Author: Steven Sahiounie

Start with consumer spending, the main engine of the economy. It fell in the final two months of 2022. Businesses aren’t about to come to the rescue, either. Construction companies were the first to pull back last year after rising mortgage rates choked off home sales. More recently, manufacturers have retreated in response to slower sales. Industrial production declined in both November and December and executives have signaled they will proceed with caution early in the new year. The government is also not going to lend a helping hand like it did during the first few years of the pandemic. Republicans who’ve…

Pakistan has hiked up petrol and diesel prices after the country’s currency value plummeted this week and just days before an International Monetary Fund (IMF) visit to the country to discuss the stalled ninth review of Pakistan’s funding programme. Finance minister Ishaq Dar said at a press conference on Sunday that petrol price will rise by 35 rupees to 249.80 rupees ($1) per litre while high-speed diesel would go up to 262.8 rupees ($1.05) per litre. The announcement was made just 10 minutes before the new prices went into effect at 11am (05:00 GMT). “We will have to take the rise in international…

Shipments of automobiles from China to international markets topped 2.5 million units in 2022, making it the world’s third biggest exporter of cars, Bloomberg reported earlier this week, citing data from the China Passenger Car Association. China’s numbers came in behind Japan and Germany, but ahead of the US and South Korea, signaling the emergence of a strong challenger to the established automaking giants. Chinese brands are currently among the best-selling in the Middle East and Latin America. In Europe, electric models from Tesla and Chinese-owned former European brands (as well as European brands such as Dacia Spring and the…

A Norwegian research team has discovered large reserves of metals and minerals under the seabed of the country’s vast continental shelf, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said in a statement on Friday. The major discovery reportedly offers one of the world’s biggest oil and gas exporters the prospect of extracting “substantial” amounts of minerals, ranging from copper to rare earth metals. “Of the metals found on the seabed in the study area, magnesium, niobium, cobalt and rare earth minerals are found on the European Commission’s list of critical minerals,” director of technology and analysis at NPD, Kjersti Dahle, said. According to the preliminary estimates, polymetallic…

Russian-born billionaire Alexander Gerko became the UK’s top taxpayer last year, according to the Sunday Times Tax List published on Friday. Gerko, 43, has contributed more than £487 million ($601 million) to Britain’s public finances in just 12 months. It is equivalent to more than £1.3 million in tax a day – or £55,639 an hour. This is up from the £117.4 million he paid the previous year, when he ranked in tenth place. By taking the top spot on the list of the 100 biggest taxpayers in the UK, Gerko outpaced the head of Britain’s gambling empire Bet365, Denise…

Supply issues will continue to affect the European gas market this year, due to the need to refill storages, as supplies from Russia are severely diminished, TotalEnergies СEO Patrick Pouyanne told Belgian news outlet L’Echo on Saturday. According to Pouyanne, the current downward trend in energy prices will not last long. “The winter is quite mild, the storages are full, Europe needs to import less liquefied natural gas (LNG). But the fundamentals remain there: in 2023, Europe will receive less Russian gas than it received in 2022. It will again have to massively re-import LNG, even though it has not…

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Saturday warned of dire consequences the country may be facing if it doesn’t hike its statutory debt ceiling in the coming months. According to the senior official, the US could default on its debt by summer, which would lead to a financial crisis. “It makes me nervous…It would be devastating. It’s a catastrophe,” Yellen told Axios news outlet, adding that “we’ll have a financial crisis and I believe we would have recession in the United States.” “Spending would have to decline to match the tax revenues,” Yellen said, which would strip the government of…

It’s hard to imagine the internet without Google. The tech giant has become so synonymous with searching the web that it has become a verb – we don’t look it up, we “Google it”. Google ended 2022 as it ends every year, as the most visited website in the world. Its estimated share of the search engine market stands at 92% (Microsoft’s Bing is its closest rival, on 3%). On the surface, it might not like a landscape that’s ripe for change but don’t be so sure. The launch of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, last year threatened to upend how people prepare for…

Asda is facing the prospect of strike action unless it makes significant concessions on its self-styled “efficiency” plans that have placed thousands of jobs at risk, a union source has told Sky News. GMB representatives met late on Thursday – hours after Asda revealed a set of proposals that mainly involved moving away from some higher-paid nightshift work. While 211 night shift managerial roles were placed at risk under the plans, the biggest change would see 4,137 hourly-paid workers move to daytime roles, resulting in the loss of their night shift pay premium of at least £2.52 per hour. Asda said its…

President Joe Biden delivered a Thursday speech to hail economic progress during his administration and to attack congressional Republicans for their proposals on the economy and the social safety net. Some of Biden’s claims in the speech were false, misleading or lacking critical context, though others were correct. Here’s a breakdown of the 14 claims CNN fact-checked. Infrastructure projects Touting the bipartisan infrastructure law he signed in 2021, Biden said, “Last year, we funded 700,000 major construction projects – 700,000 all across America. From highways to airports to bridges to tunnels to broadband.” Facts First: Biden’s “700,000” figure is wildly inaccurate; it adds an extra…