Category Archives: The Global Economy
Bad Meat
MAD MEAT! How Securitized Lending Collapsed the Financial System, Eric Von Berg (a commercial property mortgage banker and was the President of the California Mortgage Bankers Association during the heat of the market who has been watching “Regulatory Reform” as … Continue reading
Greenspan helps create the problem and then explains it?
Washington’s Blog Greenspan’s big defense is that the financial crisis was caused by a “once-in-a-century” event. Forget about the fact that the “once-in-a-century event” couldn’t have happened if Greenspan’s Fed hadn’t: Turned its cheek and allowed massive fraud Acted as … Continue reading
Sic transit America?
Flagging: a US sailor stands on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington If a week is a long time in politics, a decade is starting to look like an age in geopolitics. Comparing the America that … Continue reading
Bernanke Versus the Austrians
My essay in today’s American Spectator Online looks at why Ben Bernanke should not be confirmed to a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve: Two planks in Bernanke’s recovery strategy: Expand the money supply like a banana republic … Continue reading
The growing debt bomb – Facing a one- to three-year countdown
By Richard W. Rahn Assume you had put much of your savings into U.S. government bonds and then you learned the following. In just the last eight months, the Congressional Budget Office estimates of the amount of additional federal debt … Continue reading
Economic recovery in Europe?
On the Peterson Institute for International Economics Monitor, Michael Mussa sits down with Steve Weisman and says that while Asia surges economically, the recession appears to be bottoming out in Europe as well as the United States, but it is … Continue reading
AUF WIEDERSEHEN RECESSION
Economic Freefall Ends in Germany and France Germany and France, Europe’s two largest economies, on Thursday revealed they are officially no longer in recession. Signs of economic green shoots bolstered the euro — and surprised both policymakers and economists. The … Continue reading
HARBINGER OF CHANGE?
Export Jump Brings Hope for End of Crisis German’s Federal Statistics Office released export figures for June on Friday, and they have a lot of people smiling. Exports grew to 68.5 billion euros, a 7 percent rise over May’s figure. … Continue reading
Spain: Bleak forecast puts unemployment at 22% in 2010
In Spain: Bleak forecast puts unemployment at 22% in 2010, Edward Harrison relates that the recovery in Spain will be later than elsewhere in Europe because of the extent of deleveraging, and unemployment will continue to rise.
Protectionism Never Works In A global Economy
Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott provide detailed analysis in a policy brief on the Buy American provisions of the economic stimulus plan. They look into the three main issues that arise from the provisions in each bill: U.S. … Continue reading
Latin American Outlook
Bertrand Delgado and Italo Lombardi analyze economic events in Latin America for the weeks between July 20th and the 31st and their impact on macroeconomic conditions moving forward. They focus on monetary policy, inflation, economic activity, labor dynamics, trade accounts, … Continue reading
Sic Transit Gloria America
As U.S. deficits increased, global investors edged away from the dollar into the German mark, the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc, the Euro, and more recently baskets of Asian currencies. Which brings us to today. Only goodwill (defined both as … Continue reading
The Peking-Washington connection: is it real?
Is there a clandestine understanding between the world’s two most powerful central banks, the Federal Reserve and the People’s Bank of China? Naturally, no one can talk about it, let alone confirm or deny anything. But it’s not too difficult … Continue reading
Obama’s Economic Box
Despite the administration’s aggressive and costly economic policy initiatives, there is trouble all around. Barely six months in office, President Obama already finds himself in an economic box. For despite his aggressive and costly economic policy initiatives, the jobs market … Continue reading
What Depression?
Our current economic crisis has revived economic and political discussions about the Great Depression. One reader wrote to me that Google citations for both the “Great Depression” and the “New Deal” have increased by several million since just last year. … Continue reading
We’ve Wiped Out All The New Jobs Of The 21st Century
What’s the best way to express just how bad the job market is? You could look at the soaring unemployment rate, or perhaps the ever-shortening work week. How about this: Total nonfarm payrolls, notes economist James Hamilton, are now back … Continue reading
‘Buy China’ Pesticide Withers Those Green Shoots
uly 3 (Bloomberg) — So you think China’s 6 percent growth will power a global recovery. Think again. Economists, for example, can’t put a gloss on how ugly Japan’s data are getting. Exports and output are plunging, unemployment is at … Continue reading
The Dollar’s New Best Friend
Last Tuesday, Brazil, Russia, India, and China–the so-called BRIC nations–met in Yekaterinburg, Russia, for what was supposed to be an anti-American gabfest. The main agenda item for the first formal meeting of the four largest developing economies was the future … Continue reading
The basic story of China’s foreign portfolio is simple…..
Keith Bradsher’s New York Times story on the recent evolution of China’s foreign portfolio gets — at least in my view — the story right. Of course, that may be because I was — rather obviously — a source for … Continue reading
It’s Official: Worst Recession in Five Decades
This recession is now the worst since at least 1958, which is as far back as the index of coincident indicators stretches back. The Conference Board reported today that the index, which is intended to measure how the economy is … Continue reading
‘People Are Losing Their Faith in the State’
A total of 1 million people get help every day from Germany’s “Deutsche Tafel” food banks — and that number is set to increase because of the recession. The organization’s head, Gerd Häuser, talks to SPIEGEL ONLINE about Germany’s new … Continue reading
Global Crisis ‘Vastly Worse’ Than 1930s, Taleb Says
From Bloomberg: May 7 (Bloomberg) — The current global crisis is “vastly worse” than the 1930s because financial systems and economies worldwide have become more interdependent, “Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb said. “This is the most difficult period of … Continue reading
Why this will not be a normal cyclical recovery
AT THE FINANCIAL TIMES: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3d89a930-220d-11de-8380-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1 The rare nature of this recession precludes a cyclically normal US recovery. Instead, we are consigned to a slow, painful climb-out, as are nations such as Japan and Mexico that depend on US demand. The … Continue reading
Barack Obama: end of the beginning
The United States treasury’s plan to deal with “toxic assets” relies on the very financial institutions that created the economic whirlwind. The young presidency is already in a vice, says Godfrey Hodgson. President Barack Obama joked in his press conference … Continue reading
ECONed: Sic Transit Gloria Americanus
Richard Smith, a London-based capital markets information technology manager, was kind enough to provide an advance copy of his review for the book ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism by Yves Smith, the author of the … Continue reading →