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One of the citizens feeling the pinch of rising prices in Zimbabwe is Christine Kayumba. She says she can’t afford to buy bread for her four dependents on her salary of less than $250 a month — because a loaf now costs more than $2.

The high school English teacher says she cooks a bland, thin porridge three times a day, and rarely serves rice as it is now expensive too.

“This price increase of bread has reduced me to nothing,” she told VOA. “I don’t feel I am still the mother figure, the bread winner for my family. Because I am failing to provide, each and every morning they wake up crying for porridge, crying for bread.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, has led to bread prices soaring in importing countries like Zimbabwe. Most impacted are children, said Kayumba, as shortage means they are forced to seek food elsewhere.

“You see bread is something with these children. They want it. Even from next doors, if they see them [neighbors] drinking tea, they will eat there.”

Tafadzwa Musarara is the chairman of the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe, which imports grain. He said the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the main cause for the price hike.

“As early as November last year, we were unable to load wheat from that region because political tensions had gone high, and insurers revoked their coverages. This is a supplier who was supplying us with good wheat, accounting for 65% of the wheat that we need.”

Musarara said the impact of the crisis in Ukraine was immediately felt in Zimbabwe. “Suddenly we woke up without that supply… the inflation on the price of bread, the increase on the price of bread is an imported factor.”

Musarara added that a consignment of Zimbabwe’s wheat has been stuck in the embattled Ukrainian city of Mariupol for weeks now. He added that the war is pushing people to look for ways to meet the need in the country. “Now we are making our efforts to see how we can get [it] from other countries. [In] Australia, there is the issue of floods, which affected their agriculture. We are now pushing towards getting wheat from Canada and other countries.”

Andrew Matibiri is the CEO of Zimbabwe Agricultural Society, a group responsible for promoting agricultural development in the country. He said the current wheat shortage the country is facing can also serve as an opportunity.

“This is an opportune time for our farmers to produce more, for the government and the private sector to work together, hand in hand, to support farmers who want to go into wheat production,” Matibiri said. “And thank God! We have been having some late rainfalls, which have been helping land preparations. So, all in all, the future of wheat production in this country is good.”

Matibiri said he has confidence in his country’s capacity to face the challenge. “We have shown that we can produce enough for our needs and to produce even more so that we can export to neighboring countries and others who are in need of wheat.”

For Kayumba, that would certainly be good news since she can’t afford to buy bread for her family as it is currently double the price it used to be.
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When the coronavirus pandemic hit New Orleans in March 2020, Jeremy Fogg, an executive pastry chef at a popular local restaurant, suddenly found himself without a job.

Fogg was far from alone. In the first few months of the crisis, approximately 22 million Americans lost their jobs, with millions more seeing their hours cut.

“For the first stretch of the pandemic, I just kind of sat at home and waited for my job to call and tell me we were reopening,” he said. “But as the months went by without a call, I worried I’d run out of money. I opened my own pop-up bakery and began teaching baking at a local college.”

The call to return to work eventually came. When it did, Fogg responded in a way he never would have expected at the onset of the pandemic.

“I told them I wasn’t coming back.”

‘Great Resignation’

Fogg’s decision underscores a larger trend in America over the past two years — one that many experts believe has shifted at least some of the power in the country’s labor market from employers to employees.

The phenomenon is called the “Great Resignation,” in which millions of workers chose not to return to the workforce or traditional positions after the sweeping job losses in the early months of the pandemic.

Many who did return to work have since left their jobs — 47 million U.S. workers quit in 2021. Nearly one in five nonretired adults left their job at some point that year, with the nation’s “quit rate” reaching a 20-year high in November, according to the Pew Research Center.

“I think a lot of us realized during the pandemic that we wanted something different than what we were settling for,” Fogg told VOA.

Some people he worked with before the pandemic left New Orleans to be closer to family. Others switched to careers less demanding than the service industry. Still others moved to service industry jobs with better pay or benefits. Fogg said he got a taste of the rewards of working for himself and didn’t want to go back.

“We realized we deserved better from our jobs, and it’s given us the courage to ask for what we think we deserve,” he said.

Tight labor market

Patrick Button, a professor of economics at Tulane University, said the recession caused by COVID-19 is unlike other recent recessions in the United States.

