- Dollar-denominated exports rose 14.2 percent for March from a year ago, topping expectations of a 7.3 percent rise from a year ago, according to a Reuters poll.
- But dollar-denominated imports were down 7.6 percent in March from a year ago, falling short of expectations of a 1.3 percent decline from a year ago.
- China’s March trade surplus with the U.S. — a politically sensitive measure given the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing — came in at $20.5 billion.
- A movement supporting reparations as a way to make amends for the atrocities of slavery and to reduce the persistent wealth gap is gaining momentum.
- One hundred and forty-two members of Congress support H.R. 40, the bill to study reparations.
- William Darity, professor of public policy at Duke University, estimates a concrete program could cost the U.S. government between $10 trillion and $12 trillion. Source CNBC
The House passed President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan early Saturday in a nearly party-line vote, advancing a sweeping pandemic aid package that would provide billions of dollars for unemployed Americans, struggling families and businesses, schools and the distribution of coronavirus vaccines. Source MSN
Exxon Mobil erased almost every drop of oil-sands crude from its books in a sweeping revision of worldwide reserves to depths never before seen in the company’s modern history.
Exxon counted the equivalent of 15.2 billion barrels of reserves as of Dec. 31, down from 22.44 billion a year earlier, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday. The company’s reserves of the dense, heavy crude extracted from Western Canada’s sandy bogs dropped by 98%. Source World OIl
