Category: Blog

Understanding economic growth is a crucial issue for elected officials and business leaders in all countries, especially in developing ones. It’s important because, if an economy is growing, it typically indicates that people and businesses are earning more, spending more, and feeling better off than before.

One of the most common ways to increase economic growth is to invest in building more capital assets—such as factories, roads, and other infrastructure. Another way is to improve technology, which allows us to get more output out of a given amount of labor and raw materials. This type of growth can be driven by many factors—savings and investment (capital), entrepreneurship, and research and development, for example. But a major factor is how well the economy’s institutions—laws, regulations, and customs that govern incentives and influence behavior—support or hinder economic growth.

The simplest way to measure economic growth is by looking at gross domestic product (GDP), which includes all the consumer, business, and government spending in a country over a period of time. Unlike other indicators such as unemployment or inflation, GDP accounts for all spending in the economy: a person’s personal consumption (C), investments by businesses and households (I), and net exports.

An economy’s performance is measured on a quarterly basis. As a result, there are often significant variations between quarters. This is because, for instance, a surge in imports may offset the effects of a strong job market or lower oil prices. However, overall trends in the economy are often more telling than quarterly data.

A UN resolution is a decision or declaration voted on by all members of the United Nations General Assembly. In general, the body needs a simple majority of yes votes to pass a resolution. However, if the issue under consideration is “an important question” (those that deal with the maintenance of international peace and security, admission of new countries to membership, suspension of the rights and privileges of existing members, the operation of the trusteeship system, or budgetary questions) then a two-thirds majority is required.

This resolution focuses on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory and criticises Israel’s policy of building Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land. It calls on the occupying power to ensure that Palestinians can live in dignity and freedom, and cites three previous resolutions dealing with the topic: 472 (1990), 672 (1990) and 673 (2015).

The Council reaffirms the need to fully implement the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Human Rights Council, in particular resolutions 242, 262 and 338, and stresses the importance of the full implementation of the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention. It also stresses the importance of enhancing the capacity of the Office of the Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Hamas committed a horrific massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, and it has since refused to halt its attacks, putting innocent Palestinians in harm’s way and prolonging their anguish. It is dangerous to reward Hamas with a Council resolution that draws false equivalence and undermines delicate diplomatic efforts for an appropriate ceasefire.

A government shutdown is a crisis that affects the American people. It halts the flow of passport applications, delays small business loans, and disrupts clinical trials in medical research. National parks close, and federal employees miss paychecks. While some services considered essential, like border protection and in-hospital medical care, continue, non-essential workers are furloughed until funding resumes.

Congress is unable to agree on a long-term spending bill, so it relies on short-term appropriations bills called continuing resolutions (CRs). When Congress can’t pass a CR by its deadline, a shutdown occurs.

In the past, these lapses have occurred because of political disputes and budget crises like the debt ceiling and trade fights, and they’ve cost the economy $2 billion per day, according to Goldman Sachs. Shutdowns can also add to the deficit because they create extra costs for restarting programs after they reopen.

In order to prevent a shutdown, Congress needs to pass full-year spending bills on time and avoid using them as leverage in political fights. This would force lawmakers to do their job instead of relying on last-minute omnibus bills that few members of Congress even read before they vote. It’s time to end the shutdown cycle. If we do, the United States will be better off for it. A long-term budget solution must put an end to congressional brinkmanship and unnecessary disruptions, which only undermine the public’s trust in Congress. A comprehensive, bipartisan bill is the best way to do this.

An economic forecast is a projection of the growth rate of a nation’s economy. Such a forecast provides an important input to policy decisions by central banks and governments. Forecasts are typically made for national gross domestic product (GDP), a broad measure of the total value of all the goods and services produced in a country, but forecasts can also be made for individual industries or for subsets of the economy.

Many techniques are used to produce economic forecasts. At one end of the spectrum are judgmental methods that rely on the expertise of the individual forecaster to adjust forecasts produced by a suite of models, and at the other extreme are dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model-based forecasts disciplined by modern economic theory.

A forecast of economic activity is typically made for a specific period. For example, a business might want to know whether to invest in a new plant or machinery during one year or another. But economic forecasts are also made for much longer periods, such as five or ten years. Such long-range forecasts have gained increasing importance as businesses have come to recognize the usefulness of such information in planning expansion and financing.

Some categories of economic output are particularly difficult to forecast. The biggest problem is investment spending, which reflects thousands of individual and corporate decisions that can be changed very dramatically. As a result, business investment tends to be highly volatile. The erratic behavior of this category of economic output has stimulated an extensive literature on the development and evaluation of forecasting techniques.

As an adjective, late-breaking evokes an image of the latest news and developments. Breaking news stories are frequently interrupted from regular programming to provide information about an impending disaster, such as a tornado warning or landfalling hurricane. This type of breaking news is often accompanied by lower thirds and other graphics that emphasize the urgency of the event.

Scientific meetings also feature late-breaking research presentations, but their significance is a bit less urgent. Most of the original research presented at a meeting contains information that is confirmatory, extends previous findings, or is hypothesis generating, but not likely to have a direct impact on clinical practice. However, some of this research has important implications. These are the “Late Breakers.”

The Late-breaking Abstract program recognizes novel and critically important research developments that occur during the lead up to the International Congress. Submissions must describe large clinical studies or high-impact translational research that could not have been completed by the standard abstract submission deadline.

The criteria for selection of a Late-breaking Abstract are strict and adhered to by the Scientific Review Committee. Among other things, the study must be prospective and authors must justify why experiments could not be completed by the abstract submission deadline. The selection process for Late-breaking Abstracts is a rigorous one and many high-quality abstracts are rejected if they do not meet these criteria. The pendulum may have swung too far, though, because it is possible that the hype surrounding Late Breakers might reduce the attention given to other important, relevant research that does not fit the description.

