“Dissatisfaction with democratic politics among citizens of developed countries has increased from a third to half of all individuals over the last quarter of a century, according to the largest international dataset on global attitudes to democracy ever made.
““Across the globe, democracy is in a state of malaise,” said the report’s lead author Dr. Roberto Foa, from Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS). “We find that dissatisfaction with democracy has risen over time, and is reaching an all-time global high, in particular in developed countries.””
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-global-dissatisfaction-democracy-high-reveals.html
“The US budget deficit will break above the $1 trillion milestone in 2020 as Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts and spending splurge add to an “unsustainable” debt mountain.
“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned that federal debt will rise to just under 100pc of GDP by 2030, levels not seen since the Second World War.”
“Back in May 2006, [the Fed] seemed truly to be on autopilot. But we now know that U.S. house prices were about to peak in the next month, while credit markets were boiling up.
“By making life so predictable for markets, the Fed had created the conditions for complacency and excessive speculation.”
“Fed officials, who conclude their two-day policy meeting Wednesday, may again have to grapple with the prospects of a slowing economy, if the bond market is right about prospects ahead.
““While the Fed may want to portray its 2020 rate policy as stable, markets are signaling that their bias should be to further easing,” Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, said in his daily note Wednesday.”
“The UK will soon begin the most radical national experiment of the 21st century so far: Brexit. Having won a landslide election victory on a promise to “get Brexit done,” Boris Johnson will finally make good on 2016’s referendum result.
“Britain will leave the European Union, with no easy way back or guarantees about what will come next. Having voted twice for Brexit, the country is finally ready to make the leap…”
“Thousands took to the streets across France on Wednesday to protest Emmanuel Macron’s controversial proposed pension reform.
“Demonstrators convened in Paris, Marseille, Nantes, Rennes, Toulouse and Bordeaux for the eighth major day of protest since trade unions called a series of strikes in early December.”
https://www.dw.com/en/fresh-mass-protests-against-pension-reform-sweep-france/a-52191746
“Italy’s budget deficit will overshoot the government’s 2020 target and public debt will rise in the medium-term as economic growth languishes, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday…
“…the fund urged the Italian authorities to adopt “upfront high quality measures” to consolidate public finances.”
“[India’s] real estate market illustrates the extent of the economy’s woes. Property developers… have gone bust, are mired in billions of dollars of debt and unable to secure funding to complete projects as promised.
“Non-bank financing, a $335 billion industry that became the lifeline for millions of small businesses and consumers in recent years, has dried up.
“Prospective home buyers are paying mortgages for apartments they can’t live in, putting their budgets under strain. And millions of construction jobs are at risk, with effects that are already rippling across India’s all-important rural economy.”
“The deepening virus crisis is raising risks that many Hong Kong-listed companies won’t be able to get their earnings reports done in time, lining them up for a suspension in trading if they run afoul of exchange rules.
“The Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants and senior executives at the Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. held an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the issue.”
With sepsis, it is the overreaction of the immune system to an infection rather than the infection itself that proves lethal.
We are still lacking sufficient information about the novel coronavirus to call the response an overreaction with any certainty but at this point I am more concerned by the potential economic fall-out than I a fearful of the virus itself.
“Can fear of a pandemic—apart from a pandemic itself—wreak havoc on global commerce? In a global economy and stock market heavily influenced by confidence and sentiment, there is nothing fake about the news of coronavirus fear.”
https://www.worth.com/fear-of-coronavirus-might-prove-lethal-for-the-global-economy/
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