Mr. Volkmann said the financial damage from the labor dispute, if it was settled quickly, would be limited. The company’s bigger challenge, he said, comes from the pandemic’s disruption to the worldwide supply chain, which has caused shortages and raised prices for some components.

“Deere is already under some stress,” he said. “They’re not producing at full capacity anyway — they just don’t have the parts.”

As many employers grapple with worker shortages, workers across the country appear more willing to undertake strikes and other labor actions.

Last week, more than 1,000 workers at Kellogg, the cereal maker, went on strike, and Mondelez International, which makes Oreos and other Nabisco snacks, experienced a work stoppage this summer. Coal miners in Alabama have been on strike for months. Workers have also waged prominent union campaigns at Amazon and Starbucks.

Those on strike elsewhere in the country have raised similar complaints as the Deere employees, pointing out that they put in long hours as essential workers during the pandemic but are not sharing much of the profits that their companies reaped during that time.

“There was no reprieve — everyone was working seven days a week,” said Dan Osborn, the president of a Kellogg workers local in Omaha.

Mr. Osborn said his members were upset over a two-tier compensation system that they worry puts downward pressure on the wages and benefits of veteran workers. “Divide and conquer, it’s an age-old adage,” he said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/business/economy/john-deere-strike.html

Kuwait announced last month that it planned to invest more than $6 billion in exploration over the next five years to increase production to four million barrels a day, from 2.4 million now.

This month, the United Arab Emirates, a major OPEC member that produces four million barrels of oil a day, became the first Persian Gulf state to pledge to a net zero carbon emissions target by 2050. But just last year ADNOC, the U.A.E.’s national oil company, announced it was investing $122 billion in new oil and gas projects.

Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, has invested heavily in recent years to boost oil output, aiming to raise production to eight million barrels a day by 2027, from five million now. The country is suffering from political turmoil, power shortages and inadequate ports, but the government has made several major deals with foreign oil companies to help the state-owned energy company develop new fields and improve production from old ones.

Even in Libya, where warring factions have hamstrung the oil industry for years, production is rising. In recent months, it has been churning out 1.3 million barrels a day, a nine-year high. The government aims to increase that total to 2.5 million within six years.

National oil companies in Brazil, Colombia and Argentina are also working to produce more oil and gas to raise revenue for their governments before demand for oil falls as richer countries cut fossil fuel use.

After years of frustrating disappointments, production in the Vaca Muerta, or Dead Cow, oil and gas field in Argentina has jumped this year. The field had never supplied more than 120,000 barrels of oil in a day but is now expected to end the year at 200,000 a day, according to Rystad Energy, a research and consulting firm. The government, which is considered a climate leader in Latin America, has proposed legislation that would encourage even more production.

“Argentina is concerned about climate change, but they don’t see it primarily as their responsibility,” said Lisa Viscidi, an energy expert at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington research organization. Describing the Argentine view, she added, “The rest of the world globally needs to reduce oil production, but that doesn’t mean that we in particular need to change our behavior.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/business/energy-environment/oil-production-state-owned-companies.html

The Port of Long Beach began implementing a pilot program to extend its hours overnight in late September. Many other major foreign ports already offer round-the-clock service.

The shortages have helped stoke inflation that is chilling consumer confidence and weighing on Mr. Biden’s approval ratings. On Wednesday, the Labor Department announced that the Consumer Price Index, a key reading of monthly inflation, jumped 5.4 percent in September when compared with the prior year, raising the stakes for the White House and the Federal Reserve.

Jennifer McKeown, the head of the Global Economics Service at Capital Economics, said that worsening supplier delivery times and conditions at ports suggested that product shortages would persist into mid- to late next year.

“Unfortunately, it does look like things are likely to get worse before they get better,” she said.

Ms. McKeown said governments around the world could help smooth some shortages and dampen some price increases, for example by encouraging workers to move into industries with labor shortages, like trucking.

“But to some extent, they need to let markets do their work,” she said.

Phil Levy, the chief economist at the logistics firm Flexport and a former official in the George W. Bush administration, said a Transportation Department official gathering information on what the administration could do to address the supply chain shortages had contacted his company. Flexport offered the administration suggestions on changing certain regulations and procedures to ease the blockages, but warned that the problem was a series of choke points “stacked one on top of the other.”

“Are there things that can be done at the margin? Yes, and the administration has at least been asking about this,” Mr. Levy said. However, he cautioned, “from the whole big picture, the supply capacity is really hard to change in a noteworthy way.”

Administration officials acknowledged on Tuesday in a call with reporters that the problems were global, and that private companies would have to lead the way. They also acknowledged that the $1.9 trillion economic aid package Mr. Biden signed into law in March had contributed to supply chain issues by boosting demand for goods, but said the law was the reason the U.S. recovery has outpaced those of other nations this year.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/us/politics/biden-port-los-angeles-supply-chain.html

“Participants noted that their district contacts generally did not expect these bottlenecks to be fully resolved until sometime next year or even later.”

