As of yesterday, the gross national debt is $31 trillion. This is a new record no one should be proud of. In the past 18 months, we’ve witnessed inflation rise to a 40-year high, interest rates climbing in part to combat this inflation, and several budget-busting pieces of legislation and executive actions. Just in 2022, Congress and the President have approved a combined $1.9 trillion in new borrowing, and President Biden has approved $4.9 trillion in new deficits since taking office. We are addicted to debt.

For decades, lawmakers have chosen to pass politically easy policies rather than face the challenges of true governing. Consider this: it was only five years ago that our country marked $20 trillion in gross debt. While much of that new borrowing was necessary to combat COVID, we are now past the most severe challenges of the pandemic, and it is time to budget responsibly – yet we are still borrowing.

Even more troubling than where the debt stands now is where it’s going. Our nation faces significant fiscal challenges in the near term. Medicare is only six years from insolvency, and Social Security insolvency is only 12 years away. Yet policymakers have put forth no plan to put either program on strong fiscal footing.

Read it all.

"As of yesterday, the gross national debt is $31 trillion. This is a new record no one should be proud of." https://t.co/JLTh4UqSiD

— CRFB.org (@BudgetHawks) October 4, 2022

It is hard not to feel a sense of foreboding. As the Federal Reserve has tightened policy, asset prices have plunged. Stocks, as measured by the Wilshire 5000 all-cap index, have shed $12trn of market capitalisation since January. Another $7trn has been wiped off bonds, which have lost 14% of their value. Some $2trn of crypto market-cap has vanished over the past year. House prices adjust more slowly, but are falling. Mortgage rates have hit 7%, up from 3% last year. And this is all in America—one of the world’s strongest economies.

Rising rates will slow the American economy and should break the back of inflation. But what else will they break? Since the Federal Reserve raised rates again on September 22nd, global markets have been in turmoil. When the British government announced unfunded tax cuts a day later, fire-sales by pension funds caused the yield on government bonds (or “gilts”) to spiral out of control. Contagion then spread to the American Treasury market, which is as volatile and illiquid as it was at the start of covid-19. The cost to insure against the default of Credit Suisse, a global bank, has risen sharply. These ructions indicate the world is entering a new phase, in which financial markets no longer just reflect the pain of adjusting to the new economic context—pricing in higher rates and lower growth—but now also spread pain of their own.

The most catastrophic pain is felt when financial institutions fail. There are two ways they do so: illiquidity or insolvency. Tighter monetary policy is likely to prompt or reveal both.

Read it all.

Rising rates will slow the American economy and should break the back of inflation. But what else will they break? https://t.co/9jMyduKXBk

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 5, 2022

The Church of England has threatened to use its influence as a multimillion-pound investor in companies such as Meta, Google and Amazon to challenge them if they fail to protect children from harmful content.

Investing in big technology firms and social media sites “may not be consistent with Christian values”, the Church said. It has issued a list of demands to the companies it invests in, including a call for “enhanced protections” for children.

It has £10.1 billion in assets and investments across a range of sectors, and already uses its clout as a big-money investor in oil firms to lobby them to step up their efforts to tackle climate change.

Among its 20 biggest equity holdings are Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba, Meta and Alphabet, parent companyt of Google. It does not disclose how much it invests in each.

Read it all (subscription).

The Church of England has threatened to use its influence as a multimillion-pound investor in companies such as Meta, Google and Amazon to challenge them if they fail to protect children from harmful contenthttps://t.co/bkFGnef57K

— Ann Mroz (@AnnMroz) October 3, 2022

The world’s financial markets are going through their most painful adjustment since the global financial crisis. Adapting to the prospect of higher American interest rates, the ten-year Treasury yield briefly hit 4% this week, its highest level since 2010. Global stock markets have sold off sharply, and bond portfolios have lost an astonishing 21% this year.

The dollar is crushing all comers. The greenback is up by 5.5% since mid-August on a trade-weighted basis, partly because the Fed is raising rates but also because investors are backing away from risk. Across Asia, governments are intervening to resist the depreciation of their currencies. In Europe Britain has poured the fuel of reckless fiscal policy on the fire, causing it to lose the confidence of investors. And as bond yields surge, the euro zone’s indebted economies are looking their most fragile since the sovereign-debt crisis a decade ago.

Read it all.

