by James Hickman
Schiff Sovereign
Did you hear about the new streamlined tourist visa to Saudi Arabia? I’m sure you’re standing in line for it already.
No? Me neither.
I was actually stationed in Saudi Arabia for a while when I was in the Army… and, the most unique ‘tourist’ attraction, at least for non-Muslims, is a place we used to call “Chop Chop Square” where they would do the public beheadings and dismemberments of convicted criminals.
Aside from that, Saudi Arabia has virtually nothing to offer tourists. At least for now.
But over the past few years the government has set itself on a path to building massive futuristic cities and giant resorts in an effort to bring tourists and diversify its economy– including a recently streamlined visa process.
April 4 (Reuters) – The largest impediment to the U.S. central bank’s efforts to return inflation to its 2% target rate is the persistence of outsized price increases in the housing services sector, Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said on Thursday.
Payrolls are up again in the latest report, making the Fed’s job a little harder. So are wage gains! However, according to the latest Purchase Managers Index, prices paid on the services side of the economy by producers are down, which means inflation could come down. That’s if you believe it. But how can that be true when recent reports said the opposite and when rising employment coupled with rising wages indicates the opposite as well?
The stock market didn’t like that at all.
The price or the rate of exchange of one good in terms of another is the amount of the other good divided by the amount of the first good. In the money economy, price will be the amount of money divided by the amount of the first good.
The upcoming Consumer Price Index figures for March will be closely analyzed by Federal Open Market Committee members ahead of their next meeting on May 1. No change in interest rates is expected at the meeting. But relatively benign inflation data could pave the way for a summer interest rate cut, according to the expectations of most FOMC officials and fixed-income markets.
The Federal Reserve will see if inflation moves beyond its current rough patch before imposing highly anticipated interest rate cuts, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday.
(Bloomberg) — A dollar gauge saw its biggest drop in nearly four weeks on Wednesday as price pressures in the US services industry eased and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he wants to see inflation move sustainably to the US central bank’s 2% goal before starting to lower interest rates.
On Monday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Today,” President Joe Biden responded to a question on what he would say to people whose money isn’t going as far due to inflation by saying, “we have the best economy in the world. We’ve got to make it better.” And “we’re going to find out that what happened as a consequence of the crisis we had on health is going to have a lasting effect. We’ve just got to get people to move again. We’re ready. I think the country’s ready to come together…I’m truly optimistic.”