Financial Times (November 23)
“China’s repeated attempts to tackle its worsening property crisis resemble firework displays — full of light and sound, quickly extinguished. Property stock prices have burst upwards with each new set of government measures to boost the market, only to collapse shortly thereafter. This week’s rally should not differ.”
Tags: Attempts, Boost, Burst, China, Collapse, Crisis, Extinguished, Fireworks, Government, Market, Property, Stock prices, Tackle, Worsening
Wall Street Journal (April 14)
“Events in Hong Kong and Shanghai have demonstrated that a ‘zero Covid’ strategy can look very effective for a long time—until suddenly it isn’t, either because a more infectious variant changes the game or because success itself breeds overconfidence.” Unless the Chinese government moves “quickly to vaccinate and boost its elderly, and start spending much more heavily on hospital capacity, then the human and economic consequences could be disastrous.”
Tags: Boost, China, Consequences, Disastrous, Elderly, Events, Government, Hong Kong, Hospital capacity, Infectious, Overconfidence, Shanghai, Vaccinate, Variant, Zero COVID
The Economist (January 9)
“Japan is the best example” of how currency devaluations no longer seem to provide economies with much of a boost. “The yen has been depreciating rapidly. A Big Mac was 20% cheaper in Japan than in America in 2013; now it is 37% cheaper. Yet export volumes have barely budged…. This is a surprise: the IMF calculates that Japanese exports are around 20% lower than it would have expected, given how the yen has weakened.”
Tags: Big Mac, Boost, Currency devaluation, Depreciating, Export volumes, IMF, Japan, U.S., Yen
New York Times (March 22)
“The U.S. economic outlook again “has a dispiritingly familiar ring to it.” It looks unlikely that “this year’s early Easter” will “boost consumer spending after a brutal winter.” Despite optimism, Easter shopping and warmer weather have failed for several years proven “a sure catalyst for growth.” For that matter, it’s increasingly unclear where that catalyst will come from.
Tags: Boost, Catalyst, Consumer spending, Dispiriting, Easter, Economic outlook, Growth, U.S., Warmer weather