Even America’s economy, which has been resilient in the face of headwinds this year, is unlikely to keep growing through an interest ­rate shock as severe as the one it now faces https://t.co/JiaMak87kP

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) September 30, 2022

Read it all.

It was meant to usher in an era of economic growth. Instead the 25-minute statement that Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s new chancellor of the exchequer, gave on September 23rd kickstarted a crisis. By unveiling £45bn ($48bn) of unfunded tax cuts, alongside temporary measures to help with energy bills, Mr Kwarteng spooked financial markets in spectacular fashion. Most of the tax cuts and emergency spending had been signalled, but the vaunted supply-side reforms needed to pay for them were vague and the new government’s approach to the public finances was cavalier. Worse, the backdrop to Mr Kwarteng’s epic budget-busting was a slump in bond markets that raised borrowing costs for even the most creditworthy governments.

As investors took fright, gilt yields surged, prompting the Bank of England to say on September 28th that it was ready to buy unlimited quantities of long-dated bonds to restore order to financial markets. Earlier, the pound had crashed to its lowest level ever against the dollar. Although sterling has since rebounded, markets still imply a 40% chance that it will reach parity with the dollar. Comparisons between Britain and emerging markets swirled; the imf slammed Mr Kwarteng’s plan. After the worst start to a new administration in memory, people are already asking how long the new prime minister, Liz Truss, may last.

Yet another Conservative leadership contest would be ridiculous rather than ruthless. And Mr Kwarteng’s budget is unlikely to lead to a balance-of-payments crisis. Britain has a flexible exchange rate, it has minimal debt denominated in foreign currencies and its central bank is independent from the government. Even so, the economic and political damage from the past week is immense—and immensely frustrating.

Read it all.

Britain’s new government may already be dead in the water. It has shredded its own reputation and poisoned the politics of growth https://t.co/3lhvemDjZA pic.twitter.com/4EtZ1fydzd

— The Economist US (@EconUS) September 29, 2022

The economic damage from the shutdown of Russian gas flows is piling up fast in Europe and risks eventually eclipsing the impact of the global financial crisis.

With a continent-wide recession now seemingly inevitable, a harsh winter is coming for chemical producers, steel plants and car manufacturers starved of essential raw materials who’ve joined households in sounding the alarm over rocketing energy bills. The suspected sabotage of Germany’s main pipeline for gas from Russia underlined that Europe will have to survive without any significant Russian flows.

Building on a model of the European energy market and economy, the Bloomberg Economics base case is now a 1% drop in gross domestic product, with the downturn starting in the fourth quarter. If the coming months turn especially icy and the 27 members of the European Union fail to efficiently share scarce fuel supplies, the contraction could be as much as 5%.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

The suspected sabotage of Germany’s main pipeline for gas from Russia underlined fears that Europe will have to survive without any significant Russian flows https://t.co/RZ8OCF0fdV

— Bloomberg (@business) September 27, 2022

The importance of the economy in the upcoming election is underscored by measures showing how poorly Americans rate economic conditions today. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index is at one of its lowest points over the past 30 years (although not as low as in 2008). About eight in 10 Americans rate the economy as “only fair” or “poor,” and over two-thirds say the economy is getting worse, not better.

Americans’ low confidence in the economy persists despite the fact that about seven in 10 U.S. adults say it is a good time to find a quality job, among the highest such readings across Gallup’s history of asking this question.

That seeming contradiction — inflation and the economy as major concerns at a time when employment is recognized as being robust — highlights one of the difficulties in assessing what the public wants to be done about the economy. I will have more on that below.

Surveys show that Americans are personally feeling the negative effects of inflation, highlighting its potency as an issue this fall. My colleague Jeff Jones recently summarized Gallup data on the personal impact of inflation, noting that “a majority of Americans now say they are experiencing financial hardship from higher prices.” Jeff goes on to review a variety of actions the public is having to take in efforts to deal with the issue, including cutting back on spending and reducing travel.

An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted earlier this month similarly shows that twice as many Americans say their personal finances have gotten worse over the past year as say they have gotten better. And over seven in 10 report they “have had to cut back on, at least, one necessity or nicety in the past six months to meet their monthly expenses.”

Read it all.

U.S. Public Opinion and the Election: the Economy https://t.co/UBcd3WJ34U

— Carlos Obrador Garrido (@carlobrador) September 23, 2022

The world can kiss goodbye to an economic soft landing. Western central banks are on a misguided mission to restore their damaged credibility, tightening monetary policy violently after the post-pandemic recovery has already wilted and output is nearing contractionary levels.

