September 2 2024

1 Apartment Construction Slowdown Signals Higher Rents
2 Shrinking Salaries: Blue-Collar Pay Drops as Hiring Power Shifts to Employers
3 Israel on Strike: Nationwide Protests Erupt Amid Rising Anger Over Gaza Hostage Deaths
4 German Elections Mark a Historic Shift in Germany’s Political Landscape
5 Sudan’s catastrophic war is the world’s problem
Sports
9/2/1992 The US and Russia agree to a joint venture to build the space station ISS

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1 Apartment Construction Slowdown Signals Higher Rents

For more than a year, apartment renters in many cities have been getting some relief from price increases because of the enormous amount of new supply being delivered by developers. Now, big investors are betting that downward pressure on rents from new supply is coming to an end and the market is shifting back in landlords’ favor. At the heart of their reasoning: the critical metric of new construction starts, which began slowing last year and now are falling even further. Apartment developers are stepping on the brakes, especially compared with the building frenzy in the early years of the pandemic. Across the country some rental-construction projects are getting stalled, as developers struggle to obtain the financing needed to complete them. Other investors are pivoting to more lucrative alternatives. In July, the annual pace of multifamily-building starts was down 22% from the same month a year earlier, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and down 41% from an April 2022 peak. Property-data company CoStar, which uses a different method to count starts, said they fell to less than 61,000 units in the second quarter, the lowest level in the past decade.  

Article Source: WSJ

2 Shrinking Salaries: Blue-Collar Pay Drops as Hiring Power Shifts to Employers

Pay for many white-collar recruits shrank last year, and now wages for new hires in construction, manufacturing, food and other blue-collar sectors appear to be ebbing too, according to an analysis of millions of jobs posted on ZipRecruiter.com. Job seekers report seeing roles that once offered salaries between $175,000 and $200,000 a year ago now being advertised for tens of thousands of dollars less, a change that has had them rethinking their pay expectations. Companies are also moving job openings to lower-cost cities or offering them as lower-paying contractor roles, recruiters and corporate advisers say. The push to reset employee salaries reflects a power shift in the cooling hiring market. Employers have more choice of who they can hire, and at what pay level, and are questioning whether they really need star hires when a workhorse will do. Even hourly jobs that were until recently the toughest for employers to fill are being advertised at lower pay than a year ago, as are some professional roles, according to business leaders and recruiters. Among listings for more than 20,000 different job titles on ZipRecruiter.com this year, sectors including retail, agriculture, transportation and warehousing, manufacturing, and food all registered drops in average posted pay. The biggest was retail, where average wages advertised for new hires is down 55.9%; agriculture is down 24.5% and manufacturing, down 17.3%.

Article Source: WSJ

3 Israel on Strike: Nationwide Protests Erupt Amid Rising Anger Over Gaza Hostage Deaths

Tens of thousands of Israelis have hit the streets demanding a ceasefire deal and Israel’s main labour union has called for a strike after six more captives were found dead in Gaza. Scuffles between the protesters and security forces were reported on Sunday night in one of the largest anti-government demonstrations in Israel since the Gaza war began nearly 11 months ago. 

Al Jazeera  

A general strike has shut down much of Israel amid growing anger at the government’s failure to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas after the death of six captives in Gaza at the weekend. The strike represents one of the biggest expressions of public anger at Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war since Hamas’s attack on October 7 last year and is the first widespread industrial action. On Monday, departures from Ben Gurion international airport were halted; universities, shopping malls and ports were shuttered; and government ministries closed. Schools were set to open for only a handful of hours. In Jerusalem, some shops were still open and bus services continued to run. 

FT

Article Source: AJ English, FT

4 German Elections Mark a Historic Shift in Germany’s Political Landscape

The election results from Saxony and Thuringia (and, on 22 September, from Brandenburg) are important, as they will likely signal the further unraveling of Germany’s post-World War II “political model” which is occurring simultaneously with the unraveling of the German “business model”. A one-two punch of that magnitude reverberates across Germany, the EU and the “Western alliance”, calling into question long-held, seemingly unshakable assumptions. 

News Items  

The Alternative for Germany has won elections in the eastern region of Thuringia, the first time a far-right party has secured victory in a state poll in the country’s postwar history. According to preliminary results, the AfD garnered 32.8 per cent in Thuringia, way ahead of all other parties. The centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was in second place with 23.6 per cent. In the neighbouring state of Saxony the CDU won with 31.9 per cent, and the AfD came second with 30.6 per cent. 

FT

Article Source: News Items, FT

5 Sudan’s catastrophic war is the world’s problem

The war in Sudan has received a fraction of the attention given to Gaza and Ukraine. Yet it threatens to be deadlier than either conflict. Africa’s third-largest country is ablaze. Its capital city has been razed, perhaps 150,000 people have been slaughtered and bodies are piling up in makeshift cemeteries visible from space. More than 10m people, a fifth of the population, have been forced to flee from their homes. A famine looms that could be deadlier than Ethiopia’s in the 1980s: some estimate that 2.5m civilians could die by the end of the year. it is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis—and also a geopolitical time-bomb. Sudan’s size and location make it an engine of chaos beyond its borders. Middle Eastern states and Russia are sponsoring the belligerents with impunity. The West is disengaged; the un is paralysed. The violence will destabilise neighbours and trigger refugee flows to Europe. Sudan has some 800km of coastline on the Red Sea, so its implosion threatens the Suez Canal, a key artery of global trade.

Article Source: Economist

Sports

In the opening weekend of college football, #1 Georgia made a statement with a commanding 34-3 win over #14 Clemson. #7 Notre Dame defeated #20 Texas A&M on the road, 23-13. Meanwhile, #19 Miami cruised past Florida, securing a 41-17 victory.  

Texas redshirt freshman quarterback Arch Manning threw his first touchdown pass and rushed for the first score of his collegiate career Saturday in Texas’ 52-0 win over Colorado State. Manning, the No. 1 recruit in the 2023 class and nephew of Peyton and Eli Manning, entered Saturday’s game late in the third quarter with the Longhornsleading 38-0 and led two scoring drives. It was his third career appearance. Manning finished 5-of-6 passing for 95 yards.

Article Source: NYT

9/2/1992 The US and Russia agree to a joint venture to build the space station ISS

Sources

1. https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/apartment-construction-is-slowing-and-investors-are-betting-on-higher-rents-56bceeb3?st=oidf9em6rsn4c6b&reflink=article_copyURL_share

2. https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/salary-workers-pay-cuts-2024-54101d66

3. https://aje.io/fw31wa; https://on.ft.com/4cUOiiC

4. https://open.substack.com/pub/newsitems/p/programming-note?r=d9vo5&utm_medium=ios; https://on.ft.com/4dHDF47

5. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/08/29/why-sudans-catastrophic-war-is-the-worlds-problem

6. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5736769/2024/08/31/arch-manning-first-career-tds-texas/?source=user_shared_article