#global-economy

#global-economy

The World Bank said on Tuesday that the global economy remained in a precarious state and warned of sluggish growth this year and next as rising interest rates slow consumer spending and business investment, and threaten the stability of the financial system.The bank's tepid forecasts in its latest Global Economic Prospects report highlight the predicament that global policymakers face as they try to corral stubborn inflation by raising interest rates while grappling with the aftermath of the pandemic and continuing supply chain disruptions stemming from the war in Ukraine.

Getty Images The Federal Reserve raised a key interest rate one-quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, the same level of an increase as in its previous meeting seven weeks ago.Repeating that small hike might not seem dramatic, but after a turbulent couple of weeks for the global economy, the 25-basis-point boost is a pretty big deal.

FILE - A woman leads her goats as Suralaya coal power plant looms in the background in Cilegon, Indonesia, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023.The head of the United Nations called Monday, March 13 for scientists to serve up "cold, hard facts" to push governments into taking policies that curb climate change before a key global warming threshold is passed.

More than four years ago, I became a grandfather.Later this year, I'll become a grandfather again.The question is, what have I learned from my first stint in this role that I should apply to my second go-round?For starters, avoid asking your future grandson if he likes grandma better than he does you.

The UK economy will continue to lag behind other countries in the group of seven (G7) advanced economies this year, despite improved growth projections, new analysis has shown.Only Germany, which fell into a recession over the start of the year and is set to stagnate throughout 2023, will perform worse than the UK.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, attempts have been made to clobber its economy.Russian businesses have been cut off from vast tracts of the Western world.Its oligarchs have been sanctioned and had their yachts seized.And yet, by almost every measure, the Russian economy has weathered the last year much better than almost anyone expected.

After four months of political wrangling, eyeball-to-eyeball negotiations and mounting anxiety in both parties about the "debt ceiling," Congress finally has found enough common ground to pay its bills.But how long will these good tidings last?First, it helps to understand just what the debt ceiling is.

President Joe Biden, right, and Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meet on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Saturday, May 20, 2023.Susan Walsh, AP President Joe Biden was seeking to rally regional cooperation against China on the margins of the Group of Seven summit Saturday, while confronting a stalemate in Washington over how to ensure the US avoids default.

Broadsides to the global economy have myriad causes, not all within the control of governments.But when global economic pain is caused not by a devastating worldwide pandemic but by political pettiness and irresponsible governance, it's infuriating.Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that America is poised to default on its $31.4 trillion debt by June 1.

Europe's inflation took a positive turn with a significant drop to 6.1%, but prices are still posing a pinch to shoppers who are yet to see real relief in what they pay for food and other necessities.The annual figure in May eased from 7% in April for the 20 countries that use the euro currency, the European Union's statistical agency Eurostat said Thursday.

The US will bolster its defensive posture with heightened patrols in the Persian Gulf after destabilizing actions by Iran this past month to interfere with and seize commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz and other strategic waterways, according to a US National Security Council spokesperson.

WASHINGTON President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy emerged from a critical meeting at the White House on Tuesday with no consensus on how to end their impasse over the federal debt and spending just weeks before the nation is set to default on its obligations for the first time in history.With the American and perhaps the global economy hanging in the balance, the meeting was the first such session between the Democratic president and Republican speaker since February.

President Biden unveiled a populist budget plan Thursday as the White House and congressional Republicans remain locked in a game of chicken over spending priorities and raising the debt ceiling to avoid a catastrophic default.The spending plan, which is sure to be used as a clarion call in Biden's expected 2024 reelection bid, calls for a dramatic $3 trillion cut in the deficit, fueled mostly by increased taxes on corporations and the very wealthy.

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Fears the global economy might be hit by a fresh banking crisis wiped billions of pounds off the value of top firms on Wednesday amid growing uncertainty over the future of troubled Credit Suisse.

Canada's inflation rate cooled to 5.2 per cent in February, the largest deceleration since April 2020, according to Statistics Canada.The agency said its consumer price index had a year-over-year deceleration from February 2022, when the inflation rate was 5.7 per cent.The reading compared with an annual inflation rate of 5.9 per cent in January and was the lowest reading since January 2022, when it was 5.1 per cent.

Argo Blockchain (ARB), the only U.K.-listed cryptocurrency miner, slumped to a full-year loss in 2022 as the price of bitcoin fell and mining difficulty increased, driving up costs.The London-based company reported a net loss of 194.2 million British pounds ($240 million) compared with net income of 30.8 million pounds the year before, it said in a statement.

Ed Miliband will call on the Government to stop moaning about Joe Biden's green investment plan when he sets out Labour's plan to match the Inflation Reduction Act.The shadow climate secretary will use a speech on Tuesday to stress Labour's ambition on green investment, amid pressure on the Government to deliver a set of policies that would drive investment in low-carbon technology and match the Inflation Reduction Act in the US and the Green Deal Industrial Plan in the EU.

Stripe, a San Francisco payments provider and one of the world's most valuable private companies, said on Wednesday that it had raised new funding that values it at $50 billion, down from $95 billion in 2021, in a sign of how the air has come out of start-up dealmaking.The start-up, which provides payment processing software to companies including Amazon, raised $6.5 billion in its new financing from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Thrive Capital.

By
The ad agency holding company WPP is on the up and up and remains confident in its clients' continued investment in marketing projects despite a challenging macroeconomic environment.WPP is "well positioned to deliver sustainable, long-term growth" after seeing broad-based growth in 2022, said CEO Mark Read during the company's earnings report on Thursday.

As world leaders, chief executives and nonprofit leaders descend on Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum this week, war will be raging about 1,000 miles away.Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost one year ago has reordered the geopolitical landscape, sent ripples through the global economy and brought trench warfare back to Europe.

A man walks past a wall mural of Humayun's Tomb under the logo of the Group of 20 summit, in New Delhi on Jan. 4. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images India is basking in its role as host of this week's G-20 foreign ministers' summit, but hoping its agenda doesn't get dominated by the Ukraine war.As president of the Group of 20 (G-20) major economies, India wants to steer the agenda for Wednesday's summit start toward priorities for the Global South: climate change, food security, inflation and debt relief.

Congress is once again bickering about raising the debt ceiling, the amount of money the US government can borrow to pay its bills on time.And that means that Corporate America has to be ready for the worst.The CEO of Bank of America (BAC), America's second-largest bank, told CNN he hopes lawmakers resolve their issues, because the market and economy love stability.

Heading into 2023 it's already apparent the top priority for most DevOps teams in terms of New Year resolutions needs to be improving productivity.A survey of 500 software and engineering professionals, sponsored by Chronosphere, a provider of an observability platform, found engineers spend, on average, more than 10 hours per week attempting to triage and understand incidents.

A record 1,957 bankers across Europe earned more than 1m (878,000) last year, according to data that shows the scale at which some of the best-paid jobs in Britain have moved from London to the EU since Brexit.The European Banking Authority disclosed on Thursday that the number of bankers earning 1m or more a year had increased by more than 40%, from 1,383 in 2020 to 1,957 in 2021.