The solar product tariffs levied against Mexico are going to be withdrawn as part of ongoing trade talks in Vancouver Canada. This makes sense both from a USMCA perspective, but also for inflation.
Heathrow Airport has decided to limit the number of passengers per day to 100,000, and the Amsterdam Airport is adopting similar constraints. This is not because of COVID, but a problem that is the scourge of all employers, and that is they are short staffed. Will this spread to other airports worldwide? Who knows.
We have learned two important facts from the disclosures of the January 6th commission, and the Uvalde investigation. It is clear that the police chief in Uvalde was a coward, and had no idea what he was doing, and that the January 6th events had a strong push from a group of thugs who call themselves patriots. The Revolutionary War was fought to get away from imperialist, in that case, the British and to adopt the rule of law and self-governance. The facts of the November 2020 election are now undisputed as determined by the Courts, and in many cases, Republican Judges sitting in those Courts, that there was no voter fraud and the complaints about ballot boxes, mail-in ballots, etc. are all just a subterfuge by the people who failed to get out and do their job, that is get the Republican vote out.
China is experiencing an increase in the B-5 variant, which is resulting in lockdowns in some cities, and the Chinese markets are beginning to be concerned as are American markets. As we noted last week, some of these activities are causing reshoring which should ultimately benefit the US economy. It does, however, likely portend more supply chain delays and interruptions, which is not good for the American economy, nor inflation.
Google recently announced that it was limiting, if not suspending hiring for the rest of this year, which follows a tech industry trend that has been growing as the economy becomes more fragile.
Canada’s gasoline production is at a 16-year high, and weekly prices of gas in the US have dropped by 6%, in virtually every state in the union except for five, Hawaii, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Utah, for which there does not appear to be a specific reason other than the geography – that is the long distances to deliver the gasoline, and maybe those Republican states have high state gasoline taxes, which would be an irony.
The Euro reached parity on Wednesday, July 13th, which initially sounds like a good thing. What it does is makes our exports more expensive in Europe, versus what has happened historically where the Euro was stronger than the dollar, the Europeans got a better deal. Obviously, the converse is true and we should be getting better deals now on European imports, although with inflation, the practical effect may be limited, if nonexistent.
The James Webb telescope has produced images, five of which have been recently published, and it is certainly worth your while to go and take a look. These are truly phenomenal pieces of work and the ability to secure them and produce them in a form that all of us can see is outstanding. It certainly makes you wonder about the universe, and how we fit in.
The recent disclosure that the secret service deleted emails/tweets for January 5th and 6th of 2021, along with their already tarnished reputation in what appears to be blatant support for Mr. Trump, took another step into the black hole with this revelation. Unfortunately, this seems to be a characteristic of DHS which is a right-leaning government agency, and not one prone to responsibility to the public. One almost has to question whether or not they believe they are protecting us or them. A sad state of affairs but unfortunately it is looking more accurate all of the time.
The number of people making claims for unemployment jumped substantially last week and that is the first time in many months although the total number of people receiving unemployment continues to decline. This of course raises the question of what the impact is of the 11 million unfilled jobs and maybe, as I’ve indicated in previous commentary, this may be a major savior for the economy as we roll into some level of recession.
China had its slowest growth in recent years, reflecting the impact of COVID-19, supply chain problems, and maybe a general slowing in the Chinese economy.
The US continues to pressure, in particular, China and India, to cease buying oil and gas from Russia, but that seems to be falling on deaf ears. This of course, may come back to bite them in the future, we can only hope so.
Retail sales rebounded with a 1% gain in the face of soaring inflation. This appears on its face to be somewhat inconsistent or counterintuitive, yet I believe as long as consumers continue to have sufficient amounts of cash and savings that they will continue to spend and that seems to be the trend.
The Justices who lied to Senator Collins I assume would not be troubled by another lie. We now have what one might say, are two big lies – or maybe three. The second being the Republicans saying “trust me” and the third is relying on Supreme Court Justice’s confirmation testimony.
Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, Kelleher and Trombley in Plattsburgh, NY and a Strategic Advisor at Dentons to Washington, DC.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.