Wall Street Journal (July 19)
“As China’s factory-gate prices soared this year, investors worried the country would become a new source of inflation for the rest of the world. Instead, the world’s second-largest economy has helped alleviate some price pressures caused by the pandemic.” Many Chinese factories have been “absorbing higher costs for raw materials like copper and iron ore themselves.” It appears this will continue “at least for a while.”
Tags: Absorbing, Alleviate, Copper, Factories, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-is-helping-to-damp-global-inflation-11626616802?cx_testId=200&cx_testVariant=cx_10&cx_artPos=5#cxrecs_s China, Inflation, Investors, Pandemic, Price pressures, Prices, Raw materials, Worried
SeekingAlpha (May 30)
“It’s dawning on many investors that our post-Covid financial problems may not be as easily solved as Washington claims. The latest clue that trouble is brewing has come from the sudden and dramatic arrival of inflation. On May 12, it was revealed that the Consumer Price Index… had risen 4.2% year-over-year, the fastest pace since 2008.”
Tags: 4.2%, Brewing, CPI, Fastest, Financial problems, Inflation, Investors, Post-Covid, Solved, Trouble
The Week (May 23)
In April, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose more sharply than it has in 13 years, “putting data behind the warnings that many economists and businesses have been issuing for weeks.” Inflation is dramatically here. “The question is how long it will stay.” The increase may stem from random coincidences (like a pipeline shut down and insufficient chip supply) or they could be transient symptoms of economic rebooting. But the upward swing might also prove harbinger of runaway inflation to come.
Tags: April, Businesses, Chip supply, CPI, Economists, Increase, Inflation, Pipeline, Random, Rebooting, Transient, Warnings
Bloomberg (February 26)
“After weeks of grumbling, the world’s biggest bond market spoke loud and clear Thursday — growth and inflation are moving higher. The message wreaked havoc across risk assets…. Speculation is building that a year of emergency stimulus is not only working, but has left some areas of the economy at risk of one day overheating.”
Tags: Bond market, Economy, Emergency stimulus, Growth, Grumbling, Havoc, Higher, Inflation, Overheating, Risk assets, Speculation
Reuters (December 16)
With Mark Carney on the way out, the next Governor of the Bank of England will need to “believe in magic…. If all goes well, he or she will not only face the developed world’s current issues of stubbornly low inflation rates, easy credit and climate change. If Brexit also goes wrong, the new bank chief will also need some preternatural gifts.”
Tags: BOE, Carney, Climate change, Developed world, Easy credit, Governor, Inflation, Magic, UK
Financial Times (September 13)
Mario Draghi and the ECB have done their part, but “Germany will wait until it is too late before providing a measurable fiscal stimulus.” This is the optimal “time for Europe to invest in its future,” with low inflation, zero cost of borrowing and fiscal surpluses. “German leaders know this,” but fear alarming “the good burghers of Munich, Hamburg and Frankfurt. Were recession to provoke a full-blown euro-zone crisis, Berlin would of course act…. But do not expect Germany to dispatch the fire brigade before the flames have fully taken hold. What a waste.”
Tags: Borrowing, Crisis, Draghi, ECB, Euro zone, Fiscal stimulus, Germany, Inflation, Recession, Surpluses
Wall Street Journal (August 31)
Another recession “could be devastating for people who have only just recovered.” The record long U.S. expansion “has showered” the top 1% of households with “staggering new wealth,” but bypassed others. “The bottom half of all U.S. households, as measured by wealth, have only recently regained the wealth lost in the 2007-2009 recession and still have 32% less wealth, adjusted for inflation, than in 2003…. If another recession comes, it could be devastating.”
Financial Times (April 16)
“More than a third of Russians cannot afford to buy two pairs of shoes a year, and 12 per cent use an outdoor or communal toilet at home,” according to Russias statistics agency, Rosstat. These and other findings underscore “deepening economic gloom as tepid growth, five years of falling real incomes, high inflation, rising taxes and cuts to social handouts squeeze people.”
Tags: Afford, Economic gloom, Handouts, Inflation, Real incomes, Russia, Shoes, Statistics, Taxes, Tepid growth, Toilet
The Economist (April 13)
Though relatively new, Central Bank independence has become sweeping. “In a single generation billions of people around the world have grown used to low and stable inflation and to the idea that the interest rates on their bank deposits and mortgages are under control.” Increasingly, it looks like that independence may be a short-lived. Today, the success of central banks “is threatened by a confluence of populism, nationalism and economic forces that are making monetary policy political again.”
Tags: Bank deposits, Central banks, Independence, Inflation, Interest rates, Mortgages, Nationalism, Populism
Wall Street Journal (October 3)
“Investors propelled bond yields to multiyear highs Wednesday as robust economic data and an easing of trade tensions across North America sparked fresh optimism about the global growth outlook. Wednesday’s bond rout sent the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, a closely watched barometer of investors’ sentiment toward growth and inflation, to its highest level since July 2011.”
Tags: Bonds, Economic data, Growth, Highs, Inflation, Investors, Optimism, Sentiment, Trade tensions, Treasuries, U.S., Yields
