There is a lot of talk about student loan forgiveness. The idea is wildly popular and it would relieve a huge burden crushing millions of Americans. But is there any downside to this idea? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the student loan debacle and the possible downside of loan forgiveness. He also touches on the shaky labor market and why the bond market can’t tell us anything about inflation.
When unemployment began to quickly shrink over the summer as governments loosened up on the economic lockdowns in response to COVID-19, everybody got giddy and assumed we were in for a quick recovery. But we’ve been saying that the quick turnaround was an illusion and that the lockdowns caused deep wounds in the labor market. The numbers are starting to hint at this reality.
Even as market mania continues over hopes for a coronavirus vaccine, the economic devastation caused by the government response to the pandemic continues to ravage the economy. Seventeen million households are behind on rent or mortgage payments, and nearly 6 million Americans say they are at risk of eviction in the next few months.
More bad news for the labor market.
Nearly 1-in-10 companies are planning layoffs in the next three months. That’s on top of the more than a quarter of US companies that have already let workers go in Q4.
The mainstream spin on unemployment is that things are improving. The unemployment rate is coming down. The number of weekly jobless claims recently fell below 800,000 for the first time since government lockdowns in response to the pandemic went into high gear last March. But there are some troubling signs that undercut this good-news narrative. The number of long-term unemployed workers is steadily rising.
Gold has been trading sideways for several weeks. But there are all kinds of reasons to be bullish on the yellow metal. So why isn’t the price of gold rising faster? Where are the gold bulls? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey tries to answer that question and discusses some of the reasons people should be buying gold.
Last week, we reported on the number of temporary layoffs that are turning into permanent job losses. Now Goldman Sachs is projecting even more permanent job losses coming down the pike as a wave of mergers, acquisitions and corporate takeovers sweeps through the economy.
It’s been months since the US started to reopen after the government-imposed coronavirus shutdowns and yet hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to file for unemployment every week. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey takes a close look at the labor market and concludes that a lot of these jobs are never coming back. He also talks a little about the upcoming presidential election and makes a prediction about the outcome.
When governments across the US forced businesses to close down in response to the coronavirus pandemic, everybody assumed the layoffs would be temporary. Despite the huge surge in unemployment, the expectation was people would quickly return to work once the crisis passed and the economy opened up again. But as the pandemic stretches into its eighth month, millions of Americans remain out of work and economists say many of those “temporary” job losses have become permanent.
The economy has gone through the quickest and arguably the deepest collapse in history, but the stock market has been rallying. How can this be? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey says look no further than the Federal Reserve. Despite the economic chaos, it has managed to blow up stock market bubble X.0 He also talks about a move China recently made that ups the ante in the “war on cash.”
