Category Archives: US Trade Imbalance
Great-est Depression???
This forecaster is saying something that I thought was just common sense and I mentioned a year ago or more. That is to say, without a vibrant middle class to effect the necessary 70 % consumption that represented the bulk … Continue reading
Inexcusable Delay-Another reason for a change in Washington
Senate Leaves Credit-Starved Small Biz Hanging – Los Angeles Times Small businesses desperate for government help getting loans will have to wait at least until September before Congress moves on long-awaited legislation to pay for higher loan guarantees, lower fees … Continue reading
CBO Propaganda
I’ve seen some eye-poppin’, credulity-stretchin’ accounts in my time. The report “The Budgetary Impact and Subsidy Costs of the Federal Reserve’s Actions During the Financial Crisis,” just released by the Congressional Budget Office, ranks with the most extreme. It claims … Continue reading
Why Obama is Now (finally) Getting Tough on Wall Street
Originally published at Robert Reich’s Blog For almost a year now, Democratic pollsters have been pointing out how much the public hates the bank bailout and despises Wall Street. But there was no reason for Democratic leaders in Congress or … 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
Timidity on imbalances
by Chris Giles | Comment Mervyn King was in no doubt about the importance of global trade imbalances when giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee in June. “I am afraid we are doomed to repetitions of the problems that we … Continue reading
Operation Rollback: Wal-Mart’s World of Business
The expansion of international “supply chains” from Asian factories to American consumers has certainly created global trade imbalances and international currency flows that are not necessarily sustainable over the long run. A readjustment of the world economy, not a slackening … Continue reading
“the short period of American triumphalism, where we dominated the global scene. That period is over”.
Stiglitz Says U.S. Economic Recovery May Not Be ‘Sustainable’ By Michael McKee Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. economy faces a “significant chance” of contracting again after emerging from its worst recession since the 1930s, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz … 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
US bowls a tricky ball to markets
Curiously, as Treasuries were rallying, equities on both sides of the Atlantic were capering to almost their highest levels this year. After moves this week, when bond and equity prices fell together, it has led some to ask whether the … 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
Our $17 Trillion Chinese Split Won’t Be Pretty
Returning from China last month, U.S. Congressman Mark Kirk had a bearish take on a high-level visit by American officials. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner claimed the U.S.’s biggest creditor voiced great confidence in its debt. Kirk, an Illinois Republican, came … Continue reading
That thing called China
In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 49% of Americans said they were concerned a great deal about federal deficits and government involvement in the economy. America’s gross government debt is expected to climb from 62% of national income to … Continue reading
Housing in Peril as Obama Fails to Get Breakthrough
By Kathleen M. Howley June 29 (Bloomberg) — Driving through Riverside, California, Bruce Norris pointed to a half-dozen empty houses with “For Sale” signs stuck in untended lawns that he said investors might buy if banks would just extend some … 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 U.S. has more leverage with China than it thinks
This week Timothy Geithner completed his first trip to Beijing as U.S. Treasury secretary, and from his account the three-day visit was a great success. The Chinese, he said, backed the Obama administration’s stimulus program, understood the temporary need for … Continue reading
Forgetting What We Learned
ILLITERACY IN HIGH PLACES by Paul Craig Roberts If a person lives long enough, he can watch everyone forget everything they learned. Everyone includes Federal Reserve Chairmen, economists, Bank of America “strategists,” and even Bloomberg.com. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke … 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
Global Trade is collapsing
Global trade is collapsing at an unprecedented rate, but not evenly across the globe. This column argues that ‘vertical specialisation’ – the internationalisation of manufacturing supply chains – accounts for the amplification of Japan’s drop in trade. The good news … Continue reading
