#NYC START GOING TODAY - #ECONOMY TOO SLOW

  Bloomberg

New York City’s Renewed Vibrancy Is Hiding Deep Economic Pain

Workers still aren’t flocking back to offices and unemployment is double the U.S. average, ratcheting up pressure to reinvent the city’s economy.

By

Alicia Diaz and

Alexandre Tanzi

New York City’s apartment sales are sizzling, popular restaurants are booking up and Covid mandates are fading away. But underneath the buzz, an economic pain persists in a city where twice as many people are unemployed compared to the seasonally adjusted U.S. average.

At 7.6%, the city’s unemployment was among the worst of major cities. It also lags behind neighboring Northern New Jersey and Long Island. The jobless rate jumps to 11.1%, not seasonally adjusted, in the Bronx, the highest of New York’s five boroughs, and even higher for Black New Yorkers, who were disproportionately impacted by job losses during the pandemic.

“New York’s economy is enduring a slower recovery because it is so dependent on the office and entertainment sectors,” said Mark Vitner, a Wells Fargo senior economist. “Cities that were quicker to reopen following the initial lockdowns at the start of the pandemic have also tended to see stronger recoveries.”

NO RECOVERY FOR THE BIG APPLE?

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Russia's Economy Hitting the Skids

Things are bad in Russia, right now - and they are bound to get worse before they get better. Oil prices are not expected to increase substantively until 2017,  while production levels are  being punished. Too much economic pressure  on Russia, however, is not good for global peace.
Keep a steady  eye on this situation.

Can things get any worse for Russia? You're about to find out

For a decade, Dmitri Barinov has been following the volatile economy of his homeland from the safe distance of Union Investment’s offices in Frankfurt. Last year, as other money managers were steering clear of Russia’s broken economy, the Moscow-born Barinov pulled off something of a coup: He persuaded his bosses to take the plunge and buy Russian government bonds. It was a narrow bet, but he ended up winning because the central bank—after implementing the biggest interest rate hike since the Russian financial crisis in 1998 to prop up the collapsing ruble—changed course and aggressively backtracked. In the first 10 months of 2015, ruble-denominated government bonds handed investors such as Barinov a 25 percent return in dollar terms, the biggest gain for local bonds anywhere.

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http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/can-things-get-any-worse-for-russia-youre-about-to-find-out/ar-BBpU3Q4?li=BBnbfcL

Putin "Prepared to Use Tactical Nuclear Weapons" If Turkey/Saudi Invade Syria  

In Syria, rather than cooperate with Russia and Iran in helping Assad’s military defeat the jihadists, the Obama administration has continued playing it cute, insisting – as Secretary of State John Kerry has said recently – that armed “legitimate opposition groups” exist separately from Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front.

Recession 2016: In Some States, A Very Deep Economic Downturn Has Already Arrived 

If the price of oil does not go back up, this could be just the beginning. It is being reported that a whopping 35 percent of all oil and gas companies around the planet are at risk of falling into bankruptcy, and the financial institutions that have been backing these energy companies are getting very nervous.

1 in 4 Americans on Verge of Financial Ruin  

That’s particularly problematic considering that emergencies happen more often than you might think. A 2014 survey by American Express found that half of all Americans had experienced an unforeseen expense in the past year — some of which could be considered an emergency. Indeed, 44% of those who had an unforeseen expense(s) had one for health care and 46% for car trouble — two items that for many Americans are must-pay items, as you need a car to get to work and your health expenses are usually not optional. 

Thousands Told Their Pension Savings at Risk

Thousands of workers who have been encouraged by the government to take out pension plans could be at risk of losing their savings, the industry regulator has told the BBC.

It follows fears that dozens of companies providing auto enrolment pensions are too small to survive.

The BBC has also uncovered evidence that employers and workers are being deliberately misled by some providers.

The government said it was aware of the issue, and was planning to take action.

