In a year when most economies are struggling from the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world also has an unprecedented number of billionaires. Forbes’ on Wednesday announced 2,755 richest people, including 493 newcomers. Together, these billionaires are worth US$13.1 trillion, up from $8 trillion last year.
Also on the list are CP Group’s senior chairman Dhanin Chearavanont (103), founder of Thai Beverage Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi (156), CEO of Gulf Energy Development Sarath Ratanavadi (264) and CP Group’s executive chairman Sumet Jiaravanon (502).
“This was a record-breaking year in multiple ways, with more newcomers than ever before and more billionaires globally,” said Kerry A Dolan, the magazine’s assistant managing editor. “It was also the first time that the combined net worth of the world’s billions crossed into double-digit trillions. The pace at which huge fortunes have been created is astonishing.”
In a comprehensive essay, titled “Operation Wealth Speed”, Forbes’ chief content officer Randall Lane writes: “While the initial reaction to the billionaire surge of 2021 will lean toward outrage, the underlying trends offer a road map to greater prosperity for all. Like anything else salvaged from a once-a-century plague, we just need to be brave enough to harness it.”
Despite the turmoil that we’ve seen, Lane writes, people are defying the odds to overcome challenges, like Tyler Perry, who created his own studios in Atlanta because no one would give him a break in Hollywood, or Uğur Şahin, the Turkish immigrant to Germany whose BioNTech helped produce a Covid-19 vaccine in months, rather than years – all embody economic dynamism.
Key facts of the 2021 world billionaires list:
• Top Five:
1. Soon-to-be former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos retains top spot for fourth year running
2. Elon Musk shoots up from No 31 last year
3. Bernard Arnault of LVMH
4. Bill Gates
5. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg
• This is the first time in two decades that Warren Buffet is not among the top five richest people in the world, coming in at No 6.
• Newcomers: The most notable newcomer is Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of dating app Bumble, which went public in February.
• Self-Made: This year’s list features a record 1,975 self-made billionaires, who have built a company or established a fortune on their own.
• Women: There are 328 female billionaires, up from 241 last year.
• Globally: Asia-Pacific boasts 1,149 billionaires, followed by the United States with 724 and Europe with 628.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Josh Wingrove, Jordan Fabian
President Joe Biden’s administration is working with AstraZeneca Plc to find new manufacturing capacity in the U.S. after the company agreed to abandon a Baltimore coronavirus vaccine plant that will focus exclusively on making doses for Johnson & Johnson.
The talks are the latest development after an error at the Emergent BioSolutions Inc. facility — in which ingredients for the two companies’ vaccines were mixed up — led to a batch of 15 million doses worth of drug substance being spoiled.
J&J announced Saturday that it had taken over production of its vaccine at the Emergent facility, which was manufacturing J&J and AstraZeneca doses. The Department of Health and Human Services worked with AstraZeneca to shift production from the plant.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine hasn’t been authorized for U.S. use yet the government has ordered 300 million of its shots, some of which have already been made. The U.S. loaned 4.2 million of its first doses to Canada and Mexico, which have cleared use of the vaccine.
The manufacturing move was made “to ensure that Johnson & Johnson is the only drug that is being produced at this site, given that the issue was about the cross-contamination of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing Monday. “We’re working with AstraZeneca to immediately identify other facilities to continue their domestic manufacture of AstraZeneca drug substance and several options.”
J&J’s single-dose vaccine has been authorized in the U.S., “hence the importance of Johnson & Johnson production continuing to be expedited,” Psaki said.
The Baltimore plant hasn’t been authorized for production of J&J’s vaccine, meaning that none of the doses administered and distributed in the U.S. so far were manufactured there or affected by the error. The U.S. still has enough doses to meet its goal of having vaccine supply for all U.S. adults by the end of May, Psaki said.
“We were not betting on these to vaccinate the American public,” she said.
J&J said in a statement Saturday that it “is adding dedicated leaders for operations and quality, and significantly increasing the number of manufacturing, quality and technical operations personnel to work with the company specialists already at Emergent.”
