Scott Morris via Caixin | Overshadowed by China’s role as the world’s creditor is the uncomfortable reality that it also continues to be one of the largest recipients of multilateral assistance through major development agencies like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. This juxtaposition of China as lender and borrower has marked a long simmering tension with the West.
Benjamin Cole | The last filmy slips of fabric have been stripped away, and macroeconomists must now view the once-romanced US Congress in flagrante delicto with a real paramour: Mr. Big Bucks Deficits. From here, a premise of Federal Reserve monetary policy must be that it takes place alongside $1 trillion annual deficits.
After several sluggish years by their own standards, the emerging economies’ growth rates have once again started to speed up. As seen by Caixabank’s strategists, “the first hesitant signs of this turnaround could be seen in 2016, becoming much more evident in 2017. Emerging growth rates are now expected to consolidate at around 5% over the next few years.”
“I am “the king of debt”. That was very grandiose for me as a businessman, but it’s bad for the US. I made a fortune with debt, I will sort out the US”. This is the kind of tweet which would ruin anyone’s political career, with the exception of one person: Donald Trump.
Brent crude recently topped USD 70 a barrel for the first time since June 2015 as OPEC announced it would restrain oil output until the end of 2018. Nevertheless, there is still some scepticism over just how high prices will go, in spite of the cartel’s apparently strong commitment to reduce excess supply. According to CaixaBank’s strategists, such doubts are partly due to the uncertainty hovering over the shale production’s industry.
Jerome Powell is bound to have a crash landing in the Federal Reserve. From the very beginning of his mandate, pressure is mounting on him to raise rates. An unpalatable choice for someone who hoped to follow Janet Yellen’s wait-and-see stance for as long as he could.
What are the reasons for the apparent abrupt change in mood on the stock markets? Does this unexpected sell-off mean the end of the bull market? What seems clear is that the environment has changed, volatility is back, and 2018 is looking more complex for investors given central banks that are reducing stimulus.
Athanasios Dimadis and Hung Q. Tran | US is not alone in its worry about debt and deficit. According to the International Institute of Finance statistics, China poses the biggest threat to global economic stability, its total debt having risen astronomically over the last decade. The eurozone is still trying to heal the scars of an enduring economic crisis, with Greece’s unmanageable debt remaining a significant problem.
Barry Eichengreen via Caixin | The New Year has seen a flurry of positive news about yuan internationalization. On January 15th the Bank of France announced that it had added the yuan to its reserve portfolio. The National Bank of Belgium reported the next day that it had acquired 200 million euros worth of yuan-denominated assets.
Francesco Saraceno | The crisis is supposedly over, as the European economy started growing again. But this matters little to those who, as soon as things got slightly better, turned to their old obsession: Debt. Bear in mind, not private debt, that seems to have disappeared from the radars. No, what seems to keep policy makers and pundits awake at night is ugly public debt, the source of all troubles (past, present and future).