2013

As nations see Japan's success in weakening the yen (see discussion), some begin to take notice. Emerging markets nations often attempted to devalue their currencies in the past in order to improve competitiveness. But these days developed…

News links for 16 January 2013

This analysis via Stan Collender and Greg Sargent on the political calculus Republicans in Congress have to make dovetails with what I wrote yesterday why a US government shutdown is likely. I think the analysis also makes sense for the…

How did stock prices more than double since investors have dumped stocks and bought bonds? A second question: what might we expect of stock market returns if investors stop taking money out of the market and put it in - 40% a year?

News links for 15 January 2013

German GDP contracted by an unexpectedly large 0.5% in Q4 2012, according to preliminary estimates of the German government. The contraction is largely due to receding trade volume and does not necessarily mean Germany is in recession…

Yesterday, I wrote why a US fiscal standoff should mean recession in Q2. As an adjunct to that, I wanted to add a few words about the political process on how we get the standoff to a government shutdown and recession.

The last post predicted a recession in the United States for Q2 as a result of the fiscal standoff in the United States. However, as I have been largely upbeat about the underlying fundamentals in the United States, this call is predicated…

Last Tuesday I said then that the debt ceiling fight would come first but that default on US public debt would be a step too far - and so Republicans would capitulate, forcing them to put their efforts into the sequester cuts. The biggest…

News links for 14 January 2013