At a briefing Monday, White House covid adviser Andy Slavitt stressed the importance of that influx of people, along with the plant now producing only one vaccine’s drug substance instead of two. HHS supports both actions, he said.
Moving AstraZeneca from the facility will “eliminate the potential for any cross-contamination,” Slavitt said. “This was a decision that HHS made with Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca in complete collaboration, and so AstraZeneca also agreed that this was the right course.”
The decision “says absolutely nothing about our belief one way or the other” as to whether AstraZeneca’s vaccine will eventually be authorized in the U.S., he said. Slavitt said the AstraZeneca vaccine will go through the Food and Drug Administration authorization process “as soon as an application is submitted.”
AstraZeneca has been confronted with growing concerns in the U.K. and Europe over its vaccine, which is the backbone of the U.K.’s successful inoculation campaign. Many countries around the world were relying on AstraZeneca to drive their immunization programs and some are reconsidering.
The U.K. over the weekend confirmed seven people had died OF rare blood clots after receiving AstraZeneca’s vaccine and Australia is also investigating a case of clotting, raising questions about the safety of the widely used vaccine. More than 18 million doses have been administered in the U.K. and the regulator there insists the shot is safe.
New Zealand agrees to open travel corridor with Australia
InternationalApr 07. 2021New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces the upcoming restoration of unrestricted, two-way travel between neighbor Australia for the first time since the pandemic forced them to close their international borders more than a year ago. Ardern is photographed during a news conference in Wellington on April 6, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Mark Coote
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Matthew Brockett
New Zealand has agreed to open a quarantine-free travel corridor with Australia in a major boost for its ailing tourism industry.
The so-called travel bubble will open on April 19, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Tuesday in Wellington. It will restore unrestricted, two-way travel between the two neighbors for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic forced them to close their international borders more than a year ago.
“The bubble will give our economic recovery a boost and represents a world leading arrangement of safely opening up international travel while continuing to pursue a strategy of elimination and keeping the virus out,” Ardern said. “We have worked hard to ensure travel is safe and that the necessary public health measures are in place.”
While the resumption of trans-Tasman travel will benefit the economies of both countries, New Zealand is a popular holiday destination for its much larger neighbor and stands to gain the most. Before the pandemic, Australian visitors accounted for a quarter of the revenue generated by foreign tourists. Ardern has nevertheless resisted pressure to open a bubble sooner, citing the risks of allowing covid-19 back into the community.
New Zealand and Australia are among the top performers in the global battle against the virus — New Zealand has consistently topped Bloomberg’s covid resilience ranking and Australia currently lies third. But both have also suffered sporadic outbreaks requiring regional lockdowns.
Brisbane, Australia’s third most-populous city, entered a three-day lockdown last week after the U.K. strain of the virus was discovered in the community.
One of the difficulties in establishing an international corridor between the two nations has been working out how to react when there are localized outbreaks at either end.
Ardern warned today that travelers should have contingency plans in place should an outbreak in Australia force a pause or suspension of the travel bubble and prevent them from returning on schedule. Visitors would need to abide by any local restrictions that are imposed, including lockdowns, and may need to enter quarantine on their return, she said.
“Quarantine-free travel will not be what it was pre-covid-19, and those undertaking travel will do so under the guidance of ‘flyer beware’,” Ardern said. “People will need to plan for the possibility of having travel disrupted if there is an outbreak.”
New Zealand virtually eliminated covid-19 from the community, allowing its economy to stage a V-shaped recovery from its initial slump. But it is now facing the prospect of a double-dip recession as the closed border decimates the tourism industry, once its biggest foreign-exchange earner.
The expected influx of Australians will be a huge relief for tourism operators, particularly in South Island ski resorts such as Queenstown as winter approaches. Before the pandemic, about 70% of overseas visitors to New Zealand ski-fields came from Australia, according to Tourism Industry Aotearoa.
