The Economist (April 19)
The dollar is meant to be a source of safety. Lately, however, it has been a cause of fear. Since its peak in mid-January the greenback has fallen by over 9% against a basket of major currencies.” Meanwhile, the yield on Treasuries has been rising. “That mix of rising yields and a falling currency is a warning sign: if investors are fleeing even though returns are up, it must be because they think America has become more risky,” which explains the rumors that “big foreign asset managers are dumping greenbacks.”
Tags: Asset managers, Basket, Dollar, Dumping, Falling, Fear, Fleeing, Greenbacks, Investors, Major currencies, Peak, Returns, Risky, Safety, Treasuries, Warning sign, Yields
The Economist (April 10)
“For a good few hours on April 9th, disaster beckoned. Share prices had been falling for weeks. Then the market for American Treasury bonds—normally among the safest assets available—started convulsing, too. The yield on ten-year Treasuries leapt to 4.5%…. That meant bond prices, which move inversely to yields, had cratered. The failure of both risky and supposedly safe assets at once threatened to destabilise the financial system itself.”
Tags: April 9, Bonds, Convulsing, Cratered, Destabilise, Disaster, Failure, Financial system, Market, Risky, Safe assets, Share prices, Threatened, Treasuries, U.S., Yield
Wall Street Journal (November 13)
“Foreclosures are surging in an opaque and risky corner of commercial real-estate finance, offering one of the starkest signs yet that turmoil in the property market is worsening.” Through just October, the Journal found notices for “mezzanine loans and other high-risk loans” had already more than doubled the number for all of 2022 and likely reached “the highest total ever for a single year, as higher interest rates and rising vacancies punish the property sector.”
Tags: Commercial, Finance, Foreclosures, Highest, Interest rates, Mezzanine loans, Property market, Real estate, Risky, Surging, Turmoil, Worsening
Washington Post (October 17)
“While Americans are leaving their jobs at staggering rates — a record 4.3 million quit in August alone — hundreds of thousands of workers with similar grievances about wages, benefits and quality of life are…choosing to dig in and fight.” Empowered by the Great Resignation, union action is up sharply in 2021. “Workers are now harder to replace, especially while many companies are scrambling to meet heightened demand for their products and manage hobbled supply chains. That has given unions new leverage, and made striking less risky.”
Tags: Benefits, Demand, Great Resignation, Grievances, Jobs, Leverage, Quality of life, Risky, Scrambling, Staggering, Striking, Supply chains, U.S., Unions, Wages, Workers
Washington Post (June 5)
“The Republican Party is full of people with no delusions about what an abominable president Trump is, but who see abandoning him as career suicide.” But a flood of defections may be nearing as they look for “a tipping point in their state or district when continuing to support Trump will become more politically risky than abandoning him. For some it may come fairly soon, since his disastrous failure to control the pandemic has now been followed by a widely condemned reaction to the protests against police brutality.”
Tags: Abandoning, Abominable, Condemned, Defections, Delusions, Disastrous, Failure, Pandemic, Protests, Reaction, Republican, Risky, Tipping point, Trump
CNBC (June 8)
U.S. President Donald Trump “is playing a risky game by weaponizing US economic power with tariffs…. What’s clear already is that friends and rivals are more interested than ever before in exploring alternatives to the U.S.-dominated system.” This won’t take place overnight, but “consistent overuse of U.S. economic power has made the unthinkable more plausible.”
Tags: Economic power, Plausible, Risky, Tariffs, Trump, U.S.-dominated system, Unthinkable, Weaponizing
Washington Post (May 11)
“Lord save the world…. President Trump is making rash and risky moves that promise either brilliant success or catastrophic failure. The odds aren’t great, “given that it’s Trump we’re dealing with.”
The Guardian (April 26)
“There is little chance of a concrete agreement of any kind resulting from the summit” between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in on April 27. “Beginning negotiations with a meeting between the two leaders, before any details have been hammered out, is always risky. The meeting will likely be followed by months, if not years, of negotiations at the lower levels before anything is signed.”
Tags: Agreement, Kim Jong Un, Moon Jae-in, Negotiations, North Korea, Risky, South Korea, Summit
Washington Post (November 5)
“While accompanied by the rhetoric of reform,” the purge in Saudi Arabia “resembles the approach of authoritarian regimes such as China. President Xi Jinping has used a similar anti-corruption theme to replace a generation of party and military leaders and to alter the collective leadership style adopted by recent Chinese rulers.” It remains to be seen whether the Crown Prince who’s pulling the strings, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), has bitten off too much or if he will succeed with this “very risky power play.”
Tags: Anti-corruption, Authoritarian, China, Crown Prince, MBS, Power play, Purge, Reform, Regimes, Rhetoric, Risky, Saudi Arabia, Xi
Washington Post (January 5)
“Saudi Arabia is a frightened monarchy.” That is both the root of the problem and the key to the solution. “What led Saudi Arabia to take these risky actions, and what U.S. policies might reduce the danger that the Middle East mess will get even worse? You can’t answer these questions without examining the Saudis’ insecurity, which has led them to make bad choices.”
Tags: Danger, Frightened, Insecurity, Middle East, Monarchy, Risky, Saudi Arabia, Solution, U.S.
