Date: 2024-10-19 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021703
NEWS HEADLINES
FORTUNE DAILY
Fortune Daily February 15th 2022
FORTUNE DAILY
Fortune Daily
Fortune Daily
--------------------------------
AUTO
How much the Freedom Convoy has cost the U.S. and Canada
The so-called Freedom Convoy demonstrations over vaccine requirements for cross-border truckers are set to be expensive for both American and Canadian organizations.
------------
Here’s how much the ‘Freedom Convoy’ has cost the U.S. and Canada
BY MEGAN LEONHARDT
February 14, 2022 12:56 PM EST
Traffic on the Ambassador Bridge, a critical North American trade route, reopened on Monday after a weeklong blockade by truckers protesting vaccine mandates ended. But not before the protests likely inflicted hundreds of millions in economic damage.
The so-called Freedom Convoy, which started in Ottawa more than two weeks ago and comprised roughly 8,000 participants at its height, created a blockade of key bridges and crossings between the U.S. and Canada, including the Ambassador Bridge—as well as daily demonstrations in the Canadian capital of Ottawa. The protests largely centered on objections to vaccine requirements for truckers crossing the U.S.-Canadian border, but came to include a protest against COVID regulations writ large.
The bridge is North America’s busiest trade link connecting Detroit to Windsor and a vital artery for the auto industry. About 25% of the trade between the U.S. and Canada crosses this particular bridge—about $360 million in cargo daily, according to Reuters. The seven-day blockage, therefore, had wide-ranging consequences.
The auto industry alone is facing losses as high as $988 million because of the blockades, given that there’s an estimated $141.1 million worth of vehicles and auto parts flowing in and out daily, according to 2021 data from IHS Markit, a research firm.
And even though the bridge has been cleared, it’s going to take several weeks for things to return to normal, Peter Nagle, an IHS Markit research analyst focused on the auto industry, told the New York Times. “It’s not like you can flip a switch and get back to where we were production-wise.” Several auto manufacturers, including Ford and Toyota, have said they’ve been impacted by the blockade.
Yet while the Ambassador Bridge has reopened, traffic still remains choked in Ottawa and border crossings in Emerson, Manitoba, and Coutts, Alberta, continue to face disruptions thanks to the protests.
Costs for increased daily policing in Canada’s capital have hit $800,000 a day, and Ottawa officials tell Global News that the city has spent an additional $1 million in city services as a result of the protests. (On average, the city spends about $620,000 a year on Canada Day safety and police expenses.) And those expenses will likely be ongoing until the protests disappear.
More than half of Canadians, 53%, oppose the protests, and 59% disapprove of the truckers’ tactics. That disapproval has trended higher as the protests have continued, according to polling from Innovative Research Group.
“Canada is [a] nation that believes in the right to freedom of speech and expression, but we are also bound by the rule of law,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said Sunday. “As Canadians, there is more that unites us than divides us, and we must all find the resolve to approach those who hold different views with tolerance and respect.”
--------------------------------
FINANCE
A Johns Hopkins economist says the Fed is totally wrong about what led to record 7.5% inflation—and a ‘bathtub’ analogy explains why
“The current trend can only be explained by one force, an explosion in the money supply exceeding anything we’ve seen since World War II,” says Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University.
------------
A Johns Hopkins economist says the Fed is totally wrong about what led to record 7.5% inflation—and a ‘bathtub’ analogy explains why
BY SHAWN TULLY
February 14, 2022 11:25 AM EST
On Feb. 10, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the year-over-year consumer price index jumped by 7.5% in January, the highest reading since February of 1982, and well above the roughly 6% that Wall Street experts had forecast. Once again, a single explanation dominated the headlines: As usual, economists, market strategists, and pundits argued that “supply chain” disruptions slowing shipments by land, sea, and air, and causing severe shortages of everything from semiconductors to building supplies, are the principal cause for rampaging prices.
Despite month after month of big CPI numbers, Fed chairman Jay Powell remains in the “it’s all about bottlenecks” camp. To be sure, Powell has pivoted from his long-held position that the inflation surge is “transitory,” and promises strong action to stop the upward march in prices. He’s hastened the end of the Fed’s gigantic bond-buying campaign, and pledges to rapidly raise the Fed funds rate in the months ahead. But for Powell, the Fed’s just taking emergency action until the root cause of the problem, those clogged supply chains, resume running smoothly.
