wages

Japan needs deep seated cultural changes, especially ones directed to greater female empowerment and more openness towards immigration. Japan needs a series of structural reforms – like those under discussion around the third arrow – but…

This post is on the same topic of the US economy that I addressed yesterday. But I want to go a bit deeper and add more colour to my comments. Signs that the US economy’s cyclical outlook are improving are getting ever more numerous,…

Russia is signalling de-escalation in Ukraine, at least on economics The mobile battle is moving to India The limited window on Abenomics is closing

I am not impressed with macro policy that is managed purely to give a cyclical boost to the economy at the expense of secular sustainability. That makes it hard to look at what’s happening with macro policy now without scepticism and…

After a number of years of stall speed growth, the US economy seems to be breaking out, even as the Fed has turned toward a tightening bias. As this cycle continues, we should not underestimate the ability of the US economy to continue…

The economic and business paradigm in place in the United States is predicated on a secular increase in household debt that I believe will not last through another cyclical downturn without serious deleveraging. The reason we saw…

The Chinese property bubble is bursting Chinese wage pressure is rising Chinese search for oil has increased geopolitical tensions

I have been off since Thursday due to the Easter holiday. But I want to write my traditional Friday post today with a grab bag of different issues I am seeing. I actually just want to focus on the US this time.

This isn’t a theme post. It is more like the posts I now do on Friday with a bunch of different ideas on important topics. But the underlying theme that interconnects the ideas is a deflationary-style slowdown. First, in Europe, the CPI is…

This is a loaded topic. This entry, however, is not intended to be political. Very few things in economics are good or bad in themselves, but rather can be good under certain conditions or bad under others. I want to try to tease out as…