“Surveys have shown there is pent-up demand for travel and Australians have no other options for international travel at present,” said TIA Chief Executive Chris Roberts. “But we anticipate that travelers on both sides of the Tasman will be cautious until they are comfortable with the health precautions being taken in both countries. We expect that people reuniting with family and friends will lead the way, followed by holidaymakers.”
Travel bubbles were proposed as pathway to a recovery in the early months of the pandemic, though they’ve largely failed to gain traction. New Zealand and Australia initially aimed to open a quarantine-free flight corridor in the middle of last year.
A travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore has also repeatedly been delayed, six months after it was proposed, because of additional waves of infections in Hong Kong.
Ardern said travelers from Australia will be on “green zone” flights, meaning there will be no passengers who have come from anywhere but Australia in the last 14 days.
“On arrival, passengers will be taken through what we call the green zones at the airport, meaning there will be no contact with those who are arriving from other parts of the world and going into managed isolation or quarantine,” she said.
The rollout of vaccinations may make corridors more workable. Australia’s government plans to set up quarantine-free travel to and from Singapore, and perhaps other countries, for those who’ve been inoculated. On March 17, the European Union gave the go-ahead for its own form of vaccine passport, a “Digital Green Certificate.”
The battered airline industry is pinning its hopes on such quarantine-free travel. As of late March, global commercial airline traffic was down 40% from pre-pandemic levels, according to FlightAware data.
New Zealanders were already able to travel to Australia without having to quarantine on arrival, but the necessity to enter a managed isolation facility for two weeks on their return home made it unattractive.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Matthew Boesler
To get an idea of what Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve will do next, Wall Street economists are having to try their hand at forecasting new variables — like the Black unemployment rate.
That shift in focus could itself contribute to the outcome that the Fed chair says he wants: an economic expansion reaching corners of the labor force that have been slower to recover in the past.
As the U.S. economy rebounds from the pandemic slump, Powell is spotlighting the kind of job-market metrics that will show Fed officials when it’s time to raise interest rates under their new framework, which explicitly redefines their goal of maximum employment as “broad-based and inclusive.”
Instead of across-the-board measurements like overall employment and wage growth, the focus is on groups that typically take longest to regain lost ground.
That means a prominent place on the Powell dashboard for metrics like the Black unemployment rate, wage growth for low-income workers, and labor-market participation among Americans without college educations.
Those gauges are signaling there’s still a long way to go. And if investors absorb that message, it will help to reinforce the economic support being provided by easy Fed policy.
Employers added 916,000 Americans back onto payrolls in March, in the first of what’s expected to be a string of big months for hiring as the U.S. rolls out vaccines and service industries reopen. Unemployment fell to 6%, down from a peak close to 15% last April.But Black unemployment was 9.6% — still above where it was as recently as January — and labor-force participation for high-school graduates without college educations remained near the lowest levels in decades, at 54.9%.
Annual average wage growth for the bottom 25% of earners was 4.2% in February (the March numbers aren’t out yet), compared with 4.7% just before the pandemic, when low-income jobs were posting their strongest relative pay gains since the late 1990s. Fed officials have been highlighting variables like these while remaining vague about exactly how they’ll play into an eventual decision about when to raise interest rates. Fed-watchers will inevitably press for more clarity as the first hike — which policymakers don’t currently expect before the end of 2023 — draws nearer.
But some Wall Street analysts aren’t waiting for the Fed’s guidance.
In a recent report, Goldman Sachs economists tried to quantify the impact of the new inclusive employment framework on monetary policy. Banks typically come up with monthly forecasts for headline unemployment and labor-force participation, but the Goldman team led by Joseph Briggs took the novel step of writing down a forecast for the Black unemployment rate as well.
