US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday said that the US economy still has far to go to recover to an acceptable state of health.
“Today the economy is significantly stronger than it was four years ago, although conditions are clearly still far from where we would all like them to be,” he said.
The statement, made in a speech on banking in Stone Mountain, Georgia, came as economists and investors seek signs on whether the US central bank is ready to tighten up its easy money policy aimed at holding long-term interest rates down.
Since December last year, the Fed has stuck to its ultra-low rates and its US$85 billion per month quantitative easing bond-purchase program, despite economic indicators that led many to believe the economy is picking up speed.
Bernanke has consistently tied the tightening of monetary policy to a substantial improvement in unemployment, with the rate currently 7.6 percent, and his statement echoed comments made in previous months that he was not satisfied with the pace of recovery.
On Friday, the US Department of Labor reported that just 88,000 new jobs were generated last month, the slowest growth in nine months and well below the level needed just to keep the current jobless rate steady, much less lower it.
Despite some discussion in the Federal Open Market Committee’s January meeting that the quantitative easing program is increasingly risky for monetary management, Bernanke said most committee members had agreed that the bond purchases “continue to provide meaningful support to economic growth and job creation.”
“It’s very, very important that we act to address unemployment,” he said.
Separately, Alcoa Inc started off the US earnings season with a bang on Monday by reporting a larger first-quarter profit than analysts expected, helped by strong demand for aluminum used to make airplanes and automobiles.
Alcoa is the first company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to report first-quarter results. Because its products wind up in so many things, from cars and buildings to soda cans, investors study Alcoa’s results for hints about earnings at companies in other industries.
Alcoa said net income in the first quarter was US$149 million, or US$0.13 per share, compared with the US$94 million, or US$0.09 per share, recorded a year earlier.
Revenue fell to US$5.83 billion from US$6.01 billion a year earlier and was below the US$5.91 billion that analysts predicted. Alcoa attributed this to lower aluminum prices and curtailed production in its European primary metals business.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained