Cryptocurrency market: Nearly $1 trillion has just been wiped off the cryptocurrency market. What happened?

If you follow the cryptocurrency markets you will have noticed it hasn't been a great week for them, with the sector as a whole losing almost $1 trillion (€820 billion) in the biggest one-day drop since March 2020.

The price of Bitcoin fell by almost a third at one point on Wednesday. Despite a later rally, Bitcoin lost around $70 billion (€57.3 billion) in market value in just 24 hours.

Rival coin Ethereum was among the other cryptocurrencies plummeting in value this week, dropping 28 per cent on Wednesday. Reddit favourite Dogecoin reached a low of $0.33 (€0.27) on Wednesday, before falling again to $0.31 (€0.25) on Thursday.

Read more at: Nearly $1 trillion has just been wiped off the cryptocurrency market. What happened? | Euronews

USA: America’s vanishing workforce - by M. Cassella and R. Rainey

Federal and state officials, who spent the last year trying to keep Americans safe in their homes during the pandemic, are suddenly grappling with the opposite problem: how to lure them back to work.

At least 14 states, including North Dakota, Alabama and South Carolina, have moved to cut off enhanced federal jobless benefits that were supposed to last until September. Florida is among roughly 30 states reinstating a requirement that the unemployed prove they are looking for work to receive state benefits. Montana is offering return-to-work bonuses to unemployment recipients who accept a job offer. Amazon, McDonald's and Chipotle are hiking wages, as is Tyson Foods, which will also start allowing more flexible work schedules.

Read more at: America’s vanishing workforce - POLITICO

EU economy ′on crutches,′ warns ECB chief Christine Lagarde

European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde on Thursday said the bloc's economy was still "on crutches" and in need of support from both the central bank and government spending as the eurozone undergoes extended coronavirus lockdowns.

Lagarde said while the bank sees an eventual rebound this year, any steps to phase out its anti-pandemic emergency monetary plan would be "premature."

Read more at: EU economy ′on crutches,′ warns ECB chief Christine Lagarde | News | DW | 22.04.2021

China’s Economy: Consumers Boost Its Economic Recovery -- by J. Cheng

China’s economic recovery picked up a surprising amount of steam in March, boosted by strong domestic consumption and unquenchable foreign demand for Chinese-made goods.

The country’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index, a gauge of factory activity, hit a three-month high of 51.9 in March, topping February’s reading of 50.6 with the 50 mark separating expansion from contraction, according to data released Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a reading of 51.2.

Read more at: China’s Consumers Boost Its Economic Recovery - WSJ

USA: Wall Street: Will The U.S. Stock Market Crash Soon?

U.S. stock markets have experienced another brutal week. Inflation fear and soaring bond yields are some of the concerns that are trying to burst the higher stock valuation bubble. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, among two other stock indices—the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite—is the only index holding on to its yearly gains. The fear is that we could see an even more intense sell-off that could crash the stock market.

Read more at: Will The U.S. Stock Market Crash Soon?

USA - economy: Oligarch bankers are using woke PR campaigns to whitewash the greatest wealth inequality and economic plunder in history - by Mitchell Feierstein

Goldman Sachs has announced a broad pledge of $10 billion to ‘change the lives’ of One Million Black Women. But the plan is thin on detail and smacks of a bid for good PR from an industry where inequality has thrived for years.

In a press release, Goldman Sachs promised that the One Million Black Women initiative “will address the dual disproportionate gender and racial biases that black women have faced for generations, which the pandemic has only exacerbated.” And Goldman’s CEO David Solomon explained the framework for the project. “Given all that's happened over the course of the last year, we've done a lot of talking at the firm–and even more, listening–to help us figure out how we can do more to end the racial inequity and the gaps that have existed in society for well too long,” he said. Additionally, Goldman pledged $100 million for philanthropic causes.

Read more at: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/518172-goldman-sachs-black-women/

USA - Wall Street: S&P 500 scores best day gain in about 9 months, as March kicks off with brighter economic outlook - by Mark DeCambre and Sunny Oh

U.S. stock-market benchmarks surged Monday, with the S&P 500 booking its best day of gains since June, as a gauge of manufacturing activity showed the economy was picking up steam at the start of the year.

Strategists also attributed the enthusiasm to a cool-down of last week’s rapid rise in bond yields that had unsettled the bullish mood on Wall Street and threatened to offset the easy-money policies implemented by the Federal Reserve.

