The Berkeley Blog

All they had to do was ride out a few more weeks until graduation, and they would have the golden ticket: a diploma, a new job, the means to pay off student loans, and a steppingstone to the future of their dreams. But when the pandemic shut down the country early this spring, it took the hopes of the graduating class of 2020 with it. Many had already been hired, or were poised to land a job, with internship experience in hand. But the pandemic’s swinging hammer to the economy

Joe Biden knows what it is like to be part of the sandwich generation, stuck in the middle, with both aging parents and children to take care of. And when he takes office in a few short weeks, he wants to work to take the burden off those who are aging and those who are caring for them.

There is nothing more American than apple pie, baseball, and the dream of buying a new home. For many years, however, this dream of becoming a homeowner has been just out of reach for many citizens. Recently, the dream has become more attainable, and both buying and selling homes has increased.

There is no question that a catastrophic global event such as the coronavirus pandemic affects the world economy. With people stuck in their homes during the spring lockdown, buying and selling ground to a virtual halt. Big businesses hid their cash, families stopped spending, the hotel and travel industry was decimated.

When the coronavirus came hurtling to the west coast of the United States early this year, cascading eastward, it brought with it a secondary virus: economic disaster. Much of the country went into lockdown, shuttering restaurants, bars, health clubs, spas, salons, and any business not deemed “essential.”

The past week has been a big one for China’s trade relations, with Xi Jinping and his advisors opening up the world’s second largest economy through the Regional Economic Partnership of Southeast Asia. This connection has been 40 years in the making. In 1978, Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution

In an ever-changing modern world, where technology is king and the COVID-19 pandemic has spun the business world into a realm never seen before, successful leadership is the key to victory. And the best kind of leader in 2020 is a person who leads with humility, grace, and resilience. Long gone are the tough-minded bosses filled with bravado.

We are in a time of extraordinary uncertainty and turmoil which, as we have seen before, the markets don’t like. There are a lot of numbers and figures floating around, particularly those relating to stock market performance, which provide a false picture of how the economy is performing right now.

A few days ago, lawmakers presented their opinion regarding a potential breakup of tech giants, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, citing stringent antitrust laws and enforcement measures. As per their argument, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google now hold monopoly power that they utilize to erase competition and mute innovation by others.

The economic impact of Coronavirus is being felt all over the world in all industries. There’s an inevitable economic recession in the cards, and several industries are already beginning to indicate the signs. The United States is no different, and the U.S. commercial-backed securities market, in particular, is taking a battering.

COVID-19 has hit the American economy like no other shock in the past. While the comparison is not exact, the world has looked to the previous crisis of 2008 for guidance on how to deal with such shocks. The federal government issued a support package for businesses and families of around $2.4 trillion.

For several years now, there has been much controversy over how investment performance is measured in the private equity world. In an economy increasingly clouded by uncertainty, investors need to know that returns for a prospective investment are an accurate measure of performance.

The stock market might be acting like the biggest rollercoaster at the county fair, but publicly traded stocks and bonds are no longer the only game in town. We’re in the midst of seeing a paradigm shift from mainstream, publicly accessible markets, like stocks and bonds, to private capital.

As some states are forced to pause their re-opening plans because of surging COVID-19 cases, the question must be asked: Are we on the brink of another 2008 for banks that do a bulk of their business in real estate loans?

China is one of just eight nations in the world to possess more than 100 nuclear warheads in its military arsenal. Along with the other seven – India, Israel, Pakistan, France, UK, Russia, and the US – that means that at any time, if it was so inclined, it could destroy the world by launching [...]

The coronavirus might be here to stay, but that doesn’t mean that people are committed to riding it out in their big-city residences. A staggering one-third of Americans – some 109 million people – are at least considering a move to a place with a less dense population after the last 10 weeks of the [...]

The big name in delivery is Amazon, which normalized the idea of unlimited and free single-day shipping. They seem to be dominating the e-commerce game, but a new big and familiar competitor is set to shake up the board: Walmart. Walmart has long been a retail giant, but their recent foray into online shopping has [...]

Though reporting from China suggested new coronavirus cases may have been shrinking, new data from the beginning of February added 14,840 new infections from the Hubei province, the largest one-day increase so far recorded. According to the New York Times, the total number is now at 48,206. As of writing, 1,310 deaths have been recorded. [...]

Since the explosion of news about the outbreak of the coronavirus, there has been confusion over how to respond and on what will happen to the world economy as a result. It’s safe to say the virus won’t help the already slowing world markets, which could lead us further into slowing growth and eventually into [...]

Britain is set to remove itself from the European Economic Area (EEA), thus losing its passporting rights; that is, the right to do business with any other member of the EEA with few restrictions. That means that the financial hub that is Britain will be less attractive to foreign businesses and FDI in general, a [...]

The assassination of the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani has been dominating the news cycle, and that’s not for no reason: Of any of the strikes the United States has made, the resulting death of Soleimani will likely have the highest impact. This isn’t only because of the political implications, but for economic reasons as well. [...]

In this day and age of industry verticals and the ever need of being dynamic even within your space, none is more obvious than the IT business within small to mid-size operations. When speaking to any small-mid size CEO or executive about how they look at technology, it is usually in their top 10 important [...]

The Wall Street Journal reported in December that Sweden’s Riksbank, its central bank, one of the first to use negative interest rates, also became one of the first to end the policy. They did so because inflation was expected to rise to its target of 2% in the coming years. In addition, policy makers were [...]

Stories regarding Japan’s aging population aren’t uncommon today. The geographically small but globally impactful island nation is a place of interest for demographers, economists and the like who want to look forward at the impacts of an aging population. In the 1980s, Japan’s economy was growing fast, but now they face a demographic crisis that’s [...]

CNBC recently reported on Deutsche Bank’s perceived market risks for the United States, sent by Deutsche Bank’s chief economist Torsten Slok to a list of clients. As the new year dawns on us, I’ll go over some of these in relation to our business. For the sake of brevity, I’ll abridge, omit, and combine others [...]

Despite slowing growth and concern over when a global downturn will come, the U.S. remains a safe place for cross-border investment. National Real Estate Investor reported this week that cross-border real estate deals totaled $46.2 billion in the first nine months, up 17% from the $39.5 billion in the first nine months of 2018. That [...]

Bloomberg reported on November 20th that the rich in Europe are increasingly investing in precious metals, cash and cryptocurrency in efforts to hedge against a future recession, as well as avoid negative interest rates. Those rates are causing sitting cash to lose value, so for most of those holding it, banks are no longer a viable [...]

Talk within Senior Housing moves between concerns about undersupply and oversupply, with most discussion gathering around the latter. That particular concern isn’t hard to understand: while undersupply is optimistic for the developers, oversupply is an obvious problem. Oversupply is much scarier to think about for the optimistic Senior Housing space, which means it occupies a [...]

Private equity (PE) is currently considered a very attractive investment opportunity. Last year, there were a total of 2,296 funds in the market, while this year’s third quarter saw that number rise to 3,951. That’s a 72% increase in the number of P.E. funds. But what makes it that way, and why now? First, we [...]

While the rest of the European Union has seen an increase in foreign investment during the last three years, Britain has seen a decline that has put it at its lowest level of foreign direct investment (FDI) in six years. Despite that, it stayed at the top of the list. Financial Times reports that this [...]