Why did most of the African countries remain intact despite regional or tribal conflicts? The desire of all Africans for the Europeans to leave African lands and for each

Why were the newly established governments generally unable to fulfill the expectations of the citizens?

Explain the drift toward centralization of government power in the new countries.

What were the major theoretical divisions within the concept of African Socialism?

Explain what you consider to be the three main obstacles that the newly created countries had to deal with in order to become safe and sustainable countries.

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OPS 571 Week 5 Quiz

1.) Which is the international standard for quality management for automotive industry suppliers of production parts, materials, and services?

2.) ISO 9000 is primarily concerned with what type of quality management standards?

3.) What is a reason that a company may pursue ISO-9000 certification?

4.) What form of ISO 9000-certification is the final requirement before a company may be registered and recorded as having achieved ISO 9000 status?

5.) Who is responsible for performing the first-party certification audit for a supplier firm?

6.) What is one analytical tool common to all quality improvement programs?

7.) An opportunity flow diagram would best fit in which DMAIC category?

8.) What is the certification when a qualified national or international standards body or similar certifying agency audits and certifies that a company is ISO 9000-compliant?

9.) A fishbone diagram might be found in which DMAIC category?

10.) What is the international quality management standard for quality management and assurance that is primarily concerned with quality of air, water, and soil?

Get Answer: – tinyurl.com/yb5tmxw8

Posted by leesamarteen on 2018-09-23 19:19:42

Tagged: , Quality Assignment Help , Online Assignment Help , Online Homework Help , Online Tutors Help , Get Assignment Help Online , Online Assignment Help Providers

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[coin-news-blog]

Smokescreens and Mirrors: How Does a Country Do an ICO? They Call It QE

New Post has been published on https://coinmakers.tech/news/smokescreens-and-mirrors-how-does-a-country-do-an-ico-they-call-it-qe

Smokescreens and Mirrors: How Does a Country Do an ICO? They Call It QE

Smokescreens and Mirrors: How Does a Country Do an ICO? They Call It QE

Financial regulators all around the world have been cracking down hard on ICOs for promising more than they can deliver. At the same time governments and central banks are pulling off far worse scams, such as QE, wiping out the savings of everyone that depends on them. To hide this fact they use obscure economic jargon to confuse and distract the public, with the latest term being negative yields.

Germany Buys Its Own Debt at Zero interest

Wednesday, 21 August, will be noted in the economic textbooks as a turning point in the history of fiat central banking and possibly as the harbinger of a new global recession. On this day, Germany, the world’s fourth largest economy and the main economic engine of the Euro zone, sold its 30 year bonds at a negative yield.

The German 30 year bonds yields have been going down hard recently, but this was the first time ever that they were actually sold with a coupon officially set at 0%. What this means in simple terms is that if you were to lend your money to the German government for a 30 year period, you will have to pay for this privilege instead of getting a return like you would expect from any sane investment.

‘Knot’ sculpture at the Deutsche Bundesbank building in Hamburg, Germany

So why would anyone in their right mind agree to make such a terrible trade as investing in negative interest yields? Well, they may expect returns on German bonds to be even worse later on and want to lock in this level while they still can. Others are just legally forced to, such as some large pension funds around the world that must invest a fixed percentage of their holdings in so called “safe” government bonds.

As you would expect, there weren’t many takers for this offer, and less than half were actually sold to investors. Out of a target of borrowing 2 billion euros from the market by the German government, just well under $900 million in bonds were issued successfully. The remaining majority of the 30 year bonds in this mostly failed sale had to be picked up by the Deutsche Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank. This by itself, happening to such a traditionally well trusted government as the German one, may indicate that the global financial system is headed for a major shock.

Negative Rates Will Come to the US Soon Enough

While serving as an ominous benchmark for the market, the German 30 year zero coupon bonds sale is not going against the trend elsewhere. In fact, according to the latest estimations there is already more than $16 trillion in government debt around the world bearing negative yields. This is also happening in advanced economies such as Japan, France, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark. The world’s largest economy, that of the United States, has still not seen negative interest bond issues, but that too appears to be just a matter of time, with U.S. Treasury yields rapidly decreasing.

