What is economic growth? This isn’t an easy question to answer. Most people might respond with a reference to GDP. That wouldn’t necessarily be an incorrect one, but it may not be exactly on point, either. GDP was developed in order to try and assess economic growth, and over the years has simply become a stand-in for it. That’s true [...]
This year is just different. Increasingly so. Not just in one or two places, either, but in way too many places. In Japan, for instance, real Household Spending rose by the smallest amount in July, according to the latest estimates from Statistics Japan. In 2017, this would have been a worrisome sign. In 2018, it counts as one of the [...]
The ritual of Payroll Friday is not strictly a sorry American phenomenon. It is one shared by our neighbors to the north. The Canadian version, thanks to M. Simmons filling in the gaps of my limited experience with it, doesn’t typically sink into the depths of silliness to which its US cousin explores. At least not in as many months. [...]
You get the impression often that these guys have no idea what drives the dollar. They cling to all sorts of theories, of course, from interest rate differentials to perceptions of economic strength. That seemed to be the case in 2017 and its “weak dollar” environment. Globally synchronized growth would mean potency pretty much everywhere, thus, in this view, a [...]
Yesterday, we spotlighted Brazil’s economy as perhaps a leading indicator for where things stand. Today, it’s China’s turn. Neither are very encouraging. Both offer instead only growing concern. The reason isn’t just the possibility of the world economy rolling over in 2018, rather it’s from what level any deceleration might have begun. Despite the characterization of especially the US economy [...]
Why is SHIBOR falling from an economic perspective? Simple again. China’s growth both on its own and as a reflection of actual global growth has stalled. And in a dynamic, non-linear world stalled equals trouble. Going all the way back to early 2017, there’s been no acceleration (and more than a little deceleration). The reflation economy got started in 2016 [...]
Globally synchronized growth has taken a beating so far in 2018. As a narrative, one factor after another has turned against it. Europe was booming and was even going to be in a leadership position for the global economy. Now? Not so much. The dollar would continue to fall just as it did in the years before Bear Stearns, a [...]
In October 2015, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Pedigree matters, a fact easily established by how easy it is for central bankers and former central bankers to have their thoughts published in any mainstream outlet of their choosing. Record doesn’t mean so much, performance on the job secondary at most [...]
Sentiment surveys such as the ISM’s Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index are not strictly about current levels of production. Even if they were, they still wouldn’t be as straightforward as is presented. Rather, the ISM index or any PMI for that matter is an amalgam of variables ostensibly displaying how economic agents feel these variables are affecting them in any given [...]
Sometimes it pays to wait. Better to be sure than premature. In January 2014, the journal Central Banking handed out its inaugural awards. Among the recipients was Paul Volcker who was bestowed a lifetime achievement prize. The initial Governor of the Year honorific, something like a central banker MVP, went to Mario Draghi of the ECB. He graciously accepted in [...]
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