In testimony to Congress on Jan. 9, Powell stated: “The economy has rapidly gained strength despite the ongoing pandemic, giving rise to persistent supply and demand imbalances and bottlenecks, and hence to elevated inflation.” In other words, the U.S. is suffering a one-time, temporary shock––a legacy of the collision between the cataclysm that slowed or shuttered output at the world’s factories, and the heavy spending now raging in the Great Reopening.
OUCH ... CANNOT ACCESS THE REST OF THE ARTICLE !!!!!!!!!!
--------------------------------
TECH
IBM execs referred to older employees as ‘dinobabies’ and a ‘dated maternal workforce,’ according to explosive court docs
One executive said in an email that the company had a 'dated maternal workforce—this is what must change,' according to court documents.
--------------------------------
INTERNATIONAL
Ukraine’s execs say even without an invasion, Russia may have already damaged their businesses for years
One Ukrainian fund manager says investors will not come back to Ukraine for three to five years until the situation normalizes and the level of fear decreases.
--------------------------------
FINANCE
Kiss your guacamole goodbye: The U.S. just hit pause on avocado trade with Mexico, shutting down a $3 billion industry
During the winter months, about 99% of avocados come from Mexico. A suspected cartel threat to a U.S. inspector has put a halt to that trade.
------------
Kiss your guacamole goodbye: The U.S. just hit pause on avocado trade with Mexico, shutting down a $3 billion industry
BY NICOLE GOODKIND
February 14, 2022 5:17 PM EST
If you were watching the Super Bowl last night, you may have caught a commercial for Avocados from Mexico, the marketing arm of business organizations that represent U.S. importers of avocados from Mexico.
At a cost of $7 million per 30-seconds of airtime, the spot implored viewers to use avocados from Mexico at tailgate parties because “they’re always good.”
Always good, perhaps, but not always available. On Super Bowl eve, arguably guacamole’s biggest night, the U.S. suspended avocado imports from Mexico.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) said it had paused its avocado inspections in Michoacan after one of its officers received a threatening call to his official cell phone. Michoacan is the only Mexican state that is authorized to export avocados to the U.S., but the area is also home to drug cartel turf battles, and avocado growers there are sometimes extorted by cartels.
In the past six weeks, Michoacan avocado producers have exported more than 135,000 tons of avocados to the United States, the Mexican Agriculture Ministry said, and there are about $3 billion in annual exports.
During the winter months, the vast majority of avocados in the U.S.— about 99%—come from Mexico. Mexico is the leading producer and exporter of avocados globally, and while California-grown avocados are also sold throughout the U.S., but low rainfall in the state has led to smaller fruit and a smaller crop size.
A previous shortage of avocados has led to a large increase in price, and the blockage of imports from Mexico will likely make them exorbitantly expensive and rare.
The APHIS-USDA said they are currently investigating the matter to assess the level of threat and decide how to keep personnel working in Michoacan safe.
The Association of Avocado Exporting Producers and Packers of Mexico (APEAM), meanwhile, said that they were working with local authorities to fix the problem as quickly as possible, noting that the 300,000 jobs associated with the industry have already been impacted by the decision to pause exports. ;We encourage all those actors in this value chain to take extreme care and vigilance to preserve such an important export program,; the APEAM said in a statement.
Because the United States grows its own avocados, U.S. inspectors in Mexico work to make sure exported avocados don’t come with diseases that would hurt U.S. crops. In 1914, weevils, scabs, and pests entered U.S. orchards from Mexican products, which led to a ban on importing avocados from the country that wasn’t lifted until 1997.
--------------------------------
FINANCE Goldman predicts U.S. Fed will hike interest rates 7 times this year to rein in highest inflation since ... February 11, 2022 BY ENDA CURRAN AND BLOOMBERG FINANCE
------------
Fed plans to hike interest rates starting in March to cool inflation January 27, 2022 BY CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AND ASSOCIATED PRESS NEWSLETTERS
------------
Former SEC chief economist reveals advice for CFOs navigating inflation February 11, 2022 BY SHERYL ESTRADA
------------
FINANCE The Fed has two options on inflation—and neither of them are pretty November 3, 2021 BY SHAWN TULLY
------------
FINANCE Stock futures and crypto flatline as investors worry that U.S. inflation will shoot past 7.2% February 10, 2022 BY BERNHARD WARNER
------------