Profits are privatized; losses are socialized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbowBTJWKBo

@economics

#economics #business #government #politics #PSA

Is France showing us that neoliberalism is beginning to fail? As protests against austerity grow, financial markets are demanding spending cuts while ordinary people are demanding better public services and greater economic security. I argue that this conflict could determine the future of European politics and economics.

U.S. consumers aren’t just frustrated with high prices. They’re angry and confused about the increasingly high-tech ways that restaurant chains and major retailers are setting those prices.

Digital price tags are rapidly replacing paper ones in grocery aisles. Artificial intelligence tools help businesses decide what to charge by predicting how customers might respond. Terms like “dynamic pricing” and “surveillance pricing” are stirring anxiety on social media, where users wonder if different people are getting different prices for the same product.

Americans have grown accustomed to changing prices when booking flights, hotel rooms and rides, but the prospect of everyday spending shaped by algorithms they don’t understand and personal data they may not realize they’re sharing has touched a nerve.

Neoliberalism has dominated economic and political thinking for more than 45 years. But what does it actually mean, who benefits from it, and why have successive governments accepted its ideas?

Wholesale inflation rose more quickly than expected last month on a big jump in fuel costs, a sign that stubbornly rising prices remain an economic challenge for consumers and a political problem for Republicans in the midterm elections

Wholesale inflation rose more quickly than expected last month on a big jump in fuel costs, a sign that stubbornly rising prices remain an economic challenge for consumers and a political problem for Republicans in the midterm elections.

The Labor Department’s producer price index — which captures inflation before it reaches consumers — soared 6.3% in September from a year ago, up from 5.6% in August and the biggest increase since December 2022, the government said Thursday.

On a monthly basis, wholesale prices increased 1.3% from August to September, the largest since March 2022, after a 0.5% increase the previous month.

Chip makers and tech investors such as Samsung and SoftBank plunge as potential interest rate hikes spook markets

An accelerating sell-off of AI-linked shares has hit global markets, as fears over rising inflation and future interest rate hikes spooked traders already wary of the heavily indebted sector.

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi 200 index, which is heavily skewed towards the companies that make memory chips, fell more than 8% overnight to a six-month closing low, triggering circuit breakers that brought trading to a halt at various points.

Some of those semiconductor stocks, such as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, plunged nearly 11% and 9.5%, respectively. The index closed at a six-month low, down 8.1%.

High valuations and debt put sector in danger, while fund also warns on government borrowing and cyber-attacks

The threat of an AI share price crash rippling out across global markets is putting world financial stability at risk, the International Monetary fund has warned.

In its twice-yearly Global Financial Stability Report, the IMF highlighted the sky-high valuations for AI companies along with their increasing debt pile as one reason that risks in the system are “elevated”.

“The consequences of an AI correction could be global,” it warned. Aside from the US, Asian markets would be most exposed, and the UK and euro area potentially more insulated – though investors with US holdings would be hit.

For more than a decade, call centers were one of the most reliable ways into formal office work in middle- and lower-income countries. That route is now shrinking. Revelio Labs' global headcount data shows call center employment is 5.3% below its December 2023 peak. Of the 70 quarter-end readings since 2009, headcount fell from a year earlier only eight times, and all eight have come in the last eight quarters.

Farmers, truckers and economists say a move to cut taxes on diesel will provide little relief from record-high fuel prices that have soared since the U.S. attacked Iran months ago.

Industry groups said they appreciate President Donald Trump’s executive order expanding the use of a diesel now reserved for off-road work, but farmers already have access to the fuel and many have already wrapped up harvest. Truckers will struggle to navigate differing state rules.

“In the context of diesel prices that are over two dollars more than they were last year, it just doesn’t come close to closing that wound,” said Matt Perdue, president of the North Dakota Farmers Union.

Another month of poor job growth; headline number is +29,000. But again significant downward revisions to prior months:

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised down by 31,000, from +21,000 to -10,000, and the change for August was revised down by 29,000, from +162,000 to +133,000. With these revisions, employment in July and August combined is 60,000 lower than previously reported.

U.S. employers added a disappointing 29,000 jobs and the unemployment rate ticked up last month, the government reported Friday, a month before voters go to the polls in pivotal midterm elections at a time of discontent over the high cost of living and the state of the economy.

Hiring dropped from a revised 133,000 in August, the Labor Department reported. The unemployment rate rose to a still-low 4.2% from 4.1% in August,

Economists had expected September payrolls to come in at 90,000.

cross-posted from: https://ani.social/post/37239748

More than 20 years after his death, we’re still living in the neoliberal world Milton Friedman made.

The arc of neoliberalism begins in 1947, gathers steam in the 1970s, and reaches its zenith in the 1990s before breaking into a million pieces and forever out of the control of its progenitors. The story of Milton Friedman rises and falls along with it, and it’s a complicated one of ego, ambition and academic notoriety; a confluence of factors and foibles that came to define the modern economic age.

This is the story of Milton Friedman, one of the principal architects of the modern world.

Read the full article here:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/were-living-in-the-world-that-milton-friedman-made

The US Federal Reserve voted to raise interest rates on Wednesday for the first time since 2023 as the central bank continues to fight to tamp down inflation.

The Fed’s open market committee voted unanimously to raise its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-percentage point to a range of 3.75% to 4%. This is the first time the Fed has raised rates since July 2023 and potentially sets Kevin Warsh, the current Fed chair, on a collision course with Donald Trump.

“The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long,” Warsh said on Wednesday. “This summer’s inflation readings do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.”

Mortgage rates rose for the third week in a row, pushing the average long-term U.S. home loan rate to its highest level in over 14 months.

The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rose to 6.76% from 6.71% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.35%.

Higher mortgage rates can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting homebuyers’ purchasing power. As rates rise, that can also lead prospective home shoppers to delay buying a home, one reason U.S. home sales remain largely stagnant again this year.

The average rate is now the highest it’s been since June 26, 2025, when it was at 6.77%.

Pretty brutal numbers; and not just food & energy: core at 4.7% for the 12 months!

The Producer Price Index for final demand moved up 0.4 percent in August, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices rose 0.1 percent in July and decreased 0.1 percent in June. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand increased 5.4 percent for the 12 months ended in August.

In August, the index for final demand goods advanced 1.1 percent, and prices for final demand services increased 0.1 percent.

The index for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services rose 0.3 percent in August after moving up 0.4 percent in July. For the 12 months ended in August, prices for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services advanced 4.7 percent.

Private equity firms and the companies they own employ over 13 million, from startups to rural hospitals and large retailers, but experts’ concerns of collapse are growing

U.S. stock investors are warily watching the rise in Treasury yields as a stumbling block for Wall Street's record-setting rally, with particular trouble seen if ​the benchmark 10-year yield jumps abruptly toward 5%.

Higher bond yields pose a number of obstacles for stock performance. These obstacles include stiffer investment competition and pressure on equity valuations, ‌as well as higher borrowing costs, which can eventually stymie economic growth.

Japan's benchmark 10-year bond yield struck the key 3% barrier for the first time since 1996 on Tuesday, amid a deepening global debt selloff as traders fret about oil-driven inflation, monetary tightening and worsening fiscal conditions.

With ‌the Middle East crisis stoking price pressures globally, yields have been spiking from Tokyo and Sydney to New York and London as investors anticipate the need for central banks to raise interest rates.

The bond market is also under pressure from a deluge of issuance as hyperscalers aggressively raise money to fund the AI boom, in an environment where the U.S. debt load has passed $40 trillion and Japan's ministries are likely to request a record amount in an initial budget for next fiscal year. Yields rise when bond prices fall.