Category Archives: Business & Economy
US Retailers With $1.5 Trillion In Sales Demand An Antitrust Probe Of Amazon And Google
The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), whose members include Best Buy, Walmart and Target, demands an investigation whether Silicon Valley’s most prominent companies [Amazon and Google] are manipulating search results that disadvantage traditional retailers.
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There Are Now More Than 5,000 Bitcoin ATM’s Around The World
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The total number of bitcoin ATMs (BTMs) worldwide reached 5,000 for the first time. There are now 5,006 standalone BTMs in around 90 countries, where cryptocurrency users can buy or sell bitcoin (BTC). Some machines offer both services simultaneously. A deal earlier in the year involving coin counting kiosk operator Coinstar brought bitcoin functionality to over 2,200 U.S. locations. The U.S. currently has more than half of the world’s BTMs at 3,229, with a new pilot scheme this month bringing the machines to Circle K convenience stores in Arizona and Nevada.
Read moreU.S. College Grads Are In For An Unpleasant Surprise
U.S. college students currently working on their degree are in for an unpleasant surprise when negotiating their first salaries. That’s because, according to a new study, undergraduate students in the United States are overestimating what they’re worth.
Read moreAmericans Aren’t Paying Their Credit Card Debt. What Could Go Wrong?
Estimates are that consumer credit card debt will increase $70 billion for 2019 alone. Considering that Americans now owe more than $1 trillion, the fact that they are paying back less of what they owe proves that “consumers aren’t quite as healthy as some other metrics may indicate.”
Read moreWhich US States Are Most Exposed To China And Mexico Tariffs
JPMorgan recently examined what types of goods the US imports from China and Mexico and where they go. While it is still too early to see much reaction to the news on trade policy from recent weeks in the economic activity data, JPM thinks that “understanding the cross section of goods imports will be useful in observing effects of the tariffs over time.
Read moreLower Income Americans Are Begging The Fed For Less Inflation
A recent Bloomberg report looked at the stark disconnect between Fed policy and well, everybody else but banks and the 1%. While the Fed sees low inflation as “one of the major challenges of our time,” many of the nation’s most vulnerable, low-income workers, stated the obvious: people don’t want higher prices.
Read moreHow Many People Will Be Retiring In The Years To Come?
The daily rate of people aging into retirement (i.e. turning 65) will peak in 2022 at just below 12,000. Over the next two decades, about 10,000 people will turn 65 every day. This impending milestone is set to tax the resources of the Social Security Administration at a level not yet experienced in the system’s 84-year-existence.
Read moreMillennial Net Wealth Collapses, Study Finds
The net worth of millennials (18- to 35-year-old) has collapsed 34% since 1996, according to a new, shocking report from Deloitte. Millennials are financially worse off than any other generation before them. With student loans, auto and credit card debts, rising rents, and out of control, health-care costs have pushed their average net worth below $8,000.
Read moreNew Rule Could Allow Debt Collectors To Spam 49 Million Americans With Emails And Texts
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) under the Trump administration, has published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to amend the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The CFPB’s proposal would change Regulation F to direct Federal rules overseeing the activities of debt collectors. The new proposal would allow debt collectors to call consumers as frequently as seven times per week and be permitted to start sending emails and texts.
Read moreThe Glut Cometh
All the economic shell-gaming that has been happening since the 2008 crash may finally be coming to a head for the American Auto Industry. Interest rates can’t be kept low to no anymore and car loans can’t be extended much more, either. More than 4.2 million new cars are stacked up unsold as of this month – which is an alarming half-million more cars than were stacked up before. Why? Because people can’t afford to buy new cars. For many, the difference between a $399 per month payment and a $475 per month payment (or whatever the amount depending on the buyer/car) is causing people to hesitate where they previously would have signed the paperwork.
Read moreTrade Deal Dead: Trump Says 10% China Tariff Rising To 25% On Friday, Another $325BN In Goods To Be Taxed
So much for months and months of constant leaks, headlines, tweets, and press reports that US-China trade talks are going great. Just after noon on Sunday, President Trump tweeted that 10% tariffs paid by China on $200 billion in goods will rise to 25% on Friday.
Read moreAmericans Can’t Afford To Buy A Home In 70% Of The Country
Even at a time of low interest rates and rising wages, Americans simply can’t afford a home in more than 70% of the country. Out of 473 US counties that were analyzed in a recent report, 335 listed median home prices were more than what average wage earners could afford.
Read moreOnline Retail War Turns Ugly: Wal-Mart Responds To Amazon With Free 1-Day Shipping
Walmart teased that it is soon going to be taking on Amazon with one day free shipping – without a membership fee.
Read moreNearly Half Of Millennials Wouldn’t Invest In Stocks Even If They Had The Money
While most would probably chalk millennials’ aversion to investing up to the fact that they don’t have any savings or income to spare, one recent study suggested that even if they had the money, they wouldn’t put it in stocks.
Read more“It’s A Wake Up Call”: 7 Charts That Clearly Show The Middle Class Is Being Left Behind
New data from the Federal Reserve detailing citizens’ net worth shows that the issue of being “left behind” has now spread to all Americans aside from the top 10%, according to Bloomberg. This means that even the upper middle class is starting to feel the pain of income stagnation.
Read moreRecord Ship-Breaking Suggests World Economy Slowing
As world trade volume rolled over in late 2018 and into the new year, a sharp decline in shipping rates across all vessel types forced some operators to scrap their ships in Southeast Asia in the first three months of the year, reported The Wall Street Journal. In all regions of the world, warning signs are flashing red about the health of developed and emerging economies.
Read moreHow The Fed’s Six Years Of QE Transformed Young Americans Into Socialists
The Fed’s quantitative easing (QE), also known as large-scale asset purchases, inflated asset prices and bailed out baby boomers at the political cost of pricing out millennials from many asset markets, including homes and the stock market. That has since driven wealth inequality across the country to levels never seen before. When expansionary monetary policy drives asset prices higher than wage growth, the average person, or the entire bottom 90% of Americans, fall behind the curve.
Read moreConsumer Credit Storms Above $4 Trillion, As Credit Card Debt Hits Record High
The continued increase in borrowings saw total credit storm above $4 trillion, and hitting a new all time high of $4.034 trillion on the back of a America’s ongoing love affair with auto and student loans, and of course credit cards.
Read more$100 Bills See Mysterious Surge In Circulation
The number of outstanding U.S. $100 bills has doubled since the financial crisis, with more than 12 billion of them across the world, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. C-notes have passed $1 bills in circulation. Generally, economists believe the surge is related to people around the world wanting to hoard cash but, multiple factors could explain the increase in C-notes.
Read moreHow Government-Guaranteed Student Loans Killed the American Dream for Millions
When government-guaranteed checks keep rolling in, there’s no incentive for colleges and universities to lower their prices. In fact, they do the opposite.
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