Economy

The currency may well be undervalued, but a significant rise in the RMB, especially if it is countered domestically by an increase in credit at lower real rates, might actually make the global imbalances worse and, more worryingly, cause…

Japan and the US, as the two largest economies with high deficits, also have the largest gross financing need, ahead of all of the euro zone periphery, Belgium and France. But they are sovereign in their currencies and have therefore not…

Here are a bunch of videos and links which update you on MF Global.

What people don’t realize is that what happened in Iceland has been used as a test case for what’s happening in Greece and what’s happening in Europe, and maybe what happens in the United States

ISM’s October 2011 Manufacturing report on Business came in at 50.8, a level just above contraction. Last month was 51.6.

There is much truth to the generalization that European banks took on direct exposure to European sovereigns through the bond market, while top banks took exposure through selling insurance, primarily CDS, on the sovereigns. The latest BIS…

50.4 is the lowest number since early 2009, during the depths of the recession. So this number, shades above contraction, is a big deal. In fact, the sub-index for new (export) orders index is contracting, meaning slowing economic growth in…

In the video below, Bill Black discusses the issues he raised in a recent post about Bank of America’s accounting activities. At issue is the effect of its shift of assets from the holding company to its FDIC-insured subsidiary. In total,…

In terms of business activity, the Chicago ISM highlighted the fact that order backlogs recovered from two months of contraction and that employment was the highest in six months, even while new orders erased half of September’s gain. As…

Highlighted in bold are sections of particular note not highlighted in the original text.