“Typically, recessions were an issue of demand. Employers weren’t interested in hiring, and people were shut out of the workforce,” Button told VOA. “What we’re experiencing now, however, is a supply-side issue. There is a demand for workers by employers, but workers aren’t eager to return.”

That has forced many employers to meet workers’ demands for better pay and benefits, Button explained.

“Employers are having a difficult time hiring workers, and when they do, they’re having a tough time getting them to stay,” he said. “In order to compete against other businesses for workers, many companies are raising wages and offering a better work environment.”

The trucking industry, for example, had struggled to retain drivers for years before the pandemic as the baby boomer generation retired from the workforce. This has caused supply chain issues across the country.

Sherri Brumbaugh, president and CEO of Garner Trucking Inc., said the driver shortage has become more challenging since the Great Resignation.

“It’s the most difficult hiring situation I’ve ever experienced,” she told VOA.

Older generations, Brumbaugh said, were more accepting of the hardships that come with “life on the road.” Younger drivers, however, have different expectations.

“They don’t want to be away from their families for a week at a time, and they don’t accept waiting for hours at truck stops because freight hasn’t arrived,” she said. “There was a time when maybe we didn’t have to. But now, if we’re going to attract new drivers, we have to adjust to what potential employees are looking for.”

Service industry struggles

Leisure and hospitality workers have reportedly left their jobs at more than twice the national average.

Those in the industry say this trend began pre-pandemic and is resulting in more options for employees.

“There are a lot more jobs out there, and quite frankly, the industry has been slow to respond,” said Jay Frisard, who was a regional manager overseeing multiple restaurants for 25 years before switching careers to the logistics industry during the pandemic.

“Wages are higher for service industry workers now, but it’s still often a life that sucks — long hours, constantly on your feet, angry customers. It’s not easy,” he said.

Eric Cook, who owns two restaurants in New Orleans, including the award-winning Gris-Gris, agrees that restaurant work can be grueling, which may be why he and his industry peers are having difficulties filling positions.

“I think when restaurants and bars were closed during the pandemic, a lot of workers explored other industries,” Cook said. “For me, cooking food is about sharing our culture, and that’s rewarding. But I think for a lot of people, if they found work in another industry, they saw that they can make money while sitting at home and without as much stress.”

To stay competitive, Cook raised salaries from $12 and $14 an hour to $22, and he’s offered more salaried positions. Even so, he hasn’t been able to hire enough staff to open his restaurants full time.

“People keep saying, ‘Pay more. Pay more!’ But I can’t go much further without losing money,” he said. “It’s not like I’m making money doing this as it is. People see a full restaurant and think it’s a gold mine, but with being closed during the pandemic, and now rising labor costs and through-the-roof inflation, figuring out how to make a profit at a restaurant is like trying to land on the fricking moon.”

Effects that last?

A survey from the Pew Research Center found that low pay, a lack of opportunities for advancement and feeling disrespected at work are the top reasons Americans quit their jobs last year.

“For the most part, those who quit their jobs are finding new ones easily,” Pew’s associate director of research, Juliana Horowitz, told VOA. “That gives people more courage to find something better.”

According to the survey, the decision to seek new work is paying off.

“The majority of respondents are earning more money, and they’re finding work with more advancement opportunities,” Horowitz said.

Some believe the effects of the Great Resignation are being overstated. A recent Harris Poll survey for USA Today said that one in five people who resigned during the pandemic regretted it.

Chris Smalls, a former Amazon warehouse worker who spearheaded the successful campaign to bring the first unionized workplace in the technology giant’s history, mocked the idea that the trend is harming employers.

“When you quit your job, guess what? They hire somebody else,” Smalls, now president and founder of the Amazon Labor Union, told NPR in an interview.

But while economists like Button note that much of the wage gains earned by workers have been offset by inflation, they believe at least some of the gains made by laborers in the past year are meaningful and will be permanent.

“Of course, not everything we’ve seen will linger,” he said. “But employers are seeing that things like the ability to work from home, flexible hours and benefits such as sick pay are important. And I think those changes will stay to some degree.”

Whether it’s stronger unions, leaving a job for a better opportunity, or in his case, starting his own business, Fogg believes the Great Resignation has helped empower many workers to evaluate what they want out of a job.

