New York Times (November 9)
Brazil “had been on an upward trajectory, that seemed to have shaken off the legacy of instability.” Instead, it “suffered a terrible recession and is experiencing a very slow recovery.” The nation “appears to have been hit by a perfect storm of bad luck and bad policy: The global environment deteriorated sharply…. Domestic private spending also plunged… Policy, instead of fighting the slump, exacerbated it.”
Tags: Bad luck, Bad policy, Brazil, Instability, Perfect storm, Recession, Recovery, Spending
The Economist (October 13)
“Just a year ago the world was enjoying a synchronised economic acceleration. In 2017 growth rose in every big advanced economy except Britain, and in most emerging ones.” Today, “the story is very different” and America alone is still outperforming. “This week’s market volatility suggests time could be short. The world should start preparing now for the next recession, while it still can.”
Tags: Advanced, Economic acceleration, Emerging, Growth, Market volatility, Recession, U.S., UK
Foreign Policy (October 2)
“A no-deal Brexit will destroy the British economy. The magical wing of the Conservative Party believes that Britain can crash out of the European Union painlessly. It is leading the country into a recession.”
Tags: Brexit, British economy, Conservative Party, Crash, EU, No-deal, Recession, UK
New York Times (August 9)
The $30 trillion U.S. stock market hogs the attention, but “the larger domestic debt market—at around $41 trillion for the bond market alone—reveals more about our nation’s financial health. And right now, the debt market is broadcasting a dangerous message: Investors, desperate for debt instruments that pay high interest, have been overpaying for riskier and riskier obligations…. with little concern that bonds can be every bit as dangerous to own as stocks.” The mispricing of risk is still rampant and when spreads rise and defaults begin, “trillions of dollars in invested capital could be lost.” Although, we’re not necessarily “on the verge of a recession. But the corporate debt bubble inevitably will play a role in causing it.”
Tags: Bonds, Bubble, Dangerous, Debt market, Desperate, Interest, Investors, Mispricing, Overpaying, Recession, Riskier, Stock market, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (May 17)
“American women are having children at the lowest rate on record, with the number of babies born in the U.S. last year dropping to a 30-year low…. The figures suggest that a number of women who put off having babies after the 2007-09 recession are forgoing them altogether.” This could spell trouble as America’s aging population is already “creating a funding imbalance that strains the social safety net that supports the elderly.”
Tags: Aging, Babies, Children, Elderly, Funding, Population, Recession, Safety net, U.S., Women
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.
Businessweek (September 13)
“As Putin prepares to run for a fourth term in elections next March, the plight of his working-class base across the Russian heartland is emerging as a top domestic challenge.” There’s little doubt Putin will win, “but the discontent threatens Putin’s popularity as the economy continues to sputter. After the longest recession in his 17-year rule, real incomes have fallen 12 percent over the past three years, sparking protests in areas that provided solid backing for Putin in 2012.”
Tags: Discontent, Economy, Elections, Heartland, Incomes, Popularity, Protests, Putin, Recession, Russia, Working class
Institutional Investor (February 6)
Legendary bond investor Bill Gross believes the “$12 trillion now held by central banks is a permanent fixture of global finance, acting a bit like methadone. Methadone manages the craving, but does little to end the patient’s addiction.” He also posits that the U.S. would be in recession if it were not for the easing measures of the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan.
Reuters (October 18)
International sanctions are hitting Russia hard. “Though the Kremlin shows no sign of backing down, it remains unclear whether Russia’s struggling economy can support its global aspirations. Moscow’s 2014 invasion of eastern Ukraine sparked a major recession. Economists have been looking in vain for signs of recovery ever since.”
Tags: Economists, Economy, Global aspirations, Kremlin, Moscow, Recession, Recovery, Russia, Sanctions, Struggling, Ukraine
Bloomberg (August 3)
Japan’s new proposal for stimulus “might win a few halfhearted cheers from Japan’s battered consumers, but it’s unlikely to have much of an effect. First, it’s just another in a long series of such moves, none of which have done much to jog the country out of its long, grinding stagnation.” While it “might keep the economy from falling into a recession…it’s unlikely to alter the anemic trends of recent years.”
