October 2009

Marshall Auerback here.  I want to add a few thoughts on the situation in Latvia which Ed has highlighted on several occasions. His allusion to Argentina to describe the situation in the Baltics last July was on the money. I have a solution…

General Motors' car sales surge in China | Business | guardian.co.uk "GM sold a record number of cars in China last month, with sales up 55% so far this year." Latvian PM rules out devaluation "The worst of Latvia's…

I tend to think so. Yesterday, Ben Bernanke made what some media outlets are calling hawkish statements.  This, combined with heavy currency intervention by Asian central banks, helped to strengthen the U.S. dollar. However one must…

Paul Krugman has noticed that trade has absolutely collapsed with this economic downturn. It is worse than the Great Depression. Question: is this aiding global re-balancing? Here are two data points from Europe today which lead to that…

Via the Telegraph: From the moment that President Barack Obama - who has won the Nobel peace prize - entered the Oval Office, he made clear that resolving the conflict in the Middle East would be a key priority of his foreign policy.…

I found the recent consumer credit data unsatisfying because the data seemed to point in two directions. The seasonally-adjusted data showed a large $12 billion decrease in consumer credit which received headlines. Meanwhile, the…

I am off to a wedding today and through the weekend, so I will leave you with the links and one more post to come. I hope to hear from you all again on Monday.  Have a great weekend. Paul Kedrosky: Why I Love Venture Capitalists…

Remember when Paul Krugman asked aloud “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” He had a very well-received answer.  But he left out something. The elephant in the room was debt.  No one seems to have been noticing. Below is a…

That was the title of an e-mail I received from my bank today. Here is what the e-mail looked like:

But, everywhere I look, everybody is saying it is. I would like to be true to the data and not just take the government’s seasonally-adjusted numbers at face value. Judge for yourself. Here’s the data: This is what everyone is focused on…