“There’s nothing wrong with standing up for yourself and not accepting less than you deserve,” he said. “I think a lot of us are finally realizing that.”
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A global shortage of microchips is only a part of the difficulty roiling the global automotive industry. As more drivers return to work as pandemic restrictions ease — increasing demand for new vehicles — inventory is scarce. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Chicago.
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Tourist operators in the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley are celebrating a return of visitors after several lean years prompted by COVID-19 and — before that — unrest over India’s revocation of the region’s special constitutional status and autonomy.

The Srinagar Airport Authority reported almost 15,000 tourists in the Jammu and Kashmir capital aboard 106 flights on a single day this week. That compares to an average of about 30 flights a day two years ago.

Hotels in the valley are packed and fully booked until June, according to Tariq Rashid Ghani, secretary general of the Jammu and Kashmir Hoteliers Club. “We are hopeful to break all the previous records this year,” he said in an interview.

Authorities say visitors are overwhelmingly from India, attracted by an aggressive promotional campaign within the country and an easing of COVID-19 pandemic limits, which made Indians eager to travel. Foreign visitors accounted for only about 1,000 of the record 340,000 visitors to the scenic valley in the first three months of this year.

“With the steady decline in COVID-19 cases in India, people are encouraged and dare to travel. Like Kashmir, many other hilly states are witnessing similar type of tourist rush,” said Rauf Tramboo, president of the Adventure Tour Operators Association of Kashmir.

Anamika Shil, a tourist from Kolkata, who works for a domestic airline, told VOA she only regretted having not come to Kashmir sooner, having been frightened away by media reports of disturbances and violence. “Not only the stay but I am enjoying the food as well,” she said.

Nevertheless, security is still a concern. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a website that monitors terrorism and low intensity warfare in South Asia, there have been 48 violent incidents in Indian-administered Kashmir already this year, killing 11 civilians and 11 security forces along with 54 insurgents.

Tourism to the valley, famed for its dramatic Himalayan landscapes and pristine lakes, fell off dramatically after the New Delhi government withdrew the region’s special status on August 5, 2019. The action was accompanied by a harsh crackdown in which social media platforms and many other forms of communication were cut off.

By the time the security situation was stabilizing, the coronavirus pandemic was in full swing around the world, sharply reducing interest in tourism, both foreign and domestic. International arrivals in the valley fell to 3,897 in 2020 and just 1,615 last year.

But now, a reluctance to journey abroad among Indian vacationers is working to the region’s advantage, according to G.N. Itoo, the director of Tourism Kashmir.

“People who would otherwise go to Europe and other countries preferred to come to Kashmir [while] restrictions were in force on international travel. Secondly we created good experiences like houseboat festival, sufi festival, winter carnival and many more which created a buzz,” he told VOA.

Dramatic scenery has always been the biggest draw for visitors to Kashmir, who account directly for nearly 8% of its gross domestic product and indirectly for more through patronage of its crafts and cottage industries.

But this year’s tourist season got off to an early start with a banner year for winter sports in Gulmarg, a ski resort high in the Himalayan mountains. Tramboo said almost 1,700 skiers, snowboarders and others from 17 Indian states took part this year.

Other attractions that have contributed to the tourist resurgence include Shri Amarnath, a Hindu temple set in a cave high in the in the snow-capped mountains. Authorities expect that close to 1 million pilgrims will trek to the shrine this year, setting an all-time record.

Another draw is Asia’s largest tulip garden, sprawling across some 30 hectares in the foothills of the Zabarwan range in Srinagar. Farooq Ahmad Rather, director of Floriculture Kashmir, said more than 360,000 visitors, including local residents, came to witness this year’s spring bloom.

Most famous of all the valley’s attractions is Srinagar’s Lake Dal, where visitors can see the mountains reflected in the waters as they circle the lake in small boats known as shikara or arrange a stay in a luxurious houseboat moored to the shore.
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Tesla, Inc. results surged past Wall Street expectations Wednesday, as higher prices helped insulate the electric vehicle maker from supply chain chaos and rising costs.

The results also should trigger $23 billion in new payouts to CEO Elon Musk, already the world’s richest man.

Tesla has been an outlier since the pandemic outbreak, posting record deliveries and earnings for several quarters when rivals wrestling with global supply chain snarls rolled out production halts.

Shares of Tesla rose 5% after the close of regular trading. On an investor conference call, Musk said Tesla has a reasonable shot at achieving 60% vehicle delivery growth this year and remains confident of seeing 50% annual delivery growth for several years.

