Economy

I think this should be obvious to everyone by now, but peak oil is a clear factor in the Argentina/Spain oil crisis. Here's what happened.

Quantitative easing hasn't worked to lower interest rates in the past but has caused a huge uproar from those opposed to the policy in the US. QE is therefore both ineffective and politically-charged. But a lot of people still expect it.

Gary Shilling recently wrote a five-part series for Bloomberg News on the economy. His view is that GDP growth comes primarily from consumers spending from either higher income or from reduced savings and debt accumulation. In his view, the…

"The chart also shows that the current economic situation is much weaker in several euro-area periphery countries. The recession in Greece has yet to end, and real GDP is now more than 17 percent below its prior peak. While a recovery…

The jobs numbers were disappointing. From a policy perspective, the hope is that we can keep stimulus in the queue long enough so that the cyclical hiring trends pick up before overindebted consumers get fatigued again. But underneath…

This week's weekly commentary on markets and the economy features Spain. In my view, the potential for downside economic and portfolio risk has increased markedly as we realise that Spain is at risk and there is no plan B in the euro zone.…

A common denominator runs throughout recorded history: a rising proportion of debts cannot be paid. Adam Smith remarked that no government ever had repaid its debt, and today the same can be said of the overall volume of private-sector…

To try to work out what China's future economic options might be I will begin with two key assumptions. The first is that the fundamental imbalance in China is the very low GDP share of consumption. This low GDP share of consumption, I have…

One word can summarize today's report: disappointing. The 120k rise in the headline figure was roughly half of the whisper figure. The unemployment rate ticked down to 8.2%, but the details are disappointing.

Whatever one thinks about Lord Wolfson’s euro-skeptical meddling, it certainly has been entertaining. The British baron’s offer of a £250,000 prize for the best ideas to deal with a possible breakup of the eurozone has brought all sorts of…