Wall Street Journal, Jan 28, 2021

choi

(1) Hannah Lang, South Leads in Job Growth. at page A3.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/job ... -of-u-s-11611752792

Quote:

(a) "The South is leading the US labor market’s recovery from the pandemic’s initial shock as the only major region with continued payroll growth at the end of last year while the rest of the country lost jobs.

"Southern states logged job growth across the private sector in December, including services industries, which were hit hard by the pandemic, and manufacturing, according to a Labor Department report that provides details on the job market in all 50 states. Texas and Georgia gained the most jobs in December, adding a seasonally adjusted 64,200 and 44,700 jobs, respectively.

"In contrast, payrolls in the Midwest, West and Northeast fell last month * * *

(b) "The South's milder winter weather makes it easier to dine outside or participate in other outdoors activities, said Mark Vitner, a Charlotte, NC-based economist at Wells Fargo Securities. More lenient public health regulations that have kept businesses open have also gad an impact.

Note: There is no need to read the rest.


(2) Eric Bellman, Indians' Fear of Spending Chokes Growth; Consumers helped create world's fastest growing economy; Covid-19 ended that. at A 18 (the last page of section A).
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rel ... s-ended-11611743404
https://www.morningstar.com/news ... -19-lockdowns-ended

Quote:

(a) "NEW DELHI -- Most Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted [In India] as cases have plunged, but Indians are still stashing away their rupees and building bank balances.

(b) India is "the world's fifth-largest economy. * * *

(c) "Few countries have been harder hit by the pandemic. India [population: 1,353m (2017 estimate)] has tallied more than 10 million confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the US [population: 438m (2019 estimate); on Jan 19, 2021 US Covid-19 death surpassed 400k -- and the day before, 24 million total cases]. The country once had the world's fastest-growing economy, but India's gross domestic product contracted more than 15% in the six months through September, making it one of the worst-performing major economies for that period.

"India's household financial savings shot up to 21.4% of GDP in June from 7.9% a year earlier, India's central bank said in a report in November. * * *

"Developed countries also saw personal savings rates climb early in 2020, but they quickly came down once restrictions were eased. The US savings rate, for example, which has generally been around 7% for years, shot up to more than 30% [in part because average Americans received more income than before the pandemic from stimulus checks and unemployment, but also in part because, as economics textbooks say, people everywhere save more when receiving stimulus checks, anticipating tax increase after a crisis to pay down national debt] in April. While it is still above normal rates, it has come down to less than 15% in recent months, illustrating that much of that savings was forced on consumers who couldn't spend as much as usual when they were ordered to stay home early in the outbreak [together with the shuttering of 'nonessential businesses'].

"There are indications the savings rate in India remains stubbornly high, even as infections have dropped from almost 100,000 a day to fewer than 20,000. * * *

My comment:
(a) Note the past tense in the two subtitles.
(b) There is no need to read the rest.
(c) Even before the pandemic, India has in recent years seen low GDP growth rates. China has in recent years the only exception in the lethargic BRICS.