Tesla raised its prices in China, the United States and other countries, after Musk said in March the U.S. electric carmaker was facing significant inflationary pressure in raw materials and logistics amid the crisis in Ukraine.

“Our own factories have been running below capacity for several quarters as supply chain became the main limiting factor, which is likely to continue through the rest of 2022,” Tesla said in a statement.

The price increases are designed to cover higher costs for the next six to 12 months, which protects Tesla on orders for cars that it may not deliver for a year.

“Price increases are nicely exceeding cost inflation,” said Craig Irwin at Roth Capital.

“Chinese production issues seem well managed, and we expect Austin and Berlin to make up the slack from Shanghai’s 19-day outage,” he said referring to Tesla’s two new factories in Texas and Germany which have started deliveries in recent months.

The results let Musk meet a hat trick of performance goals worth a combined $23 billion in new compensation. He receives no salary, and his pay package requires Tesla’s market capitalization and financial growth to hit a series of escalating targets.

The world’s most valuable automaker said revenue was $18.8 billion in the first quarter ended March 31, versus estimates of $17.8 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. This is up 81% from a year earlier.

Revenue from sales of its regulatory credits to other automakers jumped 31% to $679 million in the first quarter from a year earlier, helping boost revenue and profits.

Its earnings per share was $3.22, beatings analysts’ estimates of $2.26.

Tesla’s pre-tax profit (EBITDA) per vehicle delivered rose by more than 60% to $16,203 in the latest quarter compared with a year earlier.

Tesla said it has lost about a month of build volume out of its Shanghai factory due to COVID-related shutdowns. It said production is resuming at limited levels, which will affect total build and delivery volume in the second quarter.

Musk expected Tesla’s total production in the current quarter to be similar to that of the first quarter.

Lithium is software

Musk said lithium is responsible for cost increases and “a limiting factor” to EV growth.

He encouraged companies to get into the lithium business, which he said would generate high margins thanks to high prices.

“The lithium margins right now are practically software margins … Do you like minting money? Well, the lithium business is for you.”

He also said Tesla will have “some exciting announcements in the months to come” regarding securing raw materials for batteries.

Musk said its own 4680 battery cells would become a risk to production next year if it does not solve volume production by early 2023. “But we’re highly confident of doing so.” He also said as a risk mitigation, it will also use its existing, 2170 batteries for vehicles being made in Texas.

Musk said Tesla expects to mass produce a robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedal by 2024.

During the call, Musk did not mention Twitter, which he offered to buy last week for $43 billion. Investors are concerned that he may sell some Tesla stocks or borrow against additional Tesla shares to finance his bid.

Investors also worry about Musk being distracted by his Twitter bid at a time when Tesla is ramping up production at new factories in Berlin and Texas.

“Factory ramps take time, and Gigafactory Austin and Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg will be no different,” Tesla said in a statement.

The new factories will be key to meeting demand and reducing reliance on its China factory, its biggest one, which is recovering from a plant shutdown.
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Senior leaders of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom walked out of a meeting of the Group of 20 major economies on Wednesday in protest of the G-20’s decision to allow Russian officials, including Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, to participate.

The U.S. and other members of the G-20 had called on Indonesia, which holds the rotating chair of the organization, to bar Russia from the meeting over its invasion of Ukraine. The fact that Russia was allowed to participate highlights the significant fractures within the organization in addressing the war in Ukraine. 

Although Ukraine is not a member of the G-20, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko were invited to attend the meeting. In remarks at the beginning of the session, Kuleba vowed that Ukraine would not cede territory to Russia as part of peace negotiations. Both Kuleba and Marchenko joined the walkout.

In his remarks, Siluanov warned against politicizing dialogue among member states, saying that it might harm the global economy.

Major split

While the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Japan and Canada — some of the largest members of the G-20 — have forcefully condemned Russia’s actions in Ukraine and fully participated in a regime of tough economic sanctions, many others have not. The latter include China, Indonesia, India and South Africa.

On Wednesday morning, Treasury officials told the Reuters news organization that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had spoken with Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati the day before the meeting. In a statement, the department said, “Secretary Yellen firmly condemned Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, and emphasized there will be no business-as-usual for Russia in the global economy.”

The statement continued: “Secretary Yellen emphasized that the United States will continue to work in solidarity with Indonesia to advance the important business of the G-20, including addressing the negative impacts of Russia’s invasion on the global economy.”

