Financial Times (November 15)
“The longest ever US government shutdown has created an unprecedented blind spot over the health of the world’s biggest economy as critical data reports are set to be delayed or ditched.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis and other agencies “were largely unable to collect and publish data during the 43-day shutdown, creating a gap in statistical series that will obscure the economic picture for investors and policymakers.”
Tags: Agencies, Blind spot, BLS, Collect, Data, Delayed, Economy, Gap, Government, Investors, Longest, Obscure, Publish, Reports, Shutdown, Statistical series, U.S.
Barron’s (November 10)
“The longest government shutdown on record may be nearing its conclusion, and U.S. stocks are likely to claw back a big chunk of last week’s decline.” But end of the shutdown is “a band-aid, not a cure” for markets. “The long, and likely volatile path to reopening the federal government…will only mask the major issues investors are grappling with heading into the final weeks of the trading year, and the stock market could break in either direction once some of those questions are addressed.”
Tags: Band-aid, Cure, Decline, Government, Investors, Longest, Record, Shutdown, Stock market, Stocks, Trading, U.S., Volatile
Bloomberg (October 10)
“Betting against the dollar has been the dominant trade this year in the $9.6 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, but the wager is starting to stumble. The world’s primary reserve currency is around a two-month high even as the US government shutdown drags on, and traders in Asia and Europe say hedge funds are adding options bets that the rebound versus most major peers will extend into year-end.”
Tags: $9.6 trillion, Asia, Dollar, Dominant, Forex, Government, Hedge funds, Market, Options bets, Rebound, Reserve currency, Shutdown, Stumble, Trade, Traders, Two-month high, U.S.
The Guardian (August 28)
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) “was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.” Scientists believe its collapse would be catastrophic, but previous studies showed this was unlikely before 2100. Newer studies, with an extended horizon, are troubling. They “show the tipping point that makes an Amoc shutdown inevitable is likely to be passed within a few decades, but that the collapse itself may not happen until 50 to 100 years later.”
Tags: 2100, Amoc, Atlantic, Catastrophic, Climate crisis, Collapse, Inevitable, Scientists, Shutdown, Tipping point, Weakest
Financial Times (September 28)
“Another tediously pointless, economically debilitating and teeth-gratingly stupid US government shutdown is looming. Goldman Sachs now reckons that there is now a 90 per cent chance it starts this Sunday.”
Tags: 90%, Debilitating, Goldman Sachs, Government, Looming, Pointless, Shutdown, Stupid, Sunday, U.S.
Reuters (September 15)
“A railway hiatus is the last thing America needs.” Fortunately, “the narrowly averted shutdown of U.S. rail services should avoid widespread economic damage.” Even though trucks “carry the majority of freight in U.S. domestic shipments, rail still accounts for about $700 billion worth of annual shipments.”
Tags: $700 billion, Annual shipments, Averted, Domestic shipments, Economic damage, Freight, Rail services, Railway, Shutdown, Trucks, U.S.
Bloomberg (October 2)
For an entire trading day, a “piece of hardware took down Japan’s $6-trillion stock market,” marking the longest shutdown “since the exchange switched to a fully electronic trading system in 1999.” Besides drawing criticism, the malfunction “shone a spotlight on a lesser-discussed vulnerability in the world’s financial plumbing — not software or security risks but the danger when one of hundreds of pieces of hardware that make up a trading system decides to give up the ghost.”
Tags: Danger, Financial plumbing, Hardware, Japan, Malfunction, Security risks, Shutdown, Software, Stock market, Trading, TSE, Vulnerability
Wall Street Journal (April 5)
“At least one-quarter of the U.S. economy has suddenly gone idle amid the coronavirus pandemic… an unprecedented shutdown of commerce that economists say has never occurred on such a wide scale.”
Tags: Commerce, Coronavirus, Economy, Idle, Pandemic, Quarter, Scale, Shutdown, U.S., Unprecedented
Chicago Tribune (April 5)
“Trump is terrible at making deals. His threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border offers the latest example…. Trump tried to get Mexico to pay for his cherished wall and failed. He tried to get Congress to provide $5.7 billion to construct it and failed despite putting the country through a 35-day government shutdown.” The President “is good at making demands and issuing threats, but those are useful only if you know how to bargain and compromise. He fails at making deals because he has never learned that in negotiations, as in war, the other side gets a vote.”
Tags: Border, Compromise, Demands, Failed, Making deals, Mexico, Negotiations, Shutdown, Terrible, Threats, Trump, U.S., Wall
Wall Street Journal (January 7)
“Trump can’t afford to lose.” He has the “biggest incentive” to dig into his position with “more to lose than the Democrats do. This shutdown was neither necessary nor inevitable…. It was the president who delivered the ultimatum: Fund the wall, he demanded, or he’d be “’proud to shut down the government for border security.’” Without an “outright victory,” Trump will lose “a fight that he picked. He’d end the shutdown weaker than he started. And some of his most ardent supporters could well turn on him for selling them out on his signature issue, affecting his re-election in 2020.” Still, “none of this guarantees a Trump victory.”
