IMF published updated forecasts this week, and here the summary:IMF has stopped doing 5 year forecasts this April, due to uncertainty induced by the COVID19 pandemic. Looking at the longer run effects of the pandemic, based on October 2019 (pre-Co…
Germany’s ifo Institute published June survey results for business confidence, reflecting the latest changes arising from the graduate, but fast, ‘normalization’ of economic activities. There are some improvements in forward expectations, set against v…
McKinsey’s handy graphic summarizing expected and actual outcomes of the racial inequality in terms of access to learning and education during the lockdowns phase of the pandemic:Pretty self-explanatory.
Sweden is a now a verifiable basket case amongst the Nordic countries when it comes to the country management of the COVID19 pandemic:The two charts above show that Sweden performance in both daily cases and deaths has been truly shockingly poor, compa…
Currently, compared to the pre-lockdown dynamics, daily cases and deaths in the U.S. warrant continued, if not accelerated severity of lockdowns, as opposed to relaxation of restrictions:In Europe, in contrast, new cases are relatively benign and curre…
Relaxation of the Covid19 pandemic restrictions is gaining momentum worldwide, with clusters of renewed concerns over the ‘second peak’ or ‘second wave’ dynamics. The problem is that global pandemic numbers remain extremely worrying:Total new cases are…
How influential is the U.S. mainstream media in defining public attitudes toward pandemic risk, decision-making under severe uncertainty and risks to their own health? It turns out – hugely influential.A new paper from a group of U.S. economists, title…
In a recent post, I covered the difference between M1 and MZM money supply, which effectively links money available to households and institutional investors for investment purposes, including households deposits that are available for investment by th…
Weekly data for initial unemployment claims for the week ending June 13, 2020 is out, so here are the updated ‘America’s Scariest Charts’:Index of employment, benchmarked to the pre-recession peak employment:Estimated total non-farm payrolls:And initia…
Some interesting movements in demand for gold coins in recent months, worth watching:Price is up, and volume of sales is quite volatile. Still, sales are hitting highs.Following weaker y/y January and February, March 2020 sales rose almost x10 y/y in v…