Yellen had signaled her intention to avoid meetings in which Russia participated in comments on April 7, when she reiterated U.S. President Joe Biden’s call to expel Russia from the organization.

On Wednesday, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland tweeted, “This week’s meetings in Washington are about supporting the world economy — and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine is a grave threat to the global economy. Russia should not be participating or included in these meetings.”

A plea for cooperation

The G-20 was founded in 1999, but it became a force on the world stage during the global economic crisis of 2008-09, when it served as the coordinating body for a series of policy responses that many economists credit with preventing far greater economic damage.

More recently, the group was central in the development of a plan to impose mandatory minimum taxes on international businesses to prevent a “race to the bottom” as countries competed to attract companies with ever-lower tax rates.

On Wednesday, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva called on G-20 members to continue cooperating to address major global problems, calling the organization “crucial to sustain the momentum on collective efforts to deliver on global ambitions for the common good.”

She added, “We also recognize how interdependent we are …  and it is so obvious that cooperation must and will continue.”

Future effectiveness questioned

Experts, however, are now concerned that the G-20 may struggle to lead on some of the key issues that its members have identified as important, including climate change and global food shortages, because of disagreements about Russia’s continued participation.

“We have a real need for a group like that, to sit down and try to come up with practical solutions,” Matthew Goodman, senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA. “But it’s very difficult to see how that’s going to happen under the current circumstances. There’s a substantial group that doesn’t want to work with Russia right now, and there’s another substantial group that isn’t willing to talk or agree to things without Russia at the table. So, it’s hard to see how you get out of that.”

Goodman, who helped organize G-20 summits during the Obama administration, said it was possible that there might be some “lowest common denominator” issues that the entire G-20 could agree on despite its internal divisions. But he wasn’t holding out much hope.

“It’s just hard to see how this group really delivers on anything,” he said.

Summit in doubt

Unlike the annual G-20 summit, which is normally attended by heads of state, Wednesday’s meeting in Washington involved member states’ finance ministers and central bank governors.

This year’s summit, scheduled for November, will be held in Bali, in recognition of Indonesia’s position as chair. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has indicated that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be welcome in Bali, prompting protests from other group members and suggestions that a boycott might take place.

Last month, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, “The idea of sitting around a table with Vladimir Putin, who the United States are already in the position of calling out [for] war crimes in Ukraine, for me is a step too far.”

The Biden administration has not made an official statement about the president’s plans for the Bali summit. In a press conference on April 7, press secretary Jen Psaki noted that the meeting was seven months away, “a lifetime.”

A history of expulsions

If Russia were excluded from the G-20 — a prospect that most experts view as unlikely — it would not be the first time the country had been ousted from a prestigious international organization.

Russia’s membership in the G-7 group of some of the world’s largest economies (at the time, the G-8) was suspended in 2014 after it invaded and took over Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Russia formally left that organization in 2017 and expressed no interest in rejoining it, even after then-U.S. President Donald Trump and then-Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called for its reinstatement in 2018. The G-7’s other members rejected the proposal unanimously.
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Some of the worst flooding in South Africa’s history has left more than 400 people dead and some 40,000 displaced, dealing a devastating blow to the eastern city of Durban, which has a seaport that has also been badly affected.

With the port not fully functioning, there are supply chain concerns and China — South Africa’s biggest trading partner — and other nations, are likely to see their imports and exports disrupted.

Earlier this week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster because of the flooding — which he blames on climate change but which some critics blame on poor infrastructure and the fact that most of the people affected were living in makeshift shacks in informal settlements.

Ramaphosa stressed the importance of quickly fixing the situation at the port, saying, “The Port of Durban — which is one of the largest and busiest shipping terminals on the continent and which is vital to our country’s economy — has been severely affected.”

The road to the port, which handles some 13,000 heavy vehicles a day, has been severely damaged, he added.

On Tuesday, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan Pravin Gordhan visited the port, which has reopened, and concluded it would take more a week to clear some backlogs. The rail network to the site had been affected by landslides and still needs to be repaired, he said, adding that 9,000 containers have accumulated at the port and would be cleared in the next nine days.

Logs and debris also ended up in the harbor due to the floods, which he said had disrupted shipping.

One of the countries likely to be affected by problems at the port is China, said Cobus van Staden, senior China-Africa researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs.

