Many fear the abrasive David Malpass will use the bank to pursue White House’s agendaUntil a month ago David Malpass was a civil servant at the US Treasury with die-hard Republican sympathies and an abrasive management style. Jim Yong Kim’s decision in January to step down as president of the World Bank means he is now in line to head the international community’s flagship development body.Kim’s...
Bank of England governor is warning that the global recovery is slowing, trade wars are hard to win, and Brexit will be an important testLatest: Carney on Brexit ‘acid test’Mark Carney: World economy is losing momentumCarney: Globalisation faces challengesEarlier:US officials holding trade talks in ChinaIntroduction: US lawmakers reach deal on funding 5.40pm GMT Finally, those Brexit worries ‘helped’...
Pelosi’s party must not be distracted by the president – or corporate voices on their side. Inequality is pulling the US apartDonald Trump says his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening will be about “unification”. But Trump discussing the state of the union is like pyromaniac discussing lighter fluids. His goal is, and has always been, disunion. Related: Trump: I ‘set the table beautifully’...
High employment rates gloss over a ‘much more complicated story’ of stagnant wages and vanishing mid-level jobsJanuary marked the 100th consecutive month of job creation in the United States – a record breaking streak of job creation that has left employers scrambling to find workers and dragged the long-term unemployed back into the market.Yet even now, 20m jobs later, there are some parts of...
304,000 jobs added in January despite government shutdownAnalyst calls report ‘much better than expected’The US jobs market has now added jobs for a record 100 months in a row – shaking off last month’s government shutdown to add 304,000 jobs in January. Related: US adds 312,000 jobs in December, far surpassing expectations Continue reading...
Online publisher announces job losses to shore up finances as Verizon unveils plan to sack 800 workersBuzzFeed has announced plans to lay off hundreds of staff, as digital media firms struggle to turn a profit while dealing with the same financial issues that have plagued traditional publishers for years.Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s founder, said about 200 staff would be leaving, while in a separate...
Christine Lagarde’s economic health check in Davos hints that Trump should change course These days it does not matter how much the US economy is pumped with steroids, if China cannot keep pace, the rest of the world slows down. Even the US begins to stagger.That is the message from the International Monetary Fund, which has supplemented its usual March and October biannual health checks on the global...
The racial wealth divide is bringing down median wealth, while wealth at the very top soarsAn economy that’s rigged to benefit the richest 1% has left most of America behind. While wages for workers have remained flat for decades, expenses for healthcare, housing, and most basic needs have risen. Alongside record concentrations of income and wealth at the top, America’s racial wealth divide has...
Escalation of Trump’s trade war with China also a threat, says World Economic OutlookA no-deal Brexit and a sharper slowdown in China are the biggest risks to growth in the global economy in 2019, the International Monetary Fund has warned in its latest economic outlook.Amid already falling levels of growth in Europe, China and Japan, the IMF said an escalation of the trade war between Donald Trump...
When the president is proud to close government and proud to slash taxes for the rich, American workers get shaftedOne of the least talked-about consequences of the partial shutdown of the US government – courtesy of Donald “I’m proud to shut down the government” Trump – is its negative effect on the US economy. Related: Republicans’ lack of alarm over the shutdown reveals a disturbing...
Instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations, we must demand that they pay their fair shareDonald Trump tells us the US economy is “absolutely booming”, the “strongest we’ve ever had” and “the greatest in the history of America”.Well, at his Mar-a-Lago country club where the price of admission has doubled to $200,000, he is right. The economy could not be better...
The bricks-and-mortar chain is the latest high-profile victim of the shift to online shopping but some wounds are self-inflictedThere can be few bleaker testaments to the beleaguered condition of US retail than the Sears department store in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Once a flagship of the world’s largest retailer, the landmarked art deco building was opened in 1932 by Eleanor Roosevelt, who made the first...
Beijing talks look to have neatly concluded, just in time for Trump to visit Davos and claim victoryEverything is slotting neatly into place for peace to be declared in the trade war between the US and China. The 90-day truce brokered between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping at the G20 summit last month is holding and talks at official level in Beijing this week have gone well.China’s eagerness for a...
Closure of agriculture department offices could not have come at a worse time for farmers awaiting emergency federal aid Just as American farmers thought Donald Trump had rescued them from the economic consequences of his trade war with China, along came the government shutdown. Related: American farmers fear being caught up in Trump's trade wars Related: The Iowa farmers on the frontline of Trump's...
Not just the eurozone at risk but countries further east and south, such as Belarus and Turkey A no-deal Brexit will have a negative economic impact from Moldova to Morocco, as the shockwaves sweep eastwards across Europe and through trade links to North Africa, the World Bank has warned.Unlike previous reports which focused on the UK and the 27 members of the European Union, the Washington-based organisation...
Policymakers who think fiscal policy alone is enough are setting themselves up for a shockIf you ask most central bankers around the world what their plan is for dealing with the next normal-size recession, you would be surprised how many (at least in advanced economies) say “fiscal policy”. Given the high odds of a recession over the next two years – about 40% in the US, for example – monetary...
Asian shares rise as fresh round of negotiations begins amid concerns about a slowdown in the Chinese economyUS and Chinese officials held their first face-to-face negotiations since a 90-day truce was declared in a trade war between Washington and Beijing, in the hope of ending a bruising confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.Hopes that the sixth round of negotiations between the...
Talks begin this week in Beijing to end the trade war – and even titans such as Apple are feeling its impactIt epitomises China’s position in the global economy that a seismic warning about its health last week came from a US company: Apple. The iPhone maker cut sales forecasts, citing the unforeseen “magnitude” of the economic slowdown in China – a vital growth market. At the same time the...
As US officials fly to Beijing for negotiations, the president says the Chinese ‘sort of have to’ make a deal on tariffs Donald Trump has said China’s weakening economic growth puts the United States in a strong position as negotiators from the world’s two largest economies prepare for trade talks on Monday.US officials are heading to Beijing this weekend for the first face-to-face talks since...
Growth in UK and US in focus after new year fears rattle markets 3.17pm GMT Nobody was expecting that. After a shortened week of trading marked by volatility and large sell-offs in household name stocks, led by Apple, US jobs data has given investors a reason to buy across the world.The FTSE 100 is up by more than 2% in afternoon trading, among a host of strong performances on European bourses. The...