One reason that negative yields are coming sooner or later to the U.S. is that President Trump is pushing the Federal Reserve hard in that direction. This is despite the traditional conception among economists that the central bank is supposed to be completely independent from political influence. The American leader took advantage of the historic German bond sale, to increase his public campaign to pressure the Fed to take measures which might increase inflation, but artificially boost parts of the economy he favors such as exports. If the central bankers resist his calls, the president will mostly likely blame the Fed for causing any downturn or possible recession ahead of the 2020 elections, citing a refusal to heed his advice.

….WHERE IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019

Professional investors in the U.S. were already worrying about negative Treasury bond yields before Trump made his remarks on the German sale, as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month. Mark MacQueen, a bond manager and principal at Sage Advisory Services, explained that: “If you proposed negative rates 10 years ago, people would have laughed you out of the room. Today people are getting on board the negative-rate idea very quickly.” Andre Severino, head of global fixed income at Nikko Asset Management, commented: “We’re a bit perplexed about the level of yields. It’s kind of like Armageddon is being priced in.”

QE and Currency Wars Are Robbing Your Savings

Financial regulators all around the world have been cracking down hard on ICOs in recent times. They mainly accuse them of issuing securities backed by nothing, to investors who only buy them in the hope that they can sell them to other bag holders as their price will rise in the future. It is hard to see how government selling negative interest bonds doesn’t fall into exactly the same category. Moreover, this is only the latest example of how governments and central bankers are scamming people out of their savings since the last financial crisis. A decade ago they were printing trillions of dollars with QE, and recently they started currency wars by lowering interest rates.

Exactly 48 years ago, in August 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold, leaving the world’s reserve currency not backed by any real asset. It is impossible to predict how such things will develop, but with recent developments it is now very unlikely that in half a century from today the same fiat system will prevail. The best devised replacement, from the point of view of freedom loving individuals, is a cryptocurrency system based on provable mathematical principles instead of empty government promises.

Source: news.bitcoin

[alamante]

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – By almost every measure, the U.S. economy is booming. But a look behind the headlines of roaring job growth and consumer spending reveals how the boom continues in large part by the poorer half of Americans fleecing their savings and piling up debt.

FILE PHOTO: A Walmart employee helps a customer load a 50″ TV he bought on sale in Broomfield, Colorado, U.S., November 28, 2014. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo

A Reuters analysis of U.S. household data shows that the bottom 60 percent of income-earners have accounted for most of the rise in spending over the past two years even as the their finances worsened – a break with a decades-old trend where the top 40 percent had primarily fueled consumption growth.

With borrowing costs on the rise, inflation picking up and the effects of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts set to wear off, a negative shock – a further rise in gasoline prices or a jump in the cost of goods due to tariffs – could push those most vulnerable over the edge, some economists warn.

That in turn could threaten the second-longest U.S. expansion given consumption makes up 70 percent of the U.S. economy’s output.

To be sure, the housing market is far from the dangerous leverage reached in 2007 before the crash. With unemployment near its lowest since 2000 and job openings at record highs, people may also choose to work even more hours or take extra jobs rather than cut back on spending if the money gets tight.

In fact, a growing majority of Americans says they are comfortable financially, according to the Federal Reserve’s report on the economic well-being of U.S. households published in May and based on a 2017 survey.

Yet by filtering data on household finances and wages by income brackets, the Reuters analysis reveals growing financial stress among lower-income households even as their contribution to consumption and the broad economy grows.

The data shows the rise in median expenditures has outpaced before-tax income for the lower 40 percent of earners in the five years to mid-2017 while the upper half has increased its financial cushion, deepening income disparities. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2LdUMBa )

It is this recovery’s paradox.

A hot job market and other signs of economic health encourage rich and poor alike to spend more, but tepid wage growth for many middle-class and lower-income Americans means they need to dip into their savings and borrow more to do that.

As a result, over the past year signs of financial fragility have been multiplying, with credit card and auto loan delinquencies on the rise and savings plumbing their lowest since 2005.

FILE PHOTO: Shoppers ride escalators at the Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles, California, U.S., November 8, 2013. REUTERS/David McNew/File Photo

Myna Whitney, 27, a certified medical assistant at Drexel University’s gastroenterology unit in Philadelphia, experienced that firsthand.

Three years ago, confident that a steady full-time job offered enough financial security, she took out loans to buy a Honda Odyssey and a $119,000 house, where she lives with her mother and aunt.

