Wall Street Journal (June 11)
“Japan is fumbling what looks like its last chance to avoid an unnecessary and economically damaging sales-tax hike.” The LDP came out with “a fresh commitment to increase the tax to 10% from 8% in October.” Since Prime Minister Abe returned “to office in 2012, Japan has recorded its longest period of nominal growth since the country’s asset bubble burst in the early 1990s. Gains in Japan’s Topix stock index beat all large developed markets outside the U.S. over the same period. There is no pressing need to junk that promising record now.”
Tags: Abe, Asset bubble, Damaging, Fumbling, Growth, Japan, LDP, Sales-tax hike, Topix, U.S., Unnecessary
Bloomberg (April 10)
“India has so far been spared the kind of populist revolt that’s testing many rich Western democracies. It’s far from immune, however.” Whoever wins the upcoming election should “recognize that many of the conditions for a similar upheaval are in place — and that the best way to avoid it is to promote growth and opportunity through economic reform.”
Tags: Election, Growth, India, Populist revolt, Rich, Upheaval, Western democracies
Wall Street Journal (April 7)
“Friday’s solid labor report out to ease fears that the U.S. Economy is skidding toward recession…While growth has cooled, neither recession nor runaway inflation appear imminent.”
The Guardian (February 12)
“GDP growth slipped to its lowest since 2012, at 1.4%, down from 1.8% in 2017.” The UK’s dismal performance in 2018 gave the lie to “Philip Hammond’s claim that Britain can reap an economic dividend from Theresa May’s Brexit deal…as official figures confirmed the UK has suffered its worst year for GDP growth since 2012.”
Tags: Brexit, Dismal, Economic dividend, GDP, Growth, Hammond, May, Performance, UK
CNN (January 3)
“Evidence is mounting that the US-China trade war is dealing a blow to the American stock market. Stocks plunged on Thursday after Apple (AAPL) blamed a big sales miss on slowing growth in China and rising trade tensions. China’s massive manufacturing sector… has tumbled into contraction. And trade trouble helped fuel the biggest one-month decline in US factory activity since the Great Recession.”
Tags: Apple, China, Contraction, Decline, Evidence, Great Recession, Growth, Manufacturing, Plunged, Stock market, Tensions, Trade war, U.S.
Bloomberg (November 2)
China’s belt and road master plan “to project Chinese power, influence and trade across much of the world could well undermine all three.” The trillion-dollar global infrastructure scheme has gotten out of control. “A scaled-down, better-managed Belt and Road—guided more by economics and less by politics—should, as intended, promote growth and trade across the region and beyond. That would serve everybody’s interests.”
Tags: Belt and road, China, Economics, Growth, Influence, Infrastructure, Politics, Power, Trade
The Economist (October 13)
“Just a year ago the world was enjoying a synchronised economic acceleration. In 2017 growth rose in every big advanced economy except Britain, and in most emerging ones.” Today, “the story is very different” and America alone is still outperforming. “This week’s market volatility suggests time could be short. The world should start preparing now for the next recession, while it still can.”
Tags: Advanced, Economic acceleration, Emerging, Growth, Market volatility, Recession, U.S., UK
Institutional Investor (October 9)
In the U.S. many “asset management stocks are trading like ‘junk equity,’” despite the relatively buoyant market. And “given the lackluster potential for growth, traditional asset managers’ cheap valuations are unlikely to change soon.”
Tags: Asset management, Growth, Junk equity, Lackluster, Market, Potential, Stocks, U.S., Valuations
Wall Street Journal (October 3)
“Investors propelled bond yields to multiyear highs Wednesday as robust economic data and an easing of trade tensions across North America sparked fresh optimism about the global growth outlook. Wednesday’s bond rout sent the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, a closely watched barometer of investors’ sentiment toward growth and inflation, to its highest level since July 2011.”
Tags: Bonds, Economic data, Growth, Highs, Inflation, Investors, Optimism, Sentiment, Trade tensions, Treasuries, U.S., Yields
The Economist (September 22)
“Mr Abe may be burning to give Japan a more normal foreign policy, but what it needs most is a more normal economy. His signature policy—Abenomics—is far from complete. The fiscal and monetary expansion, his first two “arrows”, were supposed to buy time for the third and most important one: sweeping structural reforms, leading to enduring growth. The economy should take precedence over constitutional reform… Otherwise, Mr Abe will be remembered less for his long tenure than for wasting it.”
Tags: Abe, Abenomics, Arrows, Constitutional reform, Economy, Expansion, Fiscal, Foreign policy, Growth, Japan, Monetary, Structural reforms
