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
Chicago Tribune (August 13)
“China’s adolescent angst” is to be expected. Apparent wealth and strength aside, “it’s helpful to keep some perspective on a place that was impoverished and practically irrelevant 35 years ago. Despite its size, the Chinese economy is still an underdeveloped work in progress, fumbling through the transition from closed communism to some form of market-driven capitalism.”
Tags: Adolescent, Angst, Capitalism, China, Communism, Economy, Fumbling, Impoverished, Transition, Underdeveloped
