China

I thought now would be a good time to see how my ten surprises for 2012 are tracking as we are nearly a third of the way through the year. I posted these as my first weekly newsletter and these are events that have 1-in-3 odds of happening…

The string of developments has encouraged risk-off behavior. Equity markets are lower. Core bonds are higher. The high beta currencies, such as the freely traded emerging market currencies, the Australian and Canadian dollars, the euro,…

The Economist: "Over the past 30 years, China’s total fertility rate—the number of children a woman can expect to have during her lifetime—has fallen from 2.6, well above the rate needed to hold a population steady, to 1.56, well below that…

It is a ploy that would no doubt bring a smile to the faces of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. First, China is giving up something that it is not really using. Specifically, the current band itself has rarely, if ever been utilized, which is why…

China's Q1 GDP disappointed expectations and market rumors and is the chief driver of the capital markets today. The official measure of growth was 8.1%. The consensus was 8.4% before yesterday's rumors of a 9% rise made the rounds and…

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…

The Free Exchange blog at The Economist has accepted my bet, and very cleverly (the bastards!) they have added a second one. For two years I have been arguing that a Chinese rebalancing will require much slower GDP growth rates than we…

Perhaps because they call themselves Communists, many observers, think the party is homogeneous, but it is not. There are forces of movement and forces of order. A FT columnist recently wrote about the possible threat to the post-Mao…

Warren Mosler presents some macro economic themes that will have implications for the investing and business climate.

This daily commentary is a bronze level post. Today, my comments go to warning signs in the economic data about the global economy slowing down. Lots of links on this topic as well.