Independent experts claim the problem could affect up to a quarter of a million people a year who are putting their savings into so-called master trust pensions.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35560788 

www.firstfinancialinsights.blogspot.com

CRISIS: Government Revenues, Expenditures and Debt Headed For Abyss, & More

Here's the Next Crisis "Nobody Saw Coming"

When borrowing become prohibitive (or impossible) and raising taxes no longer generates more revenues, state and local governments will have to cut expenditures.

"Strangely enough, every easily foreseeable financial crisis is presented in the mainstream media as one that "nobody saw coming."

 No doubt the crisis visible in these three charts will also fall into the "nobody saw it coming" category.

Take a look at this chart of state and local government debt. As we noted yesterday, nominal GDP rose about 77% since 2000. So state and local debt rose at double the rate of GDP. That is the definition of an unsustainable trend

Coming Out - As a Bear! 

Earlier this year, as the market kept marching upward, I decided that buying put options on equities wouldn’t give me the kind of protection I was looking for. So I liquidated most of my equity holdings. We also shut down our equity strategy for the firm.

Of late, I’ve taken it a step further, starting to build an outright short position on the market. In the long-run, this may be losing proposition, but right now, I am rather concerned about traditional asset allocation.

James Turk: Money Bubble About to Pop

This money bubble is going to pop. It has to because there is just too much debt in the world. That debt has to be reconciled and, ultimately, when you are reconciling debt, it gets back to the point about collateral on the balance sheets. There is just not enough good collateral to support all of this paper money circulating out there

The Economist: The TPP is Dead 

The coverage of the TPP in the media was schizophrenic, on the one hand describing it as part of Obama’s “pivot to Asia” (as in an effort to contain China’s growing hegemony), meaning it was clearly a political enterprise, an “everybody but China” deal, and on the other hand, saying that the reason Americans should support it was those miniscule trade benefits. And of course, there was nary a mention of the cost in terms of national sovereignity.

The Tale of an Anxious Economic Recovery, Told by a Revived Textile Mill 

“More people are finding jobs, but nobody feels optimistic about their income prospects,” he added. “That’s likely why it doesn’t feel like the economy has really recovered even though the statistics say it has.”

John Kerry on the Risk of Congress ‘Screwing’ the Ayatollah 

On a related matter—whether or not the nuclear agreement represents a bad deal for the people of Syria, who suffer under the Iran-supported Assad regime, which will presumably benefit financially from the lifting of sanctions on its primary sponsor—Kerry was somewhat dismissive. In response to my question, “Does it bother you that money will be going to Assad and Hezbollah?,” 

Kerry responded, “Yes, but it’s not dispositive. It’s not money that’s going to make a difference ultimately in what is happening.”

Canada Is On The Brink

 Of A‘Very Unusual

 Recession’

Canada is teetering on the edge of a recession.

The country's GDP has fallen for five straight months, the latest numbers coming in at a 0.2 percent contraction in May. And economists say Canada is about to hit its second-straight quarter of declining GDP, the technical definition of a recession.

Contributing to Canada's problems include plunging commodities prices, slowing exports and a falling Canadian dollar. The tumble in crude oil, which has fallen more than 15 percent year to date, has hit Canada hard as a commodities-heavy economy.

According to TD Bank's deputy chief economist, Derek Burleton, investor concerns about the Canadian economy date back to last year, when oil prices first began to fall.

"They're worried about Canada; they're still short Canada," Burleton said. "There's not a lot of upside to growth."

Learning Success: 

APPLY Tips From The Best

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway – He is a deeply conservative trader during the times that everyone around him is moving from one extreme to the other to the tune of huge losses and gains. Warren Buffett is a perfect example of patience, proving that slow and steady generally wins the business race. (Although I continue to press my own desire to spur Fishbowl’s inventory software business to race!)

Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

An Inconvenient Truth:

What Happens When Top Economists Realize Physical Growth Constraints?

 EXISTENTIAL REALITY 

"Humanity's Coming of Age"

 - The Last Days of Economic Growth -