Investments and Business Archives | Page 143 of 199

20 Oct

Prospect of Prolonged Israel-Gaza War Adds Economic Havoc to Human Toll

Anna Edwards

As the fighting between Israel and Hamas risks bursting into regionwide chaos, the prospect of a long and potentially widening war could pile economic havoc atop a devastating human toll.For Gaza, a broader conflict would almost certainly deepen the already worsening humanitarian conditions in the territory. And Israel faces a fresh blow to a resilient economy that until recently had been hailed as an entrepreneurial powerhouse.The outlook for the Palestinian economy was already dire before Israel declared a siege of Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks, creating what the World Health Organization called a “humanitarian catastrophe.” An assessment…

19 Oct

Bill Ford Says U.A.W. Strike Is Helping Tesla and Toyota

Anna Edwards

The monthlong strike by the United Automobile Workers and the union’s demands for substantial pay and benefits increases risk damaging the U.S. auto industry, hurting its ability to compete against nonunion foreign rivals, the executive chairman of Ford Motor said on Monday.The fight should not be seen as the U.A.W. against Ford, or its crosstown rivals, General Motors and Stellantis, said William C. Ford Jr., the great-grandson of the company’s founder Henry Ford, noting that at times U.A.W. officials have referred to the automakers as the union’s “enemy.”“It should be Ford and the U.A.W. against Toyota, Honda, Tesla and all…

19 Oct

Powell Says Strong Economic Data ‘Could Warrant’ Higher Rates

Anna Edwards

Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, reiterated the central bank’s commitment to moving forward “carefully” with further rate moves in a speech on Thursday. But he also said the central bank might need to raise interest rates more if economic data continued to come in hot.Mr. Powell tried to paint a balanced picture of the challenge facing the Fed in remarks before the Economic Club of New York. He emphasized that the Fed was trying to weigh two goals against each other: It wants to wrestle inflation fully under control, but it also wants to avoid doing…

19 Oct

Those Doritos Too Expensive? More Stores Offer Their Own Alternatives.

Anna Edwards

The snack chips had become pretty pricey.For years, customers stopping at Casey’s General Stores, a convenience store chain in the Midwest, hadn’t thought twice about snagging a soda and a bag of Lay’s or Doritos chips. But over the past year, as the price of a bag of chips soared and some customers felt squeezed by the high cost of gas and other expenses, they began picking up Casey’s less-expensive store brand.So Casey’s began stocking more of its own chips, in a variety of new flavors. This summer, Casey’s brand made up a quarter of all bags of chips sold,…

18 Oct

Harvard Students Doxxed After Writing Anti-Israel Letter

Anna Edwards

On a campus already bitterly divided, the statement poured acid all over Harvard Yard.A coalition of more than 30 student groups posted an open letter on the night of the Hamas attack, saying that Israel was “entirely responsible” for the violence that ended up killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.The letter, posted on social media before the extent of the killings was known, did not include the names of individual students.But within days, students affiliated with those groups were being doxxed, their personal information posted online. Siblings back home were threatened. Wall Street executives demanded a list…

18 Oct

Camilo Atala’s perspectives on the inclusion of banking services in UN conversations on development financing

Anna EdwardsCamilo Atala, Central American, Grupo Financiero Ficohsa, SMEs

According to Camilo Atala, President of Grupo Financiero Ficohsa, while the United Nations General Assembly meets in New York to discuss global development, delegates should not overlook the importance of financial services for small businesses in emerging economies. The current context and the migration crisis For Atala, it is crucial that participants in the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development, convened at the United Nations General Assembly, are fully aware of the growing global migration crisis. This issue is particularly urgent at the southern border of the United States, where Central American families continue to arrive in large numbers. In this…

18 Oct

American Household Wealth Jumped in the Pandemic

Anna Edwards

American families saw the largest jump in their wealth on record between 2019 and 2022, according to Federal Reserve data released on Wednesday, as rising stock indexes, climbing home prices and repeated rounds of government stimulus left people’s finances healthier.Median net worth climbed 37 percent over those three years after adjusting for inflation, the Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances showed — the biggest jump in records stretching back to 1989. At the same time, median family income increased 3 percent between 2018 and 2021 after subtracting out price increases.While income gains were most pronounced for the affluent, the data showed…

18 Oct

For Bill Ford, ‘Every Negotiation Is a Roller Coaster’

Anna Edwards

As a 25-year-old junior executive at the car company that bears his last name, William Clay Ford Jr. had a bracing introduction to labor negotiations when a union official demanded that he stand up and vouch that he was made of the same stuff as his great-grandfather Henry Ford.Mr. Ford, now the company’s executive chairman, harked back to the moment in an interview this week about how he and his company are navigating one of their most difficult labor negotiations in decades.The United Automobile Workers union has shut down three Ford plants, including its largest, and other plants and distribution…

17 Oct

U.S. Tightens China’s Access to A.I. Chips

Anna Edwards

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced additional limits on sales of advanced semiconductors by American firms, shoring up restrictions issued last October to limit China’s progress on supercomputing and artificial intelligence.The rules appear likely to halt most shipments of advanced semiconductors from the United States to Chinese data centers, which use them to produce models capable of artificial intelligence. More U.S. companies seeking to sell China advanced chips, or the machinery used to make them, will be required to notify the government of their plans, or obtain a special license.To prevent the risk that advanced U.S. chips travel to China…