Back in April, while she was quietly jockeying to make sure her name was placed at the top of the list to succeed Mario Draghi at the ECB, Christine Lagarde detoured into the topic of central bank independence. At a joint press conference held with the Governor of the Reserve Bank of South Africa, Lesetja Kganyago, as the Managing Director [...]
The weekend began with pure joy over PMI’s before it ended in deep disappointment early Monday…over a PMI. It started in China. That country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released its November 2019 numbers for manufacturing and non-manufacturing sentiment. According to the government’s calculations, the gauge for manufacturing ticked back above 50 last month for the first time since April. [...]
US Industrial Productions continues to more and more resemble the worst of the Euro$ #3, that “manufacturing recession” of four years ago. Back at the end of 2014 and lasting well into 2016, IP was led lower by the oil crash among other problems. They called it a supply glut but we all know that wasn’t ever the case. What [...]
Perhaps ominously, there were overcast and hazy conditions in Beijing back on October 1 when China put on its largest display of military force in the nation’s history. To celebrate the Communist’s regime 70 years of that history, the country’s Chairman Xi Jinping dressed up like he was its original founder Chairman Mao. Joined by his immediate two predecessors, Jiang [...]
Germany’s vast industrial sector continued in the tank in September. According to new estimates from deStatis, that country’s government agency responsible for maintaining economic data, Industrial Production dropped by another 4% year-over-year during the month of September 2019. It was the fifth consecutive monthly decline at around that alarming rate. Four percent doesn’t sound like much, but in the context [...]
China’s growing troubles go way back long before trade wars ever showed up. It was Euro$ #2 that set this course in motion, and then Euro$ #3 which proved the country’s helplessness. It proved it not just to anyone willing to honestly evaluate the situation, it also established the danger to one key faction of Chinese officials. The entire world [...]
It’s not that they are different types, these are only differences in time and timing. As I wrote yesterday, the US economy is on the same spectrum following in behind Europe’s lengthy head start. American Industrial Production peaked a year later and only now has turned negative year-over-year, while European Industrial Production peaked way back at the end of 2017 [...]
December 16, 2015, was perhaps the perfect synopsis of Janet Yellen’s mercifully brief tenure. First Ben Bernanke and then Yellen had spent 2014 telling everyone the US economy was in more danger of overheating (best jobs market in decades, they said) and therefore not only would the FOMC taper and terminate QE there would be rate hikes to follow closely [...]
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 [...]
While the world’s attention was fixated on US$ repo for once, the Bank of Japan held a policy meeting and turned in an even more “dovish” performance. Likely the global central bank plan had been to combine the Fed’s second rate cut with what amounted to a simultaneous Japanese pledge for more “stimulus” in October. Both of those followed closely [...]
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