The great imponderable

11 Mar 2010 [0 Comments | 20 views]

Barack Obama wants to see US exports double within five years. Later today he is due to make a speech outlining how he is going to do this. And yet last month, China saw exports jump 46 per cent on the year before. And that, in a nutshell, is the great imponderable. Obama has this idea to [...]
Europe stumbles over US woes

24 Feb 2010 [0 Comments | 213 views]

Latest data from US and Europe makes markets fret US safe from Europe’s problems Europe vulnerable to US problems Could carry trade mark II implode? You know, it is all a tad unfair. Yesterday was a bad day in the US, and markets in Europe suffered. The last few weeks have seen a string of bad news coming out of Europe [...]
Obama says his policies helped stop depression

18 Feb 2010 [0 Comments | 154 views]

Barack Obama has defended his massive banking bail out and stimulus packages from last year, suggesting the policies meant the US was able to avoid a Great Depression. Is he right? It is a simple question, and here is a simple answer. Barack Obama is under the spotlight again. Well, presumably, if you are president of the [...]
Uncle Sam’s big problem is that he has become a victim of his success

18 Feb 2010 [0 Comments | 149 views]

The problem with economics is economists. In yesterday’s FT, Byron Wien said: “The biggest problem the US is facing is the productivity of capital. After the end of the Second World War it took less than $3 of investment by government, corporations and individuals to produce $1 of GDP growth… In the single decade of the [...]
News on services dents economic good mood

4 Feb 2010 [0 Comments | 179 views]

Yesterday was a disappointing day for the economy. The week had started so well, what with Purchasing Mangers Indices around the world surging it seemed as if manufacturing was booming. In the UK, for example the PMI index from CIPS/Markit hit its highest level since October 1994. What with the US expanding so fast in [...]
Uncle Sam soars, but does it count?

1 Feb 2010 [0 Comments | 172 views]

The US economy expanded by an impressive 5.7 per cent on an annualized basis in the final quarter of 2009.   Did we say impressive, strike that. It was only the best performance in 6 years. The word impressive just doesn’t do it  justice. Bet you can guess what’s coming next? There’s another point of view. Imagine a juggernaut [...]
Investors give UK thumbs down as US enjoys best quarter in four years

25 Jan 2010 [1 Comment | 219 views]

This is the week we will know. The first official estimates of GDP for the final quarter of 2009 will be published both here, in the UK, and in the US in the next few days. For the UK it seems the recession surely ended, but in the US something far more interesting may have happened.  [...]
Krugman warns of US double dip – but for different reason from the other doomsters

5 Jan 2010 [0 Comments | 213 views]

In the article before, it was told how 39 out of 79 economists in the UK are worried about the UK’s fiscal deficit But now see that from another point of view. Forty out of 79 economists are not worried about the fiscal deficit. In the US, Paul Krugman, the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize for [...]
US profits set to surge

4 Dec 2009 [0 Comments | 142 views]

So do you think the market rally has gone too far?  If you do there are good reasons for your cynicism.  On the other hand, here is a fairly good argument put forward by Gartmore to suggest the recovery has only just begun. The optimistic outlook, however, relates to the US. The idea is based on [...]
The demographic punch

1 Dec 2009 [0 Comments | 277 views]

There are some things economists can deal with, others they can’t. Right now the world is seeing a big underling change, and economists are powerless to do anything about it. We all know the world has got a population problem, The number of human beings on this planet is set to grow and grow. This could [...]