Dr. Atie J. El Mouallem – A Currency Board could stop Hyper Inflation in Lebanon — atiejelmouallem.com
“Inflation in Lebanon fell to 121.7 percent in April 2021 from 158.9 percent in the previous month.”
“It seems unlikely that this trend of lowering inflation will continue as the government considers an end to subsidies.”
“The burden of devaluation hits the poor and middle class the hardest. Their purchasing power declines and inequality increases. In addition, negative coping mechanisms such as more child labour, more child marriages and cutting down on food are adopted to detrimental effect.”
“A Currency Board is essentially an independent authority created by law whose sole function is to stabilise the exchange rate of the currency and control the money supply.”
“Lebanon has the second-highest gold reserves per capita after Switzerland and ranks 20th in the world with 286.6 tonnes of gold worth $18 billion.”
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Lebanon Economic Monitor, Spring 2021: Lebanon Sinking (to the Top 3) — www.worldbank.org
“The Lebanon financial and economic crisis is likely to rank in the top 10, possibly top three, most severe crises episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century. “
“This is a conclusion of the Spring 2021 Lebanon Economic Monitor (LEM) in which the Lebanon crisis is contrasted with the most severe global crises episodes as observed by Reinhart and Rogoff (2014) over the 1857–2013 period”
“Lebanon’s GDP plummeted from close to US$ 55 billion in 2018 to an estimated US$ 33 billion in 2020, with US$ GDP/ capita falling by around 40 percent.”
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UAE, Japan to launch business council
“Al Zeyoudi said that the partnership between the UAE and Japan is reflected by positive economic indexes, with the value of Japanese direct investments in the UAE since the start of 2020 totalling $4.01bn, a growth of 22.6 per cent from 2015 until 2020.”
“Japan is ranked tenth globally among the list of countries investing in the UAE, and eighth globally in terms of non-oil trade, which reached $8.95bn in the first ten months of 2020, he added.”
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Living at AlJurf
Find Out More About Living at AlJurf
AlJurf Gardens harnesses nature’s raw beauty and combines it with refined heritage-inspired architecture and contemporary design to present a sanctuary of wellness and calm. Throughout the villa spaces, the refined and controlled raw beauty of nature is repeated in different scales, to showcase its exquisiteness across every typology of homes, gardens and courtyards.
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Billionaires Are Giving Away Their Money. Here’s Where It’s Going – Bloomberg
“After her divorce in 2019, MacKenzie Scott gave away almost $6 billion to hundreds of charitable groups, while her ex, Jeff Bezos, pledged $10 billion for an “Earth Fund” to fight climate change — by far the largest amounts given or pledged by either of them.”
“Some choose to use structures, called donor-advised funds, that allow them to park money and get the immediate tax benefits of giving, and decide later where to send the gifts.”
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Stimulus Checks 2021: Is Government Cash as Economic Policy Here to Stay? – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
“In the new economics, fiscal policy took over from monetary policy. Governments channelled cash directly to households and businesses and ran up record budget deficits. Central banks played a secondary and supportive role—buying up the ballooning government debt and other assets, keeping borrowing costs low, and insisting that this was no time to worry about inflation.”
“Instead, the U.S. government stepped in to insulate them from its worst effects in a way that hadn’t really been tried before: by replacing the wages that millions of newly out-of-work Americans were no longer receiving from employers.”
“The second quarter of 2020, a time when economic activity—measured by the conventional gauge of gross domestic product—was shrinking at the fastest pace on record, U.S. household income actually went up.”
“Direct payments to low-income households could be a powerful new tool to protect people at the bottom of the economic ladder from the wealth destruction that always accompanies downturns. Now that they’ve been used in one recession, it will be hard to argue that they shouldn’t be used in the next one, according to J.W. Mason, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.”
“THE PROMINENCE of such transfer payments during the pandemic highlights another big shift in economics: the handover of power from monetary to fiscal policy and the receding role of the inflation-fighting central bank.”
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The Lex Greensill-David Cameron Scandal Isn’t Quite Done Yet – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
“Senior officials at the Treasury and the Bank of England — guardians of the U.K. economy and financial stability — did little to prevent Greensill from tapping funds, some of which were funnelled into dicey loans.”
“Nevertheless, the firm was able to use a different government scheme to loan 400 million pounds ($568 million) of taxpayer-backed funds to Gupta’s companies that may never be repaid.”
“The Department for Business and its lending arm, the British Business Bank, were responsible for disbursing these funds to Greensill.”
“BOE had been warned by Germany’s financial supervisor that Greensill’s German bank was also heavily exposed to Gupta. All of this happened well before Cameron began his barrage of lobbying.”
“A parliamentary inquiry — which was given reams of correspondence and hours of testimony from witnesses — has failed to determine a clear link between the lobbying efforts of Johnson’s predecessor, David Cameron, and Greensill Capital’s access to the U.K.’s pandemic loan schemes.”
India and Pakistan Are Now Poorer Than Bangladesh – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
“Bangladesh has maintained a public debt-to-GDP ratio between 30% and 40%. India and Pakistan will both emerge from the pandemic with public debt close to 90% of GDP.”
“Bangladesh is 45% richer than Pakistan.”
“Bangladesh’s Cabinet Secretary told reporters that GDP per capita had grown by 9% over the past year, rising to $2,227.”
“India’s per capita income in 2020-21 was a mere $1,947.”
“Bangladesh’s success brings its own set of problems. For one, its exports benefit from the country’s participation in various mechanisms that allow tariff-free access to developed economies.”
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