NEW YORK, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) lost $3.03 billion in nearly three years on its platform solutions business that houses transaction banking, credit card and financial technology businesses. This is the first time that Goldman has given a detailed look into the financials for the consumer and fintech arms that were intended to diversify the Wall Street firm's operations away from its traditional mainstays of trading and dealmaking. The company disclosed a pretax loss for its newly-created platform solutions business of $1.2 billion for the first nine months of 2022. The disclosure did not provide separate numbers…

Developing countries face a dilemma. Most have run up public indebtedness in a sensible response to the global recession induced by COVID-19 lockdowns. This has led to a deterioration in creditworthiness but saved their economies and protected their most vulnerable citizens. In normal times, developing countries should be slowly restoring fiscal discipline and retrenching public spending to restore their credit scores, as recommended by international agencies.[1] But times are not normal. The global economy is slowing, and many developing countries face growing setbacks from food, energy, and flood crises to drought and conflicts—all while facing the urgent need to transition to…

The Turkish economy’s foreign exchange (FX) liquidity problem is getting worse. So far this year, the foreign trade deficit has averaged $9 billion per month, while the trade surplus from services sectors like tourism and transportation has not been able to cover this. As a result, the current account balance, including both goods and services trade and some income transfers, has been in the red with a monthly deficit of around $5 billion. The gross FX and gold reserves of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) total $114.2 billion, but in reality they are far less. When liabilities are omitted, the…

With very different consequences, both China and the United States depend on Taiwan’s global dominance of semiconductor fabrication for most of the computer chips their companies consume and sell. Chinese semiconductor companies can only produce about 6 percent of chips needed to feed the Asian giant’s world-leading consumer electronics industry. China depends on the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to make up 70 percent of the deficit. TSMC also fabricates—under contract—92 percent of the most advanced chips designed by U.S. semiconductor companies. China’s dependence on Taiwan has been called the island’s “silicon shield” against a Chinese attack, a critical factor…

Micron will invest $15 billion though the end of the decade on a new semiconductor plant in its hometown that the chipmaker said will create 17,000 American jobs. Sanjay Mehrotra, president and CEO of Boise, Idaho-based Micron, said his company’s investment was made possible by last month’s passage of the CHIPS and Science ACT of 2022, a $280 billion bill aimed at bolstering U.S. competitiveness against China and avoiding another chip shortage like the one that derailed the auto and tech industries during the pandemic. The CHIPS law sets aside $52 billion to bolster the semiconductor industry, which due to COVID-related supply…