Britain’s fiscal blitz has the luck of timing. It is a counter-cyclical stimulus, cushioning some of the blow, even if it risks rattling bond vigilantes, and even if it is wasteful in subsidies for the affluent.

Critics say the energy bailout will cap inflation in the short run but stoke more inflation in the long run, to which one can only reply, like Keynes, that in the long run we are all dead. World events are going to wash over such quibbling with a torrential deflationary force.

The central banks are pushing through with triple-barrelled rate rises after the inflation fever has broken; after the commodity boom has deflated; and after key monetary indicators on both sides of the Atlantic have turned negative. They are prisoners of lagging indicators.

Read it all.

✍️"Inflation will abate gradually of its own accord across the Atlantic world, without the need for a punishment beating by central banks with bad models. Boom-bust monetary policy is frankly a scandal," writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard https://t.co/InfJuu0hpD

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) September 23, 2022

Since the start of the 21st century, per capita growth dropped to less than half its previous 1950-2000 tempo. With the rate creaking along now at just over 1 percent per annum, incomes would take more than 60 years to double; from 1980-1999, the doubling pace was 31 years.

A significant factor in modern America’s slower growth — and the lower expectations it unforgivingly imposes — is the drop-off in work. The country is aging, of course, but population graying does not explain the collapse of employment for men of the 25-54 prime working age (women’s labor force participation rates have been declining too, but not as steeply). Nor can it account for the anomalous emergence of a peacetime labor shortage in post-pandemic America, even as workforce participation rates remain stuck well below pre-pandemic levels.

Instead, these are manifestations of a troubling, once unfamiliar but now increasingly entrenched syndrome. Call it the “flight from work.”

Although the unemployment rate for prime-age men in August was a mere 3 percent, only 86 percent reported any paid labor. The remaining 11 percent were labor-force dropouts — neither working nor looking for work. These “not in labor force” men, who now outnumber the formally unemployed by more than 4 to 1, are the main reason that the country’s prime male work rate has been driven below its 1940 level — when national unemployment rates were nearly 15 percent.

Astonishingly, yes, the United States has a Depression-scale work problem.

Read it all.

The United States has a Depression-scale work problem. The prime-age male work rate is below its 1940 level. Labor-force dropouts are the main reason, Nicholas Eberstadt of @AEI writes in a guest opinion. https://t.co/GIPxUJ4Df3

— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) September 21, 2022

Federal Reserve officials, struggling to contain the most rapid inflation in 40 years, delivered a third big rate increase on Wednesday and projected a more aggressive path ahead for monetary policy, one that would lift interest rates higher and keep them elevated longer.

The Fed raised its policy interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, boosting it to a range of 3 to 3.25 percent. That’s a significant jump from as recently as March, when the federal funds rate was set at near-zero, and the increases since then have made for the Fed’s fastest policy adjustment since the 1980s.

Even more notably, policymakers predicted on Wednesday that they would raise borrowing costs to 4.4 percent by the end of the year and forecast markedly higher interest rates in the years to come than they had previously expected. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, warned that those moves would be painful for the U.S. economy — but said curbing growth to contain price increases was essential.

“We have got to get inflation behind us,” Mr. Powell said during his post-meeting news conference. “I wish there were a painless way to do that; there isn’t.”

Read it all.

The policy interest rate rose three-quarters of a percentage point, to a range of 3 to 3.25 percent.https://t.co/7rK00RO5Vk

— NYT Business (@nytimesbusiness) September 22, 2022

Joseph White, who lives in Nashville, lost his job at Guitar Center six months into the pandemic. But he says he’d had enough: The store was constantly short-staffed and customers were intractable. In one instance, a shopper pulled a gun on him for trying to enforce the company’s mask mandate.

“I’m tired, I’m broken down, worn out and old,” the 62-year-old said. “I was worked to death for so long that finally, I said, there’s no way I’m going back.”

He’s begun drawing on Social Security payments to make ends meet, and helps his wife run her small shop, Black Dog Beads. But White says he has no intention of joining the labor force again.

“Our quality of life is far better even though we have less income,” he said. “I got tired of being a commodity.”

Read it all.