Read more at: S&P 500 scores best day gain in about 9 months, as March kicks off with brighter economic outlook - MarketWatch

Russia's Growth Too Slow to Catch Advanced Economies – says IMF

Rushas weathered the coronavirus pandemic better than other countries but its economic growth isia s too slow to catch up with advanced economies, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

"Russia entered the Covid-19 crisis with low growth but strong policy frameworks and significant buffers," an IMF report said.

But it added that several factors, including low oil prices and sanctions, led to "lackluster growth" that was "insufficient" to match advanced economies. br>
Since 2014, Russia's tax policy "resulted in low public debt and reserve accumulation," the IMF said, adding that the central bank "brought inflation down and contributed to significant de-dollarization" that made the economy more resistant.

Read more at: Russia's Growth Too Slow to Catch Advanced Economies – IMF - The Moscow Times

USA Economy: Are we in a bubble? How founder of world’s largest hedge fund says 2021 stock market stacks up - by Mark DeCambre

The stock market is feeling awfully frothy to some investors lately, a fact that has helped to weigh on the market’s bullish sentiment in the past week or so, but a report by Ray Dalio implies that equities aren’t as bubblicious as one might think.

“In brief, the aggregate bubble gauge is around the 77th percentile today for the US stock market overall. In the bubble of 2000 and the bubble of 1929 this aggregate gauge had a 100th percentile read,” wrote Dalio in a blog post published on Monday on LinkedIn.

Read more at: Are we in a bubble? How founder of world’s largest hedge fund says 2021 stock market stacks up - MarketWatch

Germany must reduce its current-account surplus – by Jan Behringer, Till van Treeck and Achim Truger

The German economy has been running persistently high current-account surpluses for more than 15 years. Over the last decade, the surplus was between 6 and 9 per cent of gross domestic product, mainly because Germany exported much more than it imported. This is a drag on other countries’ exports and employment and can also lead to financial imbalances.

A large majority of economists outside Germany thus see the surpluses as a serious threat to macroeconomic stability. The European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the United States government have repeatedly called for a rebalancing. So far, however, none of the various German governments in power since the early 2000s has seen the need to take action.

Read more at: Germany must reduce its current-account surplus – Jan Behringer, Till van Treeck and Achim Truger

EU economy shrank by nearly 6.4% in 2020 – estimates - by John Paul Cordina -

A flash estimate published by Eurostat suggests that the EU’s gross domestic product fell by 6.4% in 2020, with the decline, unsurprisingly, primarily attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The euro area’s GDP, meanwhile, contracted by 6.8%.

Eurostat qualified the figures, highlighting that the flash estimates – which seek to provide an indication as soon as possible – were based on incomplete data sources and subject to further revisions. The next estimates for the fourth quarter of 2020 are set to be released in two weeks.

Read more at: https://newsbook.com.mt/en/eu-economy-shrank-by-nearly-6-4-in-2020-estimates/

EU Economy: Italy to spend 222 billion euros of EU funds to revive economy

Italy plans to spend more than €222 billion from various European Union funds to revive its coronavirus-battered economy, a draft government document seen by Reuters showed on Thursday (7 January).

Rome is entitled to more than €200 billion from a European emergency programme designed to help those EU nations hardest hit by the coronavirus.

The €222 billion scheme includes resources from the emergency fund and other European programmes, including an agricultural fund, the document showed.

The plan still needs to be approved by the cabinet which will likely meet before f end of this week, according to government sources.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is facing internal opposition from former premier Matteo Renzi, whose centrist Italia Viva party polls at no more than around 3% but is crucial for the government’s survival. Italian government totters as Conte, Renzi divide deepens.

Read more at: Italy to spend 222 billion euros of EU funds to revive economy – EURACTIV.com

China-EU trade relations: China-EU investment agreement to inject new life into global economic recovery

China and the European Union (EU) on Wednesday announced they have completed investment agreement negotiations as scheduled.

The long-awaited result, which came after 35 rounds of negotiations in the course of seven years, is a milestone in EU-China relations and is expected to inject new vitality into the pandemic-battered global economy, European experts, officials and business leaders have said.

Read more at: Xinhua Headlines: China-EU investment agreement to inject new life into global economic recovery - China.org.cn

Germany: Angela Merkel: No-deal Brexit would send a bad signal to the world

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that it would send a bad signal to the world if a Brexit trade deal could not be reached, as an EU negotiating team stayed in London for additional talks.

