In today’s news, Federal Reserve Board Governor Philip Jefferson expressed concern over the devastating impact on small businesses that largely rely on small and regional banks for credit approval, as depositors move their deposits from small banks to big banks. Meanwhile, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported a slowdown in retail sales in February, as consumers began to control their spending amid the rising cost of living and interest rates.
In the United States, the City of St. Louis in Missouri has joined several major cities in suing two South Korean automakers, Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Corp, for failing to install anti-theft technology in millions of their vehicles. On the other side of the Pacific, the South Korean government released data showing a rise in retail sales in February, due to the cancellation of measures against the COVID-19 epidemic.
In Japan, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda called for the readiness of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), alongside various other forms of money, to offer the public a secure digital currency settlement system. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs predicts that generative AI technologies like ChatGPT will account for one in four jobs in the United States and the Eurozone.
In global politics, Bloomberg News reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is ready to use nuclear weapons anytime and anywhere, after the US aircraft carrier group arrived in South Korea. Finally, recent research published today reveals that the Chinese government has issued as much as $240 billion in loans to help 22 developing countries from 2008 to 2021, with the amount of loans increasing in recent years. Many countries are struggling to repay the loans used to build the Belt & Road infrastructure. In business news, CAP HPI, an industry valuation agency, reports that the value of used Tesla cars is falling rapidly, following the company’s announcement of a continuous reduction in new car prices over the past six months.