savings

There has been a lot of back and forth by academic economists on monetary policy. The reason is two-fold. First, during the so-called Great Moderation many economists increasingly looked to monetary over fiscal policy for countercyclical…

Hope may spring eternal, but the presidential victor in 2012 will dictate an economic policy that is stuck in the mud. What then, will break unsustainable imbalances and market interference? Lacking an untoward event, we will wait for the…

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…

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…

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.…

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 video below is from On the Edge with Max Keiser. I speak to Max during this show from 31 March about the US economy, Federal Reserve policy, financial repression and more. On the issue of financial repression, I think my view is pretty…

In an interview with Louis James, the inimitable Doug Casey throws cold water on those celebrating the economic recovery.

In this issue of the newsletter I want to sketch out a scenario in which rather than analyze policy announcements or make predictions I try to lay out what are the various possible paths open to China. The scenario concerns trade. China’s…