Current Affairs
Investors cheered Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech on Friday, with markets interpreting it to mean that the central bank would not too quickly wind down its support of the economy. But not every speaker at the annual gathering gave cause for optimism.
Don Kohn, the Fed’s former vice chair for financial supervision, used the opportunity instead to warn of imminent risks to the stability of the global financial system, and called on regulators and lawmakers to take swift action to address those concerns.
“Dealing with risks to the financial stability is urgent,” he said during a speech to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium. “The current situation is replete with…unusually large risks of the unexpected, which, if they come to pass, could result in the financial system amplifying shocks, putting the economy at risk.”…read more.
Walmart Inc said on Wednesday it planned to hire 20,000 workers at its supply chain division ahead of the busy holiday season as the world’s largest retailer and other major rivals battle a logistics and labor crunch.
The roles, a mix of part-time and full-time jobs ranging from freight handlers to lift drivers, will be offered at 250 Walmart and Sam’s Club distribution centers, fulfillment centers and transportation offices, the world’s largest retailer said.
A nationwide labor shortage due to the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred retailers to raise wages this year, with many worried that they will not have enough workers in stores and warehouses during the holiday shopping season…read more.
Canada’s rebound unexpectedly stalled through spring and early summer, raising questions about the resiliency of the nation’s economy.
Gross domestic product fell at an annualized 1.1 per cent pace from April to June, Statistics Canada reported on Tuesday, down from a revised 5.5 per cent in the first three months of the year. Economists in a Bloomberg survey were anticipating a 2.5 per cent expansion. Adding to the disappointment, economic growth fell a further 0.4 per cent in July, according to a preliminary estimate.
It’s a worse-than-expected result that may prompt analysts to reconsider how quickly the nation’s economy will be able to fully recovery from the pandemic, heightening worries about growth just as the country braces for a fourth wave of COVID-19 cases…read more.
The intelligence community’s review of the origins of COVID-19 said there is “broad agreement” among agencies that the virus was not developed as a biological weapon and that Chinese officials “did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of COVID-19 emerged.”
The unclassified Office of the Director of National Intelligence summary of the IC assessment said that COVID-19 “probably emerged and infected humans through an initial small-scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019 with the first known cluster of COVID-19 cases arising in Wuhan, China in December 2019.”
“Most agencies also assess with low confidence that SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered; however, two agencies believe there was not sufficient evidence to make an assessment either way,” the report states…read more.
After years of hesitance, investors are finally warming up to wildfire tech.
Questions around monetization have generally been the reason financiers have avoided startups making technology to help combat wildfires.
According to Ahmad Wani, co-founder and CEO of disaster preparedness company One Concern, VCs tend to disregard business models that depend on governments as primary customers.
“As soon as you go to a venture capitalist and say the words ‘disaster’ or ‘government,’ they say, ‘You are a disaster. There’s the door,’ ” says Wani…read more.
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