Since then she has learned that making $16.47 an hour – more than about 40 percent of U.S. workers – was not enough.

“I was dipping into my savings account every month to just make all of the payments.” Whitney says. With her savings now down to $900 from $10,000 she budgets down to toilet paper and electricity. Cable TV and the occasional $5 Groupon movie outings are her indulgences, she says, but laughs off a question whether she dines out.

“God forbid I get a ticket, or something breaks on the car. Then it’s just more to recover from.”

DRAINING SAVINGS

Stephen Gallagher, economist at Societe Generale, says stretched finances of those in the middle dimmed the economy’s otherwise positive outlook.

“They are taking on debt that they can’t repay. A drop in savings and rise in delinquencies means you can’t support the (overall) spending,” he said. An oil or trade shock could lead to “a rather dramatic scaling back of consumption,” he added.

Some economists say that without the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts enacted in January spending, which has grown by around 3 percent a year over the past few years, could already be stalling now.

In the past, rising incomes of the upper 40 percent of earners have driven most of the consumption growth, but since 2016 consumer spending has been primarily fueled by a run-down in savings, mainly by the bottom 60 percent of earners, according to Oxford Economics.

This reflects in part better access to credit for low-income borrowers late in the economic cycle.

Yet it is the first time in two decades that lower earners made a greater contribution to spending growth for two years in a row.

Slideshow (7 Images)

“It’s generally really hard for people to cut back on expenses, or on a certain lifestyle, especially when the context of the economy is actually really positive,” said Gregory Daco, Oxford’s chief U.S. economist. “It’s essentially a weak core that makes the back of the economy a bit more susceptible to strains and potentially to breaking.”

JOBS NOT RAISES

While the Fed expects the labor market to get even hotter this year and next, policymakers have been perplexed that wages do not reflect that.

With inflation factored in, average hourly earnings dropped by a penny in May from a year ago for 80 percent of the country’s private sector workers, including those in the vast healthcare, fast food and manufacturing industries, Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show.

“It stinks,” says Jennifer Delauder, 44, who runs a medical lab at Huttonsville Correctional Center in West Virginia. In seven years her hourly wage has risen by about $2 to $14.

She took on two part-time jobs to help pay rent, utilities and a student loan. But she still sometimes trims her weekly $15 grocery budget to make ends meet, or even gathers broken fans, car parts, and lanterns to sell as scrap metal. A $2,000 hospital bill early this year wiped out her savings.

Even so, Delauder, a grandmother, recently signed papers for a mortgage of up to $150,000 on a house. “I’m paying rent for a house. I might as well pay for a house that I own,” she said.

Hourly wages for lower- and middle-income workers rose just over 2 percent in the year to March 2017, compared with about 4 percent for those near the top and bottom, while spending jumped by roughly 8 percent.

That reflects both higher costs of essentials such as rent, prescription drugs and college tuition but also some increased discretionary spending, for example at restaurants.

Economists say one symptom of financial strain was last year’s spike in serious delinquencies on U.S. credit card debt, which many poorer households use as a stop-gap measure. The $815-billion market is not big enough to rattle Wall Street, but could be an early sign of stress that might spread to other debt as the Fed continues its gradual policy tightening.

More borrowers have also been falling behind on auto loans, which helped bring leverage on non-mortgage household debt to a record high in the first quarter of this year.

While painting a broadly positive picture, the Fed’s well-being survey also noted that one in four adults feared they could not cover an emergency $400 expense and one in five struggled with monthly bills. This month the central bank reported to Congress that rising delinquencies among riskier borrowers represented “pockets of stress.”

That many Americans lack any financial safety net remains a concern, New York Fed President John Williams told Reuters in an interview last month. “Even though the overall picture is pretty good, pretty solid, or strong,” he said, “this is a problem that continues to hang over half of our country.”

(Graphic: Poorer Americans help fuel economic boom – at a price – tmsnrt.rs/2LdUMBa)

Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Additional reporting by Ann Saphir in San Francisco and Howard Schneider in Washington; Editing by Tomasz Janowski

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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[juditmiltz]

National Cheat Sheet: Fed leaves rates unchanged, foreign buyers spent $7.5B on US luxury homes in 2017 … & more

Clockwise from top left: L.A.’s Indigo Hotel is on the block for $280 million, Janet Yellen ended her tenure at the Fed, developers submitted a revised design for San Francisco’s fourth-tallest tower, and Clare Newman of Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation plans a $2.5 billion development.

