Economics

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Both of Canada's major freight railroads have come to a full stop because of a contract dispute with their workers, an impasse that could bring significant economic harm to businesses and consumers in Canada and the U.S. if the trains don't resume running soon. 

Canadian National and CPKC railroads both locked out their employees after the deadline of 12:01 a.m. Eastern Thursday passed without new agreements with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents some 10,000 engineers, conductors and dispatchers.

• Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition ended up being the worst financing deal for banks since 2008, the WSJ said.
• The $13 billion in loans Musk took out have been stuck on banks' balance sheets.
• The loans have cut into pay for bankers and lenders' ability to finance other deals, the Journal reported.

In this video, we dive into the mismanagement that led to a collapse so severe that international agencies stopped tracking it

• The layoffs include roughly 600 jobs at General Motors’ tech campus near Detroit.
• The layoffs represent about 1.3% of the company’s global salaried workforce of 76,000 as of the end of last year.

When you hear “startup”, you might think of the millions of entrepreneurs who have founded new businesses over the past few years. But these are mostly freelancers, contractors and people with full-time jobs who can accommodate a side gig. The real startup story is quietly happening elsewhere: trillions of dollars of wealth are slowly being transferred to a younger generation by boomers selling their businesses to those looking to build their own.

According to a new report from BizBuySell, a business brokerage and research site, the number of small businesses being sold has not only recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but is quickly rising. And the market for would-be entrepreneurs is hot. Business owners who sold their companies in the second quarter of this year are getting 20% higher prices than those who sold their businesses the same time last year.

Boomers are selling at a furious pace and they’re just getting started. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. According to the US Small Business Administration, more than half of the nation’s small-business owners are over the age of 50, and approximately 21% of the US population were born before 1964. As of February 2024, according to one study, baby boomers owned about 51% of the privately held businesses in the United States, which is about 3m businesses valued at $10tn.

According to a recent report, around half of OECD countries are earning less now than they had before the pandemic. Considering hourly real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—people in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and many European countries now have less money at their disposal than roughly four years ago. No data was published for Turkey, Chile and Colombia.

Big Lots is closing more than 300 locations across the United States, or roughly a quarter of its stores, following an earlier warning that its future was in “substantial doubt” amid ongoing financial troubles.

The discount retailer previously said it planned to close as many as 40 stores during its most recent earnings report in June, when it recorded a 10% decrease in sales and a $205 million loss for the quarter because customers are cutting back on spending. In a recent regulatory filing, Big Lots said it would increase the number of closures to 315 stores, part of an updated loan agreement to secure its finances.

A specific list wasn’t revealed, but Big Lots is listing closing sales at hundreds of its 1,389 stores on its website.

Year-over-year inflation reached its lowest level in more than three years in July, the latest sign that the worst price spike in four decades is fading and setting up the Federal Reserve for an interest rate cut in September.

• Starbucks has ousted CEO Laxman Narasimhan, effective immediately.
• Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol will step in as the coffee chain’s new leader on Sept. 9.
• Starbucks’ sales have struggled in recent quarters due to shrinking demand in the U.S. and China, its two largest markets.

Wholesale price increases in the United States eased in July, suggesting that inflation pressures are further cooling as the Federal Reserve moves closer to cutting interest rates, likely beginning next month.

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that its producer price index — which tracks inflation before it reaches consumers — rose 0.1% from June to July and 2.2% from a year earlier.

Excluding food and energy prices, which tend to fluctuate from month to month, so-called core wholesale prices were unchanged from June and up 2.4% from July 2023. The increases were milder than forecasters had expected and were nearly consistent with the Fed’s 2% inflation target.

The great inflation spike of the past three years is nearly spent — and economists credit American consumers for helping slay it. 

Some of America’s largest companies, from Amazon to Disney to Yum Brands, say their customers are increasingly seeking cheaper alternative products and services, searching for bargains or just avoiding items they deem too expensive. Consumers aren’t cutting back enough to cause an economic downturn. Rather, economists say, they appear to be returning to pre-pandemic norms, when most companies felt they couldn’t raise prices very much without losing business.

