China had said it would increase fuel prices, which are heavily subsidized, in a statement last month, but had not given any timetable for its actions. Most observers had assumed any change would take place after the Olympics. In a surprise move, perhaps impelled by inflation concerns, the Chinese announced a price hike effective tomorrow. […]
Read more...The world is finally waking up to the fact that inflation is getting to be a wee bit of a problem and inflation is very unkind to investments. Confidence in China may be fragile, since the stock market reaction seems well out of proportion to the significance of the so-called tightening via a 1% increase […]
Read more...Bloomberg reports (hat tip Calculated Risk) that the US, Japan, China, India, and South Korea agreed on the need to cut energy subsidies and take other measures: The U.S. and the four Asian nations, together accounting for half the world’s energy consumption, said today wider use of alternative fuels such as clean coal, nuclear power, […]
Read more...I’ve tried to have more dignified labels for recurrent phenomena, but I keep defaulting to “scary bad” when I get updates on China. The latest is that Michael Pettis does his usual workmanlike job of trying to make sense of China’s generally incomplete reporting on its funds flows. While one suspects the gaps are in […]
Read more...It appears the US central bank got taken to the woodshed at a conference hosted by the New York Fed for overly aggressive rate cuts, but despite jeering from the peanut gallery, it looks likely that the Fed will hold pat until at least the fall. While I have no idea of how representative his […]
Read more...In general, I’m not terribly fond of imprecise and emotion-laden terms such as “scary bad”. However, in this case, the more accurate description might be “mind-numbingly awful, pointing to increased financial instability.” Michael Pettis gives us a very thorough report on the stunning and mystifying report from China that its FX reserves increased by $75.4 […]
Read more...Veteran investor George Soros, in an interview with the Telegraph, describes speculation as a significant factor in the recent spike in oil prices. However, he doesn’t expect prices to break until there are signs of economic weakening. Later in the post, I’ll provide some information that suggests how traditional supply/demand forces could have been swamped […]
Read more...I’m just a wee observer of skeptical temperament. A move of this magnitude based on one analyst’s reading seems a bit disproportionate. Even Abby Joseph Cohen and Mary Meeker didn’t have this sort of sway in their heyday. However, contracts that far out are thinly traded, so it doesn’t take much of a change in […]
Read more...I am leery of featuring one writer too often in succession (Martin Wolf is a notworthy exception). However, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard presents a thesis that I thought would lead to some informative reader comments. In “The crisis rotates from America to Europe, and Asia,” Evans-Prichard argues that many of the world’s other large economies will start […]
Read more...The great imperial struggles of the 1800s were over control of strategic or otherwise prized resources, and the hostilities they generated helped stoke World Wars I and II. Many believe the Iraq war was all about oil. China is considering adopting a contemporary variant of the colonial model. A Ministry of Agriculture proposal suggests that […]
Read more...Well, Buiter did not go quite as far as I suggested in the headline. He recommended a 1500 year pause. This post made me realize why I have a certain fondness for Buiter. It’s not that I agree with his argument (I hate to confess, I have come to be completely bored by the event, […]
Read more...Alliance: When two thieves have their hands so deeply plunged into each others’ pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third party. Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary The US and China bicker like an unhappily married couple, but Brad Setser warns us that the squabbling is getting nastier. And worse, both parties seem to fail […]
Read more...We commented the other day on the surprisingly large jump in China’s foreign currency reserves, noting that the monthly gain wa the biggest on record, when an appreciating yuan ought to put the growth in reverse (although one must note that the yuan hasn’t gained much if any ground relative to non-dollar currencies). I’m following […]
Read more...In a very bad bit of news for the US, the Los Angeles Times (hat tip Lune) reports that the Chinese policy of letting the yuan appreciate has not succeeded in reducing the country’s massive increases in foreign reserves. In fact, the situation is getting worse rather than better. Normally, when a country’s currency appreciates, […]
Read more...I am late to this story, which ran Thursday in the Financial Times, but is sufficiently important as to merit comment (and my quick search of the usual suspect blogs showed it went unreported there too). The Chinese temporarily suspended tax collection on mutual funds to bolster share prices. China’s stock market, which has been […]
Read more...