Economy
Over the last five years, foot traffic in banks has declined by about 35%. With the pandemic, the shift to online and smart-phone banking just accelerated. As a result, over the past 12 months, banks have closed 3,745 branches, about 4 percent of all the banks out there.
The loss of local bank branches means customers have to travel further, might not get the chance to learn about financial options as much, and in some cases, just lose a hub of social interaction. But something else is also lost when a bank branch disappears, particularly if it’s the only branch in a neighborhood or a small town. Even if a rural small-town downtown or an urban neighborhood is struggling, as long as there’s still a bank branch, the other retailers can usually hang on. The bank may be the last thing standing between viability, survivorship and complete decay.
China Launches New App Allowing Citizens To Report Others For Expressing “Mistaken Opinions”
The new platform will target anyone who criticizes the dictatorship’s ruling CCP, disputes the official version of the country’s history or engages in “misinformation.”
The new website and app was proudly unveiled by China’s Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), with authorities calling on users to play an “active role” in helping to identify “malicious people distorting facts and confusing” others.
Johnson & Johnson suffers another setback as FDA tells Md. vaccine maker to suspend production
Emergent BioSolutions has shut down new manufacturing of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine at its Baltimore plant at the request of the Food and Drug Administration after an inspection of the troubled facility last week, Emergent said Monday.
The halt in production is another setback for Johnson & Johnson as it attempts to meet its promise to deliver nearly 100 million doses of vaccine to the U.S. government by the end of May.
Apple reinstates Parler App after review
Apple confirmed Monday that it will allow the conservative-friendly social network Parler back on its app store after it was temporarily forced offline following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The decision, included in the letter sent to Congressman Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), was obtained by FOX Business. Parler’s Interim CEO Mark Meckler thanked the two legislators for their efforts. In a statement, Meckler said their undertaking had “helped facilitate Parler’s re-launch on the App Store and has empowered Parler’s users to re-engage in the ability to freely express themselves and share ideas free of the viewpoint discrimination that they face on other platforms like Twitter and Facebook.”
New-home construction rebounds as America faces dire housing shortage
New-home construction surged after winter weather had caused a slowdown in February, at a time when the housing market desperately needs more inventory to meet burgeoning demand from first-time buyers.
U.S. home builders started construction on homes at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 1.74 million in March, representing a 19% jump from the previous month’s upwardly-revised figure, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday. Compared with March 2020, housing starts were up a notable 37%.
Bitcoin’s nosedive: What happened and what’s ahead?
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, battled back Monday following a weekend flash crash.
Prices hovered near $56,000 late in the day after plunging as much as 14% to $51,541, wiping out the majority of its gains from the previous week which led to a record-high value of $63,200 as tracked by Coindesk.
India, Farming, and the Free Market
There’s a battle raging over just how free market India’s economy should become.
For months, India has been dealing with the one of the largest protests the world has seen in modern history. Tens of thousands of farmers across the country are demanding that the government revoke a series of reforms that will change India’s agricultural sector.
Lumber Hasn’t Had A Down Day Since March 26… And It’s Sending Home Prices Soaring Even Higher
Less than a week ago, we published an article explaining that the ongoing “Supply Chain Collapse Leads To Lumber Frenzy, Soaring Home Prices.” Since then the lumber buying frenzy has gotten even more out of control, with prices surging another 12%, and as Bloomberg’s Aoyon Ashraf points out, “lumber hasn’t had a down day since March 26 and keeps hitting all-time highs with few signs of stopping.” In an amusing comparison, Ashraf also notes that while Lumber futures have climber a staggering 58% in just the past month since bottoming on March 16, “Bitcoin has fallen 3% and S&P 500 returned only 5% over this period” (of course, any comparison that is not goalseeked and stretches further beyond just a few weeks will show bitcoin trouncing lumber, but we get the idea).
China Says It Has No Desire To Replace Dollar As Global Reserve Currency With Digital Yuan
Apparently all it takes to replace a global reserve currency is a digital currency alternative just waiting to be released any moment… and a deep-seated desire to do so.
As regular readers know, China is leaps and bounds ahead of every other central bank and indeed plans to release a digital Yuan in the near future, but for now it supposedly has no interest in dethroning the dollar as the reserve currency… at least according to China.
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The post Daily Digest 4/19 – After The Banks Leave, Bitcoin’s nosedive: What happened and what’s ahead? appeared first on Peak Prosperity.
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