While the overall jobless rate should drop to 4% this year and 3.5% by the end of 2022, Black unemployment probably won’t fall to its pre-pandemic low of 5.2% until the second half of 2023, and will still be above 4% by the end of 2024, they said. The forecasts were based on historical statistical relationships.If this kind of more granular forecasting takes hold, it could have an impact on the variables being forecast. That’s because monetary policy is a kind of public-private partnership.The Fed controls short-term interest rates. But it allows investors to set the longer-term rates, which central bankers typically view as more important because they determine the cost of mortgages or auto loans. So investor clarity about how the Fed will implement its new framework tomorrow is a crucial determinant of financial conditions today.
Right now, the Fed-markets partnership is delivering lower interest rates than at comparable points in the last recovery.Yields on 10-year Treasuries have surged to about 1.7% this year after Democrats won control of the Senate, which paved the way for additional fiscal support to speed up the recovery.
Still, yields remain well below the 2.5% level of September 2014, when the U.S. jobless rate first declined under 6% after the financial crisis — or the 2.3% yield in July 2015 when Black unemployment first reached today’s number.As well as shaping financial conditions, Powell’s new dashboard could help steer economic research toward key social questions.
Trillions of dollars hinge on the Fed’s interest-rate moves, which are among the most closely watched events in the financial world. If investors are demanding forecasts for Black unemployment or wages among the low-paid — because they’re key inputs for rate decisions — it could spur more analysis of why those labor-force discrepancies exist in the first place.
But so far, the Fed has been hesitant to make its own forecasts.
In a March 17 news conference, Powell said Fed officials are paying close attention to those variables but are not considering publishing projections for them because “it would not be practical” to do so.
The Fed’s staff economists, who prepare the groundwork for discussion at policy meetings, don’t typically incorporate forecasts for such indicators into their work either.
So for now, Wall Street still has a wide range of outcomes to consider — both for how the economic recovery will progress, and for how the central bank will respond.
The Goldman economists say they expect the Fed will begin raising rates in the first half of 2024, once the headline unemployment rate has fallen to 3.2%.
But even then, there’s “a more than 20% chance that the Black unemployment rate will still be above its last cycle low of 5.2% and a more than 90% chance” that it will be above 4%, they wrote. “Some FOMC members may see this as a reason to wait for further improvement before tightening.”
And according to Goldman, if the Fed decides to adopt a June 2020 proposal — from Jared Bernstein, now a member of President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Janelle Jones, now chief economist at the Department of Labor — to target the Black unemployment rate instead of overall unemployment, that could delay interest-rate liftoff until 2025.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Alex Tanzi
More than 3.1 million Americans ages 55 or older plan to apply for Social Security benefits earlier than they once thought because of the pandemic, according to the Census Bureau.
That’s offset by 1.4 million people in the same age group who anticipate working longer due to the impact of covid-19, according to the bureau’s latest Household Pulse survey conducted between March 3-15.
The upshot is a net 1.7 million early retirements, which will likely mean more positions opening up for younger Americans. Older workers — the so-called baby boomers’ born in the two decades after World War II — have accounted for essentially all of the more than 17 million jobs created in the U.S. since 2000.
“In a good economy, older workers can work and claim later; in a bad economy, older workers are pushed out into the arms of Social Security,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economics at the New School for Social Research. “Claiming early means a lifetime permanent cut in monthly benefits for you and your spouse and survivors.”
The shift may prove especially significant for some regions. In the New York City metro area, for example, a net 300,000 people expect to apply earlier for Social Security, according to the Census Bureau.
That could add to other evidence suggesting an exodus from New York — even though home sales in Manhattan are now booming after a slump in 2020 — and point to demographic changes ahead. A 2018 study of retired municipal employees by the city’s Independent Budget Office found that more than one-quarter left the state.
“In this bad economy caused by a disease that hit older New Yorkers hard, I’m not surprised older people are paying a high financial cost to leave the workforce and claim Social Security early,” said Ghilarducci. A drop in spending by that age group will slow the city’s economy, she said.
None of the country’s other 15 biggest metro areas came close to the New York numbers. The next-highest figures in the Census Bureau survey were Philadelphia, with a net 85,000 people planning earlier retirement, and Chicago with 68,000.
