Money versus Monetary Policy

Negative Equity Leaves 30% Of Car-Buyers Underwater On Trade‑Ins Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times, Almost one-third of American car buyers with a trade-in owe more than the vehicle is worth, new industry data show. About 30.5 percent of buyers trading in a car toward a new vehicle maintained negative equity, according to a JD Power report released on March 26. This is up 4.2 percentage points from a year ago and has been steadily rising since 2022, “as consumers who purchased during the peak of inventory shortages 4 years ago...

Qatar Dethroned As 'LNG King' As U.S. Seizes Throne, Reshaping Future Of Gas Submitted by Criterion Research President, James Bevan,  The geopolitical calculus underpinning global LNG supply through the early 2030s has shifted materially. Iranian drone strikes on Qatari LNG trains, delays to key expansion projects, and the indefinite closure of the Strait of Hormuz have created a compounding threat to Qatar's LNG position that goes well beyond a construction delay. What had been framed as a two-horse race for global LNG market share now looks considerably more one-sided. The beneficiary is clear: U.S. Gulf...

Total Internet Blackout In Iran Hits 8 Weeks As Citizens Left In Dark About War's Future The near-total internet blackout in Iran has "now entered its 57th day after 1344 hours," internet watchdog NetBlocks has said. The restrictions followed renewed anti-government protests in early January and intensified after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran at the end of February, and during which time leaders in Washington and Israel have signaled they seek total societal collapse and government overthrow in the Islamic Republic. This has left many of Iran's some...