Wall Street Journal (February 17)
“Treasury yields have sprung to multiyear highs, forcing the U.S. government to pay a lot more in interest and putting pressure on the budget.” Over the new decade, federal interest costs are now expected to rise by $1.1 trillion, reviving “Wall Street worries that the years-long acceleration in borrowing under both political parties will eventually weigh on economic growth and asset prices.”
Tags: $1.1 trillion, Asset prices, Borrowing, Budget, Costs, Economic growth, Interest, Pressure, Treasuries, U.S. Government, Wall Street, Worries, Yields
USA Today (January 2)
“The post-COVID-19 economy was finally supposed to stop defying gravity and topple into a recession this year.” While “growth is expected to slow… other factors are likely to keep the economy afloat, forecasters say, including near-record home and stock prices, a further easing of inflation to or near the Fed’s 2% goal and the central bank’s tentative plans to cut interest rates more sharply than previously anticipated.”
Tags: Easing, Economy, Fed, Growth, Inflation, Interest, Post-Covid, Rates, Recession, Record, Slow, Stock prices
ABC New (December 26)
Due to unexpectedly high migration, “fears that Australia would enter a technical recession during 2023 didn’t eventuate.” Still, “for many, life in 2023 certainly felt recession-like as Australians faced more interest rate hikes, a rising tax bill and a still-increasing cost of living that again outpaced wage growth.”
Tags: 2023, Australia, Australians, Cost of living, Fears, Interest, Migration, Outpaced, Rate hikes, Tax bill, Technical recession, Wage growth
Financial Times (December 16)
“European bonds rallied on Friday, pushing yields to nine-month lows as investors focused on the latest signs of a slowing economy and shrugged off the European Central Bank’s insistence that it was not considering interest rate cuts.” Given the Fed’s pivot, markets appear skeptical of “ECB president Christine Lagarde’s insistence on Thursday that it was too soon to talk about the timing of rate cuts and that the bank had ‘more work to be done’ in its battle to tame inflation.”
Tags: Bonds, ECB, European, Inflation, Insistence, Interest, Investors, Lagarde, Lows, Rallied, Rate cuts, Slowing Economy, Timing, Yields
Washington Post (December 2)
“The debate now is when the Fed will start cutting interest rates. Stocks ,, come by May. That would certainly help the housing market, which has frozen with mortgage rates at the highest levels in about two decades.”
Tags: Betting, Cutting, Debate, Fed, Frozen, Highest, Housing market, Interest, Investors, Mortgage rates, Rallying, Rates, Stocks
Bloomberg (June 17)
“European central bankers’ price stability mission is on a collision course with the goal of combating climate change, unless they change their ways.” Ultimately, the ECB may have to institute a special category of green lending to solve what appears to be an irresolvable dilemma. “The transition to a lower-carbon economy may fuel inflation — but raising interest rates in response to that could hinder investment in cleaner energy. So monetary policy and efforts to save the planet risk working against each other, casting a shadow over the prevailing consumer-price-targeting philosophy of the past three decades.”
Tags: Cleaner energy, Climate change, Collision course, ECB, Europe, Green lending, Inflation, Interest, Investment, Lower-carbon economy, Monetary policy, Price stability, Transition
Investment Week (May 18)
“Interest in ESG investing has waned among UK investors, with less than half now prioritising ESG investments over maximising returns.” A recent survey by Charles Schwab UK “found that since 2021, the number of investors who consider ESG when making new investments has fallen from 44% to 38%” while those placing sustainable investing over returns fell from 55% to 47%.
Tags: 2021, ESG investing, ESG investments, Interest, Investors, Returns, Schwab, Sustainable Returns, UK investors, Waned
New York Times (November 4)
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced a tapering of stimulus programs, but he did not “lay the groundwork for higher rates.” That doesn’t mean “the era of near-zero rates will last anything close to as long as it did after the global financial crisis,” but if the current inflation surge “proves something other than temporary, Mr. Powell’s decision to stick to his guns” on interest rates “will loom as a missed moment to join other English-speaking countries in using monetary policy to try to stamp it out.”
Tags: Fed, Global financial crisis, Inflation, Interest, Monetary policy, Near-zero, Powell, Rates, Stimulus, Surge, Tapering
Mercury News (February 17)
“Despite an unprecedented 2.4 million jobs lost in the spring, Californians joined fellow Americans in paying down interest-heavy debt such as credit card bills while acquiring wealth-building loans by taking out mortgages…. But looks can be deceiving.” Aggregate figures can obscure real suffering. “Millions of Californians suffering job losses have accumulated crippling debt that goes uncounted in national measures: unpaid rent, utility bills, borrowed money from loved ones and, in some cases, predatory loans.”
Tags: California, Credit card, Debt, Interest, Jobs, Loans, Mortgages, Predatory, Rent, Suffering, U.S., Uncounted, Unprecedented, Utility bills, Wealth-building
The Economist (May 18)
“America’s net public debt is high, if not yet huge” and unless something changes “public debt will rise to 92% of GDP in 2029… and go on rising for decades.” This may not matter so much. “Though debt has grown as a share of GDP, interest payments are near their historical average” and “lower than the nominal growth rate of the economy…. In such circumstances a debt will shrink as a share of GDP over time. If the economy grows faster than interest builds up, the government could run a small deficit forever.”
Tags: Deficit, Economy, GDP, Government, Growth rate, Interest, Public debt, U.S.
