New York Times (January 9)
India’s “man-made currency crisis” has had real costs and limited benefit. Two months after the surprise move to invalidate over 80% of existing currency, “the manufacturing sector is contracting; real estate and car sales are down; and farm workers, shopkeepers and other Indians report that a shortage of cash has made life increasingly difficult.”
Tags: Benefit, Car sales, Contracting, Costs, Crisis, Currency, Farm workers, India, Manufacturing, Real estate, Shopkeepers, Shortage
Washington Post (November 27)
“Japan is engaged in a national crisis over nuclear power, but the country has embraced natural gas. The United States, by contrast, is seeing a roiling national debate over natural gas and fracking, but concerns over nuclear power are muted. Each country is half right.” As countries invest in renewable energy, they “should keep their options open.” To successfully phase out the deadliest energy sources, e.g. coal, “the world needs fracking – and nuclear power.”
Tags: Coal, Crisis, Fracking, Japan, Natural gas, Nuclear, Renewable energy, U.S.
The Economist (September 22)
“There is an easy way out of the crisis in shipping. If enough lines scrapped their ships, the amount of spare capacity in the industry would fall.” But this is easier said than done. Few players want to scrap enough of their own capacity. “Until some serious scrapping takes place, do not be surprised if more shipping lines declare bankruptcy.”
New York Times (May 30)
Though European leaders are congratulating themselves for the latest debt agreement for Greece, “there is little to celebrate. Greece is bankrupt in all but name…. The reality is that Greece can’t be squeezed any harder.” The latest agreement is more of the same. “This crisis will never end if European leaders keep pushing policies that have repeatedly failed.”
The Economist (November 14)
The Great Recession has morphed into the never ending crisis. Over the past decade, we’ve seen fallout from the U.S. housing crisis, the Euro crisis brought on by Greece, and now “a third instalment in the chronicles of debt is now unfolding. This time the setting is emerging markets. Investors have already dumped assets in the developing world, but the full agony of the slowdown still lies ahead.”
Tags: Assets, Crisis, Debt, Emerging markets, Euro crisis, Great Recession, Greece, Housing crisis, Investors, Never ending, Slowdown, U.S.
Financial Times (October 5)
Amidst continuing outflows, emerging markets are much better placed than before the 1997 Asian currency crisis. “Record levels of reserves” should give “troubled countries a window for reform.” Reserves stand roughly 10 times higher than the past crisis. “While no amount of reserves can withstand the loss of market trust, money does buy time. Using reserves to offset capital flight allows central banks temporarily to avoid the classic EM crisis response of tighter monetary policy amid a recession to protect their currency and avoid imported inflation.”
Tags: Asia, Banks, Capital, Crisis, Emerging markets, Market, Monetary policy, Outflows, Recession Inflation, Reform, Reserves
Los Angeles Times (October 1)
“Today’s mass shooting at an Oregon community college brings us once again to the national crisis that we, as a democratic society, keep proving we’re incapable of resolving.” The numbers don’t seem to “matter because, within the framework of the nation’s sick approach to gun violence, the dead never seem to count.”
Tags: Crisis, Dead, Gun violence, Mass shooting, Oregon, Society, U.S.
Financial Times (September 18)
“The EU’s 28 member states have long been famed for squabbling among themselves whenever the bloc comes face to face with an acute issue. Confronted by the current refugee crisis—the biggest of its kind in the continent’s recent history—Europe’s governments are responding true to form.”
Tags: Crisis, EU, Governments, Refugee, Squabbling
New York Times (July 14)
The EU’s tentative deal “may avert an immediate catastrophe, but there is little to celebrate since it will do little to address, much less repair, the slow-moving disaster of the Greek economy.” For that matter, “in forcing Greece to submit they have not resolved the crisis of the monetary union or advanced the European project.”
Tags: Catastrophe, Crisis, Deal, Disaster, Economy, EU, European project, Greece, Monetary union
Bloomberg (June 29)
“Three years after Mario Draghi pledged to do whatever it took to save the euro, the mounting crisis in Greece is calling into question the integrity of the entire currency union.” Although Greece is minor in terms of economic output, “its exit would hurl the bloc into unknown territory by setting a precedent for other nations to reconsider their membership.”
Tags: Crisis, Currency union, euro, Exit, Greece, Mario Draghi, Membership