“In relation to the situation in Durban, it’s very serious for the whole of China-Africa trade, rather than just for South Africa; this is because of the centrality of Durban port to Chinese exports,” he told VOA.

“About 20 percent of total China-Africa trade goes out through Durban and this includes resources like cobalt, copper and lithium coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe particularly,” he added.

Maersk, the world’s biggest container line, halted operations at the port last week and told VOA by email its warehouse had been affected and was still not operational. While vessel operations had resumed, the company said problems with road access were affecting all cargo entering or leaving the terminal.

“We continue to assess the damages and monitor the situation as it evolves, customers are being updated daily on the progress and the contingency plans so that we may get the supply chains moving again as quickly as possible,” it said.

Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist for the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, told VOA he thought it would take some time before activities at the port were back to normal.

“There’s been great devastation by these excessive rains and it’s a major risk to commerce and all goods: automobile, agriculture and other sectors of the economy that are dependent on trade,” he said.
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Closing the economic divide in the hard-hit industrial Midwestern United States could dampen the fervor of anti-democratic populism, a new working paper suggests.

Populism is ascribed to political movements that embrace an us-versus-them mentality. Battles are often fought along socioeconomic, ethnic or communal lines.

“When communities are in decline, when residents are anxious about their own futures and the futures of their children, when the younger generation has left, there is a great feeling of frustration, of anxiety, of ill ease about losing status and a changing world,” says John Austin, principal author of the report. “And the populists, of both left and right, prey on these attitudes and anxieties.”

The American Midwest was once an economic powerhouse with thriving steel, oil, aviation and auto industries. But globalization and technological change shuttered many of those factories, leaving struggling communities with far fewer high-wage unionized jobs. Some studies suggest economic grievances, often stemming from an erosion of earning potential and living standards, are behind the rise of populism in the United States.

“Left-wing populists definitely prey on the same resentment and anxieties about a changing world as right-wing populists, but the left-wing populists offer a policy solution: ‘Let’s soak the rich, get you free health care, free college, a decent wage.’ That’s their solution,” says Austin, director of the Michigan Economic Center and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“Right-wing populists offer a culture war: ‘Don’t trust the government, immigrants or someone else who’s getting theirs (opportunities and benefits) at your expense. They’re the cause of your community distress.’ And the right-wing populists also encourage anti-democratic behaviors: ‘Don’t trust the press. You can’t trust the government. We can’t trust our own institutions,'” he says.

Samuel Abrams, a professor of politics and social sciences at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, sees the right-left divide differently.

“My sense is that populism on the right often seeks to retain our institutions and hearken back to some sense of what that institution may have been,” says Abrams, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “The flip side is, if you look at the rhetoric on the left, my sense is that it’s not about preserving institutions, it’s about destroying institutions. It’s not about saving them at all, and I tend to see a lack of proposals on the left of what would replace these institutions.”

The report finds that some Midwestern communities are on the rebound because they’ve been able to exploit their local assets.

“Their economic development approach is, ‘We have to grow our own new future based on who we are,” Austin says. “It’s not about chasing factories to come in, and it’s not about giving tax breaks to get folks to move to town. It’s about looking around and investing in and leveraging whatever assets you have and building from within.”

That can mean growing local universities and research institutions, revitalizing downtowns to make them more walkable and livable, and investing in schools, the arts and recreation.

“Those investments in quality of life and play have much stronger impacts on a community’s employment growth and population growth than do traditional business-friendly measures like ‘Let’s cut taxes and lower regulation and hope that that will attract some industry or some investment,'” Austin says.

The problem, according to Abrams, is that voters aren’t necessarily rational about what they need, often embracing wholesale a set of ideas on the left or the right rooted more in ideology than practical concerns.

“So, yes, you could absolutely transform these heartland communities. I think it would be very powerful to do that, and I think that would go a long way,” Abrams says. “But we then still have to deal, again, with this ideological polarization. … If you look at a lot of the rhetoric of the populist movement right now with immigration, defense, a lot of xenophobic (attitudes) … you can make people wealthy or more comfortable, but it’s not going to change that.”

Data from the 2020 presidential election between incumbent Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden show that some Midwestern cities and counties that experienced economic growth shifted toward the Democrats, away from Trump’s brand of populism and toward Biden’s center-left views.

But, in Abrams’ view, economic resurgence can only do so much.

