Economic Archives - Zxcoachoutlet

India announces economic stimulus to boost demand by $10 billion

October 12, 2020

By Aftab Ahmed and Manoj Kumar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India on Monday announced steps to stimulate consumer demand, including advance payment of a part of the wages of federal government employees during the festival season and more capital spending as it tries to bolster the pandemic-hit economy.

The government will allow its employees to spend tax-exempt travel allowances on goods and services, Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s finance minister told a news briefing.

She said the government will also shore up investment by spending extra 250 billion rupees ($3.41 billion)on roads, ports and defence projects, and offering 120 billion rupees in interest-free 50-year loans to state governments for spending on infrastructure before March 31,2021.

“All these measures are likely to create an additional demand of 730 billion rupees ($9.96 billion),” Sitharaman said, adding the proposals would stimulate demand in a “fiscally prudent way.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which imposed a

Nirmala Sitharaman On Economic Issues GDP Revival

October 12, 2020

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is addressing the media on the economic issues facing the country. Her press conference comes at a time when the country’s GDP or gross domestic product contracted a record 23.9 per cent in the April-June period as the quarter fully captured the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions, and is expected to shrink an overall 9.5 per cent in the current financial year by the Reserve Bank of India. Economists and analysts await any positive signs in the economy to assess the path of economic revival ahead. The government is currently in the process of gradually lifting restrictions imposed in late-March to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus, which has sent an already slowing economy marred by low demand into a standstill. The Finance Minister’s press conference comes ahead of a meeting of the GST or Goods and Services Tax Council due later in

Greater Houston Partnership talks Houston economic recovery

October 10, 2020

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An executive from the Greater Houston Partnership spoke with Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce members about the struggle for economic recovery, with forces pulling the economy both in and out of the recession.

Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of the group, said Thursday the struggle was like a tug of war, with some factors pulling Houston’s economy into recovery, and others keeping the economy from progressing and bringing back jobs.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Tomball-area hospitals talk state of health care during pandemic

Some positives include consumer sentiment at its highest level since March; single-family home sales and car sales are back up, according to data from the US Census Bureau and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. Jankowski said an increase in automobile sales was a short-term indicator of consumer confidence, while home sales were a long-term indicator of consumer confidence.

Jankowski also said retail sales overall have risen since the

New Study Predicts Gloomy Economic Times Ahead For Americans

October 9, 2020

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Sad evicted tenant moving home boxing belongings — New Study Predicts Gloomy Economic Times Ahead For Americans

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With unemployment sky rocketing as a result of Covid-19, there has been a corresponding rise in evictions and mortgage defaults. A new study from Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School of the loan-to-value ratios in the wake of the 2008 financial crash issues a cautionary warning about the troubles ahead.

The study finds that the higher the outstanding mortgage is relative to the value of the home, the worse the future income growth and job mobility of the individual will be.

The researchers assessed wage data and credit profiles from around 30 million Americans working in over 5,000 companies. The analysis revealed a negative association between the income of the worker and their home loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, with this especially so when the principle owed was higher than the value of the house.

For instance, when homes were

RBI holds rates steady, sees economic recovery taking root

October 9, 2020

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By Swati Bhat, Euan Rocha

MUMBAI (Reuters) – The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) left key interest rates unchanged on Friday as widely expected, while keeping policy accommodative to help pull the coronavirus-ravaged economy out of its worst slump in four decades.

FILE PHOTO: A worker walks past the logo of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) inside its office in New Delhi, India July 8, 2019. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

India’s economy has been the worst hit by the pandemic among major countries and new infections continue to climb, but RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said there were some encouraging signs of a business turnaround and activity could return to growth in the January-March quarter.

As expected, the monetary policy committee (MPC) kept the repo rate, its key lending rate, at 4.0%, while the reverse repo rate or the key borrowing rate stayed at 3.35%.

The RBI has slashed the repo rate by

Fed: Economic recovery will slow without more aid from Congress

October 8, 2020

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The meeting minutes underscore how Fed leaders view another stimulus package — one that reaches households, businesses and local governments still on the brink — as essential to a strong and stable recovery.

