150

$30.36

That is the mortgage value of four shopping malls owned by real estate firm Washington Prime Group that the company either has already or is considering simply handling back to its lenders. The firm has already defaulted on two of the four mails, and has said it is likely to do the same on two more. And Washington Prime Group is hardly alone. Three years ago, CBL & Associates Properties announced plans to prune its portfolio and so far it has unloaded 14 malls, eight of which it sold and six it handed back to lenders. It turns out that just as in the housing sector, mall owners with dismal prospects for a property can simply default on the loan, giving the property back to the lender - and the trend is growing. Of course, all this is the result of the relentless growth in ecommerce sales generally and Amazon specifically, leading to a rash of store closings in the past two years, perhaps best exemplified by the demise of The Limited, which has closed all 250 of its stores to become an on-line only retailer. Closings by big anchor store chains such as Macy's, Sears and JCPenney are really having an impact. The retail sector, and thus the supply chain networks of retailers and consumer goods companies, is transforming before our eyes.

25%

That is the drop in profits of multi-national companies over the past five years, according to report this week on Bloomberg,com. That compares with a 2% increase in profits for more domestic oriented firms. Returns on capital at multi-nationals have slipped to their lowest in two decades. What's going on? The age of the multi-national may be waning, says Bloomberg, adding that "In a majority of industries they [multi-nationals] are growing more slowly and are less profitable than local firms that stayed in their backyard. Firms' tax bills have been massaged down as low as they can go; in China factory workers' wages are rising. Local firms have become more sophisticated. They can steal, copy or displace global firms' innovations without building costly offices and factories abroad." Of course, multi-nationals are behind the increasingly complex world of global supply chains, and represent about 50% of global trade volumes. All this before President Trump took office. China, Bloomberg says, wants global firms to place not just their factories there, but also their brainiest activities such as research and development – no doubt in part so it can acquire much of the intellectual property for the country. Where are we headed? Who knows, but Bloomberg noted that "a rapid unwinding of the dominant form of business of the past 20 years could be chaotic."