With just one month remaining for the European Union and the UK to come to an agreement, Merkel told a virtual gathering of parliamentarians from across the continent: "Britain and the EU share common values. If we failed to reach a deal, it would not send a good signal."

Read more at: Angela Merkel: No-deal Brexit would send a bad signal to the world | News | DW | 30.11.2020

UK economy to suffer 'largest fall in output for 300 years' as GDP down 11.3% in 2020, says Sunak

Debt would be 91.9% of GDP this year, rising to 97.5% in 2025-26, he said. In comparison, government debt in the eurozone stood at 95.1% of GDP in the second quarter of 2020, according to Eurostat, the EU statistics agency.

The OBR said that if the UK trades with the EU under World Trade Organization (WTO) terms, as would happen should no trade deal be reached by the end of the transition period on December 31, the effect would "reduce real GDP by a further 2% in 2021". Bottom line, the economic picture for Britain looks quite bleak.

UK economy to suffer 'largest fall in output for 300 years' as GDP down 11.3% in 2020, says Sunak | Euronews

Rebooting the EU economy during a world health pandemic

The EU economy is starting to wake up again after suffering the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, it is far from over and the recovery is not going to be smooth.

For this episode of Real Economy, Euronews went to the Brussels Economic Forum and spoke to the European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni - and the European Council President, Charles Michel, about the EU's €1.82 trillion joint recovery package, and how it is helping to cushion the economic fallout.

Read more at
Rebooting the EU economy during a world health pandemic | Euronews

Germany: Oktober Fest Cancelled

There will be no Oktoberfest this year because of the coronavirus.  Although Munich residents are understanding, it's a heavy financial and  emotional blow for people whose livelihood depends on the festival, like show booth operators. 

Read more: News | DW

Global Warming: Rise in sea level from ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica match worst-case scenario: study

About a year ago, water and climate expert Bob Sandford flew over Greenland at a moment he says was historic, both scientifically and climatically —  the island recorded the most ice melt, about 11.3 billions tonnes, in a single day since recording began in the 1950s.

"It's an understatement to say that what I saw left me really quite devastated," Sandford said. He's the chair in water and climate security at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

Now, according to a recent study, led by Thomas Slater, a climate researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds, those rapidly melting ice sheets in Greenland, along with melting ice sheets in Antarctica are thought to be the main contributor to a rise in sea levels around the world. And the rate of the melt matches the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's worst-case climate warming scenario.

The study was co-authored by Anna Hogg, climate researcher with the University of Leeds in England, and Ruth Mottram, a climate researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute.

The researchers compared the latest results from satellite surveys from the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) — an international scientific collaboration of estimates of the ice sheet contribution to sea level rise — with calculations from climate models.

It shows that since the 1990s, melting ice sheets have raised the global sea level by 1.8 centimetres, but the latest measurements show that the world's oceans are now rising by four millimetres each year.

"The implications are profound; the risks posed by future sea level rise may be of a scale we simply are unprepared for. The speed at which ice melt contributions have overtaken thermal expansion contributions to sea level rise should alarm everyone on this planet."

Read more at: 
Rise in sea level from ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica match worst-case scenario: study | CBC News

EU Economy: As eurozone records 3.8% slump ECB chief warns of worse to come

Former ECB president Mario Draghi claimed last year that the majority in favour of further loosening was so large that it was unnecessary even to count the votes. Never mind that the countries opposing the decision hold 56% of the ECB’s paid-in equity capital and account for 60% of eurozone output. Counting their compatriots on the ECB governing council, however, they have only seven out of 25 potential votes (subject to a rotating limitation). Draghi did have a majority, then, but it represented a very clear minority of the ECB’s liable capital. This raises considerable concerns about the governing council’s decision-making process.

Todays head of the ECB Christine Lagarde has warned that the eurozone could be on course for a 15% collapse in output in the second quarter as evidence of the economic toll caused by Covid-19 pandemic started to emerge, with France and Italy falling into recession.

After news that the 19-nation monetary union area had contracted a record 3.8% in the first three months of 2020, Christine Lagarde said much worse was possible in the April to June period, when the impact of lockdown restrictions would be most severe.

 Read more at:

As eurozone records 3.8% slump ECB chief warns of worse to come

USA;The recovery is faltering, top forecasters say -

After a sharp rebound in the economy in May and June, the economic recovery has slowed as consumers, workers and businesses remain extremely cautious, say the economists at UBS who won the MarketWatchForecaster of the Month contest for July.

Read more at:
The recovery is faltering, top forecasters say - MarketWatch