It’s nothing more than pedigree, having little to do with actual performance. Central bankers are given a level of respect and even admiration suited only to their job title. As such, they travel the world as honored guests to fulfill the insatiable demand for their takes on essential matters no matter how far off the mark.Only rarely is there occasion [...]
India like many emerging market countries around the world holds an enormous stockpile of foreign exchange reserves. According to the latest weekly calculation published by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, that total was a bit less than half a trillion. While it sounds impressive, when the month began the balance was much closer to that [...]
Being a member of the institutional “elite” means never having to say you’re sorry; or even admit that you have no idea what you are doing. For Christine Lagarde, Mario Draghi’s retirement from the European Central Bank could not have come at a more opportune moment. Fresh off the Argentina debacle, she failed herself upward to an even better gig. [...]
The IMF yesterday downgraded its forecasts for global growth as well as its real GDP estimates for all the big economy regions. The organization now thinks GDP growth might have amounted to 2.9% last year. Not only the worst year since 2009, that was down from April 2019 approximations of 3.6% and the original forecasts which always start out near [...]
One year ago, last October, the IMF published the update to its World Economic Outlook (WEO) for 2018. Like many, the organization began to talk more about trade wars and protectionism. It had become a topic of conversation more than concern. Couched as only downside risks, the IMF still didn’t think the fuss would amount to all that much. Especially [...]
According to IMF, “global growth remains subdued.” Since it was supposed to be roaring by now, this qualifies as a substantial downgrade. Financial positions were staked out on the premise there wouldn’t be one, certainly not a disappointment coming this soon long before the breakout could actually happen. That’s why there are downside risks in the financial system. Risk-taking wasn’t [...]
Maybe this was inevitable. After all, it is how things work in a lot of other places. When all is lost, that last thing that happens is the lawyers come in and pick through the bones. Christine Lagarde has been nominated to replace Mario Draghi as the next head of Europe’s central bank. She has a very long and distinguished [...]
The IMF becomes the latest mainstream organization to abandon the recovery. It wasn’t really much of one to begin with, mostly just the hope that an uptick in growth would lead to the long sought, and necessary, completion. Globally synchronized growth in 2017 was supposed to mean a plausible pathway toward it. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook (WEO) said in [...]
There was an old joke among bond investors that use to say no AAA-rated bond had ever defaulted…because it was downgraded several times first. By the time the issuer was in restructuring, it was junk accredited long before then. It ceased being funny around February 2007. There is something similar and similarly tragic that takes place in the wider macro [...]
Here they come. After spending more than a year talking about nothing but good things ahead for the global economy, Economists are beginning to sound worried. In 2017, there wasn’t anything that could stand in the way of synchronized growth. In 2018, there’s no longer any synchronized growth, so now we can talk about what was standing in the way. [...]
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