Fed leaves interest rates unchanged as Yellen exits As Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen presided over her final policy meeting, the central bank decided to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged, holding at between 1.25 and 1.5 percent. The unanimous decision is consistent with the slow pace of interest rate hikes during Yellen’s three-year tenure at the Fed. Incoming Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will be sworn in Monday. [TRD]

Foreign buyers spent $7.5B on US luxury homes Between March 2016 and March 2017, foreign buyers spent $7.5 billion on luxury housing in the U.S., a report by Beauchamp Estates and Leslie J. Garfield & Co. found. That’s nearly a 75 percent increase from the year before, according to the report. Miami was the top market for foreign buyers of $1 million-plus homes, taking 40 percent of the purchases. Los Angeles took second spot and Manhattan came in third. [TRD]

RXR chairman says Trump’s $1.5T infrastructure plan is “not a reality” After President Trump proposed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure in the State of the Union, RXR Realty chairman Scott Rechler said there’s no way to pay for it. “It’s not a reality,” Rechler said. “The money that we would use for infrastructure was repatriation dollars… has been used for tax reform.” Trump has touted a infrastructure renewal scheme based on private investment, but Rechler, who advised Trump during the campaign, doesn’t think there will be enough potential profit to attract private investments. [TRD]

Keller Williams says it’s the No. 1 resi franchise in the US Keller Williams Realty’s agents sold over $303 billion dollars-worth of real estate in the U.S. in 2017, the company announced. It claimed that the number makes Keller Williams the largest franchise firm in the country. The Texas-based brokerage said its sales were up 15 percent year-over-year. Whether or not they are in fact the biggest residential franchise in the U.S. is unproven but Steve Murray, founder of data firm Real Trends, said RE/MAX still does more business globally than Keller Williams. “RE/MAX in Canada alone is many multiples of Keller in Canada,” he said. [TRD]

Designers ponder parking garages in the era of self-driving cars Self-driving cars have the potential to change the way we live and for the real estate industry, the way we park. Developers are beginning to ponder the future of the parking garages that may soon cease to be a necessity. Architecture firm Gensler, for example, is working on ways to turn garages into affordable housing, while Perkins + Will is designing buildings with more curbside drop-off areas and less parking spaces, according to the Wall Street Journal. [TRD]

Stern vs. Libeskind: Top architects clash over designing cultural buildings Robert A.M. Stern and Daniel Libeskind have both designed cultural buildings, but the two noted architects have very different views on what makes a good museum, which was evident at a New York City panel this week, in which the two disagreed on nearly every subject. Stern, whose credits include the Museum of the American Revolution and the George W. Bush Presidential Center, is looking for silence and solitude. On the other hand, Libeskind, who designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin, dismissed that romanticized vision of viewing art, saying museums are moving into the “realm of fun and celebration.” [TRD]

MAJOR MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

Dalian Wanda puts Chicago’s $900M Vista Tower on the market Dalian Wanda group will put Chicago’s Vista Tower up for sale as the Chinese company offloads its last overseas property developments, the Chicago Tribune reported. Wanda holds a 60 percent stake in the planned 98-story mixed-use tower and Magellan Development Group has started the construction, which is estimated to cost $900 million. As Chinese regulators crack down on foreign investments, Wanda’s billionaire owner Wang Jianlin is also looking to sell its $1.2 billion project in Beverly Hills. [Chicago Tribune]

The Boston Globe building’s rebirth: From newspaper HQ to innovation park Developer Nordblom offered a vision of the future for the 700,000-square-foot former headquarters of the Boston Globe in Dorchester that includes a tech-friendly co-working space, a food hall and craft breweries. Nordblom plans to gut the inside of the building, which it bought for $81 million in December. The developer hopes to complete the necessary permitting process by summer and open the renovated building in 2019. [Boston Globe]

Developers submit revised design for San Francisco’s fourth-tallest tower The developers of Transbay Parcel F in San Francisco have submitted a revised design for their planned 61-story multi-use tower to city planners. The planned building at 542-550 Howard Street would have 170 housing units, a 210-room hotel, 251,000 square feet of offices and 9,000 square feet of street-level retail space. City planners rejected the original design by Cesar Pelli as lacking “the architectural detailing and character of the neighborhood.” Hines, Goldman Sachs affiliate Broad Street and Urban Pacific Development bought the land in 2016 for $160 million. [Curbed]