Reinvent jobs to be attractive to the 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day & the worker shortage is partially solved. Retirees will pursue encore work on their own terms, e.g, working remotely, 3-4 days a wk, unpaid leave opps, etc. #writingcommunity https://t.co/dDU79XuQRR

— J.B. Watson, Jr., Ph.D. (@GWashingtonInde) September 17, 2022

The 120km train ride between the cities of Luoyang and Zhengzhou is a showcase of economic malaise and broken dreams. From the window endless, half-built residential towers pass one after another for the duration of the hour-long journey. Many of the buildings are near completion; some are finished and have become homes. But many more are skeletons where construction ceased long ago. Developers have run out of cash and can no longer pay workers. Projects have stalled. Families will never get their homes.

The train ride through China’s heartland helps to explain one of the country’s biggest crises in recent memory: the public’s loss of confidence in the government’s economic model. For decades the property industry has been symbolic of China’s rise. Private entrepreneurs have made vast fortunes. Average people have witnessed their net worth soar as home values trebled. Local governments have filled their coffers by selling vast tracts of land to developers. An astonishing 70% of Chinese household wealth is now tied up in real estate.

To undermine trust in this model is to shake the foundations of China’s growth miracle. With sweeping covid-19 lockdowns and a crackdown on private entrepreneurs, this is happening on many fronts. But nowhere is it clearer than in the property industry, which makes up around a fifth of gdp….

Read it all.

To undermine trust in the government’s economic model is to shake the foundations of China’s growth miracle https://t.co/jTSwESdVxM

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) September 15, 2022

A looming US railway strike has already halted shipments of a critical fertilizer ingredient at a time when American farmers need it the most.

Rail officials are no longer shipping ammonia, an important component of about three quarters of all fertilizer, because it would be dangerous if the hazardous material was stranded during a potential rail strike, according to the Association of American Railroads. Ammonia is used in explosives as well as being an essential nutrient for plants.

While the average consumer rarely thinks about fertilizer, it can make or break crop production. Global food prices have touched records in recent months as inflation ripples through economies and hunger levels rise. The cost of growing food in the US is set to rise by the most ever in 2022.

Any rail disruptions would come at a time of peak demand. After the latest crop is harvested, North American farmers will need to apply fertilizer to replenish nutrients in the soil that are lost during the growing season. The chemicals are already scarce because plants have shut down in Europe due to the energy crisis there, and the war in Ukraine is hampering shipments.

Read it all.

NYT top #economy #railstrike #labourmarket #unions #workers pic.twitter.com/VY2djSuG3i

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) September 14, 2022

Economists said that the Consumer Price Index data cemented the case for a third straight, unusually large three-quarter percentage point Fed rate increase at the central bank’s meeting next week, and stocks swooned as investors began to speculate that officials could opt for an even more drastic full percentage point adjustment.

“Inflation remains hot, financial conditions have seen some improvement and the labor markets are humming along,” Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro, wrote in a research note following the release. “If the goal is to slow things down and create some pain, the Fed is failing by its own standard.”

The Fed closely watches the core inflation gauge, making its rebound in August a point of particular concern. After cutting out food and fuel, consumer prices climbed by 6.3 percent in the year through last month, up from 5.9 percent in July and more than the 6.1 percent economists had projected.

Even looking at overall inflation, the report’s details offered plenty to worry about.

Read it all.

Rapidly rising rents and grocery prices, unfortunately, more than offset the relief of >90 days of falling gas prices. High inflation remains at levels not seen in over 40 years. https://t.co/OpOBY7X408

— Michael C. Khouw (@Michael_Khouw) September 13, 2022

A majority of Americans, 56%, now say price increases are causing financial hardship for their household, up from 49% in January and 45% in November. The latest reading includes 12% who describe the hardship as severe and 44% as moderate.

The results are based on an Aug. 1-22 web survey that interviewed over 1,500 members of Gallup’s probability-based panel.

Although more Americans now than last fall say they are experiencing hardship, the percentage who are suffering severe hardship has held relatively steady at around 10%. Lower-income Americans are more likely than others to be experiencing severe hardship — 26% of those whose annual household income is less than $48,000 say prices are causing severe hardship for their families. That compares with 12% of middle-income Americans and 4% of upper-income Americans.

Lower-income Americans are about as likely now as last fall to say they are experiencing either severe or moderate hardship — 74%, compared with 70% in November.

