The Economist (January 30)
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari “is repeating an economic error he made as dictator 30 years ago.” To avoid devaluation, he has instead thrown limits on imports, creating scarcity that “will be even more inflationary. A weaker currency would spur domestic production more than import bans can and, in the long run, hurt consumers less. The country needs foreign capital to finance its deficits but, under today’s policies, it will struggle to get any.”
Tags: Buhari, Capital, Consumers, Currency, Deficits, Devaluation, Dictator, Import bans, Inflationary, Nigeria, Production, Scarcity
Institutional Investors (August 15)
“As earnings season winds down, investors around the globe are left to consider how a shifting macro environment will impact different asset classes and geographies.” Fears of a continuing yuan devaluation “will factor into perceptions of nearly all the major data points that will emerge.”
Tags: Asset classes, Data points, Devaluation, Earnings, Geographies, Investors, Macro environment, Yuan
Bloomberg (August 13)
“China’s devaluation becomes Japan’s problem.” The surprise action raises the question of “what China’s move means more broadly for Abenomics. A sharply devalued yen, after all, is the core of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s gambit to end Japan’s 25-year funk.” But China’s move is not necessarily the death knell of Abenomics, which has been sputtering. “China’s move may catalyze Abe to act. By undercutting Japan’s devaluation, China might increase Abe’s urgency to boost competiveness, innovation and wages.”
Tags: Abe, Abenomics, China, Competiveness, Devaluation, Innovation, Japan, Sputtering, Wages, Yen
Wall Street Journal (April 18, 2013)
“Gold’s Plunge Is Cause For Optimism.” Gold investors may not feel the same after watching their asset lose over 15% of its value since February. Still, the plunge could signal a promising trend if capital is redirected from dollar-devaluation hedges “toward investments in what has been called ‘the economy of the mind’—that is, new entrepreneurial endeavors and industries.”
Tags: Devaluation, Dollar, Economy of the mind, Gold, Investors, Plunge, Trend
Institutional Investor (October Issue)
Modern economic warfare appears to center on competitive depreciation. The euro, the dollar, the yuan, the yen and other currencies are competing for lower ground as a means to jumpstart their own national economies. Institutional Investor points out “competitive devaluations and/or depreciations can cause the world to slip back into recession…. We need statesmen and stateswomen, not nationalists.”
Tags: Currency, Depreciation, Devaluation