At the meeting, Fed leaders updated their estimates on unemployment in the coming years to reflect a sense of optimism that people were returning to work faster than expected. But in many cases those projections factored in some measure of more fiscal aid, the prospects of which were thrown into chaos Tuesday after Trump abruptly called off negotiations before then continuing to push for more talks on narrower targeted aid.

“If future fiscal support was significantly smaller or arrived significantly later than they expected, the pace of the recovery could be slower than anticipated,” according to the Fed minutes.

Fed policymakers also warned that, while the Cares Act was crucial for providing benefits to millions of families,

ANALYSIS-In Nagasaki, bank consolidation may expose flaws in economic rescue plans

October 8, 2020

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By Leika Kihara and Takahiko Wada

NAGASAKI, Japan, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Once seen as a model for consolidation, the merger of two regional banks in Nagasaki may expose flaws in Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s plan to revitalise regional economies by creating stronger lenders.

In Nagasaki’s distant past, the city was a stronghold of trade and finance. These days, Japan’s larger ports soak up all the business, and local banks, crippled by a stagnant economy and shrinking customer base, scrap for profits.

That made the Oct. 1 merger of Eighteenth Bank and Shinwa Bank a potential test case for turning around the city’s fortunes. The new institution, formed after a lengthy battle between the antitrust watchdog and financial regulators, has a roughly 70% share in the southern Japanese prefecture.

The merger has the blessing of Suga, who has emphasised the need for regional banks to consolidate to survive dwindling

New Stimulus Hopes Fade While Economic Risks Grow

October 7, 2020

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Fed officials, in their minutes, noted that “a number of participants judged that the absence of further fiscal support would exacerbate economic hardships in minority and lower-income communities.”

“The gains that have been built up over time are fragile,” said Raghuram G. Rajan, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund who is now a professor at the University of Chicago. “You have a whole bunch of people who’ve struggled their way into a semblance of normalcy by 2019, and then you have this massive crisis. If we don’t try to protect those gains, it will take a longer time, a really long time to come back.”

Businesses are also in need of more help, particularly industries that have yet to return to full capacity as the virus persists. Major airlines began laying off workers this month after Congress failed to extend an earlier aid package. A hospitality-industry lobbying

The Finance 202: Trump just gut-punched an economic recovery already on the ropes

October 7, 2020

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Stocks swooned. The S&P 500 closed down 1.4 percent.

More importantly, Trump’s move threatens to hobble an already stumbling recovery, swelling the ranks of the 26 million relying on jobless assistance while leaving struggling Americans in increasingly desperate straits as unemployment benefits dry up and bans on evictions and utility shut-offs expire.

“Many unemployed say they no longer have enough money to pay rent, car payments or utility bills, or even buy food,” Heather Long notes. “The average unemployment payment fell from $900 a week to just over $300 at the end of July, a sharp reduction that makes it hard for many families to financially survive. As these people stop paying renting and car payments, it hurts landlords, firms and banks waiting for the money.”

Corporate layoffs have been mounting. United Airlines and American Airlines alone cut 32,000 workers as restrictions on airline firings expired last week with

Long-term jobless figures rise, underscoring economic pain

October 7, 2020

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The number of people who have joined the ranks of long-term unemployment has spiked to a record high in a worrying sign of the economic recovery’s health.

According to the Labor Department, the number of people out of work for more than 27 weeks increased to 2.4 million in September, an increase of 32.5 percent from the previous month. There are 4.9 million people who have been unemployed between 15 and 26 weeks.

Workers who have been separated from their jobs for more than 6 months typically have a more difficult time getting back to work even once the economy improves.

“Last week we saw the biggest spike in long-term unemployment since they started measuring long-term unemployment,” said Michele Evermore, senior researcher and policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project.

The number of long-term unemployed workers is expected to rise in the months ahead, something likely to be exacerbated