2014

By WIn Thin Parallels have already been drawn between current events in Ukraine and the Russian-Georgian conflict of 2008. These parallels are unmistakable, yet the one big difference so far is that Ukraine has taken care not to give…

By Michael Pettis I don’t often make reference to these kinds of things in my blog, but Saturday’s terrorist attack in the Kunming train station – in which 29 innocent people were hacked to death (the toll was especially high among the…

By Claus Vistesen ... China! At least this is the conclusion from some fascinating number crunching from JPMorgan's Flow & Liquidity team in their report last week. I had a feeling that this was the case looking at the surge in…

The conflict in Ukraine is first and foremost about the violent overthrow of a corrupt regime that was not increasing living standards. But now that Ukraine has appealed to the west, it has become much more about Russia’s sphere of…

News links for 3 Mar 2014

Japan’s deflation problem is overdetermined – there are multiple causes at work, any one of which could account for the observed phenomenon. Those who have been following the debate can simply choose their favourite – balance sheet…

News links for 1 Mar 2014

By Win Thin A little history lesson about Ukraine and Crimea may help put recent developments into better perspective. What emerges is a very clear understanding of why both Russia and Ukraine feel that they each have historical precedent…

Themes for today Emerging market political risk is now front and center. US data suggests consumption growth is vulnerable to poor wage trends. The European periphery banks are benefitting from lower sovereign yields. The potential…

News links for 28 Feb 2014