German Jobs, Kudlow’s Optimism, Vietnam’s Landing: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Wednesday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

• Germany extended a program that has kept millions of people from losing their jobs to help Europe’s biggest economy recover from the coronavirus crisis
• Take at look at Bloomberg Economics daily activity indicators that use alternative, high-frequency data for emerging markets to get a real-time picture of the impact of the Covid-19 recession
• White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow defended President Donald Trump’s performance, touting the stock market’s surge to a record, even as millions of people remain unemployed
• The emergency benefit payments ordered two weeks ago by Trump are just starting to trickle into jobless Americans’ wallets
• New-home sales in the U.S. jumped to the highest level in almost 14 years in July as low mortgage rates helped fuel a suburban construction boom
• For the past three decades, Vietnam has known only good, or great, economic news. Coronavirus has changed all that
• Meanwhile, an investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department found that Vietnam deliberately undervalued its currency by about 4.7% against the dollar in 2019, according to a letter sent to the U.S. Commerce Department
• The Bank of Korea is expected to hold its policy rate at a record low while slashing growth projections as a resurgence of the coronavirus throws recovery prospects into disarray
• There’s hardly any question that carries greater weight in economics right now, or divides the financial world more sharply, than whether inflation is on the way back

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