Financial Times (July 23)
“Japan is now behaving like a country that has emerged from a malaise once considered incurable. Deflation now seems consigned to the past. The output gap has closed. Pricing power has returned to parts of the economy that have not known it for years…. The scale and significance of the alteration are remarkable. No country of Japan’s economic size has spent anything like as long in the grip of falling prices and none has emerged with anything like its suite of unknowns as it returns to a still unspecified ‘normal.’”
Tags: Deflation, Economy, Emerged, Japan, Malaise, Normal, Output gap, Pricing power, Remarkable, Scale, Significance, Unknowns
Wall Street Journal (June 14)
Even if the U.S./Iran deal holds, it will still “take months for the oil market to return to normal.” First the mines must be removed. Even then, insurers and oil shippers “are expected to remain cautious about traveling through the waterway. It would likely take even longer for the U.S. and other countries to replenish their depleted oil inventories, keeping prices elevated.”
Tags: Cautious, Deal, Depleted, Insurers, Iran, Mines, Normal, Oil inventories, Oil market, Oil shippers, Prices, Replenish, U.S., Waterway
Wall Street Journal (October 17)
“Reports of the death of Polish democracy appear to have been greatly exaggerated, as exit polls suggest this weekend’s election has produced a perfectly normal swing in political power. The centrist opposition is expected to have a clear shot at forming an administration to replace the right-leaning Law and Justice (PiS) despite frequent complaints that PiS robbed Poland of its democratic freedoms.”
Tags: Centrist opposition, Complaints, Democratic freedoms, Election, Exit polls, Law and Justice (PiS), Normal, Poland, Political power, Swing
Reuters (May 27)
Covid-related restrictions “have battered the world’s second-biggest economy even as most countries have been seeking to return to something like normal.” Although “China’s economy is now staggering back to its feet,” the recovery remains “grinding and partial… with businesses from retailers to chipmakers warning of slow sales as consumers in the country slam the brakes on spending.”
Tags: Battered, Businesses, China, Chipmakers, Consumers, Covid, Economy, Grinding, Normal, Partial, Recovery, Restrictions, Retailers, Sales, Staggering, Warning
CBS News (December 20)
“Kim Jong Un will mark the end of his first decade in power armed to the teeth, but more isolated than ever as he tries to battle a killer virus in one of the world’s poorest countries. He’s no closer to what he really wants, which is relief from devastating sanctions and normal relations with the rest of the world.”
Tags: Armed, Decade, Devastating, Isolated, Kim, Normal, Poorest, Power, Relations, Relief, Sanctions, Virus
USA Today (August 20)
“From the earliest days of the pandemic, public health officials told Americans that vaccination was the way back to normal life, but the path forward has become less clear. While COVID-19 vaccines were delivered in record time, the promise of vaccine salvation was upended by entrenched hesitancy, waning immunity and a wildly contagious mutation of the enigmatic virus that causes the disease.”
Tags: COVID-19, Hesitancy, Immunity, Normal, Officials, Pandemic, Promise, Public health, U.S., Upended, Vaccination, Vaccine salvation
Seattle Times (July 1)
“And on the 476th day, Washington returned—sort of, mostly, cautiously, officially if not practically—to normal.” COVID-19 related restrictions began across the state on March 11, 2020. “One year, three months, two weeks and five days later, the last of those major restrictions melted away on Wednesday.” It’s not as easy as flipping a switch. COVID-19 and government-issued restrictions effectively “pulled the emergency brake on Washington’s economic and social life.” It is going to “take more than just releasing that lever to get the engine back to full throttle.”
Tags: 476 days, Brake, COVID-19, Economic, Emergency, Government, Life, Normal, Restrictions, Social, Washington
Atlanta Journal Constitution (June 23)
“American leisure air travel is bouncing back quickly after plunging last year. But it could take months or years for business travel to return to normal—if ever—even as more companies prepare to bring workers back to offices.” For metro Atlanta’s economy and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, “that spells uncertainty.”
Tags: Air travel, Atlanta, Bouncing back, Business travel, Companies, Economy, Leisure, Normal, Offices, Plunging, U.S., Workers
San Francisco Chronicle (June 16)
“California shrugged off 15 months of pandemic restrictions Tuesday and emerged into an appropriately sunny day to take a celebratory—if cautious—collective leap toward a post-COVID normal.” This historic day marks the first time “life could return to some semblance of what it used to be, a future bolstered by vaccines that will likely forestall another deadly surge.”
Tags: California, Cautious, Celebratory, Deadly surge, Forestall, Future, Normal, Pandemic, Post-Covid, Restrictions, Shrugged, Vaccines
Washington Post (May 27)
“The Games should continue because the world needs an example that life can be normal again. The Summer Olympics are virtually the only event that truly unites the globe in friendship….The burst of global confidence that can arise from a successful Olympics is incalculable.”
Tags: Confidence, Event, Friendship, Globe, Incalculable, Normal, Successful, Summer Olympics, Unites
