trade

By Michael Pettis On Friday the US Treasury released its presumably semi-annual (it was due last October) report to Congress on currency issues, and in it refrained from calling any of the countries under review “currency…

This is a wonkish post, but bear with me, because it's important. Randall Wray's last post sparked a thought regarding trade deficits and budget deficits which I wanted to run by you. Randy said: We see from the chart that the…

by Win Thin EM currencies are getting hammered in this latest bout of risk off trading, though the performance is very mixed across the asset class. Given that markets are now punishing EM currencies with weak fundamentals or where…

By Jeffrey Somers and Michael Hudson A spectre is haunting Europe: the illusion that Latvia’s financial and fiscal austerity is a model for other countries to emulate. Bankers and the financial press are asking governments from Greece to…

On the back of 10+% growth in 2010, it is now apparent that China has a burgeoning inflation problem. A whole confluence of factors may come into play here. A labour shortage in China, food price inflation, and out of control money supply…

by Edward Harrison I was watching the Obama – Hu Press conference this afternoon and it was a veritable lovefest considering the acrimonious backdrop from 2010. You lot were thinking it was going to be like this Obama-Hu press conference…

In anticipation of the state visit by Chinese Leader Hu Jintao, I spoke about the pressure on US politicians to do something about the Chinese currency problem with RT America's Alyona Minkovski on the Alyona Show last night. The video is…

By Edward Hugh “If you know your Thucydides and the Melian dialogue you know that small countries rely most on everyone following the rules. That’s why we follow the rules. If there are no rules, then the big will do what they want,”…

by Win Thin Chile peso is the worst performer today vs. the dollar, down 5% after the central bank announced plans to buy $12 bln in order to weaken the currency. The bank plans to buy $50 mln a day from January 5 to February 9, with…

Russia is keen on developing stronger ties with both China and the EU in order to secure its global economic position. The recent agreement with China to begin Ruble-Renminbi trading in Russia is part of this effort. Last week, Marc…