.png.3b3332cc2256ad0edbc2fe9404feeef0.png.8488ab72b8bb2e508209bfe3211b6e08.png)
-
Recently Browsing 0 members
- No registered users viewing this page.
-
Topics
-
-
Popular Contributors
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
-
Latest posts...
-
11
Thai Youths Warned Over Risky Songkran Selfies
That's a strange obsession to obsess about. No warning about dangerous selfies taken while driving drunk throwing bottles of water at pedestrians? No warnings about hazardous, life-threatening stunts taken for for likes and shares? -
0
The Orange man is doing a great job .Bankrupting the USA
President Donald Trump’s volatile trade war, which threatens higher inflation, has significantly weighed on Americans’ moods these past few months. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images WashingtonCNN — Americans are rarely this pessimistic about the economy. Consumer sentiment plunged 11% this month to a preliminary reading of 50.8, the University of Michigan said in its latest survey released Friday, the second-lowest reading on records going back to 1952. April’s reading was lower than anything seen during the Great Recession. President Donald Trump’s volatile trade war, which threatens higher inflation, has significantly weighed on Americans’ moods these past few months. That malaise worsened leading up to Trump’s announcement last week of sweeping tariffs, according to the survey. “This decline was, like the last month’s, pervasive and unanimous across age, income, education, geographic region, and political affiliation,” Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, said in a release. The Federal Reserve and Wall Street are watching closely how souring sentiment translates into consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of the US economy, and whether Americans lose faith that inflation will return to normal in the coming years. Trump on Wednesday paused his massive tariff hike on dozens of countries for 90 days, but kept in place a 10% baseline duty for all imports into the US and separate tariffs on specific products and commodities. The so-called reciprocal tariffs, albeit short lived, were the sharpest increase in US duties ever on data going back 200 years, Fitch Ratings told CNN China, however, wasn’t included in Trump’s tariff reprieve, continuing a contentious tit-for-tat between the world’s two largest economies that stretched into Friday, with Beijing jacking up its retaliatory tariffs on US imports to 125% from 84%. The Michigan survey was fielded between March 25 and April 8, so it doesn’t capture respondents’ reaction to the recently announced tariff delay. The relationship between sentiment and spending In economics, surveys are referred to as “soft data” and measures capturing actual economic activity, such as retail sales, are known as “hard data.” The soft data has clearly deteriorated because of Trump’s tariffs: The latest Michigan survey showed that “the share of consumers expecting unemployment to rise in the year ahead increased for the fifth consecutive month and is now more than double the November 2024 reading and the highest since 2009,” according to a release. Yet, the hard data still looks decent. Employers continue to hire at a brisk pace and shoppers haven’t convincingly reined in their spending just yet, though retail sales have come in weaker than expected recently. “Sometimes the surveys are very negative, but they keep spending,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week at an event near Washington, DC. “People spent right through the pandemic and they spent right through this time of higher inflation.” Spending by better-off Americans has played a key role in keeping the US economy humming along these past few years, but the recent turbulence on Wall Street, triggered by Trump’s tariffs, is putting that under threat. “Wealthy consumers’ stock market gains kept the economy growing in 2024 despite high prices, but the wealthy won’t feel confident enough to keep spending if this keeps up,” Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank, wrote in a recent analyst note. -
99
Why does my face look MUCH better in the mirror than in selfies or ID photos?
I have a naval-style beard, which enables me to shave every second or third day. -
1
Half of US soldiers to potentially pull out of Europe.
It’s time the people of Europe built their own armies for defense.- 1
-
-
0
Which Services/Apps To Replicate Skype's "Calling To U.S. Landline And Mobile Numbers"?
Skype's imminent shutdown has spurred users to scramble to find alternatives, and soon. There've been many suggestions and recommendations about what to replace it with, in these forums and comments, articles elsewhere. But many services/apps are not really appropriate, not quite geared for what my Skype replacement needs are. I've had a Skype subscription, without a 'Skype number', for years. It allowed unlimited dial-out calls to the U.S., to landlines and mobile numbers, auto-billed at $2.99 a month. Good deal, good service. I used Skype just about exclusively for these dial-out calls via the app on the phone. I don't use it on the computer. That is all I want to replace. Whatsapp, Line, Facetime, Messenger, etc., no, they don't do it. So many of the suggestions to replace Skype focus on other things. And many are geared more toward business, or promote themselves as such. I am searching only for a replacement that'll allow phone calls to U.S. landline and mobile numbers. Don't need video calling, don't need texting, don't need other international calling (only calls to the U.S.), don't need to receive calls (so no need to have a 'my number'), don't need it to receive codes. I get it that many Skype customers who have accounts that provided them with a phone number are now in a quandary. They want to keep the phone number, understandably so, and get the number ported to a different service. I don't need to, though. Many articles what to replace Skype with tend to feature how the replacements work using desktop, rather than mobile. It's a bit bewildering trying to sort through the seemingly hundreds of options that exist. Google voice would be great, but I've not been able to successfully create an account (yet), even working together with a friend in the U.S. TextNow and TextFree (both which give users a U.S. number, by the way) are also difficult to get set up. Again, working with a friend in the U.S., but have not gotten it going. And if they are able to determine your location/device outside the U.S., or VPN use, the account gets zapped. (I may not be tech-savvy enough on these matters.) The same applies for a number of other U.S. call oriented apps, such as TextMe and Talkatone. In the past few weeks I have learned about SIP for the first time. Maybe that's the answer, but I still need to learn more about it. 'Softphones' in association with a SIP account seems a possibility. I see reports of scam operations out there, it's quite a wild, wild west in the VOIP world. If anyone knows of a basic, no-frills service/app, able to facilitate calls to U.S. landline/mobile numbers, at low rates, something that would be competitive to a soon-to-be-defunct Skype 'U.S. subscription', please feel free to share. If you've got the tip on how to get some of the above-mentioned apps set up for working here, that is good too. -
185
Thailand Requires Digital Arrival Card Submission 3 Days Before Entry starting May 1
Any link for that, I go there often.
-
-
Popular in The Pub
-
.thumb.jpg.3ee24d9400fb02605ea21bc13b1bf901.jpg)
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now