Read it all.

56% of U.S. adults now say rising prices have caused financial hardship for their family, including 12% who describe the hardship as “severe.” https://t.co/IOJGmN6KiX

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) September 7, 2022

Shouting fire in theatre is something not done lightly, unless there actually is a fire in the theatre. For Europe’s economy, I think it is time to shout. What we are about to see this autumn and winter is not your standard recession, but the kind of shock that will shape our memories and narratives for the rest of the century.

Last week, I saw a projection of a 5% GDP shock for Germany, based on energy futures prices. In case of an ongoing stop to gas flows and a cold winter, the recession could be worse. Gazprom already announced an indefinite stop of flows through Nord Stream 1, apparently because of an oil leak.

The main quality of the ongoing recession is not so much its measured impact on GDP – though it will probably be substantial. It is the fact that we have exhausted our policy options. Monetary policy in the last decade went way overboard with large-scale quantitative easing and its subsequent refusal to reverse it. The west reacted to the pandemic with the biggest fiscal stimulus package in history.

Economists keep on telling us that we need fiscal expansion in a recession. I agree with that. But what is different this century from the previous one is that we keep on doubling down with stimulus and monetary easing. And we never grow out of the debt.

Read it all.

In my latest column, I write about why Germany's recession is not only unusually severe, but different in kind.https://t.co/miKRJoRpN8

— Wolfgang Munchau (@EuroBriefing) September 5, 2022

“Quiet quitters” make up at least 50% of the U.S. workforce — probably more, Gallup finds.

The trend toward quiet quitting — the idea spreading virally on social media that millions of people are not going above and beyond at work and just meeting their job description — could get worse. This is a problem because most jobs today require some level of extra effort to collaborate with coworkers and meet customer needs.

U.S. employee engagement took another step backward during the second quarter of 2022, with the proportion of engaged workers remaining at 32% but the proportion of actively disengaged increasing to 18%. The ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is now 1.8 to 1, the lowest in almost a decade.

The drop in engagement began in the second half of 2021 and was concurrent with the rise in job resignations. Managers, among others, experienced the greatest drop.

Read it all.

Is Quiet Quitting Real? Jim Harter via @GallupWorkplace https://t.co/wWFaPQp6gU •At least half of the U.S. workforce is quiet quitting
•The workplace, amid the pandemic, got worse for younger workers

— Kitty Wooley (@kwooleyy) September 6, 2022

[Diocesan PR] Columbia, S.C. (August 17, 2022) – [Yesterday], the South Carolina Supreme Court granted petitions for rehearing filed by six of seven parishes of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina.

“We are grateful and heartened that the property rights of six more parishes were affirmed by this ruling,” said the Rev. Canon Jim Lewis. “Today we rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn, but the balance is with rejoicing.” With today’s revised opinion, all property ownership questions are finally settled.

The six churches whose petitions were granted today are: the Church of the Holy Cross (Stateburg), the Church of the Holy Comforter (Sumter), St. Jude’s Church (Walterboro), Old St. Andrew’s (Charleston), St. Luke’s Church (Hilton Head) and Trinity Church (Myrtle Beach).

These six churches, along with 21 others, have now had their property rights affirmed by the Supreme Court. Today’s opinion followed the Court’s earlier April 20 ruling in determining if a parish had created a trust interest in its property in favor of The Episcopal Church (TEC) or its local Diocese (TECSC). Four of the parishes in today’s ruling were judged to have never created a trust, based on that earlier standard. Two more were judged to have created a revocable trust, which they subsequently and properly revoked.

The earlier April 20 ruling stated that 15 parish properties of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina will also remain with the Anglican Diocese. They are: All Saints, Florence; Church of our Savior, John’s Island; Church of the Cross, Bluffton; Christ-St. Paul’s, Yonges Island; Epiphany, Eutawville; Redeemer, Orangeburg; Resurrection, Surfside/Myrtle Beach; St. Helena’s, Beaufort; St. Paul’s, Bennettsville; St. Paul’s, Summerville; St. Philip’s, Charleston; St. Luke & St. Paul, Charleston; St. Michael’s, Charleston; Trinity, Edisto; and Trinity, Pinopolis. Of the 36 parishes that were parties to this litigation, 28 have had their property rights upheld. All 36 will continue their parish ministries going forward, though some in new locations.

