Category Archive: 5) Global Macro
Hackers will pose a greater threat in 2018 | The Economist
Hackers will affect our daily lives in 2018 like never before. As more elements of our daily lives are linked to the internet, hackers will have greater opportunity to scale up cybercrimes, leaving our homes and personal lives more vulnerable to attack Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 In 2018 cyber …
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This Chart Defines the 21st Century Economy
There is nothing inevitable about such vast, fast-rising income-wealth inequality; it is the only possible output of our financial and pay-to-play political system. One chart defines the 21st century economy and thus its socio-political system: the chart of soaring wealth/income inequality. This chart doesn't show a modest widening in the gap between the super-wealthy (top 1/10th of 1%) and everyone else: there is a veritable Grand Canyon between...
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Stagnation Is Not Just the New Normal–It’s Official Policy
Japan is a global leader is how to gracefully manage stagnation. Although our leadership is too polite to say it out loud, they've embraced stagnation as the new quasi-official policy. The reason is tragi-comically obvious: any real reform would threaten the income streams gushing into untouchably powerful self-serving elites and fiefdoms.
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Eurozone: Distinct Lack of Good Faith
The erosion of social order in any historical or geographic context is gradual; until it isn’t. Germany has always followed a keen sense of this process, having experienced it to every possible extreme between the World Wars. Hyperinflationary collapse doesn’t happen overnight; it took three years for the Weimar mark to disintegrate, and then Weimar Germany. Even Nazism wasn’t all it once. What was required was continued denial especially on the...
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Charles Hugh Smith On Why Wages Are Stagnant In The Developed World
Click here for the full transcript: http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2017/10/01/the-roundtable-insight-charles-hugh-smith-on-why-wages-are-stagnant-in-the-developed-world/
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Emerging Markets: Preview of the Week Ahead
EM FX firmed Friday, but capped off a bad week overall. US jobs data this Friday is unlikely to provide much clarity on Fed policy, though we think it remains on track to hike again in December. The Fed’s balance sheet reduction will start this month. We remain negative on EM, and believe selling pressures are likely to persist in Q4.
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Not Political Risk For China, But Unwelcome Reality
China’s Communist Party concluded the Third Plenum of its 18th Congress in November 2013. It was the much-discussed reform mandate that many in the West took to mean another positive step toward neo-liberal reform. At its center was supposed to be a greater role for markets particularly in the central task of resource allocation. In some places, the Party’s General Secretary Xi Jinping was hailed as the great Chinese reformer.
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Location Transformation or HIBORMania
The Communist Chinese established their independence on September 21, 1949. The grand ceremony commemorating the political change was held in Tiananmen Square on October 1 that year. The following day, October 2, the Resolution on the National Day of the People’s Republic of China was passed making October 1to be China’s National holiday. It typically kicks off the second of China’s Golden Week holidays. The first relates to the Chinese New Year...
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Emerging Markets: What has Changed
India Prime Minister Modi announced an INR163.2 bln program to deliver electricity to all households. Poland’s President Duda is trying to reach a compromise on judicial reforms. Fitch raised the outlook on Russia’s BBB- rating from stable to positive. Saudi Arabia announced it will remove the ban on women driving. South Africa’s biggest labor organization stepped up its opposition to President Zuma.
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It Was Collateral, Not That We Needed Any More Proof
Eleven days ago, we asked a question about Treasury bills and haircuts. Specifically, we wanted to know if the spike in the 4-week bill’s equivalent yield was enough to trigger haircut adjustments, and therefore disrupt the collateral chain downstream. Within two days of that move in bills, the GC market for UST 10s had gone insane.To be honest, it was a rhetorical exercise.
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The Real Estate View For A Second Lost Decade
The National Association of Realtor (NAR) reports today that sales of existing homes in the US were down 1.7% in August 2017 from July. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.35 million, that’s the lowest pace for resales since July 2016. It is yet another data point reflecting the almost certain end of “reflation” in the economic sense.
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Catalonia’s independence referendum explained | The Economist
Catalonia’s independence referendum is due to take place on October 1st, in clear defiance of the Spanish government. We outline why some Catalans want independence from Spain, and why only 41% are likely to vote yes Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 Tensions are rising in Catalonia. An independence referendum is …
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Little Behind CNY
The framing is a bit clumsy, but the latest data in favor of the artificial CNY surge comes to us from Bloomberg. The mainstream views currency flows as, well, flows of currency. That’s what makes their description so maladroit, and it can often lead to serious confusion. A little translation into the wholesale eurodollar reality, however, clears it up nicely.
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Why The Fed’s Balance Sheet Reduction Is As Irrelevant As Its Expansion
The FOMC is widely expected to vote in favor of reducing the system’s balance sheet this week. The possibility has been called historic and momentous, though it may be for reasons that aren’t very kind to these central bankers. Having started to swell almost ten years ago, it’s a big deal only in that after so much time here they still are having these kinds of discussions.
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PBOC RMB Restraint Derives From Experience Plus ‘Dollar’ Constraint
Given that today started with a review of the “dollar” globally as represented by TIC figures and how that is playing into China’s circumstances, it would only be fitting to end it with a more complete examination of those. We know that the eurodollar system is constraining Chinese monetary conditions, but all through this year the PBOC has approached that constraint very differently than last year.
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Bi-Weekly Economic Review: As Good As It Gets
The incoming economic data hasn’t changed its tone all that much in the last several years. The US economy is growing but more slowly than it once did and we hope it does again. It is frustrating for economic bulls and bears, never fully satisfying either. Probably more important is the frustration of the average American, a dissatisfaction with the status quo that permeates the national debate. The housing bubble papered over the annoying lack of...
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Swimming The ‘Dollar’ Current (And Getting Nowhere)
The People’s Bank of China reported this week that its holdings of foreign assets fell slightly again in August 2017. Down about RMB 21 billion, almost identical to the RMB 22 billion decline in July, the pace of forex withdrawals is clearly much preferable to what China’s central bank experienced (intentionally or not) late last year at ten and even twenty times the rate of July and August.
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Driving was illegal for women in Saudi Arabia, but Manal Al Sharif did it anyway | The Economist
Driving was illegal for women in Saudi Arabia. Meet Manal Al Sharif, the woman who broke that law, went to prison for it and fled the country, all in the name of gender equality. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where a …
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Emerging Markets: Week Ahead Preview
EM FX was mostly firmer on Friday, but capped off a week of broad-based losses. US rates gave back some of post-FOMC rise, and that weighed on the dollar. Not much in the way of US data until Friday’s core PCE reading and Chicago PMI.
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