Specialized search for economics

1+ hour, 38+ min ago (1787+ words) In today's newsletter: "Critics say the OBR's growing influence has outpaced its accountability", raising questions about whether it serves the public, the Treasury, or the markets Good morning. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was designed to be an institution that crunches numbers quietly in the background. Instead, over the past week, it has found itself dragged kicking and screaming into the political spotlight. On the day attention should have been fixed on Rachel Reeves's economic plans, many instead watched the fallout from the OBR's accidental early publication of her budget. After the leak there followed days of anger and disbelief, which culminated in the resignation of the OBR's chair, Richard Hughes. Now, as the search begins for a new figure to lead one of the most powerful and thankless institutions in British economic life, a sharper question is being…...

9+ hour, 37+ min ago (170+ words) Supply chains are becoming the new frontlines of geopolitics. Podcast | The New Supply Chain Paradigm: Putting Geopolitics Ahead of Profit Supply chains are becoming the new frontlines of geopolitics. That observation comes from five-time author and strategist Abishur Prakash, chief executive officer and founder of The Geopolitical Business. He contends that geopolitics is now the driving force behind global supply chain management, as governments increasingly insert themselves into international business relationships and seek to control the supply chains that undergird them. The trend is causing a radical redefinition of the role of chief supply chain officer, who must now become a "geopolitical strategist." Sometimes that even means putting geopolitical considerations ahead of profit. So how can companies protect themselves against these ever-shifting policies and tensions that arise between nations? And why isn't supplier diversification " the trend of the moment, as…...

10+ hour, 10+ min ago (76+ words) For release at 5:00 p.m. EST The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday requested public input on the impact of potential strategic changes to check services provided by the Fed, as well as check usage and preferences. Comments are due within 90 days after publication in the Federal Register. Federal Register notice: Request for Information and Comment on the Future of the Federal Reserve Banks' Check Services (PDF) Statement by Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman...

10+ hour, 10+ min ago (230+ words) The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday announced pricing, effective January 1, 2026, for payment services the Federal Reserve Banks provide to banks and credit An official website of the United States Government Official websites use .gov Secure .gov websites use HTTPS Federal Reserve Board announces pricing, effective January 1, 2026, for payment services the Federal Reserve Banks provide to banks and credit unions For release at 5:00 p.m. EST The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday announced pricing, effective January 1, 2026, for payment services the Federal Reserve Banks provide to banks and credit unions, such as the clearing of checks, automated clearing house (ACH) transactions, instant payments, and wholesale payment and settlement services. By law, the Federal Reserve must establish fees to recover the costs, including imputed costs, of providing payment services over the long run. The Federal Reserve expects to recover 108 percent of actual and imputed expenses…...

17+ hour, 55+ min ago (380+ words) Michael Wu is GM and President of Phison Technology Inc. (USA), a leading provider of NAND controllers and NAND storage solutions. Traditional cost models stop at compute or storage capacity. GenAI requires a more granular, physics-aware view that captures the flow of energy as well as data. A practical framework links model economics directly to storage and input/output (I/O) metrics that can be tracked, audited and compared: " $/TB (terabyte)-month for capacity utilization " Watt-hours (Wh)/TB moved for I/O efficiency " Wh/token for inference cost " Endurance-adjusted $/TBW (terabytes written) for life cycle value Together, these metrics form a bill of materials for AI operations. They allow finance leaders to express model performance and cost in the same dollar unit by translating watt-hours into local electricity prices ($/kWh). This enables apples-to-apples comparison across cloud, on-prem and hybrid stacks. Although…...

18+ hour, 10+ min ago (286+ words) Tools and resources to find and use economic data worldwide U.S. financial, economic, and banking history Vintages of economic data from specific dates in history View banking market concentrations and perform HHI analysis Looking at the data Our FRED graph above shows the PPI values for both natural gas and residential electric power. Since 2015, the two have generally moved together. What stands out immediately is the sharp divergence between natural gas prices and electricity prices starting around 2023. Natural gas has long been a core input for US power generation. As growth in supply outpaced demand, natural gas prices dropped significantly. Under normal circumstances, falling natural gas prices might ease wholesale electricity costs, but that relationship appears increasingly muted. The steeper increases in residential electricity prices in recent months reflect structural pressures in the power sector that go beyond fuel costs. These…...

18+ hour, 50+ min ago (42+ words) This week, the React flaw, a belated Windows fix, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Signal group posed operational risk, more North Korean npm packages. An ... Join the ISMG Community Thank you for registering with ISMG Complete your profile and stay up to date...

19+ hour, 23+ min ago (207+ words) MATT OTT Thursday, 04 December 2025 08:52 AM EST U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in more than three years last week, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve's upcoming decision on interest rates. The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits for the week ending Nov. 29 fell to 191,000 from the previous week's 218,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That's the lowest level since September 24, 2022, when claims came in at 189,000. Analysts surveyed by the data provider FactSet had forecast initial claims of 221,000. Applications for unemployment aid are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market. The job cuts announced recently by large companies such as UPS, General Motors, Amazon and Verizon typically take weeks or months to fully implement and may not be reflected in Thursday's data. The four-week average of…...

19+ hour, 37+ min ago (306+ words) Howard Schneider Thursday, 04 December 2025 08:35 AM EST The U.S. unemployment rate was unchanged around 4.4% in November, the Chicago Federal Reserve estimated Thursday, while closely watched data from a private provider added to the evidence that the U.S. labor market is slowly weakening. With official unemployment reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics still delayed following the government shutdown in October and November, the new reports could add weight to arguments at next week's Federal Reserve meeting in favor of cutting the benchmark policy rate another quarter of a percentage point. The BLS would typically issue its employment report for November on Friday, but has delayed it until December 16, after the Fed meets on December 9-10. The Chicago Fed derives its jobless rate estimate from both public and private data and issues it twice a month to give policymakers more frequent updates on a key…...

21+ hour, 17+ min ago (403+ words) Forced redistribution dominates public discourse about wealth inequality, yet much of the debate overlooks how people earn, trade, innovate, and create value. T Objections to income inequality are commonplace. We hear these today from across the ideological spectrum, including, for example, from the far-left data-gatherer Thomas Piketty, the far-right provocateur Tucker Carlson, and Pope Leo XIV." Countless careful researchers have convincingly shown that popular accounts of the magnitude of differences in monetary incomes are vastly overstated. But let's here grant, for the sake of argument, that differences in monetary incomes within the United States are indeed vast. And then let's pose some probing questions to proponents of using the state to tax and "redistribute' high incomes. " Do you teach your children to envy what other children have? Do you encourage your children to form gangs with their playmates to "redistribute' toys…...