China

In the short term rebalancing may increase the amount of global demand absorbed by China, but over the longer term it should reduce it. Rebalancing will inevitably result in falling prices for hard commodities, and so will hurt countries…

By Sober Look China's Ministry of Commerce blamed the increase in vegetable prices on "strong winds and rainfall in the country's eastern regions" that "disrupted production and logistics." Nevertheless vegetable prices are up 15.4% over…

I don't think China or Australia is falling out of bed yet but the situation is clearly deteriorating in both countries. A lot of pundits have begun to question the official statistics out of China, especially given the weak electricity…

Why is the global economy hamstrung by heavy debts and weak banks? Or put another way, why doesn’t deleveraging happen, and the weight of debt reduce, and why doesn’t the economy expand so the weak banks can once more become robust and…

The data pointing to the synchronised global slowdown continues. This time we have a string of data from the United States, the United Kingdom, India and China telling us that the economy is not doing well. Here I am leaving Europe aside.…

I have been running this poll since January. We have over 2000 votes, so I am ending it. Here are the results:

Note: Before I begin today's summary, I should note that my schedule will be very spotty over the next three weeks as I am on a working vacation. That means I will not be at work but I will be posting to the blog from time to time. I also…

I don’t want to be too glib here. I recognize that policymakers are in an extremely difficult position and that there is no longer any easy solution, but railing at the markets rather than trying to understand why they are doing what they…

Last month, the Teranet-National Bank National Composite House Price Index showed that Canadian house price gains while moderating across the board are still robust. Combined with recent evidence of a precipitous drop in transaction volume,…

People’s Bank of China today cut the 1-year lending rate by 31 bp to 6% and the 1-year deposit rate by 25 bp to 3%. It also widened the allowable discount that commercial banks can offer on loans from 20% to 30%. This gives the PBOC rate…