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee on Thursday reiterated that the central bank's job is not to respond to stock market routs or political considerations

"The Fed's out of the election business. The Fed is in the economic business," Goolsbee said in an interview on Fox News, noting the Fed has been very clear about what economic data would motivate an interest-rate cut, a hold on policy, or even a rate hike.

The vacation rental company Airbnb forecast third-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates on Tuesday and reported a lower second-quarter profit, as it flagged weakening demand from US customers.

Shares of the company were down about 12% after the bell.

Domestic travel in the United States has been pressured since the start of the year as more Americans grow cautious about travel spending amid growing economic uncertainty.

The San Francisco-based company reported quarterly profit of $555m compared to $650m last year.

Google violated antitrust laws as it built an internet search empire, a federal judge ruled on Monday in a decision that could have major implications for the way people interact with the internet.

Judge Amit Mehta found that Google violated section 2 of the Sherman Act, a US antitrust law. His decision states that Google maintained a monopoly over search services and advertising.

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The ruling is one of the largest antitrust decisions in decades, capping off a case that pitted the justice department against one of the world’s most valuable companies. It was also part of a broader push in recent years from the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, as well as European regulators, to scrutinize big tech companies for allegedly monopolistic practices.

Stock markets across Europe and Asia tumbled on Monday, spooked by fears that the US economy is heading for a slowdown.

In London, the FTSE 100 index opened 2.3% lower while the Euronext 100 tumbled by 3.5%.

They followed sharp falls across Asia with Japan's Nikkei 225 dropping 12.4% or 4,451 points in the biggest fall by points in history.

It follows weak jobs data in the US on Friday which sparked concerns about the world's largest economy.

Meanwhile, the yen has been strengthening against the US dollar since the Bank of Japan raised interest rates last week, making stocks in Tokyo more expensive for foreign investors.

Stock markets in Taiwan, South Korea, India, Australia, Hong Kong and Shanghai all tumbled.

Chevron, the oil giant that was founded in California some 145 years ago, said Friday that it is relocating its headquarters from the Bay Area to Houston.

The announcement, which also included news of a reshuffling of senior management, was not a complete surprise given that the second largest U.S. oil company, based in San Ramon, has been battling with California over its aggressive climate change policies.

Chevron, in its statement, said the move would allow the company to “co-locate with other senior leaders and enable better collaboration and engagement with executives, employees, and business partners.” Chevron already has about 7,000 employees in the Houston area.

After losses, the chipmaker is cutting $10 billion in costs.

Intel’s on a long, long road to recovery, and over 15,000 workers will no longer be coming along for the ride. The chipmaker just announced it’s downsizing its workforce by over 15 percent as part of a new $10 billion cost savings plan for 2025, which will mean a headcount reduction of greater than 15,000 roles, Intel tells The Verge. The company currently employs over 125,000 workers, so layoffs could be as many as 19,000 people.

Intel will reduce its R&D and marketing spend by billions each year through 2026; it will reduce capital expenditures by more than 20 percent this year; it will restructure to “stop non-essential work,” and it’ll review “all active projects and equipment” to make sure it’s not spending too much.

The company’s same-store sales fell 3% in the quarter, fueled by a 5% decline in transactions.

Amazon distributed hundreds of thousands of hazardous products sold by third-parties through the e-commerce giant's platform and is responsible for recalling them, a federal agency has ruled.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Tuesday issued a decision and order against Amazon, determining the retailer was a "distributor" of products that are defective or fail to meet federal safety standards. 

The company, which rang up $574.8 billion in revenue in 2023, is legally responsible for the recall of more than 400,000 products, including faulty carbon monoxide detectors, hairdryers without electrocution protection and kids' sleepwear that violates federal flammability standards, the agency said in a news release.