North America

There’s been no shortage of coverage both in these pages and elsewhere of the impact falling oil prices have had on the American and Canadian oil patches.

• EU Slashes 2016 Inflation Forecast to 0.5% as Growth Seen Slower (BBG)
• Bank of England cuts UK growth forecasts (FT)
• Investors Cast Wary Eye on Fed Rate Increases (WSJ)
• U.N. halts Syria talks as government closes in on Aleppo (Reuters)
• Credit Suisse Drops as Investment Bank Slump Deepens Losses (BBG)
• Six OPEC states ready for emergency meeting with non-OPEC members — Venezuela's minister (TASS)
• Redstone seen resigning as Viacom chair after stepping down at CBS (Reuters)

We’ve spilled quite a bit of digital ink documenting WalMart’s trials and travails since the world’s largest retailer moved last year to implement an across-the-board wage hike for its lowest-paid employees.

That decision led directly to a series of unfortunate events including a move to squeeze extra savings out of suppliers and an effort to recoup the money spent on the wage hikes by - you guessed it - firing people, including dozens at the home office in Bentonville.

Submitted by Tony Sagami via MauldinEconomics.com,

“At current spot rates, we would expect a significant impact to revenue and profit again in 2016.”—Martin Schroeter, CFO of IBM

We’re in the middle of earnings season, and one of the themes I am hearing over and over from American companies is how the strong dollar is killing their profits.

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Major retailers in the United States are shutting down hundreds of stores, and shoppers are reporting alarmingly bare shelves in many retail locations that are still open all over the country.  It appears that the retail apocalypse that made so many headlines in 2015 has gone to an entirely new level as we enter 2016.