“Fresh Covid-19 Outbreaks in Asia Disrupt Global Shipping, Chip Supply Chain: An outbreak at one of the world’s busiest ports in southern China has led to global shipping delays, while infections at key points in the semiconductor supply chain in Taiwan and Malaysia are worsening a global chip shortage that has hindered production in the auto and technology industries.
“The new headaches add to inflation concerns, after China and the U.S. this week recorded their biggest annual jumps in factory-gate prices and consumer prices, respectively, in more than a decade.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-global-logistics-logjam-shifts-to-shenzhen-from-suez-11623403801
“The world must stand by Southeast Asia in its fight against COVID… Today, a surge in infections in Southeast Asia that is costing lives and threatening to derail recovery from last year’s painful recession also demands global attention.
“As the highly contagious Indian and U.K. variants of COVID take root, the developed world needs to do more than hold its breath and hope.”
https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/The-world-must-stand-by-Southeast-Asia-in-its-fight-against-COVID
“Inflation burst begins to tear market in two.
“A jump in US consumer prices has underscored the threat to financial markets as a growing chorus of doubters warns that inflation could skip away from central bankers’ control.”
“The Longer The Fed Pins Down Rates, The Uglier The Inflation Damage Will Be… The inflation data this morning came in hot, as expected.
“Still, the Treasury market moved in the opposite direction of what would be considered intuitive, in a world where the Fed looks to be almost certainly behind the curve on inflation (already).”
“Harvest of horrors: It was always a gruelling job. But today our demand for £4 chickens and milk at 40p a pint is driving [the UK’s] small farmers to despair and ruin…
“Our remaining 180,000 farmers still provide over half the food we eat, and yet because we demand it so cheap, farming has to be intensive.”
“Unemployment among recent graduates has risen to levels last seen during the austerity era, with [the UK’s] young people worst affected by job shortages due to the pandemic…
“The figures showed an unemployment crisis facing young people who had not gone to university, with nearly one in four unemployed and not looking for work…”
“A rapid and chaotic energy transition would leave Europe’s biggest banks in financial peril comparable to the subprime crisis that United States lenders faced in 2008.”
[Almost seems moot as a “rapid and chaotic energy transition” likely means systemic failure IMO.]
“China’s boast of eradicating poverty challenged by new study…
“Report [published on Tuesday by Bill Bikales, former senior economist for the UN in China] says Beijing failed to take into account impact of Covid on vulnerable urban families.”
https://www.ft.com/content/883f60d5-7085-4db6-a4e0-d277f43923b8
“China credit slowdown ‘happening faster than expected’ even as bank loans rose unexpectedly in May…
“Growth of outstanding total social financing (TSF), a broad measure of credit and liquidity in the economy, slowed to 11 per cent in May, the weakest pace since February 2020.”
“Russia raises key interest rate to 5.5% as it struggles to control inflation.
“Russia’s central bank has raised its key interest rate by 50 basis points as Moscow struggles to tame inflation, which is running at its highest level for almost five years.”
https://www.ft.com/content/c13da04f-b765-4e58-8435-d9cc27d491dc
“Cong protests across Rajasthan [India] against fuel price hike, inflation…
“Congress leaders and workers held symbolic protests outside petrol pumps and demanded the centre curb inflation.”
“Oman’s youth unemployment problem is a harbinger for wider Gulf.
“Unrest in Oman is a harbinger for other Gulf petrostates that need to diversify their economies to create jobs for legions of young people.”
“Sudan: Protests in Khartoum over price-spiking petrol subsidy removal.
“Tyres burned in blockades along the streets of Khartoum Thursday in protest of the Sudanese government’s decision — in line with reforms to make the country eligible for an IMF debt relief initiative, to remove subsidies on petrol and diesel resulting in their respective prices more than doubling.”
“Concerns grow that Lebanon fuel crisis is leading to ‘industrial and agricultural disaster’…
“Gasoline stocks running out and factories closing next week… ” “the political class in Lebanon is in denial, and people are rapidly heading toward the crisis while the state does not have any response plan.””
