International Banker (December 18)
If Japan’s Financial Services Agency and the nation’s “asset-management industry work together to establish ‘customer-oriented business operations’, they may succeed in gaining the trust of retail investors, and the financial assets of Japanese households may finally show a visible shift from cash and deposits to securities.” Two decades of failed efforts starting with the Big Bang financial reform suggest “it will take much effort to gain the trust of retail investors, some of whom have experienced disappointing returns in the past. Unless the Japanese financial industry works harder than ever for customers’ interests, the goal of ‘savings to investments’ will turn out to be elusive once again.”
Tags: Asset-management industry, Big bang, Customer-oriented, Disappointing, Elusive, Failed, Financial assets, Financial Reform, FSA, Households, Investments, Japan, Retail investors, Securities, Trust
Financial Times (October 30)
Empty housing poses an increasing threat to both Japan and China. The former already grapples with surplus units while the latter “may already have enough housing to meet its future needs.” Nomura Research Institute has forecast that in Japan, “even as the number of empty units roughly doubles between 2023 and 2038, construction will add more than 8mn new ones.” Due to the rise of single person households, the total number of households will only peak next year. From that point, “the housing surplus will rise more acutely and the downward pressure on property prices strengthen.” The major demographic issue facing China, “may be how to avoid a Japan-style property crisis.”
Tags: China, Construction, Demographic, Downward pressure, Empty, Households, Housing, Japan, NRI, Peak, Property crisis, Surplus, Threat, Units
Barron’s (December 10)
As it attempts to address inflation without derailing the recovery (or worse), the Fed will be walking a tight rope. On the upside, “the banking system is now both better capitalized and less exposed to illiquidity risk than in the past.” Moreover, “both households and firms are in better shape to weather higher interest costs now than they were in 1981 or, indeed, other episodes of monetary tightening.”
Tags: Banking system, Capitalized, Derailing, Exposed, Fed, Firms, Households, Illiquidity, Inflation, Interest costs, Recovery, Risk
The Guardian (September 28)
“Queues at the petrol pumps are never a good look for a government. They are especially bad in a pandemic, when so many people already have reason to feel anxious.” Panic buying comes natural after “gas price rises that have led to around 2m households losing their energy supplier” and “empty shelves in supermarkets…. There is a palpable sense that Britain is careering from one crisis to another.”
Tags: Anxious, Careening, Crisis, Empty shelves, Energy, Gas, Government, Households, Pandemic, Petrol, Prices, Queues, Rises, Supermarkets
Chicago Tribune (November 17)
“Traveling, especially in airports or by public transit, is inherently risky when COVID-19 infections are high.” With many university students set to go on break, “concern remains that young adults crisscrossing the country might seed new infections in their home communities—or within their own households.”
Tags: Airports, Communities, COVID-19, Crisscrossing, Households, Infections, Public transit, Risk, Students, Traveling, University
Bloomberg (May 19)
“Australia’s success in curbing Covid-19 infections is allowing it to slowly ease some restrictions even as it remains largely closed off from the rest of the world, taking its economy back to the pre-globalization era.” Stimulating domestic consumption prove essential “to drive any rebound,” but complicated by consumer worries. “Even before Covid-19, Australian households were among the most indebted in the developed world, with debt almost double disposable income.”
Tags: Australia, Closed off, Consumption, COVID-19, Developed world, Economy, Households, Indebted, Pre-globalization, Restrictions, Success
Financial Times (December 19)
Concerns that lower oil prices will spark deflation are misplaced. “While lower oil prices will have a one-off arithmetic effect on the price level and hence reduce inflation, that should boost growth rather than retarding it. Lower oil prices…benefit households almost immediately,” essentially raising real incomes and stimulating demand.
Tags: Concerns, Deflation, Demand, Growth, Households, Inflation, Oil prices, Real incomes
Euromoney (November Issue)
Despite the relative success of recent stress tests, “the financial sector remains at the core of the eurozone’s economic woes. Weak corporates and overleveraged households continue to weigh on bank balance sheets and lenders across the region remain vulnerable to write-downs.” The “flimsy” stress tests failed to “address the underlying problems of bad credit that slow growth and lowflation are compounding…. The euro banking crisis remains.”
Tags: Bad credit, Balance sheets, Economic woes, Euro banking crisis, Financial sector, Households, Lenders, Lowflation, Overleveraged, Stress tests, Write-downs