Euromoney (November 29)
“The travails of Zhongzhi, a key player in China’s poorly regulated $3 trillion shadow financing market, underline why a future crisis in the country is more likely, not less.” The government “continues to let problems mount perilously before stepping in… and to kick cans down roads in the hope that unsteady local banks will resolve bad-debt woes or find their own way out of insolvency…. Eventually, one of these financial mini-crises will mutate into a real monster. One that it cannot control.”
Tags: $3 trillion, Bad-debt woes, Banks, China, Control, Crisis, Government, https://www.euromoney.com/article/2cile3c8qd50c9ovnnrwg/opinion/zhongzhi-shows-chinas-fear-of-losing-control Travails, Insolvency, Perilously, Poorly regulated, Shadow financing, Zhongzhi
Reuters (November 24)
“The German government is working hard to demonstrate the foolishness of the country’s iron-clad ban on large budget deficits.” Though it is suspending the “debt brake” for 2023, “the welcome relief is only temporary, and the harm is done. The budget crisis will cripple the economy for years to come.”
Tags: 2023, Ban, Budget deficits, Cripple, Crisis, Debt brake, Economy, Foolishness, German, Government, Harm, Iron-clad, Relief, Suspending, Temporary
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
Guardian (September 21)
“Europe’s apparent rightwards drift is not a fait accompli. But there is a risk that, as mainstream parties accommodate more and more of the radical right’s agenda, it becomes one. Years of austerity, followed by the pandemic and the Ukraine-related cost of living crisis, have led to chronic economic insecurity for less well-off Europeans. That has created an opening for ugly political movements and populist leaders to exploit.”
Tags: Austerity, Cost of living, Crisis, Economic insecurity, Europe, Exploit, Mainstream, Pandemic, Populist, Radical right, Rightwards, Risk, Ugly, Ukraine
The Guardian (September 8)
“Public opinion has swung away from Brexit, with more than half the country thinking it was wrong to leave the bloc. Crucially, a chunk of 2016 leave voters have changed their minds because Brexit hasn’t delivered either on promises that it would energise the economy or on reducing immigration. Rather, leaving the EU probably made the cost of living crisis worse.”
Tags: Brexit, Cost of living, Crisis, Economy, Energise, EU, Immigration, Leave voters, Promises, Public opinion, Wrong
Financial Times (March 15)
Silicon Valley Bank “was conveniently non-significant in life, but became systemically significant in death.” Looking ahead, “regulation of systemically significant banks must be extended throughout the system.” We’re reached a point where “even in a modest crisis deposits cannot be sacrificed, and rules on haircuts for provision of liquidity will go out of the window.” Since they stand “at the heart of the credit system,” banks must be regulated as “wards of the state.”
Tags: Credit system, Crisis, Deposits, Haircuts, Liquidity, Regulation, Rules, Sacrificed, Silicon Valley Bank, Systemically significant
Bloomberg (February 22)
“Unloved during the pandemic with their business paralyzed almost overnight, airlines that cut back to survive the crisis are now blowing through profit forecasts and luring back investors.” Surging demand amid a tight labor market may be grating for travelers, but “for investors, it means some of the airlines they own are generating more than twice as much revenue per worker than they were two years ago.”
Tags: Airlines, Business, Crisis, Investors, Pandemic, Paralyzed, Profit forecasts, Revenue per worker, Surging demand, Survive, Tight labor, Unloved
Oilprice.com (January 9)
“The last month has been a month of celebration in the European Union. Gas demand is down because of the unusually warm weather. As a result, prices are down, and the crisis, according to analysts, appears to be averted.” Nevertheless, “these prices are not going to go much lower for the very simple reason that LNG could never be as cheap as pipeline gas.”
Tags: Analysts, Averted, Celebration, Cheap, Crisis, Demand, Down, EU, Gas, LNG, Prices, Warm weather
Washington Post (December 21)
“China’s new covid nightmare could become a global catastrophe. The absence of a coherent fallback strategy” not only “threatens a fresh set of nightmares for its population, its economy and the Communist Party leadership. A new crisis could shake the whole world. As the Wuhan outbreak demonstrated three years ago, what begins in China does not necessarily stay there.”
Tags: China, Communist party, Covid, Crisis, Economy, Fallback strategy, Global catastrophe, Leadership, Nightmare, Outbreak, Population, Threatens, Wuhan
Foreign Policy (November 28)
After engineering “changes in China’s leadership succession rules so that he can preside over his country for life,” Xi is now confronting “a crisis that may come to be seen as an ideal test of the middle-income trap theory.” Deep down, Xi probably realizes “that at some point China’s political system will have to adapt for the country to continue to modernize” and avoid this trap. But for Xi, much like other “leaders who concentrate immense power in their own hands,” the problem is that “no moment ever quite looks like a good one to make serious, substantive change.”
Tags: Adapt, China, Concentrate, Crisis, Leaders, Leadership, Middle-income trap, Modernize, Political system, Power, Rules, Substantive change, Succession, Test, Xi
