“The threat of a turbulent US presidential election is raising the pressure on companies to load up on cheap debt as bankers warn that disruption to financial markets could deny them access to funds on favourable terms…
““The November 3 election is “about as clear a risk factor as you have going into year-end,” said Jonny Fine, head of investment grade debt syndicate at Goldman Sachs.”
https://www.ft.com/content/5c851702-3b02-4523-ac2e-2d94b8c65ae4
“Chicago historian Rich Lindberg went further, saying that COVID-19 might be a more severe crisis than World War II, when at least the country was united and the struggle was infused with meaning.
“Partisan division is at perhaps its the highest level since the Civil War, he said, with extremism on both sides, a lack of faith in public institutions and a looming sense of dread.”
“The amount of money investors are recovering from companies that default on their debt has fallen at a sharper rate this year than during previous credit cycles, potentially heralding a structural shift in debt markets, according to a new report from Barclays.
“CDS recoveries have sunk “alarmingly” to an all-time low of nine cents on the dollar in recent months…”
“The pandemic recession plunged dozens of large American companies into bankruptcy this summer. Countless more are on their way.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/11/business/bankruptcies-recession-economy/index.html
“For millions of Americans this week, a temporary $300 bump in their unemployment checks will be their last.
“Funding for President Donald Trump’s $300 unemployment benefits is starting to run out, leaving nearly 30 million people on unemployment benefits with only a fraction of their past wages.”
“If the costs of living [in the US] these days seems to be rising faster than the official 1.3% inflation rate, there’s a reason.
“The annual inflation rate for Covid-connected purchases is 1.85%, or a half percentage point higher than the Consumer Price Index, according according to Harvard Business School professor Alberto Cavallo.”
“Britain’s economy recovered half of its COVID-19 crash by the end of July, helped by pubs and restaurants reopening from lockdown, but the bounce-back is expected to slow as job losses mount and Brexit tensions rise.”
“The French police fired tear gas and arrested more than 250 people in Paris as “yellow vest” protesters returned to the capital’s streets in force for the first time since the coronavirus lockdown…
“Some of the protesters wore black clothes and carried the flag of an anti-fascist movement, suggesting the presence of radical demonstrators dubbed “black blocs” often blamed for violence at street marches in France.”
“The tourists are leaving Italy. Now catastrophe looms… All Italian cities are expected to be significantly impacted, particularly those more dependent on international visitors like Venice, Florence and Rome…
“Fears of a second wave appear to have dashed earlier projections of a September and October tourism revival.”
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/italy-tourism-economy-catastrophe-covid/index.html
“Greece’s president will head to a tiny island that is at the heart of the country’s bitter dispute with Turkey on Sunday as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s authoritarian leader, threatened to resolve the two nation’s differences “on the battlefield…
“While speaking in Istanbul, he issued another threat towards Greece, referring obliquely to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne…”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/12/greek-president-heads-tiny-island-crux-crisis-turkey/
“Riot police fought running battles with opposing groups of protesters near Beirut’s Presidential Palace on Saturday after rights activists clashed with rival demonstrators chanting their support for President Michel Aoun.
“Clashes erupted after activists marking the 40th day since the deadly Beirut port explosion on Aug. 4 were confronted by Free Patriotic Movement supporters who tried to break through a security blockade.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1733486/middle-east
“Anti-Shiite protesters march for second day in Karachi –
“Tens of thousands of anti-Shiite protesters including demonstrators linked to Sunni extremists rallied in Pakistan’s Karachi on Saturday, in the second day of protests that have sparked fears of sectarian violence.” [Photos]
“Virus pushes world’s biggest job program to brink in India – Rathod is vying for work under the world’s largest jobs programs: The only option for the millions of migrant workers who face mass job losses in a struggling economy and a raging pandemic.
““If there were 15 people for a job earlier, now there are 200. Work for eight days is getting done in one day,” Rathod, 45, said from Nawabganj in Uttar Pradesh.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1733666/business-economy
“Scores of people protested in Benghazi on Thursday over power cuts and living conditions, witnesses said, burning tyres and blocking some roads in an unusual public show of dissent in the eastern Libyan city.”
“Nigerian police Thursday dispersed and arrested protesters decrying the recent hike in petrol prices and electricity tariff in the suburban city of Ojuelegba, Lagos, local media reported.
“This comes as a series of demonstrations against the increase in petrol prices and electricity tariff has reportedly hit different parts of the oil-rich country…”
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/nigeria-arrests-in-protests-against-fuel-price-hike/1969344
“Violent clashes have erupted in Colombia’s capital following the death of a man in police custody, with angry citizens setting fire to city buses, vandalising police stations and squaring off with officers in confrontations that killed at least nine people.”
“After reviving crude prices from an unprecedented collapse over the spring, OPEC+ is seeing the recovery stall and fuel demand falter as the deadly pandemic surges once again. Prices slipped below $40 a barrel last week for the first time since June.
“On Thursday, Saudi Arabia and Russia — the leading members of the alliance — will chair a monitoring meeting to assess whether the vast production cuts, which they started easing in August, are still staving off an oil glut. New signs of exporters reneging on the deal are not helping.”
“The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has projected a gloomy outlook for the global manufacturing industry, saying it was set for its biggest collapse in decades, by year-end.”
[2019 wasn’t so hot either with manufacturing in contraction for much of the year.]
https://guardian.ng/business-services/unido-projects-biggest-collapse-for-global-manufacturing/
“…with the world economy expected to contract nearly 5 percent this year, households are cutting back sharply on spending. Among those who went into the pandemic in extreme poverty, hundreds of millions of people are suffering an intensifying crisis over how to secure their basic dietary needs.”
You can read the previous ‘Economic’ thread here and visit my Patreon page here. I’ll be back tomorrow with a climate round-up.
