For the second half of 2015, how dicey did it really get in China? It’s difficult to assess going by something like real GDP given how notorious the Chinese have become for hitting their growth targets no matter what. But for those two quarters we can infer a whole bunch of nasty problems by the difference between real GPD growth [...]
If we are in the red on global eurodollar money, it makes sense to ask the question where we are in terms of global economy. What I mean by that is in the context of these repeating cycles. The world starts out enthralled by central bank or government actions when these usually come only after the ultimate depths of the [...]
IHS Markit reported last week that its composite Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rebounded slightly in its first reading for June 2018. In January, the index had managed nearly 59, the highest in a very long time. It was taken as a definitive sign that Europe’s economy was not only booming, that boom was sustainable. Global liquidations struck at the end [...]
We’ve noted over the past few weeks just how much things have changed since earlier this year. We started off 2018 in the grips of inflation hysteria, the more extreme corollary to globally synchronized growth. Things were going to be so good, they said, it would be bad. Now there’s just growing worries about only bad. In some cases, these [...]
The problem with global growth, synchronized or not, is that it isn’t really a thing. It is a made-up concept that accompanies confusion. Why is the economy about to pick up when there is no evidence for that expectation? Global growth. It’s a nonspecific bogeyman that anyone can point to and expect little or often no pushback. It’s nothing more [...]
The global economy is not falling off a cliff. There isn’t even evidence it is about to or is nearing such a situation. The most alarming that might be said of how things appear right now is that conditions aren’t getting any better. It’s hardly the stuff of severe global unrest. This is why individual developments are always cast as [...]
Chinese exports rose 12.9% year-over-year in April 2018. Imports were up 20.9%. As always, both numbers sound impressive but they are far short of rates consistent with a growing global economy. China’s participation in global growth, synchronized or not, is a must. The lack of acceleration on the export side tells us a lot about what to expect on the [...]
Argentina was perhaps the biggest success story of “reflation.” Left for dead in global markets as the hammer of the “rising dollar” pounded down on everyone, the country elected new leadership and began taking the right steps toward modern economic integration. That’s the story, anyway. What really happened was a bit different. The country that had been funding itself at [...]
According to China’s official PMI’s, those looking for a boom to begin worldwide in 2018 after it failed to materialize in 2017 are still to be disappointed. If there is going to be globally synchronized growth, it will have to happen without China’s participation in it. Of course, things could change next month or the month after, but this idea [...]
Back in October, the Bank of Korea raised its economic outlook for the country. The central bank’s economic models foresaw rising fortunes, leading them toward a central tendency of 3% growth. At that level, Korea’s economy would be growing at the fastest rate in three years (what happened in between?). It was as much a nod to the idea of [...]
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