The Japanese went ahead with it anyway. Real GDP had bounced back, sort of, from a near recession in 2018. Central bankers at the Bank of Japan had reassured Shinzo Abe that the economy was on the mend. Therefore, the second round of the VAT tax hike, an imposition which had been postponed since 2015, could go ahead in 2019. [...]
Questioning the veracity of Chinese estimates (for anything) has always been something of an amateur sport. For a stat like real GDP, everyone “knows” that it is managed. In a complex world where an economic system for a billion and a half is incomprehensibly unpredictable, there’s really no other way to always hit your government’s mark (unless the Chinese are [...]
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 [...]
Forward-looking data is starting to trickle in. Germany has been a main area of interest for us right from the beginning, and by beginning I mean Euro$ #4 rather than just COVID-19. What has happened to the German economy has ended up happening everywhere else, a true bellwether especially manufacturing and industry. The latest sentiment figures from ZEW as well [...]
Can we please dispense with all notions that monetary policy works? Specifically balance sheet expansion via any scale asset purchase programs. Nowhere has that been more apparent than Japan. Go back and reread all the promised benefits from BoJ’s Big Bang QQE that were confidently written in 2013. The biggest bazooka ever conceived has fallen short in every conceivable way. [...]
They put it off so long they backed themselves into this corner. The Japanese government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had originally scheduled two VAT tax hikes as part of the rollout for Abenomics. It would be inflationary and fiscally responsible all in one pass. To make sure Japan’s perpetually struggling economy could absorb any fallout from them while still [...]
The coronavirus began during December, but in its early stages no one knew a thing about it. It wasn’t until January 1 that health authorities in China closed the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market after initially determining some wild animals sold there might have been the source of a pneumonia-like outbreak. On January 5, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued a [...]
According to Eurostat last week, Europe’s win streak reached 27 quarters in Q4 2019. If you count winning solely by the sign in front of quarterly GDP changes, then Mario Draghi handed off to Christine Lagarde an expansion just one quarter shy of seven years. It’s supposed to be impressive. Lagarde, however, begins her tenure in very much the same [...]
Chinese Industrial Production accelerated further in December 2019, rising 6.9% year-over-year according to today’s estimates from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). That was a full percentage point above consensus. IP had bottomed out right in August at a record low 4.4%, and then, just as this wave of renewed optimism swept the world, it has rebounded alongside it. Rather [...]
You don’t have to tell Mexico the bad news about how US auto sales ended 2019. They already know; in fact, knew ahead of time. Production workers who should be busy building more and more new cars for sale outside of Mexico, particularly for prospective American owners, must instead be worried if they’ll still have a job if things go [...]
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