Electric Vehicles vs Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles

 What does the future of driving look like? Will we continue to use gas powered cars or will we switch over to zero emission motor vehicles? Well, I believe there is no question that over the next 5 - 10 years we will see a much larger amount of electric and carbon powered cars. Their are many reasons for this but the one I believe is the most important is the environmental benefits due to this change. As time goes on, global warming becomes a greater threat to us. With social media, many people are finally becoming aware of the dangerous effects CO2 emissions are having on our world. With this in mind, what type of car is safer for the environment, electric vehicles or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? Well, a lot of scientist debate that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are safer. The thing is, this type of vehicle is in its infancy in terms of development and are considered to complicated for mass adoption. When you understand this you realize that electric vehicles are going to be adopted first by the public but will have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles right behind them maybe after about 10 years. What do you guys think? Have you heard of either of these types of vehicles? Any thoughts on them?

https://www.theweek.co.uk/electric-cars/101196/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vs-battery-electric-cars-which-are-better#:~:text=Hydrogen%20fuel%20cell%20vehicles%20tend,at%20the%20best%20of%20times.  

Bloomberg New Economy: China is Winning the Trade War With Trump

 It is no secret of President Trump's ongoing war on trade with China whether it be raising tariffs on Chinese imports or through the efforts to ban apps created and owned by Chinese companies. But despite Trump's assertion that the U.S. is able to push China back, other economic metrics have shown otherwise. Consider the trade balance that Trump has deemed important in his campaign against China. China’s trade surplus with the U.S. has grown almost 25% since the start of the Trump presidency and China has not reached their target to achieve their end of the phase 1 deal, the single accomplish of Trump's tariffs. 

But despite that, the way the pandemic was handled is shown in contrast between the U.S and China with the GDP growth. China is the only country among 48 to have reported a second-quarter gross domestic product number that was higher than at the end of 2019 while the U.S., the worst country when it comes to the coronavirus (as measured by death and infections), the economy shrank 9.5% in the second quarter. 

The author suggests that Trump's efforts to decouple the U.S. economy and China's is forcing China to be more self-sufficient. While I do agree that China are approaching a path of self independence away from the U.S., I also do not think the two economies can completely decouple due to both being the world's 2 biggest economies. So while there is trouble between the relations of the two countries, the two cannot grow without the other.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-09-19/bloomberg-new-economy-china-is-winning-the-trade-war-with-trump

Jobless claims fall but unemployment growth is still slow

 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/17/weekly-jobless-claims.html

Jobless claims came in around 860,000, down from last weeks 893,000 and below the Dow's estimate of 860,000. Continuing claims also were lower than expectations by a couple million. While these are both good pieces of news, these numbers are still well higher than pre-pandemic figures. As the economy begins to reopen, these numbers should continue to decline. A vaccine, which has been speculated to be ready at the end of this year, would increase the decline in these figures as well.

While this is all good news, unemployment numbers in general are relatively very high and the government is continuing to have to pay massive amount of unemployment dollars to these people, not to mention the pandemic relief stimulus as well. An important question would be how much longer will the government continue this pandemic relief program, and what are the pros of cons of it. It is a much needed addition to unemployment but is also costing the US government an enormous amount of money. 

Another interesting point is that markets fell today. Whether it was directly in response to this news can be debated, but it was clear institutional investors did not see a great positive outlook from these numbers alone. 

U.S. consumer spending appears to slow in August

Sadly it seems that the relief has started to slow. With most of the unemployment benefits and   extended benefits cut and with the $600 unemployment subsidy being replaced by a $300 subsidy (which is not available in most states) consumer’s income has been estimated to have dropped by 70 billion in August alone. With this significant drop in income, consumption has slowed heavily in the United States. Job growth slowed and many new applications for unemployment benefits remained in the giant pile. While all this happened, manufacturing has also begun showing signs of slowing down with output slowing last month. It seems all facets that go into GDP are slowing down while our debt is still rising. With millions of unemployed workers still getting benefit, this drop in consumption could just be the start.  This makes you wonder if we are in our optimal output while we are still within the covid pandemic. With economists using most if not all polices to try and compat the chaos made by the economy  We are now fully seeing the extent that covid has crippled the economy. In your opinion, do you think there are any other policies or actions the government could make to help us stay on track to recovery?