Consumer prices jumped more than expected last month, data released on Wednesday showed. The Consumer Price Index climbed 5.4 percent in September from a year earlier, faster than its 5.3 percent increase through August. From August to September, the index rose 0.4 percent, also above expectations.

Housing prices rose, and food — especially meat and eggs — cost consumers more. When volatile food and fuel prices are stripped out, inflation is still rapid, at 4 percent in the year through last month.

Fed officials have repeatedly said they expect price gains to moderate as the economy gets back to normal, but they have stuck an increasingly wary tone as inflation has been slow to moderate.

“I believe, as do most of my colleagues, that the risks to inflation are to the upside, and I continue to be attuned and attentive to underlying inflation trends,” Richard H. Clarida, the Fed’s vice chair, said during a speech Tuesday.

Among the causes for concern: Inflation expectations seem to be picking up, at least by some measures.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Survey of Consumer Expectations showed this week that medium-term inflation expectations — those for three years ahead — climbed to 4.2 percent in September from 4 percent in August. That is the highest level since the series started in 2013. Short-term expectations jumped to 5.3 percent, also a new high.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/business/economy/fed-meeting-minutes-september-2021.html

The snarls show no obvious signs of easing, and although Fed officials still think inflation will fade, they are increasingly concerned that supply disruptions could last long enough to prompt consumers and businesses to expect higher prices. If people believe that their lifestyles will cost more, they may demand higher compensation — and as employers lift pay, they may charge more for their goods to cover the costs, setting off an upward spiral.

Wages are already heading up, though typically too little to fully offset the amount of inflation that has occurred this year. There are notable exceptions to that, including in leisure and hospitality jobs, where pay has accelerated faster than prices.

The Fed aims for 2 percent inflation on average over time, which it defines using a different but related index, the Personal Consumption Expenditures measure. That gauge is released at more of a delay, and has also jumped this year.

Central bankers have said that they are willing to look past surging prices because the gains are expected to prove transitory, and they expect long-run trends that had kept inflation low for years to come to dominate over time. But they have acknowledged that rapid price gains have lasted longer than they had expected, and have expressed wariness.

“I believe, as do most of my colleagues, that the risks to inflation are to the upside, and I continue to be attuned and attentive to underlying inflation trends,” Richard H. Clarida, the central bank’s vice chair, said in a speech on Tuesday.

Fed officials are already planning to soon dial back their $120 billion in monthly asset purchases, a process often called tapering and the first step away from crisis-era policy. The Fed’s more traditional tool, the federal funds rate, remains set to near zero and is expected to stay there for some time.

The fact that the Fed is poised to begin tapering could mean that it will be more nimble if it does have to raise rates to control inflation next year.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/business/economy/september-2021-cpi-inflation.html

“We are seeing significant cost pressure in our supply chain,” Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, said during an annual shareholder meeting Oct. 7. “So we’ve had to increase vehicle prices, at least temporarily, but we do hope to actually reduce the prices over time and make them more affordable.”

For policymakers at the White House and the Fed, the concern is that today’s climbing prices could prompt consumers to expect rapid inflation to last. If people believe that their lifestyles will cost more, they may demand higher wages — and as employers lift pay, they may charge more to cover the cost.

What happens next could hinge on when — and how — supply chain disruptions are resolved. If demand slumps as households spend away government stimulus checks and other savings they stockpiled during the pandemic downturn, that could leave purveyors of couches and lawn furniture with fewer production backlogs and less pricing power down the road.

If buying stays strong, and shipping remains problematic, inflation could become more entrenched.

Some of the factors leading to supply chain disruptions are temporary, including shutdowns in Asian factories and severe weather that has led to energy shortages. Consumer habits, including spending on travel and entertainment, are expected to slowly return to normal as the pandemic subsides.

But most companies have enormous backlogs of orders to work through. And company inventories, which provide a kind of insulation from future shocks to the supply chain, are extremely low.

To get their own orders fulfilled, companies have placed bigger orders and offered to pay higher prices. The prospect of inflation has further encouraged companies to lock in large purchases of products or machinery in advance.

“The customers that are willing to pay the most are most likely to get those orders filled,” said Eric Oak, an analyst at Panjiva. “It’s a vicious cycle.”

Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/us/politics/biden-port-los-angeles-supply-chain.html

The abundance of opportunities may be helping to fuel the wave of quitting: The government’s tally includes people who left jobs to take other, perhaps better-paying, positions — or who didn’t have another job lined up but were confident they could find one — as well as those choosing to leave the work force. (The figure does not include retirements, which are counted separately.)

The number of open jobs actually fell somewhat in August, to 10.4 million from a record 11.1 million in July, as the latest wave of the pandemic took a bite out of consumer demand, especially in the service sector. But the slowdown did little to ease the hiring logjam: There were more open jobs than unemployed workers in August. Openings were particularly elevated in the leisure and hospitality sector, where the number of people quitting was also highest. Economists said the spread of the more-contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus could be contributing to workers’ reluctance to return to work.

