Wall Street Journal (July 17)
In March, the Chinese Communist Party “set a GDP growth target range of 4.5% to 5% for the year, its most pessimistic since the 1990s.” Four months later, Beijing announced that “gross domestic product grew 4.3% year-on-year in inflation-adjusted terms in the April through June quarter.” That’s both “shockingly bad” and greatly exaggerated. “There’s accumulating evidence that the country’s true GDP growth rate may be zero, or that the economy is in outright recession.”
Tags: 1990s, Bad, CCP, Economy, Evidence, Exaggerated, GDP, Growth rate, Inflation adjusted, Pessimistic, Quarter, Target, Zero
Wall Street Journal (May 1)
In a “a potent symbol of the gathering fiscal stresses” facing America, “U.S. national debt now exceeds 100% of gross domestic product, crossing a once-unthinkable threshold, on the way toward breaking the record set in the wake of World War II.” On March 31, federal debt stood at $31.265 trillion and GDP for the year therein ended was $31.216 trillion.
Tags: 100, Debt, Fiscal stresses, GDP, Potent symbol, Record, Threshold, U.S., Unthinkable, WWII
Barron’s (April 5)
The global economy is in for a “crude awakening.” Even under the best (or least worst) scenario, the Iran “war will shave about a percentage point off global economic growth, taking it down to 2% this year. Growth forecasts for large, developed economies—Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom—were modest before the war at around 1%. If the conflict extends past June, GDP growth for these countries could evaporate, while inflation keeps rising.”
Tags: 2%, Conflict, Crude awakening, Developed economies, Economic growth, Forecasts, France, GDP, Germany, Global economy, Inflation, Iran war, Italy, Japan, Scenario, UK
The Week (March 18)
“In the immediate aftermath of Poland’s Communist collapse, the country was considered one of the most economically dire in Europe — but the status quo has changed in a major way. Poland now has the 20th largest economy in the world.” In 2025, GDP growth of 3.65% and economic output in excess of $1 trillion vaulted the nation over Switzerland and into the top 20.
Tags: $1 trillion, 2025, 20th, 3.65%, Aftermath, Communist collapse, Dire, Economy, Europe, GDP, Growth, Leapfrog, Output, Poland, Switzerland
Fortune (February 22)
“Four years after Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s economy has entered a ‘death zone.’” Former Russian central bank advisor Alexandra Prokopenko, currently a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, believes “the Russian economy is eating its own muscle to survive as Putin’s war on Ukraine destroys future capacity.” The economy might not be ”headed for an imminent crash, but GDP has stagnated, oil revenue has been halved amid Western sanctions, and the government’s budget deficit is rapidly draining reserves.”
Tags: Budget deficit, Central bank, Crash, Death zone, Economy, Future capacity, GDP, Government, Invasion, Oil revenue, Prokopenko, Putin, Reserves, Russia, Stagnated, Ukraine, Western sanctions
Financial Times (February 20)
Last year, “China’s global trade surplus in goods surpassed $1tn.” This year, the IMF is calling on China “to slash state support for industry as international concerns mount about overcapacity in the world’s second-largest economy.” The IMF estimates “China spent about 4 per cent of its GDP subsidising companies in critical sectors and said it should reduce that by 2 percentage points in the medium term.”
Tags: $1tn, China, Economy 4%, GDP, Global trade, Goods, IMF, Industry, International concerns, Overcapacity, State support, Subsidizing, Surplus
Fortune (February 6)
“The amount companies are spending on AI infrastructure now rivals that of some of the largest economies in the world and is comparable to the annual GDP of countries like Sweden and Israel.” Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft combined are expected to allocate “more than a staggering $630 billion” to CAPEX in 2026 for “such big-ticket infrastructure items as data centers, servers, and power systems that fuel the AI build-out race.”
Tags: $630 billion, 2026, AI, Alphabet, Amazon, CAPEX, Data centers, GDP, Infrastructure, Israel, Meta, Microsoft, Servers, Staggering, Sweden
Reuters (December 11)
“India’s blistering growth has a quality problem. GDP is speeding ahead at 8% in the world’s fifth-largest economy but the government is doing the heavy lifting on investment. Policymakers have spent years trying to coax companies into spending more, with limited success. The result: growth that looks fast but feels flimsy.”
Tags: 8%, Coax, Economy, FAST, GDP, Government, Growth, India, Investment, Policymakers, Quality, Spending, Success
The Guardian (November 15)
The Guardian and Carbon Brief found that “just a fifth of funds to fight global heating” actually “went to the world’s 44 poorest countries, known as the least developed countries (LDCs).” In contrast, “China and wealthy petrostates… are among countries receiving large sums of climate finance.” For example, the “UAE, a fossil fuel exporter with a GDP per capita on a par with France and Canada, received more than $1bn in loans from Japan that were logged as climate finance” while “Saudi Arabia, which is one of the top 10 carbon emitters…received about $328m in Japanese loans.”
Tags: $1bn, 44 LDCs, Canada, Carbon Brief, China, Climate finance Fossil fuel, Exporter, France, GDP, Global heating, Guardian, Japan, Loans, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Wealthy petrostates
Fortune (October 21)
“GDP estimates that show steady growth in the American economy may prove to be overly optimistic, Goldman Sachs warned, as a vacuum of data during the government shutdown may result in employment figures ultimately dragging down the optimistic outlook.”
Tags: Data, Economy, Employment figures, Estimates, GDP, Goldman Sachs, Government shutdown, Optimistic, Outlook, Steady growth, U.S., Vacuum, Warned