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1874426/middle-east
“Rise in Turkish food prices sparks fears of shortages.
“With its food inflation already above 17%, crisis-hit Turkey is bracing for further increases in food prices amid looming declines in key crops due to drought, coming atop already serious problems in the agricultural sector and the country’s unremitting currency woes.”
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/06/rise-turkish-food-prices-sparks-fears-shortages
“Algerians to elect parliament amid ‘repression’ of protest movement.
“Algerians vote in parliamentary elections on Saturday as authorities seek to bolster their legitimacy and snuff out a long-running protest movement, under what activists say is a “climate of repression”.”
“Sierra Leone faces serious food crisis.
“A recent study by the World Food Programme (WFP) says that over 4.7 million people out of a population of just over 7 million in Sierra Leone are food insecure. This means that 66 percent of the population cannot meet their basic food needs.”
https://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/sierra-leone-faces-serious-food-crisis/
“Covid-19 Plunges 50 % Zimbabweans Into Extreme Poverty…
“Extreme poverty in Zimbabwe rose to 49 % in 2020 due to the disruption caused on the national economy by Covid-19, coupled with inadequacies in terms of social protection, the latest World Bank report has established.”
https://www.newzimbabwe.com/covid-19-plunges-50-zimbabweans-into-extreme-poverty-world-bank/
“The cost of Colombia’s social unrest to oil and gas producers.
“The financial cost of Colombia’s social unrest to hydrocarbon producers has exceeded US$120mn, as blockades and violence have crippled oilfield operations, according to energy minister Diego Mesa.”
https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/the-cost-of-colombias-social-unrest-to-oil-and-gas-producers
“Venezuela’s public sector surviving on ‘starvation salary’…
“Johany Perez, a stretcher-bearer at a hospital in Caracas, earns a “starvation wage” of the minimum $2.20 a month in a Venezuela wracked by a severe economic crisis.”
“Steel’s massive rally is hitting all parts of the global economy.
“Demand is so frenzied that US mills have stopped taking orders from customers… In a global economy already shaken by supply shortages and inflation worries, the mills’ moves may signal more delivery snags and even higher prices for a commodity key to a wide swath of industries.”
“Tin prices rose to their highest in more than a decade on Friday as expectations of severe shortages due to supply and shipping disruptions created by COVID-19 restrictions fuelled another speculative buying frenzy.“
“Corn stockpiles in the U.S., the world’s biggest shipper, keep on shrinking [and have a hit a 25-year low] at a time when agricultural markets are steeped in worries over strained supplies and food inflation.
“The weather’s too dry for crops to thrive. Americans are embarking on summer travels, which burns up corn-based fuel that’s mixed into gasoline. China is scouring the world market for grains…”
“From Beans to Burgers, Food Is Getting More Expensive… Chipotle, Shake Shack and Piggly Wiggly are all raising prices to cover higher costs…
“Food prices are rising because of the higher costs for labor and transport but also ingredients including corn, soybean oil and wheat.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/from-beans-to-burgers-food-is-getting-more-expensive-11623344185
“António Guterres on the climate crisis: ‘We are coming to a point of no return’…
“Before meeting the leaders of the world’s major economic powers at the G7 summit in the UK, the UN Secretary General said he was concerned that the richest nations have pumped billions of dollars more into fossil fuels than clean energy since the pandemic, despite their promises of a green recovery.”
“Edge of Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf is ripping apart, causing key Antarctic glacier to gain speed… The ice shelf on Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier lost about one-fifth of its area from 2017 to 2020, mostly in three dramatic breaks…
““The loss of Pine Island’s ice shelf now looks like it possibly could occur in the next decade or two, as opposed to the melt-driven subsurface change playing out over 100 or more years,” said co-author Pierre Dutrieux, an ocean physicist at British Antarctic Survey. “So it’s a potentially much more rapid and abrupt change.””
You can read the previous ‘Economic’ thread here. I’ll be back on Monday with a ‘Climate’ thread.
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