Nov 25, 2022
By Michael Every of Rabobank It's Black Friday, where the world waits with bated breath for Americans to click the global economy back to health while fighting off heartburn: and I mean the world, because little that is clicked is currently made in America. (Though that is inexorably changing.) The focus on those retail numbers, and the heartburn, is even more intense this year because the Institute of International Finance (IIF) warns the world economy will be as weak in 2023 as it was in 2009, as the war in Ukraine may become a "forever war". Their global GDP growth forecast is just 1.2%, with the Eurozone -2%, the US up 1%, Latin America 1.2%, and the hope being China will loosen Covid curbs - which seems a big call to make with panic buying in Beijing and just plain panic around the world's largest iPhone factory. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports clickmeister Amazon "faces Black Friday protests and walkouts in 40 countries as thousands of warehouse workers plan t