Tag: Business Columnists

The Gathering Recession

July 14, 2022
Business & MarketsBusiness ColumnistsOpinionperfect stormrecessionViewpoints
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Commentary “We got Hurricane Grace moving north off the Atlantic seaboard. Huge, getting massive. “Two, this low [front], south of Sable Island, ready to explode. “Three, a fresh cold front swooping down from Canada. But it’s caught a ride on the jet stream and is motoring hell-bent towards the Atlantic. What if Hurricane Grace runs…

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The Great Squeeze in Profit Margins

July 14, 2022
AnalysisBusiness & MarketsBusiness Columnistsconsumer price indexCPIinflationOpinionPPIproducer price indexprofit marginsprofitabilityU.S. economy
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Commentary It’s beyond me why the Consumer Price Index (CPI) garners so much attention from the press, but the statistical release the following day barely makes a dent in the news cycle. That is the Producer Price Index (PPI). In many ways, the PPI is more important because it forecasts the plight of the consuming…

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Biden Administration’s 6 Big Gambles on a Price Cap for Russian Oil: Part 2

July 14, 2022
biden administrationBusiness & MarketsBusiness ColumnistsChinaOpinionprice capRussian oilThinking About ChinaViewpoints
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Commentary The Biden administration is currently focused on pushing China, India, and Japan, along with America’s European allies, to agree to a price cap on Russian oil. The goal is to decrease inflation and mitigate the risk of a global recession—but at the expense of a tough ban on Russian oil. This is detailed in…

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How Much Did the US Government Pressure Twitter to Ban Alex Berenson?

July 13, 2022
Alex BerensonBusiness & MarketsBusiness ColumnistsFirst AmendmentOpinionTwitterViewpoints
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Commentary  In August 2021, Alex Berenson, a former journalist for The New York Times, was permanently banned from Twitter for writing the following lines about the COVID-19 shot. “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it—at best—as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect…

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CPI Wednesday Delivered Very Bad News

July 13, 2022
AnalysisBusiness & MarketsBusiness Columnistsconsumer price indexconsumer pricesCPIinflationOpinionproducer pricesrecessionU.S. economy
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Commentary Yesterday afternoon, the financial markets were roiled by an early release of the Consumer Price Index that turned out to be a fake. It looked real and markets were flooded with sellers because the number came in at 10.2 percent year over year. That would imply more extreme efforts by the Fed to crack…

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America’s Energy Independence

July 12, 2022
Business & MarketsBusiness Columnistseconomyenergyenergy independencefossil fuelsInvestmentNatural gasOilOpinionrenewablesViewpoints
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Commentary The United States is a big country with lots and lots of natural resources, but our energy independence is complicated. For instance, with oil, it was a much different story 140 years ago. Official numbers vary, but in 1880 the United States was responsible for 85–95 percent of world oil production and refining. John…

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Is a Serious Financial Crisis Next?

July 12, 2022
AnalysisBank RunBusiness & MarketsBusiness Columnistsfinancial crisisinflationlockdownsmandatesOpinionU.S. economyvaccine passports
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Commentary Be grateful for what did not happen. Two and a half years ago, governments around the world took the unprecedented step of “shutting down” their economies, which means the extreme control of people and their choices. This has proven to be devastating to prosperity, education, culture, health, and the prospects for liberty. Anyone could…

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Investors Just Poured $5.8 Billion Into China

July 12, 2022
Business & MarketsBusiness ColumnistsChinese stocksETFsglobal investorsOpinionThinking About ChinaViewpoints
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Commentary Global investors have started pouring money into Chinese stocks again, with a record $5.8 billion invested in Chinese equity exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in June. The figure is a record for China, according to BlackRock, which publishes monthly data on Chinese equity ETFs stretching back to 2012. ETFs are baskets of securities that investors buy…

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The Deadly Wisdom of Economics

July 11, 2022
Business & MarketsBusiness ColumnistseconomicseconomyinflationInvestmentrecession
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Commentary The war in Ukraine has emphasized Western Europe’s dependence upon Russian energy exports, and a group of mainstream economists decided to consider what might happen to the German economy if Russia effectively reduced the supply of energy to Germany by 10 percent. Their conclusion, in a working paper entitled “What if? The macroeconomic and…

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American Loathing of Inflation Is in the Cultural DNA

July 11, 2022
AnalysisBusiness & MarketsBusiness ColumnistsinflationOpinionpovertyprice controlsshortagesU.S. economy
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Analysis This morning I was speaking with a gentleman who lives in New York City. He is highly trained. He has a good job. He is professionally ambitious. But, he says, these days he is struggling to afford food. After the high expense of rent and transportation, along with all the other strange ways the…

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