At the same time, hiring fell in August. That is consistent with data released earlier showing that job growth slowed in late summer. That data, also from the Labor Department but based on different surveys, showed that the Delta-driven slowdown continued in September. So did the hiring difficulties: The labor force shrank in September, as higher wages failed to draw people back to work.

“We know that the Delta variant has likely made it more difficult to unlock labor supply because there are some workers who are concerned about health risks — and then on top of that, many school reopenings were disrupted,” said Daniel Zhao, an economist at the career site Glassdoor. “It’s possible that as the Delta wave recedes, then we will realize some of those benefits of reopened schools and a revitalized economy, but that is going to take some time.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/business/economy/workers-quitting-august.html

Fed officials received bad news on inflation expectations Tuesday morning. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Survey of Consumer Expectations showed that medium-term inflation expectations — those for three years ahead — climbed to 4.2 percent in September from 4 percent in August. That is the highest since the series started in 2013. Short-term expectations jumped to 5.3 percent, also a new high.

Central bankers have said for months that they expect this year’s rapid inflation to fade as consumers and businesses get back to normal because it is the product of surging demand when supply is struggling to catch up thanks to factory shutdowns and shipping bottlenecks. But it has become increasingly clear that the adjustment will be measured in quarters and years rather than weeks and months, and policymakers have increasingly braced for the possibility that quick price gains could last considerably longer than they had first anticipated.

Even so, Mr. Clarida and his colleagues at the Fed are moving only gradually to remove their support from the economy, cognizant that millions of jobs are still missing compared with before the pandemic. The Fed signaled in its latest policy decision that it would soon begin to taper its large monthly asset purchases, which it has been using to keep many types of borrowing cheap.

Mr. Clarida reiterated that belief on Tuesday, saying Fed officials “generally view that, so long as the recovery remains on track, a gradual tapering of our asset purchases that concludes around the middle of next year may soon be warranted.” But even once that process gets going, interest rates are expected to remain near zero for months or even years.

Still, the Fed is staring down a challenging 2022, a year when it may have to decide whether it can keep rates near rock bottom while inflation is taking time to fade. Officials are still hoping price gains will slow to more normal levels, allowing them to be patient in removing policy support.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/business/economy/inflation-expectations-federal-reserve.html

South Korea boomed in the postwar era, making it one of the richest countries in Asia and leading some economists to call its rise the “miracle on the Han River.” But wealth disparity has worsened as the economy has matured.

“South Koreans used to have a collective community spirit,” said Yun Suk-jin, a drama critic and professor of modern literature at Chungnam National University. But the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s undermined the nation’s positive growth story and “made everyone fight for themselves.”

The country now ranks No. 11 using the Gini coefficient, one measure of income inequality, among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the research group for the world’s richest nations. (The United States is No. 6.)

As South Korean families have tried to keep up, household debt has mounted, prompting some economists to warn that the debt could hold back the economy. Home prices have surged to the point where housing affordability has become a hot-button political topic. Prices in Seoul have soared by over 50 percent during the tenure of the country’s president, Moon Jae-in, and led to a political scandal.

“Squid Game” lays bare the irony between the social pressure to succeed in South Korea and the difficulty of doing just that, said Shin Yeeun, who graduated from college in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Now 27, she said she had spent over a year looking for steady work.

“It’s really difficult for people in their 20s to find a full-time job these days,” she said.

South Korea has also suffered a sharp drop in births, generated partly by a sense among young people that raising children is too expensive.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/business/economy/squid-game-netflix-inequality.html

David Neumark, an economist at the University of California, Irvine, who co-wrote a paper contesting Mr. Card and Mr. Krueger’s findings in the minimum wage study, said he still thought the work had data issues — but added that there was no doubt that the methodology was important.

“They’ve all done great work — they’ve changed the way that labor economists do research,” Mr. Neumark said of the three winners.

Mr. Angrist and Mr. Krueger tried in the early 1990s to gauge how much benefit people derive from extra years of education. To figure it out, they took advantage of the fact that students born earlier in the year can legally leave school earlier than those born later in the year. Those born earlier tended to get less education and also earned less later on. The effect of an additional year of education, they estimated, was a 9 percent increase in income.

That study helped spur the additional work on research methods that Mr. Angrist and Mr. Imbens later carried out. That contribution has reshaped the way researchers think about and analyze natural experiments, according to the Nobel committee.

The pair showed that it was possible to identify a clear effect from an intervention in people’s behavior — like a subsidy that might encourage people to ride bicycles to work — even if a researcher could not control who took part in the experiment, and even if the impact varied across individuals. They also came up with a transparent framework for such research that has increased trust in it.

“The challenge, for me, has always been trying to understand, when people do empirical work, what exactly the methodological challenges are,” Mr. Imbens said via telephone in a news conference for the announcement.

Two American economists affiliated with Stanford, Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson, won the 2020 Nobel in economics for improvements to auction theory. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo of M.I.T. and Michael Kremer of Harvard University won in 2019 for their experiment-based research in development economics.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/business/nobel-economics-prize-david-card-joshua-angrist-guido-imbens.html