THE CORNER TEAM | Put the champagne in the freezer. Against most expectations, the ECB lowered its main refinancing rate to 0.25 percent on Thursday in order to encourage the eurozone’s recovery. Mario Draghi took this measure responding to a slump in inflation that has sparked fears the economy could stall, years after financial crisis broke and years after most other central banks did the same thing.
SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes | For less bounce! The Philly Fed has called the measure of GDP obtained from “crushing” the usual measure of GDP (expenditure based) and the income-based measure GDI GDP plus…
MEXICO CITY | By David Brunat | Latin America is on its way to give a lesson to the European Union in terms of employment. By the end of the year the subcontinent is to hit a 6.2% jobless rate, a record low, according to a shared report issued by the Economic Comission for Latin America and the Caribben (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO). The region has already reached a 6.6% rate in the third quarter, while in the EU Spain, Portugal and Greece are approaching a staggering 30%. Latin America’s jobless rate is even lower than that of the United States (7.3%).
MADRID | By Alex García and @sr_dios
THE CORNER TEAM | The economic crisis has inflicted devastating damage on the population: there are 15 million more unemployed people in OECD countries than in 2007. Relative poverty is on the rise. Young people are increasingly dependent on their families. Life satisfaction and citizens confidence in the political system has plummeted, mostly in Greece, Italy and Spain. This is the OECD X-Ray of the challenges ahead.
SHANGHAI | By Andy Xie via Caixin | The global economy is likely experiencing a bigger bubble than the one that unleashed the 2008 crisis, and should it burst the ensuing recession would be mammoth.
LONDON | By Barclays analysts | The two most important events for the market are at the end of the week – the ECB meeting and US employment report. Although no policy change is expected from the ECB, the market will be paying close attention to cues for a potential move in December.
WASHINGTON | By Tom Ferguson, Paul Jorgensen and Jie Chen via The Next New Deal | Bush and Cheney may have invented them, but many firms and industries at the heart of the NSA scandal have strong ties to the Democrats. This is the Hidden Corporate Cash Behind America’s Out-of Control National Surveillance State.
SAO PAULO| By Marcus Nunes | In response to Gavyn Davies, who thinks the Eurozone is a whole different galaxy: I have my doubts that “most central banks would take these symptoms as proof that monetary policy should be eased”. Most of them have behaved very badly (excepting the BoJ). Maybe in the dire conditions faced by the Eurozone they would act. This just shows how ‘unplugged’ the blokes at the ECB are!
MADRID | By J. Luis Martín via TRUMAN | In the winter of 2009, lawyer, investment banker, and advisor on capital markets to the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, James Rickards took part in a secret war game sponsored by the Pentagon at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). The game’s objective was to simulate and explore the potential outcomes and effects of a global financial war. Two years later, Rickards published what would become a national bestseller, Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis. TRUMAN spoke to him after he just finished writing its sequel, The Death of Money, The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System, due out in bookstores in April 2014.