Scientists give food warning
26 Jan 2011 [1 Comment | 10 views]
A new report compiled by taking the views of 400 people apparently in the know and from across the world, should be enough to scare the willies out of you. The report is called The Future of Food and Farming, and was put together by the Government Office for Science in London. It pretty much [...]
Tunisia: where were the warnings from the IMF?
17 Jan 2011 [0 Comments | 144 views]
We all know economic forecasting, or is that economic guessing, is tricky. Economists are especially bad at predicting political turmoil. You may recall, back at the end of 1989 The Economist produced a one-off edition looking at the state of various economies at that time. The issue was published towards the end of the year, [...]
Portugal breathes sigh of relief as Germany celebrates
13 Jan 2011 [0 Comments | 376 views]
Phew, said Portugal yesterday. Yippee, said Germany. It don’t add up, suggests a top economist. Portugal went along and did it yesterday. It successfully sold 1.25bn euros’ worth of bonds. Markets had expected its sales push to fall flat. Well done you, Portugal. Mind you, the interest rate it is paying on these bonds is [...]
Global imbalances close
12 Jan 2011 [1 Comment | 330 views]
For all the woe, two bits of news have emerged over the last few days to at least suggest there are signs global imbalances are closing. Earlier this week, China’s latest trade figures were released. And of course, her trade surplus is still massive – $13.1bn in December. But, once again, import growth outpaced export [...]
A tale of two countries: Germany and Portugal – oh, and Japan, too
12 Jan 2011 [0 Comments | 301 views]
The opposite ends of the euro spectrum will come under the spotlight today. Portugal, because today may be the day she joins Ireland and Greece on the bailed out list. Germany, because today the latest set of GDP data is being released, and analysts expect it to be good. Japan, meanwhile, has her own set [...]
Currency wars or phoney war
12 Jan 2011 [0 Comments | 206 views]
“I have in my hand a piece of paper,” said the finance minister over fears of a currency war. “Peace in our time,” he added. And yet, actually, it may be that all this talk of a currency war is little more than fearmongering. Brazil seems to be the country that is doing the most [...]
The world in 2050: India will be close to overtaking the US, and the UK will be a long way down the premier economic league
10 Jan 2011 [0 Comments | 582 views]
The UK is set to grow by an average of 2.3 per cent a year for the next 40 years, whereas China will grow by an average of 5.9 per cent, and India by 8.1 per cent. And by the half-way point of this century, not only will China be the world’s largest economy, India [...]
Currency war hits new stage
7 Jan 2011 [0 Comments | 421 views]
You may recall, back in the summer of 2010 the Brazilian finance minister warned of a currency war. Well, Brazil has done it again and fired a few more shots. The Brazilian government is worried about hot money. So, investors take their money out of the US, which as you know is printing money faster [...]
Are fears of Chinese inflation exaggerated?
5 Jan 2011 [1 Comment | 344 views]
When food prices go up in China, social unrest builds. It has been argued elsewhere that it was food inflation that led to the rise of Mao, and was also occurring at the time of the Tiananmen Square atrocities. China’s central bank is set to up rates, they say, and the Chinese bubble will be [...]
The world’s most populous country is running out of workers – what are the implications?
16 Dec 2010 [0 Comments | 571 views]
China is running out of workers. Around 60 per cent of China’s workforce, or 469 million people, are known as rural. But it seems that a big chunk of these people – around 145 million – spent at least six months away from home last year, presumably working in towns and cities. It is thought [...]
