While economists in a recent Bloomberg survey expected consumer sentiment to dip slightly, from 59.4 in March to 59 in April, the University of Michigan found that sentiment actually increased, to 65.7.
New IMF estimate suggests the proposed 15% minimum tax would result in governments worldwide collecting a total of about 5.7% more from corporates—or roughly $150 billion.
"When you have to use a brute-force tool, sometimes there's some collateral damage. ... We're trying to do this in a way that there's not much of it, but we can't tailor policy."
Minutes from the FOMC's March meeting indicate the Fed is "scrambling to get policy back to neutral as quickly as they can. ... to get inflation back under control."
Expressing pessimism that the U.S. can change China's behavior, Trade Representative Tai wants to prioritize increasing U.S. competitiveness in strategic industries and working with American allies to boost supply-chain resiliency.
"We're trying to read the tea leaves of what the Russian government is most concerned about when they have threatened foreign companies that have halted operations or pulled out of Russia," said Thad McBride, a partner with Bass, Berry & Sims.
Russian alternative to SWIFT may begin processing bilateral payments to and from India, providing a path for Russia to bypass the strict Western sanctions regime.
Even dovish FOMC members are now supporting faster and larger rate hikes—likely including a half-point increase in May and a total of more than 2 percentage points in hikes before the end of 2022.
