Institutional Investor (September 3)
“Is 3 percent economic growth a thing of the past?” In the U.S., “gross domestic product (GDP) growth has averaged 3 percent a year since 1960, but only 2.1 percent since the global financial crisis ended in 2009.” Economists increasingly think that “sluggish labor force expansion and productivity may stymie the kind of U.S. economic growth seen in the second half of the 20th century.” Many now “expect growth of about 2 percent to prevail for the next decade.”
Tags: Economists, Expansion, GDP, Global financial crisis, Growth, Labor force, Productivity, Stymie, U.S.
New York Times (August 30)
“Economic fundamentals today are no different than they were before the market took a walk on the wild side.” The U.S. economy is “growing at 2.5 percent. At that modest pace, the United States cannot be of much help if other economies falter. But it can rebound from a market swoon, at least for now.”
Tags: Economy, Fundamentals, Growth, Market, Market swoon, Modest, Pace, Rebound, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (June 3)
“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to restart productivity growth and unlock value in Japanese companies is toppling the shibboleths of Japan Inc.” His corporate governance reforms seem to mark “a turning point. Japan’s corporate chieftains must realize that as Japan’s population ages, it will draw down savings. That means companies need to attract foreign capital and go abroad to seek new markets. Both require global best practices of corporate governance.”
Tags: Abe, Foreign capital, Global best practices, Governance, Growth, Japan, Markets, Population, Productivity
Institutional Investor (May 23)
“After a stronger than anticipated consumer inflation released in the U.S. on Friday, Janet Yellen dampened investors’ hopes that the Federal Reserve would delay a rate increase until next year.” Her underlying message was “that recent setbacks in economic data do not appear to represent a roadblock to growth despite labor conditions that remain fragile.”
Financial Times (April 14)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its biannual forecast. Among the predictions, “India is expected to outperform China in growth for the first time in 16 years.”
Wall Street Journal (April 13)
“We need to get used to slower Chinese growth,” writes former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. He adds that “if, as Beijing has promised, the slowdown is accompanied by deep and serious structural reform that opens up new growth opportunities, such as allowing the private sector to compete against state monopolies in service sectors like banking and telecommunications, then China will still grow robustly compared with all other major economies.”
Tags: Banking, Beijing, China, Competition, Growth, Monopolies, Paulson, Private-sector, Slowdown, Structural reform, Telecommunications
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
Washington Post (March 11)
An “epidemic of stagnant wages” continues in the U.S. despite robust job growth. In February, the “official unemployment fell to its lowest rate since early 2008. Wages, however, increased by an anemic 0.1 percent. Over the previous 12 months, they increased just 2 percent. Factoring in inflation, they’ve barely increased at all.”
Tags: Growth, Inflation, Jobs, Stagnant wages, U.S., Unemployment
Institutional Investor (March 10)
“China’s red-hot growth inevitably has to cool given that it has already overbuilt and overborrowed. China’s debt load has exploded four-fold since 2007, largely on the back of shadow banking and a real estate boom.” China’s total debt load (estimated at 282% of GDP by McKinsey) now “tops debt loads in the U.S., Germany, Australia and other developed countries. China’s corporate debt amounts to 125 percent of GDP.”
Tags: Australia, Boom, China, Debt load, GDP, Germany, Growth, McKinsey, Overborrowed, Overbuilt, Real estate, Shadow banking, U.S.
Bloomberg (March 8)
“China’s second interest-rate cut in three months has raised fears that the government is trying to devalue the yuan to give its exports an unfair boost — an understandable suspicion.” In this case, however, “lower interest rates and a moderately weaker yuan make sense not just for China but for the rest of the world as well.” These factors should help Chinese leaders achieve their “soft landing” growth target of 7%. “The rest of the world no less than China needs this soft landing to be smoothly accomplished.”
Tags: China, Devalue, Exports, Government, Growth, Interest rate, Soft landing, Yuan
