US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he was more worried about the risk of a large-scale cyberattack than another financial crisis like that of 2008.
The risks of a 2008-like crisis with a need for government bailouts of banks were “very, very low,” the head of the US central bank said during an interview aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes.
“The world changes. The world evolves. And the risks change as well. And I would say that the risk that we keep our eyes on the most now is cyber-risk,” he said, adding that concern was shared by multiple governments and private businesses, particularly in finance.
Additionally, those organizations invest the most against cyberattacks, he noted.
Powell said that the Fed was considering different types of scenarios: “There are scenarios in which a large payment utility, for example, breaks down and the payment system can’t work. Payments can’t be completed. There are scenarios in which a large financial institution would lose the ability to track the payments that it’s making and things like that,” he said.
The Fed was also looking at the possibility that part or even a large part of the financial system could shut down.
“We spend so much time and energy and money guarding against these things,” he said, adding that cyberattacks on major organizations happen “every day.”
Powell was also asked about the possibility of creating a digital US dollar, as China last month became the first global economic power to unveil a cryptocurrency.
He said that for now, the Fed was evaluating the possibility.
“We feel it’s our obligation to understand it. How would it work? What would the features of it be?” Powell said.
He also said the Fed was developing software and even designing the look of a digital US dollar, but the final decision on whether to make it public would only be made once its impact was fully understood.
The US dollar is “the world’s reserve currency. The dollar is so important... We do not need to be the first ones to do this. We want to get it right. And that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
In October last year, Powell said that the US was thinking about issuing its own cryptocurrency, but added that a full assessment of the benefits and risks would take time.
Regarding the US economy, Powell said on Sunday that it was “at an inflection point.”
Growth and employment would accelerate in the coming months, he said.
However, he once again said that the COVID-19 pandemic continued to present a risk.
“We feel like we’re at a place where the economy is about to start growing much more quickly and job creation coming in much more quickly,” Powell said.
“The outlook has brightened substantially, and that’s the base case. I would say again though, there really are risks out there,” he said.
“The principal risk to our economy right now really is that the disease would spread again. It’s going to be smart if people could continue to socially distance and wear masks,” Powell said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the