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Category: Economics/Business

Asia forms world’s biggest trade bloc, a China-backed group excluding U.S.

Asia forms world’s biggest trade bloc, a China-backed group excluding U.S.

Reuters reports: Fifteen Asia-Pacific economies formed the world’s largest free trade bloc on Sunday, a China-backed deal that excludes the United States, which had left a rival Asia-Pacific grouping under President Donald Trump. The signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) at a regional summit in Hanoi, is a further blow to the group pushed by former U.S. president Barack Obama, which his successor Trump exited in 2017. Amid questions over Washington’s engagement in Asia, RCEP may cement China’s…

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As Trump warns of economic disaster, Wall Street, hoping for stability, welcomes the prospect of a Biden win

As Trump warns of economic disaster, Wall Street, hoping for stability, welcomes the prospect of a Biden win

Politico reports: President Donald Trump loves to say that if Joe Biden wins the White House, stocks will crash, retirement accounts will vanish and an economic depression “the likes of which you’ve never seen” will engulf the nation. But much of Wall Street is already betting on a Biden win — with a much different take on what the results will mean. Traders in recent weeks have been piling into bets that a “blue wave” election, in which Democrats also…

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The challenge of reclaiming the commons from capitalism

The challenge of reclaiming the commons from capitalism

Dirk Philipsen writes: A basic truth is once again trying to break through the agony of worldwide pandemic and the enduring inhumanity of racist oppression. Healthcare workers risking their lives for others, mutual aid networks empowering neighbourhoods, farmers delivering food to quarantined customers, mothers forming lines to protect youth from police violence: we’re in this life together. We – young and old, citizen and immigrant – do best when we collaborate. Indeed, our only way to survive is to have…

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Florida sees signals of a climate-driven housing crisis

Florida sees signals of a climate-driven housing crisis

The New York Times reports: If rising seas cause America’s coastal housing market to dive — or, as many economists warn, when — the beginning might look a little like what’s happening in the tiny town of Bal Harbour, a glittering community on the northernmost tip of Miami Beach. With single-family homes selling for an average of $3.6 million, Bal Harbour epitomizes high-end Florida waterfront property. But around 2013, something started to change: The annual number of homes sales began…

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One cure for an ailing American economy: Legalize cannabis

One cure for an ailing American economy: Legalize cannabis

Tom Daschle writes: America’s next president will face an unprecedented array of challenges, chief among them an economy in ruins and an ugly social divide. Having served in government for nearly three decades, including as Senate majority leader, I know that there’s no silver bullet that can magically solve all of these problems. However, I’ve also learned that progress comes from unexpected places and that states often see the future before the federal government. Legalizing cannabis — as 40 states…

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If it doesn’t feel like a recession, you should be paying more in taxes

If it doesn’t feel like a recession, you should be paying more in taxes

Kitty Richards and Joseph E. Stiglitz write: As the coronavirus pandemic — and Congress’s undersize response — wreaks havoc throughout the economy, tax receipts are cratering. This means that state and local governments are facing enormous revenue shortfalls at the exact time they are dealing with large additional demands. So far, states and localities have responded by slashing spending and jobs, with 1.5 million public-sector workers laid off by the end of June. The federal government, which unlike most states…

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U.S. debt will overtake GDP next year for the first time since 1946, CBO says

U.S. debt will overtake GDP next year for the first time since 1946, CBO says

CNN reports: The US debt is projected to exceed the size of the entire country’s economy next year, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. It will be the first time the federal debt could be bigger than the US gross domestic product since 1946, just after World War II. The CBO also projected that the federal budget deficit will hit $3.3 trillion this year, more than triple the shortfall recorded in 2019. That would be the largest deficit as a…

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Population panic lets rich people off the hook for the climate crisis they are fueling

Population panic lets rich people off the hook for the climate crisis they are fueling

George Monbiot writes: When a major study was published last month, showing that the global population is likely to peak then crash much sooner than most scientists had assumed, I naively imagined that people in rich nations would at last stop blaming all the world’s environmental problems on population growth. I was wrong. If anything, it appears to have got worse. Next week the BirthStrike movement – founded by women who, by announcing their decision not to have children, seek…

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Oil companies wonder if it makes economic sense to continue oil exploration

Oil companies wonder if it makes economic sense to continue oil exploration

Bloomberg reports: A few dots near the bottom corner of the world map in the southern Atlantic, the Falkland Islands were once at the forefront of a new era for the oil industry as companies scoured the planet for resources. Yet a decade after the discovery of as much as 1.7 billion barrels of crude in surrounding waters, the British overseas territory known for sheep rearing and tension with Argentina looks as remote as ever. Rather than the next frontier,…

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The next global depression is coming and optimism won’t slow it down

The next global depression is coming and optimism won’t slow it down

Ian Bremmer writes: The world is confused and frightened. COVID-19 infections are on the rise across the U.S. and around the world, even in countries that once thought they had contained the virus. The outlook for the next year is at best uncertain; countries are rushing to produce and distribute vaccines at breakneck speeds, some opting to bypass critical phase trials. Meanwhile, unemployment numbers remain dizzyingly high, even as the U.S. stock market continues to defy gravity. We’re headed into…

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To rebuild our world, we must end the carbon economy

To rebuild our world, we must end the carbon economy

Jeffrey Sachs, Joseph Stiglitz, Mariana Mazzucato, Clair Brown, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, Robert Reich, Gabriel Zucman and others write: From deep-rooted racism to the Covid-19 pandemic, from extreme inequality to ecological collapse, our world is facing dire and deeply interconnected emergencies. But as much as the present moment painfully underscores the weaknesses of our economic system, it also gives us the rare opportunity to reimagine it. As we seek to rebuild our world, we can and must end the carbon economy. Even…

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BP will slash oil production by 40% and pour billions into green energy

BP will slash oil production by 40% and pour billions into green energy

CNN reports: BP is planning to slash oil and gas production and pour billions of dollars into clean energy as part of a major strategic overhaul unveiled on Tuesday, alongside a huge second quarter loss and dividend cut. The London-based company said that it plans a 10-fold increase in annual low carbon investments to $5 billion by 2030 as it tries to deliver on its promise of net zero emissions by 2050 and prepares for a world that uses much…

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One-third of New York’s small businesses may be gone forever

One-third of New York’s small businesses may be gone forever

The New York Times reports: In early March, Glady’s, a Caribbean restaurant in Brooklyn, was bringing in about $35,000 a week in revenue. The Bank Street Bookstore, a 50-year-old children’s shop in Manhattan, was preparing for busy spring and summer shopping seasons. And Busy Bodies, a play space for children in Brooklyn, had just wrapped up months of packed classes with long waiting lists. Five months later, those once prosperous businesses have evaporated. Glady’s and Busy Bodies are closed for…

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U.S. economy contracted at fastest quarterly rate on record

U.S. economy contracted at fastest quarterly rate on record

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. economy shrank 9.5 percent from April through June, the largest quarterly decline since the government began publishing data 70 years ago, and the latest, sobering reflection of the pandemic’s economic devastation. The second quarter report on gross domestic product covers some of the economy’s worst weeks in living memory, when commercial activity ground to a halt, millions of Americans lost their jobs and the nation went into lockdown. Yet economists say the data should…

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EU reaches ‘truly historic’ deal on pandemic recovery after fractious summit

EU reaches ‘truly historic’ deal on pandemic recovery after fractious summit

Reuters reports: European Union leaders clinched an “historic” deal on a massive stimulus plan for their coronavirus-throttled economies in the early hours of Tuesday, after a fractious summit lasting almost five days. The agreement paves the way for the European Commission, the EU’s executive, to raise billions of euros on capital markets on behalf of all 27 states, an unprecedented act of solidarity in almost seven decades of European integration. Summit chairman Charles Michel called the accord, reached at a…

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National mask mandate could save 5 percent of GDP, economists say

National mask mandate could save 5 percent of GDP, economists say

The Washington Post reports: After a late-spring lull, daily coronavirus cases in the United States have again hit record highs, driven by resurgent outbreaks in states such as Florida, Arizona and California. Hospitals in Houston are on the brink of being overwhelmed, and public health experts worry the pandemic’s death count will soon be climbing in tandem with the daily case load. The dire situation has raised the specter of another round of state-level stay-at-home orders to halt the pandemic’s…

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