The Wells Fargo brand transitioned from top-notch to tarnished over the past decade after one of the United States’ leading banks became a case study in customer abuse. Under new leadership, the bank is diligently striving to meet the requirements placed on it by regulators and is experiencing renewed customer and shareholder trust; its fortunes may be reversing after a damaging period of highly publicised scandals and resulting disciplinary measures.
As calamitous as the pandemic’s effect has been on economies worldwide, in many cases, it has only fueled concerning issues that pre-dated it. COVID-19 will eventually be consigned to our past, but its effects will linger on for decades. What are the four questions we need to ask ourselves now to shape the best plan of action toward economic healing, sustained recovery, innovation, cooperation and prosperity while avoiding potential landmines?
The COVID-19 pandemic halted the United States’ record-setting employment streak, causing the world’s foremost economy to shed nearly 10 million jobs in 2020. With warmer weather, vaccine rollouts and federal stimulus on the immediate horizon, employment numbers are picking up steam faster than expected, causing optimism to seep into financial markets. But the US has a long road to traverse before recouping all of its lost jobs and gaining more.
The pandemic has had far-reaching consequences on the US construction industry, not only on volumes but also types of construction, introducing a slew of unprecedented challenges. The Associated General Contractors of America’s latest annual hiring and business outlook survey, an indicator of contractor sentiment, revealed different levels of optimism and shifts in project categories, as COVID-19 changes the land of the free, rendering some construction activities promising and others not.
And so, after perhaps the most turbulent election and transition period in American history, Joseph R. Biden Jr. was finally confirmed as the new president of the United States. Despite numerous unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, dozens of rejected lawsuits and an unprecedented assault on the nation’s Capitol building
The US economy is on track to break its own record; its current 115 months of expansion is only five months shy of the record set in the 1990s. The next recession will come, maybe soon, as the economy succumbs to factors such as policy errors, foreign growth and corporate profit. And the United States will not fall alone; other Western Hemisphere countries will be dragged down with it.