In a world of floating rates, driving the value of one’s currency down takes a bit of doing, but as China (since 1994) and Japan (circa 2003) have demonstrated, central banks can lower currency prices. And trashing one’s currency is part of the standard program recommended for countries facing deflation. The preferred method these days […]
Read more...Note the dramatic fall in Japanese exports in February was relative to the year-ago level, but that does not make the outcome any less ugly. From Bloomberg: Overseas shipments fell 49.4 percent from a year earlier, the sharpest decline since at least 1980, when the government started to keep comparable data, the Finance Ministry said […]
Read more...No details up yet on my cheapie version of Bloomberg, will update when more is in. Recall, however, that many analysts foresaw a fall in China’s surplus. It had stayed at near record levels despite falling volumes of trade overall because imports fell faster than exports. Well, many imports are used to produce exports. As […]
Read more...Readers may have noticed that Team Obama has put on a pre-G-20 session push to have participants spend more to pull the global economy out of its nosedive. The New York Times gave a short summary: In recent days, the White House has begun signaling that when leaders of the Group of 20 nations meet […]
Read more...While Wolfgang Munchau’s latest comment for the Financial Times, “An L of a recession – reform is the way out,” fell short of being apocalyptic, it was the gloomiest piece I can recall coming from him. Munchau argues that the world is going into what is politely referred to as an L shaped recession, but […]
Read more...Paul Keating, former Austrailian Prime Minister, gave an assessment of Timothy Geithners’ performance in the Asian crisis that is sharply at odds with US reports. According to Keating, Geither completely misread the nature of the crisis, that it was the result of hot money flight, but reverted to the standard IMF “country facing currency crisis” […]
Read more...Reader Nivethan pointed to a Bloomberg story, “China Says 8% Growth Within Reach Using $585 Billion Stimulus.” This may be a tad more significant than it appears (I also looked at Xinhua, but got the singular, and probably completely unfair impression that Wen’s speech to the party Congress was of the “give everyone at least […]
Read more...When trade started falling off in the later half of last year, this blog commented from time to time that the scarcity of trade finance, particularly letters of credit, was playing a meaningful role. That line of thinking was sometimes met with skepticism. Trade related funding has gotten even more scarce and costly, to the […]
Read more...Japan has been hit by a double-whammy: the global fall in trade, made worse by its (formerly) rising yen. While deteriorating conditions in China generally get more media attention, the falloff in Japan is stunning and serious. Japan has spent more than a decade stagnant, but the overall growth figures mask the fact that the […]
Read more...So much for the theory that the rise in the Baltic Dry Index meant that trade volumes were recovering. From Lloyd’s List (hat tip reader Michael): Asian container ports are bracing themselves for a grim year ahead as they report alarming drops in volumes in January. Box throughput at Singapore, the world’s largest container port […]
Read more...As much as some optimists would like to find evidence of recovery, it is far more likely that the US will see a further deterioration in economic activity. We have not yet seen much in the way of bankrupticies and debt restructuring. Until this sort of thing becomes sadly routine, the bottom is not yet […]
Read more...Japan has long had a two-tier economy: a robust export sector and a comatose domestic economy. With the yen at a high level and trade volumes generally falling, the export sector has gone spectacularly into reverse gear, taking overall growth with it. From Bloomberg: Japan’s economy shrank at an annual 12.7 percent pace last quarter, […]
Read more...It is risky indeed for someone like me, on the other side of the world, commenting on a country with spotty economic data (a function of size and maturity of its information gathering apparatus, as well as possible intent to put lipstick on pigs) to take issue with an emerging consensus. Nevertheless, I will stick […]
Read more...The big year to year fall in Chinese exports, at 17.%, far in excess of expectations, was accompanied by an even bigger decline in imports, still leaving China with a near-record monthly trade surplus. Thus, while China’s foreign exchange reserves are continuing to mount, the fall in each side of the trade equation, exports and […]
Read more...On the one hand, the demand by China that the US somehow guarantee its $682 billion in Treasury holding reads like a political and negotiating strategem rolled into one. It reenforces the idea that the economic crisis is the solely the fault of the corrupt, profligate West and it constitutes a demand that the US […]
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