protest

Shares are mixed in early trading today in the US after several days of positive performance. And while this might seem incongruous with the social unrest happening in the United States, there is no historical data supporting the notion…

Falling apart I haven't posted in a week because I am trying to process what's happening in the United States right now. With the pandemic and 20-25% unemployment and cities torn by protest and violence, it really seems like the country is…

I am going to do a book review of an econ book that has just come out. And I think it’s fitting that my first post on the return of the Credit Writedowns ‘blog’ is a review of such a good book like “The Myth of Capitalism”. I started…

Today’s post is going to be short. The theme is income inequality. My thesis on this has been that globalization is a net transfer from the developed economy middle class to developed economy elites and the emerging market middle class. I…

The effectiveness of US sanctions against Russia are almost toothless if they are unilateral. The conditions that the IMF will likely require to put Ukraine on more sustainable fiscal footing will mean economic hardship and may do more to…

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…

Conditions in Venezuela are reaching boiling point. Venezuelans - particularly students - are taking it to the streets, as protests sparked by worsening living conditions have turned violent (see story). Inadequate supplies of food and…

By Win Thin and Ilan Solot With their backs against the wall, policy changes are ramping up amongst major EM countries. Yet the positive impact has been limited so far. We do note that countries that tightened aggressively and…

The scenario I laid out for Europe for 2014 in three posts on the global economy last week is one of muddling through. However, whereas in the US, there are upside risks, in Europe the risks are mostly to the downside, politically and…

Michael Pettis had a very good post out yesterday that focused on the sectoral balances within and across eurozone countries which I recommend. His point is that excess German savings driven by wage suppression was behind macro imbalances…