
Happy Financial Literacy Month! And its tax month, too! We cover the headlines from the economics and banking world, add in a few on taxes and a few extra articles of interest for your reading pleasure this holiday weekend.
Economics
This month’s highly anticipated jobs reports showed the lowest number of gains since March of 2020, at 236,000, about what was expected. Is the economy slowing down? Is the labor market cooling off? Forbes recaps other recent weak data reports. And here is today’s BLS report.
February job openings came in under 10 million for the first time since May 2021. (CNBC)
Beware when your employer tells everyone they can work from home for a few days. At McDonalds, it meant people were about to be laid off. This seems to be a new was to do layoffs—no more marching out with your box of stuff in front of coworkers. (Yahoo)
In a surprise to the world, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised interest rates by 50 basis points and is now higher than US target rates.(Reuters)
Nick Timiraos describes the last minute movements around the interest rate decision the weekend before the last FOMC as uncertainty continued about the banking situation in the US and abroad. (WSJ-subscription may be required) This is a slightly longer read but well worth it, as it gives great insight into how the FOMC comes together.
Reuters had two good articles on shareholder response from the Credit Suisse/UBS deal.
Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin has had a good month as banking issues claim headlines. (Forbes)
Investing
Money is moving at high rates from banks to money market accounts. The Finance Buff suggests there is no need to worry about the lack of FDIC Insurance on those brokerage (money market) accounts.
Taxes
Vox reports that 60 million people in the US have such simply tax filings that the IRS could automate them.
Taxes/Career—the IRS is hiring 30,000 over the next two years. (Reuters)
Taxes/Debt--A Center for American Progress (non-partisan group) breaks down key drivers of the current US debt situation, primarily blaming tax cuts. But the Great Recession and Covid-19 rescue packages comprise a large component too.
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