Only one additional parish, the Church of the Good Shepherd, Charleston was ruled today to have created a trust interest in their property on behalf of TEC and TECSC.

In addition to the Church of the Good Shepherd, the April 20 opinion called for transfer of the deeds to Christ Church, Mt. Pleasant; Holy Trinity, Charleston; St. Bartholomew’s, Hartsville; St. David’s, Cheraw; St. Matthew’s, Fort Motte; St. James, Charleston and St. John’s, Johns Island to the Episcopal Church and it’s local diocese, the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

Conversations between the Anglican Diocese, its parishes and the Episcopal Diocese concerning these properties are ongoing. Anglican Diocese Bishop Charles F. Edgar has met with Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, the leader of the Episcopal Diocese several times to reach resolution on the remaining questions.

The #SouthCarolina Supreme Court Approves Petition for Rehearing Sought by Six Parishes of the #Anglican Diocese of South Carolina https://t.co/bR4pRfZoAr #parishministry #law #religion #history TK pic.twitter.com/3uNpG0jYqQ

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) August 18, 2022

US consumers are standing firm in the face of hot inflation and rising interest rates — even if they’re spending with a little less gusto and a lot more frustration.

Retail sales excluding a price-induced drop in gas station receipts and a drop in motor vehicle purchases rose a better-than-expected 0.7% in July, Commerce Department data showed Wednesday. Building-materials outlets, electronics and appliances stores and online merchants were among those with firm gains in receipts before adjusting for inflation…..

“The most important takeaway is that consumer spending on goods is continuing to increase, even as the bulk of their energies have shifted to services,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities.

With China’s economy slowing down, Europe likely heading into a recession amid skyrocketing energy prices, the resilience of the American consumer so far is all the more remarkable….

Read it all.

US consumers are standing firm in the face of hot inflation and rising interest rates — even if they’re spending with a little less gusto and a lot more frustration https://t.co/APS1iHi80I via @markets

— Robert Burgess (@BobOnMarkets) August 17, 2022

The problem is not a lack of water per se. Climate change may make some places drier and others wetter. It is the uneven distribution of freshwater—of which fast-growing places like India are woefully short—that provide the conditions for a crisis. This is made worse by waste, pollution and the near-universal underpricing of water. Some governments, notably China’s, have created pharaonic projects to transport water to where it is needed. Others, such as Mr López Obrador’s, peddle the quixotic idea of moving demand to where the water is. The best outcome in the long term, on paper at least, is the simplest: that less of the stuff is used, and more of what is used is treated better. It is something the private sector is just starting to grapple with.

Industries directly affected by water shortages have got a head start. Global mining firms are using desalination plants in Chile. Beer and soft-drinks companies, existentially reliant on clean water, have targets for improving efficiency (Heineken says it uses 2.5 litres of water to make a litre of beer in Mexico, about half the global industry average). In collaboration with the wri, Cargill, an agro-industrial behemoth, recently extended the monitoring of water use from its own operations to the farmers who supply its crops. Fashion retailers, whose suppliers are often heavy users of water and dyes in dry areas, are considering similar moves, to avoid angry flare-ups by local residents who worry about being second in line to the taps.

This calls for careful stewardship.

Read it all.

As a heavily subsidised raw material, water is so cheap that many ceos overlook it. A report this year by Planet Tracker and cdp, two ngos, said that about a third of listed banks do not assess water risks in their portfolios. https://t.co/9wIpsGUZVJ

— Guillaume LOURIAIS (@glouriais) August 18, 2022

Germany’s Rhine river will become impassable for barges carrying coal, oil and gas later this week, in a devastating blow to factories upriver.

Levels at Kaub, a key point along the waterway west of Frankfurt, are predicted to fall to below 40cm on Friday, according to the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration.

At that chokepoint, the river becomes effectively impassable for many barges, which use the Rhine to move a range of goods including coal, oil and gas.

Water levels will then fall further to 37cm on Saturday, officials warned.

The river runs from Switzerland through France and Germany to the Netherlands, where it joins the North Sea.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

🇩🇪The Rhine is close to running dry in a German energy nightmare.