Trump International Realty plans a Miami expansion The Trump Organization’s boutique real estate brokerage is expanding its presence in South Florida, “expanding in Jupiter and big time in Miami,” Eric Trump told the Palm Beach Post. President Trump’s company’s South Florida holdings already include Mar-a-Lago, Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter and Trump National Doral Miami. The brokerage is also planning to expand into commercial real estate. [TRD]

LA’s Indigo Hotel on the block for $280M Greenland Group is looking to unload the 350-room Indigo Hotel, a part of the $1 billion Metropolis project in Downtown Los Angeles. Greenland may be looking to use the proceeds from a hotel sale to finish the struggling Metropolis project, according to a report from CoStar. Marcus and Millichap will shop the hotel, which is operated by InterContinental Hotels Group. [TRD]

Non-profit plans $2.5B redevelopment at New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard The non-profit that runs the Brooklyn Navy Yard is planning to self-fund a $2.5 billion development plan that will add 5.1 million square feet of space to the 300-acre complex, Bloomberg reported. The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation believes the new development will allow roughly 30,000 workers to occupy its work spaces. Roughly 7,000 people already work in the existing buildings, which the non-profit says are 99 percent leased. [TRD]

from The Real Deal Miami https://therealdeal.com/2018/02/01/national-cheat-sheet-fed-leaves-rates-unchanged-foreign-buyers-spent-7-5b-on-us-luxury-homes-in-2017-more/#new_tab via IFTTT

[henryasaunders]

National Cheat Sheet: Fed leaves rates unchanged, foreign buyers spent $7.5B on US luxury homes in 2017 … & more

Clockwise from top left: L.A.’s Indigo Hotel is on the block for $280 million, Janet Yellen ended her tenure at the Fed, developers submitted a revised design for San Francisco’s fourth-tallest tower, and Clare Newman of Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation plans a $2.5 billion development.

Fed leaves interest rates unchanged as Yellen exits As Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen presided over her final policy meeting, the central bank decided to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged, holding at between 1.25 and 1.5 percent. The unanimous decision is consistent with the slow pace of interest rate hikes during Yellen’s three-year tenure at the Fed. Incoming Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will be sworn in Monday. [TRD]

Foreign buyers spent $7.5B on US luxury homes Between March 2016 and March 2017, foreign buyers spent $7.5 billion on luxury housing in the U.S., a report by Beauchamp Estates and Leslie J. Garfield & Co. found. That’s nearly a 75 percent increase from the year before, according to the report. Miami was the top market for foreign buyers of $1 million-plus homes, taking 40 percent of the purchases. Los Angeles took second spot and Manhattan came in third. [TRD]

RXR chairman says Trump’s $1.5T infrastructure plan is “not a reality” After President Trump proposed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure in the State of the Union, RXR Realty chairman Scott Rechler said there’s no way to pay for it. “It’s not a reality,” Rechler said. “The money that we would use for infrastructure was repatriation dollars… has been used for tax reform.” Trump has touted a infrastructure renewal scheme based on private investment, but Rechler, who advised Trump during the campaign, doesn’t think there will be enough potential profit to attract private investments. [TRD]

Keller Williams says it’s the No. 1 resi franchise in the US Keller Williams Realty’s agents sold over $303 billion dollars-worth of real estate in the U.S. in 2017, the company announced. It claimed that the number makes Keller Williams the largest franchise firm in the country. The Texas-based brokerage said its sales were up 15 percent year-over-year. Whether or not they are in fact the biggest residential franchise in the U.S. is unproven but Steve Murray, founder of data firm Real Trends, said RE/MAX still does more business globally than Keller Williams. “RE/MAX in Canada alone is many multiples of Keller in Canada,” he said. [TRD]

Designers ponder parking garages in the era of self-driving cars Self-driving cars have the potential to change the way we live and for the real estate industry, the way we park. Developers are beginning to ponder the future of the parking garages that may soon cease to be a necessity. Architecture firm Gensler, for example, is working on ways to turn garages into affordable housing, while Perkins + Will is designing buildings with more curbside drop-off areas and less parking spaces, according to the Wall Street Journal. [TRD]