The term “political scandal” describes the public exposure of politicians’ misbehavior, often resulting in legal repercussions like fines and resignations. But the public’s response to these events depends on many different factors, including how the behavior is perceived, how it affects trust in government and politics, and whether it is exacerbated by media coverage.

In a recent study, I examined the occurrence of political scandals from the late 1980s to the present. The findings show that political polarization accelerates the production of scandals by turning accusations of corruption into partisan cudgels used in scorched-earth politics to denigrate the other side. The result is that the term corruption loses its meaning and enables political leaders to escape punishment for bad behavior by claiming that the other side is corrupt (Kepplinger, 2017b).

Even when a scandalous incident does occur, the outcome depends on the triggering event, the intensity of media coverage, and the perception of the event by the public. Specifically, scandals are triggered by an unusual event (like a celebrity’s sex life or the president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky) or by a politician’s decision to violate norms and values that are important for the office they hold (such as rewarding campaign donors with overnight stays at the White House or issuing norm-busting pardons).

In addition, the slant of media coverage varies widely based on the journalist’s ideological alignment and opinions. For example, journalists who are more liberal tend to report scandals involving Republican politicians more intensely than those that involve Democrats.

Startup funding is the money you use to turn your innovative idea into a viable business. There are multiple types of startup funding available, and the one you choose depends on your company’s growth stage, business model, burn rate, and long-term strategy.

The first step in securing startup funding is often personal savings and credit, which are commonly the most popular forms of startup financing. These funds typically are not as strict as a bank loan and can be used to cover a range of expenses, such as marketing efforts or the purchase of a minimum viable product (MVP). This form of startup funding is best for entrepreneurs who are confident in their business idea but may have trouble selling it to potential investors.

Venture capital funding is another common startup funding option. Investors in VC firms typically invest their own capital in startups in exchange for equity ownership. Unlike angel investors, VC firms tend to focus on businesses with higher revenue and a longer track record of success.

Crowdfunding, which involves asking a large group of individuals to make small investments in your business, is also a good source of startup funding. In addition to allowing you to reach a wider audience, crowdfunding can also provide valuable market feedback and validate your business idea. However, it is important to note that you must be comfortable sharing a portion of your business with strangers. It is also important to prepare a detailed pitch to secure this type of startup financing.

When a trade war begins, supply chains are disrupted. The cost of a variety of products—from new cars to Australian-inspired avocado on toast—increases. While some of these increases can be explained by higher production costs, many are the result of increased tariffs imposed by a country on imports. As global trade becomes increasingly interlinked, a trade war can quickly spread across entire economies.

While running for President, Donald Trump disdained most current trade agreements and promised to bring back manufacturing jobs and force China to reform its trade practices, including intellectual property theft. He imposed his first round of tariffs in 2018, threatening to increase them as needed to address the country’s trade deficit with China. While the US and Chinese governments have since engaged in several rounds of negotiations, these have been largely fruitless.

During the 1930s, a series of high import tariffs in the United States and retaliation by other countries helped fuel the Great Depression. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which was enacted in response to rising protectionist sentiment in the wake of the Great Depression, raised tariffs on a wide range of goods and contributed to the economic catastrophe that began in the United States and spread throughout the world.

In light of the growing evidence that the trade war is unwinnable, it may make sense for some countries to secure deals that lead to lower tariff rates. But this will require a willingness by the Trump administration to give up its negotiating position. Given the president’s deep unpopularity abroad, this is not a likely outcome.

Cryptocurrencies are a digital asset that allows people to exchange value without having to trust central authorities. Instead, transactions are verified peer-to-peer through a network that records data in shared public ledgers called blockchains. Like traditional assets, cryptocurrencies have prices that can go up or down. Some people buy cryptocurrencies to make a profit or invest in them because they believe that these assets could become more valuable. Others use them as a form of payment.

Buying and selling cryptocurrencies is done on exchanges. Some exchanges offer margin trading, which means that you only need to put up a small percentage of the full value of your position – known as leverage – to gain access to the entire market. This magnifies your profits and losses, so it’s important to understand the risks before you trade.

Liquidity

A thriving cryptocurrency marketplace requires a level of liquidity, or the number of buyers and sellers in the market. When there is low liquidity, it can be challenging for market participants – let’s call them Alice and Bob – to find each other. A skilled market maker like Charlie can help bridge this gap by strategically managing buy and sell orders to enhance the asset’s market depth. This may help reduce slippage and improve market appeal, which can boost token adoption.

Corporate earnings are the result of a company’s revenue minus its costs. They are an important indicator of company financial health and ultimately the economy’s growth as well, because when companies earn more, they can reinvest those funds into the business or even pay dividends to shareholders. The earnings reports that companies release quarterly or annually are a major event for the markets, filled with excitement (if expectations are met) and dread (if they aren’t).

When considering a potential investment in a publicly traded company, it’s helpful to understand what exactly these earnings figures represent, how they impact stock prices, and how to interpret them. In this article, we will discuss the basics of corporate earnings, how they impact stocks, and offer a road map for analyzing a company’s earnings report.

Investors should look at both EPS and adjusted EPS when evaluating a company’s earnings. Adjusted EPS subtracts out one-time gains or losses such as asset sale profits, restructuring charges, and litigation expenses to provide a more accurate picture of a company’s underlying profitability.

In addition to revealing earnings per share, a company’s earnings report will also include revenue data and a review of management’s forward guidance for future growth. These comments can often have a big impact on the market, particularly if they are positive or negative. It is also useful to pay attention to whether or not a company’s earnings report was filed on time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A late filing could be a red flag of fraud.