Rhine water levels at Kaub will soon make it impassable for barges carrying coal and gas imports#Thread 👇https://t.co/zxifmOBgJB pic.twitter.com/Oa0cSNcDMu

— Telegraph World News (@TelegraphWorld) August 10, 2022

For Theresa Clarke, a retiree in New Canaan, Conn., the rising cost of living means not buying Goldfish crackers for her disabled daughter because a carton costs $11.99 at her local Stop & Shop. It means showering at the YMCA to save on her hot water bill. And it means watching her bank account dwindle to $50 because, as someone on a fixed income who never made much money to start with, there aren’t many other places she can trim her spending as prices rise.

“There is nothing to cut back on,” she said.

Jordan Trevino, 28, who recently took a better paying job in advertising in Los Angeles with a $100,000 salary, is economizing in little ways — ordering a cheaper entree when out to dinner, for example. But he is still planning a wedding next year and a honeymoon in Italy.

And David Schoenfeld, who made about $250,000 in retirement income and consulting fees last year and has about $5 million in savings, hasn’t pared back his spending. He has just returned from a vacation in Greece, with his daughter and two of his grandchildren.

Read it all.

The poor are disproportionately affected by high inflation. They are *also* disproportionately affected by high unemployment — which is the likely consequence of the Fed's efforts to fight inflation.
My latest w/ @jeannasmialek:https://t.co/RpUDpci1e2

— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) August 8, 2022

The Federal Reserve continued its campaign of rapid interest rate increases on Wednesday, pushing up borrowing costs at the fastest pace in decades in an effort to wrestle inflation under control.

Fed officials voted unanimously at their July meeting for the second supersized rate increase in a row — a three-quarter-point move — and signaled that another large adjustment could be coming at their next meeting in September, though that remains to be decided. The decision on Wednesday puts the Fed’s policy rate in a range of 2.25 to 2.5 percent.

The central bank’s brisk moves are intended to slow the economy by making it more expensive to borrow money to buy a house or expand a business, weighing on the housing market and economic activity more broadly. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said during a news conference after the meeting that such a cool-down was needed to allow supply to catch up with demand so that inflation could moderate.

ADVE

Read it all.

I've been doing this for ~a decade, and I can't remember another time when such a chorus of strategists/sell-side economists/close central bank watchers so bluntly said: "Nope. The market read the Fed wrong." https://t.co/Jy36gAlIEP

— Jeanna Smialek (@jeannasmialek) July 28, 2022

America’s small businesses can’t catch a break.

After two years of shutdowns and restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they’re straining to keep up with price increases without losing customers to larger competitors. They are struggling to keep positions filled as competition for workers remains at a fever pitch. And just at the moment that many business owners begin to recover and shore up their depleted savings, they’re worried that the Federal Reserve’s medicine for inflation will bring fresh hardship: higher borrowing costs and timid consumers.

Surveys show that small-business sentiment has taken a markedly pessimistic turn in recent months — even more so than that of professional forecasters and of corporate executives.

In June, the National Federation of Independent Business measured its lowest reading ever for economic expectations. The nonprofit Small Business Majority, in a survey in mid-July, found that nearly one in three small businesses couldn’t survive for more than three months without additional capital or a change in business conditions. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Index for the second quarter showed that inflation had skyrocketed to the top of owners’ concerns. Seventy-five percent of participants in Goldman Sachs’s small-business coaching program reported that higher costs had impaired their finances.

Read it all.

New from me: Small businesses got help to weather the pandemic, but keep taking hit after hit — from high prices to rising interest rates — and no more help is on the horizon. https://t.co/i8jxDb4H49

— Lydia DePillis (@lydiadepillis) July 26, 2022

The Democratic Republic of Congo, home to one of the largest old-growth rainforests on earth, is auctioning off vast amounts of land in a push to become “the new destination for oil investments,” part of a global shift as the world retreats on fighting climate change in a scramble for fossil fuels.

The oil and gas blocks, which will be auctioned in late July, extend into Virunga National Park, the world’s most important gorilla sanctuary, as well as tropical peatlands that store vast amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere and from contributing to global warming.

“If oil exploitation takes place in these areas, we must expect a global climate catastrophe, and we will all just have to watch helplessly,” said Irene Wabiwa, who oversees the Congo Basin forest campaign for Greenpeace in Kinshasa.

Read it all.

