China’s retail sales — a nominal figure — grew just 0.2% in April, marking the weakest reading on record outside the Covid era.
Investor pessimism about consumption has become deeply entrenched: the underperformance of consumer-oriented sectors relative to the broader market
Goldman tries to quantify the net effect of AI both substituting for and augmenting U.S. employment.
Their conclusion: AI substitution in occupations like phone operations and insurance claims administration have reduced monthly payroll gains by around -25K and raised the unemployment rate by 0.16 pp over the past year. AI augmentation in occupations including medicine and education have added +9K to monthly payrolls and lowered the unemployment rate by 0.06 pp. This nets out to a slight -16K drag on payrolls and an increase in the unemployment rate by 0.1 pp.
Caveat: This exercise doesn't account for the possible benefit from either construction hiring due to data-center buildout or AI-driven productivity/income gains.
Sharing a new piece by me and my colleague @shuizaiping2 where we took a deep dive into Xi Jinping’s newly released book on the “correct view of political performance”, a compilation of his speeches spanning more than a decade, many of them previously unpublished!
The timing,
"This has bedevilled the launch of a property tax, in part because many corrupt officials own several homes. Forcing political elites to come clean would expose pervasive graft—and trigger a pre-emptive wave of home sales when the property market is weak."
Observers fret that Xi Jinping is returning China to Marxism; few notice that, perhaps unwittingly, he has made it a partial tax haven economist.com/leaders/2026/0…
Xinhua: "Chinese local authorities have allocated 2.05 billion yuan in funds to directly benefit the public through the distribution of consumption vouchers, subsidies, and cash envelopes during the nine-day Spring Festival holiday." For what its worth, that is well under
This chart from the Financial Times illustrates the significant ongoing volatility in precious metals, as speculators have effectively sidelined institutional investors for the time being.
Gold is currently trading down 5%, while silver has slumped 10%.
The pressing question is how long this speculative shakeout will last—and just how much damage we should expect.
All we know for sure is that the extraordinary rise in the prices of both, while driven by fundamental factors, attracted lots of speculators.
Meanwhile, oil prices have also fallen, with Brent down 5%, following a slight cooling in the fundamentally tense relations between Iran and the US.
#economy#markets#oil#gold#silver@FT
TRUMP EYES WARSH FOR FED CHAIR
The Trump administration is preparing to nominate Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair, according to people familiar with the matter.
President Trump said he will announce his pick Friday morning, though the decision is not final. The
China’s “consumption problem” is often misunderstood, and the property sector is the missing link. It’s true, in accounting terms, that household consumption is low as a share of China’s GDP. But a common mistake is to equate “high household savings” with idle money sitting in a
China’s “consumption problem” is often misunderstood, and the property sector is the missing link. It’s true, in accounting terms, that household consumption is low as a share of China’s GDP. But a common mistake is to equate “high household savings” with idle money sitting in a
I wrote a book about Chinese influence in the United States, and found that Chinese propaganda in America has two goals: to convince Americans China's rise will be peaceful, and that China's rise is inevitable. Both are misleading at best. Be very careful making these
China is prioritizing service consumption this year, with a target to raise its share to 50% by 2030—a 5ppt increase. We believe China can achieve this SHARE increase - like Japan in the 90s, a shift from goods to service consumption is inevitable in a maturing and aging economy.
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