The Census survey also found that white Americans, who typically have a larger amount of accumulated wealth, were more likely to be planning to bring forward their retirement because of the pandemic.
ตำรวจทุบตีผู้ประท้วงระหว่างการประท้วงต่อต้านการรัฐประหารในย่างกุ้งเมื่อวันที่ 6 มีนาคม 2020 (Photo by STR / AFP)
ทหารเมียนมา (เคย) หวังครองนิวเคลียร์หรือเปล่า?
ในปี 2010 หรือปีถัดมาหลังการเปิดเผยเรื่องไซต์นิวเคลียร์ สถาบัน Institute for Science and International Security หรือ ISIS ในวอชิงตัน องค์กรเอ็นจีโอที่ทำงานเรื่องความมั่นคงโดยเน้นที่ความเสี่ยงที่ประเทศอื่นจะใช้อาวุธนิวเคลียร์คุกคามสหรัฐ ได้ทำการวิเคราะห์รายงานเรื่องไซต์นิวเคลียร์ในเมียนมาอย่างละเอียด
Bitcoinกำลังแรงจัดเนื่องจากนักลงทุนสถาบันตะลุยตลาดคริปโตเพื่อเพิ่มผลตอบแทนเป็นเงินสดในช่วงเวลาที่อัตราดอกเบี้ยใกล้ศูนย์ จะเห็นได้ว่า Tesla Inc. เทเงินสำรองจำนวน 1,000 ล้านเหรียญสหรัฐไปลงทุนกับ Bitcoin และเริ่มยอมรับเป็นเงินสำหรับรถยนต์
ในขณะที่บริษัท Morgan Stanley อนุญาตให้ลูกค้าที่ร่ำรวยที่สุดบางรายเพิ่มโทเค็นลงในพอร์ตการลงทุนของพวกเขา ในขณะที่บริษัทด้านการชำระเงินตั้งแต่ Mastercard Inc. ไปจนถึง PayPal Inc. เริ่มดำเนินการเพื่อยอมรับ Bitcoin ในการทำธุรกรรม
เมื่อสัปดาห์ที่แล้ว Coinbase Global Inc. ซึ่งเป็นบริษัทแลกเปลี่ยนสกุลเงินดิจิทัลที่ใหญ่ที่สุดในสหรัฐกล่าวว่ากำลังวางแผนเปิดซื้อขายหุ้นของบริษัทในดัชนีแนสแดคในปลายเดือนนี้หลังจากการเข้าจดทะเบียนโดยตรง
นอกจากนี้เมื่อสุดสัปดาห์ที่ผ่านมา Ether ซึ่งเป็นสกุลเงินดิจิทัลที่ใหญ่เป็นอันดับสองของโลกเพิ่มขึ้นสูงสุดเป็นประวัติการณ์โดยได้รับแรงหนุนจากการที่บริษัท Visa Inc.จะใช้ USD Coin เพื่อชำระธุรกรรมผ่าน Ether
สื่อเมียนมารายงานว่าการแบนครั้งนี้ก็เพื่อเป็นต่อต้านระบอบการปกครองและเป็นการให้เกียรติผู้ที่ถูกสังหารโดยรัฐบาลทหาร
(Photo: 
Joe Biden
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces the upcoming restoration of unrestricted, two-way travel between neighbor Australia for the first time since the pandemic forced them to close their international borders more than a year ago. Ardern is photographed during a news conference in Wellington on April 6, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Mark Coote
ในครั้งนี้พวกเขาจะกลับมาหวังอย่างเดิมหรือไม่? เราจะมาสำรวจเรื่องราวในอดีตและความเป็นไปได้ในอนาคตกัน
มาร์เก็ตแคปของคริปโตเคอร์เรนซี่ (Cryptocurrency) ทะลุ 2 ล้านล้านดอลลาร์หลังจากเพิ่มขึ้นเป็นสองเท่าในปีนี้
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