Stern vs. Libeskind: Top architects clash over designing cultural buildings Robert A.M. Stern and Daniel Libeskind have both designed cultural buildings, but the two noted architects have very different views on what makes a good museum, which was evident at a New York City panel this week, in which the two disagreed on nearly every subject. Stern, whose credits include the Museum of the American Revolution and the George W. Bush Presidential Center, is looking for silence and solitude. On the other hand, Libeskind, who designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin, dismissed that romanticized vision of viewing art, saying museums are moving into the “realm of fun and celebration.” [TRD]

MAJOR MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

Dalian Wanda puts Chicago’s $900M Vista Tower on the market Dalian Wanda group will put Chicago’s Vista Tower up for sale as the Chinese company offloads its last overseas property developments, the Chicago Tribune reported. Wanda holds a 60 percent stake in the planned 98-story mixed-use tower and Magellan Development Group has started the construction, which is estimated to cost $900 million. As Chinese regulators crack down on foreign investments, Wanda’s billionaire owner Wang Jianlin is also looking to sell its $1.2 billion project in Beverly Hills. [Chicago Tribune]

The Boston Globe building’s rebirth: From newspaper HQ to innovation park Developer Nordblom offered a vision of the future for the 700,000-square-foot former headquarters of the Boston Globe in Dorchester that includes a tech-friendly co-working space, a food hall and craft breweries. Nordblom plans to gut the inside of the building, which it bought for $81 million in December. The developer hopes to complete the necessary permitting process by summer and open the renovated building in 2019. [Boston Globe]

Developers submit revised design for San Francisco’s fourth-tallest tower The developers of Transbay Parcel F in San Francisco have submitted a revised design for their planned 61-story multi-use tower to city planners. The planned building at 542-550 Howard Street would have 170 housing units, a 210-room hotel, 251,000 square feet of offices and 9,000 square feet of street-level retail space. City planners rejected the original design by Cesar Pelli as lacking “the architectural detailing and character of the neighborhood.” Hines, Goldman Sachs affiliate Broad Street and Urban Pacific Development bought the land in 2016 for $160 million. [Curbed]

Trump International Realty plans a Miami expansion The Trump Organization’s boutique real estate brokerage is expanding its presence in South Florida, “expanding in Jupiter and big time in Miami,” Eric Trump told the Palm Beach Post. President Trump’s company’s South Florida holdings already include Mar-a-Lago, Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter and Trump National Doral Miami. The brokerage is also planning to expand into commercial real estate. [TRD]

LA’s Indigo Hotel on the block for $280M Greenland Group is looking to unload the 350-room Indigo Hotel, a part of the $1 billion Metropolis project in Downtown Los Angeles. Greenland may be looking to use the proceeds from a hotel sale to finish the struggling Metropolis project, according to a report from CoStar. Marcus and Millichap will shop the hotel, which is operated by InterContinental Hotels Group. [TRD]

Non-profit plans $2.5B redevelopment at New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard The non-profit that runs the Brooklyn Navy Yard is planning to self-fund a $2.5 billion development plan that will add 5.1 million square feet of space to the 300-acre complex, Bloomberg reported. The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation believes the new development will allow roughly 30,000 workers to occupy its work spaces. Roughly 7,000 people already work in the existing buildings, which the non-profit says are 99 percent leased. [TRD]

from Chicago – The Real Deal New York https://therealdeal.com/2018/02/01/national-cheat-sheet-fed-leaves-rates-unchanged-foreign-buyers-spent-7-5b-on-us-luxury-homes-in-2017-more/ via IFTTT

[superprofitz]

Weekly Market Recap Nov 05, 2017

While there was some chop to this past week, the bulls remain in control as that chop right now would be seen as some form of consolidation after a round of market gains.  The weekly gain for the S&P 500 was 0.3% and for the NASDAQ 0.9%.   For the month of October the S&P 500 was up 2.2% and the NASDAQ 3.6%.

Monday was the only day of sustained selling and some attributed that to a report that the House of Representatives is considering phasing in a cut to corporate taxes rather than enacting them immediately.  The actual House plan was released Thursday to much fanfare.   Andrew Hunter, U.S. economist at Capital Economics, sees the Republican tax plan adding roughly $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.