 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/16/us-retail-sales-august-2020.html 

West Coast Wildfires to Cost US Economy Dearly

 In an article by Deutsche Welle, it breaks down exactly how the current wildfires raging across the Western US and Canada will likely have a lasting impact on the economy. Accounting for 14% of the US economic output, California is also being hit hardest by the fires. Along with Washington and Idaho that number is 19% of the country's economic output. Residents and businesses that were just now getting back to work from the Covid pandemic, are now shutting back down due to either dangers of impending fires or poor working conditions in bad air quality. 

As over 5million acres have already been burned and at least 27 have lost their lives, how do you think Americans can best recover from natural disasters?

https://www.dw.com/en/economic-impact-california-wildfires-us-west-coast/a-54956210

Why is the Consumer Price Index Controversial?

 Consumer Price Index is used to measure inflation rates and there is controversy over which method to use. CPI was originally found by comparing the price of a fixed basket of consumer goods over two different time spans but now experts are saying that this basket should reflect the the changes in cost in order to calculate for the cost of living. This new method is more accurate because it gives a better understanding of how our everyday costs fluctuate throughout the year. Both methods of finding the CPI will produce a different outcome so it is important to know which method is being used to better understand the data that is given. This is good information for potential investors to know so that they can create a plan and see if the payout would be worth it. Since the consumer price index is such a big part of finding GDP, it is important to make sure that the CPI is accurate so that the GDP can be better interpreted by analysts. 

 

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex.asp 

Misreported Unemployment Claims

 With the extreme number of unemployment claims that have been submitted over the last few months, there may have been some mistakes made. The New York Times reported on September 11th that there seems to be a large number of fraudulent claims being filed with the hopes to extend unemployment benefits. This is also causing concern over whether the unemployment numbers are actually correct or miscounted; there is a possibility that the 15 million recipients is overstated by five million or more. These issues give way to a number of issues. First, if the number is misrepresented by that much it can alter how we perceive the economic impact of the pandemic. Also, by implementing ways to filter out and reprimand the fraudulent claims, it can make receiving benefits harder for those who are filing in good faith. A reason they cite for this issue is counting claims multiple times due to valuing speed over accuracy as the government pushes to send out benefits as quickly as possible. The counting errors were caused by the buildup of claims not being issued for weeks and being counted multiple times as they were finally processed. The extra monitoring required is putting more stress on the states due to the added labor and resources being allocated to the detection efforts. There are still many issues due to the pandemic and millions without jobs; however, it should be noted that the situation may not be represented properly. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/business/economy/pandemic-unemployment-assistance-fraud.html

Charli Damelio and the Charli

 Charli Damelio is a very popular TikTok star with over 84 million followers. She is the most followed Tiktok star and has been trending recently due to her recent partnership with Dunkin Donuts. The two collaborated and have released the new drink "The Charli". This drink has now been featured on Charli Damelios page and has gotten massive attention from consumers. All across the country, Dunkin Donuts shops are getting completely sold out of not only their new Charli drink but coffee in general. There has been a huge spike in consumer demand since the collaboration and I predict it will have a huge impact on Dunkin donuts next quarter earnings. Travis Scott has recently collaborated with McDonalds and I'm sure it will have a similar effect, however McDonalds is a much bigger company so I don't think the effect will be as drastic but I could be wrong. What are your thoughts? Do you think this was a smart move by Dunkin Donuts? Do you believe Dunkin Donuts is being slept on by all of Wall Street? Dunkin Donuts (ticker symbol DNKN) is currently trading at just over $77 but I predict it could reach as high as $90 after earnings are announced...

https://www.delish.com/food-news/a33896138/dunkin-charli-damelio-drink/

This is more than a health crisis: here’s a 10-point plan for avoiding recession

Before the Coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese and Indian economies were suffering. Steven Kennedy, Australian Treasury Secretary, said something along the lines of “the coronavirus would take at least half a percentage point off economic growth in the present March quarter, on top of a loss of the best part of 0.2% as a result of the bushfires.” This article explains how share markets in the world collapsed by February and did not recover by March (when the article was written). Also states that business investment fell during 2019 and they were expected to rise. The United States and Australia have two definitions of a recession. With that said, according to Australia’s definition, the United States has not had a recession in 29 years. The article suggests a 10-point plan to avoid a recession. Some of the points are: “cut income tax rates on lower income earners who have a higher propensity to consume, invest in low-cost housing for low-income and homeless families, increase the minimum wage from $19.49 per hour to, say, $20.65 ($785)”

Do you believe these suggestions will have a positive impact on the economy in order to avoid a recession? Why or why not?

Article: https://theconversation.com/this-is-more-than-a-health-crisis-heres-a-10-point-plan-for-avoiding-recession-133073