New York Times (December 26)
“Despite lingering inflation, Americans increased their spending this holiday season, early data shows. That comes as a big relief for retailers that had spent much of the year fearing the economy would soon weaken and consumer spending would fall.” It appears that “solid job growth is allowing people to spend more. And even though consumer prices have risen a lot in the last two years, wages have grown faster on the whole.”
Tags: Consumer spending, Economy, Holiday season, Inflation, Job growth, Lingering, Prices, Relief, Retailers, U.S.
Reuters (November 24)
“The German government is working hard to demonstrate the foolishness of the country’s iron-clad ban on large budget deficits.” Though it is suspending the “debt brake” for 2023, “the welcome relief is only temporary, and the harm is done. The budget crisis will cripple the economy for years to come.”
Tags: 2023, Ban, Budget deficits, Cripple, Crisis, Debt brake, Economy, Foolishness, German, Government, Harm, Iron-clad, Relief, Suspending, Temporary
Institutional Investor (February 27)
“After a tumultuous 2022, many investors breathed a sigh of relief when the stock market began to show signs of recovery in January. But… the current upswing may not last long, because economic fundamentals continue to paint a gloomy picture for the year ahead.”
Tags: 2022, Economic fundamentals, Gloomy, Investors, January, Recovery, Relief, Stock market, Tumultuous, Upswing
Institutional Investor (November 23)
“Plan fiduciaries investing according to environmental, social, and governance principles may be breathing a sigh of relief after the Department of Labor finalized the rule allowing retirement plans to take these factors into consideration.” The new DOL rules “reversed two regulations issued under the Trump administration, which banned plan fiduciaries from investing in ‘non-pecuniary’ instruments.”
Tags: Banned Non-pecuniary, Department of Labor, ESG, Factors, Fiduciaries, Investing, Regulations, Relief, Retirement plans, Reversed, Rule, Trump administration
Bloomberg (May 5)
“The collective sigh of relief in markets after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell pushed back against super-sized hike speculation may be short lived.” The strategists “who fear inflation” suspect this is a “false dawn.”
Tags: Collective, Fed, Hike, Inflation, Markets, Powell, Relief, Short lived, Speculation, Strategists, Suspect
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
Philadelphia Inquirer (July 6)
“Interviews with doctors and nurses in the Philadelphia region revealed a sense of relief over a waning pandemic leavened by fears that the virus could surge again. They use different terms to describe what almost a year and a half of being on the front lines of treating COVID-19 has done. Moral injury. Trauma. Burnout. PTSD.” Even now, these “drained health care workers must still maintain a busy schedule as hospitals face a glut of patients who had put off health care out of fears of contracting the virus.”
Tags: Burnout, Busy, COVID-19, Doctors, Drained, Fears, Front lines, Health care workers, Interviews, Nurses, Pandemic, Philadelphia, PTSD, Relief, Surge, Trauma
NBC News (January 1)
“Millions of us feel a great sense of loss. Our divorce from the European Union will hinder the freedom of movement of people — and ideas.” While it is “a relief that a deal to govern U.K.-E.U. relations post-divorce was done at all,” the deal did not deliver new freedoms. Essentially it achieved “a loss of freedoms, quite the opposite of what we were promised.”
Financial Times (November 1)
“If America is lucky,” Biden will be elected and “the country will breathe a sign of relief, literally. Whether or not one agrees with the president’s policies, his divisiveness and vitriol are among the reasons that researchers have found correlations between Mr Trump’s spell in power and things like rising anxiety levels, cardiovascular problems and even preterm pregnancies (especially among Latinas) in the US.
Tags: Anxiety, Biden, Cardiovascular problems, Divisiveness, Elected, Lucky, Preterm pregnancies, Relief, Trump, U.S., Vitriol
The Economist Times (April 1)
“Most worrying for America and the world is how fast the businessman in the Oval Office is proving unfit for the job.” It is a relief “that the main victim” of President Trump’s “slurs has so far been the tweeter-in-chief himself.” And this is also “testament to the strength of American democracy. But institutions can erode, and the country is wretchedly divided…. Unless Mr Trump changes course, the harm risks spreading.”
Tags: Businessman, Democracy, Harm, Institutions, Oval Office, Relief, Risks, Slurs, Trump, U.S., Unfit, Victim