The House is discussing a “gradual phase-in for the corporate tax-rate cut that President Donald Trump and Republican leaders want — a schedule that would have the rate reach 20 percent in 2022,” according to Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the matter.

“Unveiling of the tax bill is a step one. Approving and passing the legislation is step two and it’s not at all clear in what form or shape this bill will be passed,” said Kim Caughey Forrest, senior analyst and portfolio manager at Fort Pitt Capital Group.

The Federal Reserve meeting – as expected – yielded nothing.

The Federal Reserve stood pat on interest rates but referred to the U.S. economy in positive terms.  The central bank, in its statement following a two-day meeting, said economic activity has been picking up at a “solid rate,” versus the “moderate” rate that it had referenced in September. The rosier view of the economy also suggests that it is on track to hike interest rates in December, as has been widely expected.

More important, the new Federal Reserve head was nominated by Trump: Jerome Powell.   Powell is viewed as a nominee who will be measured in his approach to raising borrowing costs and who also is favorable to scaling back Wall Street regulations.

“Under Powell expect a pragmatic path on monetary policy, along with an equally pragmatic path on industry regulation. In other words, continuity with a Republican tilt,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial.

“Jerome Powell has taken a fairly centrist approach to monetary policy in his votes for rates and only recently has had a more dovish tone based on the Fed’s September meeting,” said Wade Balliet, chief investment strategist at Bank of the West, in a note. “Powell’s views may closely resemble those of Yellen and could continue monetary policy on its current path—a welcomed message for financial markets. Based on Powell’s track record, confidence in the Fed may remain high.”

In economic news it was reported Monday that consumer spending leapt 1% in September, the biggest gain since 2009. Personal income rose 0.4%, but the savings rate fell to 3.1%, the lowest level since December 2007. Wednesday, the ISM manufacturing index fell to 58.7, slightly below forecasts, but still indicating robust growth.  Friday, ISM nonmanufacturing rose more than expected to come in at 60.1, the strongest reading since August 2005.

Also Friday, the October payroll report showed 261,000 jobs added last month. While this was well below the 325,000 that had been expected, there was positive news in the unemployment rate dipping to 4.1% from 4.2% (but the decline stemmed in part from a 765,000 plunge in the number of people in the labor force), the September report getting revised from a loss to a gain, and the August payroll tally also getting lifted. The October report suggested that there are still lingering effects from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which had muddled September’s labor-market results.

Apple rallied Monday and then again Friday.  When Apple is up, it is difficult for the NASDAQ to fall back as it’s such a heavy component of the index.  On Monday the stock jumped 2.3% to an all-time record close as the iPhone maker was seen as drawing healthy demand for its latest mobile device, the iPhone X.    Friday, the stock jumped after it reported earnings that easily beat estimates.   The market cap is near $900 billion… amazingly the stock is up nearly 50% this year.

Here is the 5 day weekly “intraday” chart of the S&P 500 .. via Jill Mislinski.

The week ahead…

Whew not much ahead really – earnings will continue but the Federal Reserve (and nomination) is out of the way and last week saw the key economic reports posted.

Index charts:

Short term: Bulls continue to win.

The Russell 2000 lost some leadership to the senior indexes here of late.

The NYSE McClellan Oscillator continues to show weakness, so we remain cautious short term (i.e. raise cash) for those of the trading bent.  This despite the market still rising.

Long term: Unicorns and rainbows continue.

Charts of interest / Big Movers:

Oil had a nice rally this past week.

Tuesday, Under Armour (UA) slid 24% on weaker-than-expected revenue and a profit warning by the sport-apparel maker.

Wednesday, Envision Healthcare (EVHC) tumbled 34% after hospital company late Tuesday revealed weaker than expected earnings and said it would review strategic alternatives that could include a sale.

Thursday, Tesla (TSLA) slumped 6.8% after the electric car maker late Wednesday reported a wider-than-expected loss.

While Facebook (FB) didn’t make a dramatic move, it is a much followed stock so we’ll give it a mention as it fell 2.1% Thursday even after earnings beat forecasts.

Friday,  Pandora (P) slumped 25% after the music-streaming company late Thursday said its loss widened in the third quarter.

Have a great week and we’ll see you back here Sunday!

Original article: Weekly Market Recap Nov 05, 2017.

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