Trending Articles

Why is the exchange of money occurring much less frequently?

How has the financial market changed during these confusing times?    26/11/20

As parts of the economy shut down, the flow of cash from wallets to deposits stacked up, leading retailers and banks to demand more. The Fed was forced to ration the supplies of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters based on banks’ previous orders. The “velocity” of money is an important indicator of economic activity. Recessions tend to reduce the velocity of money by increasing its attractiveness as a store of value relative to alternatives, acting as a short- term withdrawal from the economy. In a weakening economy, consumers prefer to save rather than shop and so the velocity of money slows down, hence the amount of times money changes hands is much less frequent. As covid-19 spread earlier in the year, speculations about the economy sent velocity tumbling further. In April personal savings shot up to a record 33.6% of disposable income as the marginal propensity to spend decreases along with the ability to consume. October’s rate of 14.3% was still higher than in all pre-pandemic months since 1975.

How vaccines are made and why it is hard.

09/02/2021

The vaccines are crucial for fighting off a major pandemic like COVID-19, but will they be reliable in this worldwide panic. Many are sceptical of a solution to the crisis due to the lack of knowledge and experience that scientists around the world have about Coronaviridae viruses. Despite this we have seen that on December 11th 2020 the FDA approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency distribution in the USA. This weeks trending article is about how countries around the globe find these vaccines and why its such a difficult task. Around the world we see that 9 different vaccines have been approved for government distribution. With scientific reputation and profits to be gained many are yet to be sure of the quality of these vaccinations, and with countries such as Russia and China both having released 'successful' vaccines it becomes hard to know who we can trust. So not only is it hard to find these vaccines it is also difficult to create a good reputation for them. With the private sector creating these drugs for the government it also seems that they face expectation issues. These pressures are created by the public demand for a solution, one that will not be easily satisfied. The insistence for an underfunded understaffed health sector to be successful in the UK has led HM Government and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to rush to vaccine suppliers on approval by the MHRA. This has led to some even greater problems such as the over supply for the British in the eligible categories means that other countries around the world have to look for less successful or less trustworthy vaccination treatments unless places like the UK, the US and Russia, start sharing the potentially vital supplies to end this global pandemic. 

-Benjamin Rice

'Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.' - Syrus (1st century B.C.)