Benjamin Cole | Fed Chair Jerome Powell has stated the Fed’s 2% target is symmetric, which may be code words for “inflation a little above 2% is tolerable.” The US central bank may find fighting inflation resembles heart surgery with a chainsaw.
Eelke Heemskerk and via The Conversation | Who holds the power in international politics? Most people would probably say it’s the largest states in the global system. Yet multinationals like Apple and Starbucks still wield phenomenal power. They oversee huge supply chains, sell products all over the world, and help mould international politics to their interests.
America’s interests — not to mention image — took a major hit in Helsinki during the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is more than sufficient to provoke America’s concern about the direction Donald Trump is taking the country.
On the few occasions the Fed’s former chairman Ben Bernanke speaks in public, which makes him feel physically sick- , he resorts to metaphors. It is what he did in May when he declared that “in 2020 the coyote is going to leap off the precipice and is going to look down”. Bernanke was referring to Wile E.Coyote, the coyote in the Roadrunner, a series of Warner cartoons which ran in the 50s and 60s.
Where the euro may go in 2018 is such a central question and will have implications for global asset markets around the world. Christopher Gannatti, head of research at Wisdom Tree, thinks that “forecasting currencies is very much like putting together a puzzle”, at times requiring just as much art as data.
In the middle of all the trade battles of the US against the rest of the world, the European Union has considered a new strategy of collaboration with other regions and have signed with Japan its largest trade agreement ever. The deal will create an open trade zone covering over 600 million people.
The performance rating of countries for the last month demonstrates the concerns of investors about the price to be paid for a de-globalization of the world by those countries whose companies focus on exports. Alphavalue offers a ranking of these countries according to its coverage
Craig Moran | Could a new carbon-capture technology really provide a viable approach to reversing the effects of climate change? That’s the ambitious claim of British Columbia-based tech company, Carbon Engineering, in a peer-reviewed paper that posits a methodology for capturing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before combining it with hydrogen to create a carbon-neutral fuel.
There has been talk for some time about the impact of commercial tensions. But it is clear that palpable consequences remain in the future. Above all when the maintenance of a positive inertia in the global economy could lead to a situation where world trade increases further before starting to worsen.
J. P. Marín-Arrese | The latest trade offensive launched against China will inevitably escalate into full-fledged warfare. Imposing tariffs on 200 billion imports amounts to a vicious and indiscriminate attack triggered by mere irritation at the counter-veiling measures undertaken by the Asian giant. Unleashing such large-scale hostilities will raise the stakes prompting further bouts of unfettered retaliation on both sides. The US is already threatening to punish all trade flows totalling 500 billion.