“I do think there’ll be some change if we can enhance economic stability and help people feel less exposed to economic change,” Abrams says. “But there are also numerous examples of where you can find Trump supporters and populists, on the left and the right, where it has nothing to do with money and it has everything to do with ideology.”
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The International Monetary Fund has slashed its forecast for global economic growth to 3.6% this year, saying Russia’s war in Ukraine threatens a fragile recovery from disruptions caused by the pandemic. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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The world economy will grow at a slower pace because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the International Monetary Fund said in a report Tuesday.

The organization forecasts growth of 3.6% this year, compared to 6.1% last year. Originally, it had predicted 4.4% growth this year.

“The economic effects of the war are spreading far and wide,” the IMF said in its report.

The war has exacerbated negative economic trends such as disrupted commerce and price hikes for fuel and food.

“In the matter of a few weeks, the world has yet again experienced a major, transformative shock,” IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas wrote in the foreword to the fund’s World Economic Outlook report. “Just as a durable recovery from the pandemic-induced global economic collapse appeared in sight, the war has created the very real prospect that a large part of the recent gains will be erased.”

The IMF predicts the Russian economy will shrink by 8.5% this year, and Ukraine’s will fall by a whopping 35%.

The United States, China and Europe were also expected to see slower growth as a result of the war.

Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press.
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The Biden administration is taking a key step toward ensuring that federal dollars will support U.S. manufacturing — issuing requirements for how projects funded by the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package source their construction material. 

New guidance issued Monday requires that the material purchased — whether it’s for a bridge, a highway, a water pipe or broadband internet — be produced in the U.S. However, the rules also set up a process to waive those requirements in case there are not enough domestic producers or the material costs too much, with the goal of issuing fewer waivers over time as U.S. manufacturing capacity increases. 

“There are going to be additional opportunities for good jobs in the manufacturing sector,” said Celeste Drake, director of Made in America at the White House Office of Management and Budget. 

President Joe Biden hopes to create more jobs, ease supply chain strains and reduce the reliance on China and other nations with interests that diverge from America’s. With inflation at a 40-year high ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, he’s betting that more domestic production will ultimately reduce price pressures to blunt Republican attacks that his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package initially triggered higher prices. 

“From Day One, every action I’ve taken to rebuild our economy has been guided by one principle: Made in America,” Biden said Thursday in Greensboro, North Carolina. “It takes a federal government that doesn’t just give lip service to buying American but actually takes action.” 

Biden said that the roughly $700 billion the government devotes annually to procuring goods is supposed to prioritize U.S. suppliers but regulations going back to the 1930s have either been watered down or applied in ways that masked the use of foreign imports. 

The administration could not say what percentage of construction material for existing infrastructure projects is U.S.-made, even though the federal government is already spending $350 billion on construction this year. The new guidelines would enable government officials to know how many dollars go to U.S. workers and factories. 

Tucked into the bipartisan infrastructure package that became law last November was a requirement that starting on May 14 “none of the funds” allocated to federal agencies for projects may be spent “unless all of the iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials used in the project are produced in the United States.” That’s according to Monday’s 17-page guidance. 

The guidance includes three standards for these requirements to be waived: if the purchase “would be inconsistent with the public interest”; if the needed materials aren’t produced “in sufficient and reasonably available quantities or of a satisfactory quality”; or if U.S. materials increase a project’s cost by more than 25%. 

American manufacturers are about 170,000 jobs short of the 12.8 million factory jobs held in 2019, as manufacturing jobs began to decline before the pandemic began. But the U.S. has 6.9 million fewer manufacturing jobs compared with the 1979 peak, a loss caused by outsourcing and automation. 

Getting more industrial jobs will likely mean adding more factories and assembly lines — as manufacturers are operating at a 78.7% capacity, which the Federal Reserve notes is above the historical average. 
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Many businesses rely on fast shipments by sea and land to get the components they need to make and distribute their products.  But backups at U.S. ports and slowdowns in other modes of shipping have upended the system. VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan tells how one California toy company is coping.
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The Biden administration appears set to discuss the international economic impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, potentially, Ukraine’s reconstruction as part of the November G-20 summit agenda. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this story.
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Commercial truck traffic from the Mexican state of Chihuahua to Texas will return to normal immediately after both sides reached an agreement on border security, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Thursday.

The state of Chihuahua provided a plan to secure the border that will allow Texas authorities to cease enhanced inspections that have led to backups of trucks from Chihuahua over the past week, Abbott said during a joint press conference with Maria Eugenia Campos Galvan, the governor of that state.