A term I learned reporting this story: climate colonialism.
Western countries that built their prosperity on fossil fuels that emit planet-warming fumes demanding Africa forgo reserves of oil/gas/coal to protect everyone else. w/@ruthmaclean https://t.co/7spghRsO85

— Dionne Searcey (@dionnesearcey) July 25, 2022

On April 27, an unknown individual or group deliberately cut crucial long-distance internet cables across multiple sites near Paris, plunging thousands of people into a connectivity blackout. The vandalism was one of the most significant internet infrastructure attacks in France’s history and highlights the vulnerability of key communications technologies.

Now, months after the attacks took place, French internet companies and telecom experts familiar with the incidents say the damage was more wide-ranging than initially reported and extra security measures are needed to prevent future attacks. In total, around 10 internet and infrastructure companies—from ISPs to cable owners—were impacted by the attacks, telecom insiders say.

The assault against the internet started during the early hours of April 27. “The people knew what they were doing,” says Michel Combot, the managing director of the French Telecoms Federation, which is made up of more than a dozen internet companies. In the space of around two hours, cables were surgically cut and damaged in three locations around the French capital city—to the north, south, and east—including near Disneyland Paris.

“Those were what we call backbone cables that were mostly connecting network service from Paris to other locations in France, in three directions,” Combot says. “That impacted the connectivity in several parts of France.” As a result, internet connections dropped out for some people. Others experienced slower connections, including on mobile networks, as internet traffic was rerouted around the severed cables.

All three incidents are believed to have happened at roughly the same time and were conducted in similar ways—distinguishing them from other attacks against telecom towers and internet infrastructure.

Read it all.

In April, a still-unknown individual or group cut internet cables near Paris, plunging thousands into a connectivity blackout.

Now experts say the damage was more wide-ranging than initially reported. https://t.co/gVXiokGN8J

— WIRED (@WIRED) July 22, 2022

Ukraine and Russia have signed “mirror” deals which will allow Kyiv to resume exports of grain through the Black Sea.

The agreement will allow millions of tonnes of grain, currently trapped in Ukraine by the war, to be exported.

The world shortage of Ukrainian grain since Russia’s 24 February invasion has left millions at risk of hunger.

However, Kyiv refused to sign a direct deal with Moscow, and warned “provocations” would be met with “an immediate military response”.

Both sides attended the signing ceremony in Istanbul but did not sit at the same table. Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu signed Moscow’s deal first, followed by Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov signing Kyiv’s identical agreement.

Read it all.

Putin’s illegal war has pushed many millions of the world’s most vulnerable to the brink of starvation.

This development is a beacon of hope for the months ahead.

There’s no time to waste, the deal must be implemented fully and without delay. https://t.co/NV8LG1R9zb

— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) July 22, 2022

The percentage of young adults living with parents, grandparents, or older siblings or roommates has nearly tripled since 1971, new data from the Pew Research Center shows.

In a 2021 survey of nearly 10,000 Americans, one in four adults from ages 25 to 34 lived in a “multigenerational family household” — defined as a household of adults 25 and older that includes two or more generations. About 9% of adults had these living circumstances in 1971, the report said.

While most young adults in multigenerational households lived in households led by one (39%) or two parents (47%) — the most common arrangements — about 14% lived in a household headed by someone other than a parent, such as a grandparent, sibling, roommate or an unmarried partner.

In contrast, 15% of young adults had at least one parent who had moved in with them, according to Pew.

Read it all.

The percentage of young adults living with parents, grandparents, older siblings or roommates has nearly tripled since 1971, new data from the Pew Research Center shows. https://t.co/CWa0PxRNsT

— NPR (@NPR) July 21, 2022

Paul Baumann, receiver general at Westminster Abbey, said the Queen’s platinum jubilee in early June had “created a buzz” around the church, in which 39 coronations have taken place since 1066, providing a “priceless advertisement” for visitors from around the world.

“If they’re going to go somewhere for their first trip after the pandemic, it strikes me that the place most Americans reach for first is the UK,” said Baumann. He added that the UK had “shaken off” the bad publicity it received early on in the pandemic when it was derided as “plague island”.

“Europeans . . . were first to return, and now we’re seeing Americans returning to London in significant numbers, and that’s particularly important because they prioritise going to visitor attractions and are big spenders,” said Bernard Donoghue, chief executive of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, adding that sterling falling by 13 per cent against the dollar since the start of the year had been a boon to tourism from the US.

Read it all.

US tourists drive rebound in foreign visitors to London’s top attractions https://t.co/Y1KzAQrN63

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) July 16, 2022