Last week officials from 130 countries, representing 90% of the global gross domestic product (GDP), met virtually to agree on the broad outlines of what would be the most sweeping change in international taxation in a century.
During June, the bipartisan infrastructure negotiations in the United States (US) continued. A $1.2 trillion plan initially emerged from the two parties, which set out additional infrastructure spending close to $600 billion.
Last week United States (US) markets closed the week in negative territory: the Dow Jones fell 1.6%, the S&P 500 lost 1.3%, and the Nasdaq fell 0.9%.
Press reports seem to suggest that United States (US) senators have reached some kind of a bipartisan agreement about President Jo Biden’s infrastructure proposal.
Last week, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) released South Africa’s (SA’s) unemployment statistics for the first quarter of 2021. We are now finally able to start understanding the cost of the COVID-19 pandemic but, even more so, the cost of an ineffective government.
As per usual, May was the volatile month that we have come to expect it to be and probably nowhere else was this truer than among cryptocurrencies.
Talk about reducing the extent of accommodative monetary policy in the United States (US) is becoming increasingly common; a weary sign to cash-hungry US and global markets.
In the first week of May, the United States (US) posted some disappointing job figures. A survey of economists expected the US to create upwards of 1 million new jobs in April, up from March’s 770,000 figure.