“Texas and Chihuahua now have agreed to both secure the border as well to get commercial vehicles moving through the ports,” Abbott said.

Abbott, a Republican running for reelection in November, ordered the state’s Department of Public Safety last week to conduct “enhanced safety inspections” of vehicles as they cross from Mexico into Texas in order to uncover smuggling of people and contraband.

The inspections were part of a broader effort to deter illegal immigration that included the busing of migrants to Washington and aimed to counter what Abbott called the “open borders” policies of Democratic President Joe Biden.

Mexican truck drivers blockaded bridges at the U.S. border earlier in the week to protest the delays, which some drivers said caused waits that spanned more than half a day.

Abbott on Wednesday said that his state would cease enhanced inspections from the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon after a separate border security agreement with that state’s governor.

The stepped-up inspections will continue at other parts of the border with Mexico until agreements with those states have been reached, Abbott said.

 
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Businessman Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter, saying the social media giant “needs to be transformed as a private company.”

“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said in the filing. “However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”

The founder of Tesla and SpaceX is already Twitter’s largest shareholder, owning more than 9% of the company. A regulatory filing showed he offered $54.20 per share to buy the rest.

That price would value the company at about $43 billion and represents a 38% premium above the stock’s closing price on April 1, the last trading day before Musk bought his 9%.

“My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” Musk said.

Twitter acknowledged the offer and will analyze if Musk’s proposal is in the best interest of shareholders.

After Musk’s large share ownership was revealed, Twitter offered him a seat on the company’s board, but that had a stipulation limiting the amount of stock Musk could own.

After appearing to accept the board seat, Musk then declined.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The yen hit its lowest level against the dollar in two decades on Wednesday, extending recent falls as the gap widens between Japan’s ultra-loose monetary policy and U.S. tightening.

Despite being traditionally considered a safe-haven currency, uncertainty fueled by the war in Ukraine has not caused the yen to strengthen.

Instead, moves by the US Federal Reserve towards a more aggressive policy and the shock of rising oil prices in Japan — a major importer of fossil fuels — have pushed the currency lower, analysts say.

One dollar bought 126 yen on Wednesday afternoon, the lowest rate since 2002.

“The Japanese yen has been one of the weakest currencies anywhere in the world this year,” Dutch banking group ING said in a recent commentary.

“Driving the rally has been the perfect storm of a hawkish Federal Reserve, a dovish Bank of Japan [BoJ], and Japan’s negative terms of trade shock as a major fossil fuel importer.”

Government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said “the stability of exchange rates is important and we see rapid currency moves as undesirable.”

“We will monitor trends in the foreign currency market and the impact on the Japanese economy with a sense of urgency,” he added.

The yen had already lost 10% of its value against the dollar in 2021 after four years of steady strengthening.

The U.S. central bank has embarked on an aggressive tightening path, pushing up American treasury yields which have strengthened the dollar against the yen.

But its moves stand in contrast to the Bank of Japan’s ultra-loose monetary policy, which will be maintained for now, bank governor Haruhiko Kuroda said earlier Wednesday.

“Given the economy and price situation, the Bank of Japan will seek to realize its two-percent inflation target… by resiliently continuing its current powerful monetary easing,” he said.

Swiss Bank UBS said a weaker yen would likely hit Japanese households’ purchasing power, and domestic-oriented small businesses who will face higher import costs.

“The government is offering fiscal supports and most likely will expand the supports. We think the [yen] purchase intervention is possible if the pace of depreciation is regarded as too fast,” it said in a note.

Tohru Sasaki, head of Japan Market Research at JPMorgan Chase Bank, told AFP that the Bank of Japan “has to do something to slow the pace of the yen’s depreciation.”

“The Japanese government can sell foreign reserve [USD] to intervene, but it is politically difficult,” he said, adding that it would be “strange” if the finance ministry did so while the Bank of Japan keeps its current easing policies.
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Backups at U.S. West Coast ports and supply chain problems in rail and trucking have hurt American exports and limited the choices of international consumers. For one farm commodity, California almonds, the slowdowns have affected American farmers and consumers around the world. Mike O’Sullivan reports from California’s Central Valley.
Camera: Roy Kim, Timothy Hong, Mike O’Sullivan Produced by: Mike O’Sullivan
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