The Economist (September 6)
“Insurgents who want to smash the system often end up running it.” Europe’s hard right is a threat to the economy and leading or polling strong in Britain, France and Germany. “In Italy they are in power; in the Netherlands they briefly led a coalition; and in Poland in June their presidential candidate saw off the nominee from the centre. By 2027 the hard right could be in office in economies worth getting on for half of European GDP.” The best case scenario is ” stagnation, at worst a bond-market rout.”
Tags: Bond-market rout, Britain, Economy, Europe, European GDP, France, Germany, Hard right, Insurgents, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Polling, Power, Smash, Stagnation, Threat
The Economist (November 23)
Across Asia a surprising and unwelcome phenomenon is arising: middle-class stagnation. Over the past three years, for example, 6 million Indonesians fell “into the ‘aspiring middle class,’” and are now “a stone’s throw away from poverty.” The nation’s middle-class population share dropped “to 17% from 22% before the pandemic.” This “middle-class malaise” is not restricted to Indonesia and may “shake up everything from profits to politics” throughout Asia.
Tags: 17%, 6 million, Asia, Aspiring, Indonesians, Malaise, Middle class, Pandemic, Politics, Population, Poverty, Profits, Stagnation, Surprising, Unwelcome
Fortune (September 18)
“Any prominent investor comparing China with Japan prior to its lost decades of stagnation ought to be alarming.” It’s even more alarming when it’s Ray Dalio, the founder of massive hedge fund, Bridgewater. Long known as China bull, he now “fears the property crisis in China has left local governments unable to service their debt by extracting equity through land sales” and that China’s economy now “faces problems as severe as Japan in 1990.”
Tags: Alarming, Bridgewater, China, Dalio, Debt, Economy, Equity, Founder, Hedge-fund, Investor, Japan, Local governments, Property crisis, Severe, Stagnation
The Guardian (March 13)
“The early signals show that the UK is on track to emerge from a minor recession within months, powered by a recovery in consumer spending amid resilient pay growth and receding inflation. But that isn’t to say the economy is racing ahead, or that a renaissance in living standards awaits…. The broader picture is still one of relative stagnation.”
Tags: Consumer spending, Economy, Emerge, Pay growth, Receding inflation, Recession, Recovery, Resilient, Signals, Stagnation, UK
Reuters (June 23)
“Chinese faith in the economy is shaken…. Those who thought property was a one-way winning bet are rushing to pay down mortgages. With industrial profits plunging, companies are exhibiting similar conservatism.” Confronting this “double whammy of depressed consumption and investment is raising fears of long-term stagnation similar to Japan’s ‘lost decade’ in the 1990s.” Without successful countermeasures, “China risks slowly slipping into the same outcome.”
Tags: China, Depressed consumption, Double whammy, Economy, Faith, Fears, Investment, Japan, Mortgages, Plunging, Profits, Property, Shaken, Stagnation
South China Morning Post (June 20)
The trade war between the U.S. and China “is pushing the world economy closer to the edge. The longer it goes on, the harder it will be to undo the damage,” which clearly already is being inflicted. “Compared to pre-2008 crisis levels, world economic growth has plummeted by half and is at risk of a long-term, hard-to-reverse stagnation. Returning to global integration and multilateral reconciliation could dramatically change the scenario.”
Tags: China, Crisis, Damage, Economic growth, Integration, Plummeted, Stagnation, Trade war, U.S., World economy
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.”
The Economist (June 11)
Like Japan, South Korea is also facing a major demographics challenge, especially if they can’t succeed in upping the percentage of working women. “With a fertility rate of around 1.2 babies per woman, South Korea’s labour force is set to shrink dramatically. If the country fails to make use of half its talent pool, stagnation looms. An OECD study estimated that if the labour-force participation rate for men and women was the same by 2030, GDP growth would increase by 0.9 percentage points annually. Since 2010 growth has fallen from 6.5% to 2.6%.”
Tags: Babies, Demographics, Fertility, GDP, Growth, Japan, South Korea, Stagnation, Working women
“Wall Street Journal (November 17)
“Japan is in recession for the fifth time in seven years, and the second time since Shinzo Abe returned to office three years ago. The energetic Prime Minister who promised to end his country’s stagnation is failing at the task. It’s time for a rethink.”
Financial Times (November 19)
“After three years of near stagnation and with unemployment stuck at double digit levels, it is increasingly clear that the eurozone’s political and economic crisis will intensify if there is no boost to growth.”
Tags: Crisis, Economic, eurozone, Growth, Political, Stagnation, Unemployment
