7% Growth Looks a Lot Harder After the Jobs Report
May 11 2021, 2:30 AM
May 10 2021, 8:46 PM
May 11 2021, 2:30 AM
(Bloomberg Opinion) There s been a lot of optimism in the past few months that the U.S. economy would bounce back from the pandemic with a 7% growth spurt this year, boosted by the rollout of vaccines, fiscal stimulus and pent-up demand. It s one of the reasons why the S&P 500 closed Friday at an all-time high.
(Bloomberg Opinion) There s been a lot of optimism in the past few months that the U.S. economy would bounce back from the pandemic with a 7% growth spurt this year, boosted by the rollout of vaccines, fiscal stimulus and pent-up demand. It s one of the reasons why the S&P 500 closed Friday at an all-time high.
The value of my car, which has been gathering dust in our garage for most of the pandemic, increased lately after 12 years of declining.
Nothing is classic about the car, but the estimated value on CarGurus is up and it must be for nearly any other car that still runs. After months of price increases, the automobile-auction company Manheim reported, used-car wholesale prices jumped an additional 7% just in the first couple of weeks of April.
Consumers won t find great bargains shopping for new cars, either. Ford Motor Company s F-series pickups have been America s bestselling vehicle for decades, and Ford thinks it might be able to build only half as many vehicles as planned in the second quarter, idling even its Ford F-150 lines.
Phil Murphy made an actual “reopening” announcement this week unlike last Monday’s fake-out, Save Jerseyans. Still, to use a favorite liberal word, the announcement was “problematic” in a number of ways, the most obvious of which was the fact that small businesses (and restaurants in particular) were left with little to celebrate.
“For small restaurants and bars, the six-foot rule means they won’t be able to increase capacity, even with the Governor’s announcement,” opined state Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-13) following Murphy’s daily briefing. “The Governor is waiting for the CDC to make the call, but common sense and the data support doing away with the arbitrary six-feet of separation.”
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Joe Biden took office pledging to “resolve the cascading crises of our era,” from the ongoing pandemic and its accompanying economic devastation to festering racial injustice and the existential threat posed by climate change. But even as his first 100 days have brought bold legislative proposals, they also laid bare the partisan divisions that make challenges like immigration reform more daunting. Here, Bloomberg Opinion columnists take the long view and offer metrics by which to judge the new president moving forward. We’ll track them in the coming months.
Confirmed Covid Cases and Deaths
Biden’s success in speeding up vaccination is incredibly valuable, providing long-term protection against Covid-19 infection while also likely reducing transmission of the virus. But vaccination isn’t a goal unto itself. It’s a way to reduce the virus’s incidence and counter its worst consequences.