I am still working on my piece on the global savings adjustment and will probably post it in the next week or so. The main point is to discuss what the implications are for China if we see simultaneously over the next few years an increase in US savings and a reduction in global investment. [...]
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Tags: Greendown
Posted in Balance of payments, Banks, Economic growth, Exports and imports, Fiscal debt and deficits, PBoC, Real estate • 35 Comments »
Exports in March dropped a less-than-expected 17.1% from the same time last year – below expectations of 20% and the 21.1% drop for the first two months of 2009. Most of the articles I read in the Chinese and foreign press including, not surprisingly, comments from the customs bureau, hailed this as a sign that [...]
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Tags: Steve Keen
Posted in Balance of payments, Consumption and production, Exports and imports, Hot money, Reserves • 53 Comments »
I have recently finished reading Martin Wolf’s latest book, Fixing Global Finance, and I strongly recommend it for its very clear laying out of the global balance of payments issues behind the global crisis. I should warn my readers that Wolf and I have come to very similar conclusions about the underlying root causes of [...]
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Tags: Exorbitant privilege, Zhou Xiaochuan
Posted in Balance of payments, Currency regime, Money growth, Savings glut • 64 Comments »
The market (or at least that part of the market that obsesses over balance of payment flows) has been swept with rumors today that foreign exchange reserves were down in January by $30 billion. My experience with these sorts of rumors is that they tend to be fairly accurate cheapest cialis online, and I suspect they [...]
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Posted in Balance of payments, Hot money, PBoC, Reserves • 33 Comments »
One of my blog readers cheapest cialis uk, Kalasend, responded to Thursday’s entry by asking about the composition of US-Chinese trade, and I think the question is interesting enough to be discussed in a separate entry, rather than in the comments section. In his response he pointed out that “China’s exports are mostly light manufacturing [...]
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Tags: Alexander Hamilton, Argentina
Posted in Balance of payments, Policy, Trade protection • 31 Comments »
Yesterday in a meeting I was asked by an investor why, even while I have been writing maniacally about the crucial importance of global cooperation, I was so consistently pessimistic about the possibility of the major economies arriving at a “grand bargain” that will minimize over the long term the cost of the current crisis. [...]
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Tags: Goldman Sachs, People's Daily
Posted in Balance of payments, Consumption and production, Exports and imports, PBoC, Trade protection • 33 Comments »
As I reported in last Thursday’s blog entry, last week the research institute associated with China’s Ministry of Finance published a report on its website arguing that China’s central bank should “actively guide” the yuan’s exchange rate and devalue the currency to about 6.93 against the US dollar; cialis canada pharmacy. Cialis canada pharmacy: the [...]
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Tags: Net demand
Posted in Balance of payments, Currency regime, Exports and imports, Trade protection • 36 Comments »
Yesterday while I was preparing for my presentation in Hong Kong on the impact of slowing trade on the Chinese economy, one of the participants in the conference passed on to me the January trade numbers, which had just been released. Although they were “surprisingly” bad, and fit perfectly within my very gloomy presentation, they [...]
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Tags: Emerging artists
Posted in Balance of payments, Exports and imports, Trade protection • 54 Comments »
On my flight back to Beijing last night I noticed an article in the Financial Times in which Miguel Sebastián, Spain’s industry minister and someone hotly tipped for finance minister, called on Spanish households to stop buying foreign goods and to buy more Spanish goods. “Right now,” he said, “there is something that our [...]
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Tags: Zapatero
Posted in Balance of payments, Exports and imports, Trade protection • 8 Comments »
China’s December trade figures came out and canada cialis generic, following November’s lead, everything is moving in the wrong direction. Exports were down 2.8% (versus up 21.7% in December 2007) which although bad at least is better than the average forecast of over 4%. Within overall trade exports to Europe were down 3.5% and to [...]
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Tags: Morici, Sustainable deficit
Posted in Balance of payments, Policy, Trade protection • 25 Comments »