Washington Post (February 13)
President Trump released his very own “comic book” in the form of a budget. Candidate Trump boasted “he would ‘get rid of the $19 trillion in debt . . . over a period of eight years,’” but his budget would add $7 trillion to the debt over a decade — $2 trillion in the next two years alone — and even those numbers are based on the peculiar assumption that the economy will never again go into recession.” That’s only the beginning. His comic-book budget goes onto shred many of the bold promises Trump once made.
The Guardian (July 17)
“Desperate with hope,” many Brits are “drawn to the crescendo of signals that Brexit can’t and won’t happen, to stories that say the sheer impossibility of leaving the EU gets clearer by the day.” The signals are everywhere. “Fall off the EU cliff and put a third of our just-in-time food supply at risk. No flying to the EU, warns Ryanair, as easyJet moves its new HQ to Austria….car sales are down 10%, credit card debt up 10%, wages are falling behind rising inflation.” Yet even as the UK’s economy “sinks, while the EU’s charges ahead,” there is no guarantee that Brexit will ultimately prove reversible.
Tags: Austria, Brexit, Car sales, Credit cards, Debt, Desperate, EasyJet, Economy, EU, Food supply, Hope, HQ, Ryanair, UK, Wages Inflation
Chicago Tribune (April 24)
President Trump is now talking about “a ‘massive tax cut’ for businesses and individuals.” He even said it would likely be “bigger” than “any tax cut ever.” Simplistic boasts may be exciting, but they are dangerous. “Here’s the thing: Trump, who used the word ‘massive’ 12 times in that AP interview, forgot to mention a huuuuge caveat about tax reform efforts: They are devilishly difficult to pull off. Cutting taxes without adding trillions to the federal debt is especially hard to do.”
Tags: Boasts, Businesses, Dangerous, Debt, Huuuuge, Individuals, Massive, Tax cut, Trump
CNBC (October 6)
“The world is awash with $152 trillion dollars of debt, according to the IMF, an all-time high which sits at more than double the balance at the start of this century.” In 2002, debt represented 200% of global GDP. At the end of 2015, this figure had risen to 225% and “signifies the extent to which increases in borrowing have outpaced economic growth during the period.”
Tags: Borrowing, Debt, Economic growth, GDP, IMF
Reuters (September 1)
“Activity in China’s manufacturing sector unexpectedly expanded at its fastest pace in nearly two years in August as construction boomed, suggesting the economy is steadying in response to stronger government spending.” The strong performance “may reinforce growing views that China’s central bank will be in no hurry to cut interest rates or banks’ reserve requirements, for fear of adding to high debt levels or fuelling asset bubbles.”
Tags: Asset bubbles, Boom, China, Construction, Debt, Economy, Government, Interest rates, Manufacturing, Pace, Reserves, Spending, Steadying
Financial Times (June 7)
“Given today’s high level of public sector debt and worsening demographics, it is inevitable that governments will resort to soft forms of default, including inflation, to escape from their fiscal straitjacket. This is a world in which elderly savers will be condemned to subsidise borrowers for a long time.”
Tags: Borrowers, Debt, Default, Demographics, Elderly, Governments, Inevitable, Inflation, Public sector, Savers
Financial Times (May 20)
“The plunge in yields on corporate and sovereign bonds in Europe and Asia — the value of bonds with a negative yield is nearly $10tn, according to Fitch — has sent investors racing into the US market.” This surging demand “has allowed companies to issue debt at lower yields, though US yields are still more attractive than in other parts of the world.”
Tags: Asia, Bonds, Corporate, Debt, Demand, Europe, Fitch, Investors, Negative yield, Plunge, Sovereign, U.S., Yields
Washington Post (May 16)
The rapidly deflating Hanergy is being called China’s Enron. “The question now, though, is how much the rest of China’s economy has come down with Hanergy syndrome, papering over problems with debt until they can’t be anymore. And the answer might be a lot more than anyone wants to admit.”
Bloomberg (February 23)
“For Chinese leaders, the need to prop up faltering GDP growth outweighs fears about a rapid buildup in debt.” New loans from banks were 70% higher in January than a year prior. “Debt now tops 230 percent of GDP and could reach as high as 300 percent of GDP if current trends continue…. Even the Bank for International Settlements, a body not known for hyperbole, has warned that Chinese debt is reaching levels that typically trigger financial crises.”
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.
