The internal documents of the European Commission reveal the disgraceful attempts to push for higher levels of commitments in trade in industrial goods and agricultural products, services and investment liberalisation, geographical indications and government procurement under the proposed India-EU free trade agreement. Since 2007, India and EU have been negotiating a free trade pact, officially … Read more
“Nearly every environmental policy hurts the poor the most,” say Iain Murray and David Bier of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Writing recently in the Washington Examiner, they don’t limit their criticism to absurdities like federal tax credits for the $100,000 plug-in Fisker Karma (“a bold expression of uncompromised responsible luxury.”) The two analysts have it … Read more
Well, the latest batch of EU interim growth forecasts are out, and there are few surprises after so much prior comment. The Euro Area as a whole is expected to contract, but of course within the aggregate contraction some will fare rather better than others. “The EU is set to experience stagnating GDP this year, … Read more
Guess which US bank holds assets equal to a fifth of US GDP.Now guess what percent of its assets have extremely long maturities, greater than ten years: a) 10%; b) 20%; c) 30%; d) 40%; e) 50%. Answer: The Fed, and e) 50% of its assets have ten years or more to maturity. Recap. The … Read more
Crude oil prices this week reached their highest level since last April. What will that mean for U.S. consumers at the gas pump? The first question to be clear on is which crude oil price we’re talking about. Two of the popular benchmarks are West Texas Intermediate, traded in Oklahoma, and North Sea Brent. Historically … Read more
Yves here. The release by San Francisco county assessor-recorder Phil Ting of a study of document irregularities in foreclosures has put a spotlight on the failure of Federal banking regulators and state officials to do anything beyond cursory examinations of servicers’ bad practices. If a country official with limited resources can show that there are … Read more
There’s a lot of pushback anytime someone points the finger at banks. As I’ve argued for a couple of years now, virtually all recent foreclosures really amount to theft. The banks have no legal standing to take homes. They created the MERS monster, which destroyed the chain of title and “lost” all the documents. That … Read more
This posting is from the January 30 issue of my newsletter, and so ignores recent events in Chongqing, but of course those events make my discussion of the political debate entry all the more relevant, I think. Before getting to the policy debate, I want to mention that in late January Caixin, one of my favorite magazines, … Read more
Yesterday I was on China Radio International (CRI) talking about the latest figures and trends for the Chinese economy: the drop in real estate, record bank profits, weak trade and PMI data, and persistent inflation. The overarching question was whether the perceived slowdown in China’s economy is real, and how worried we should be about … Read more
Short answer: yes, as long as global trade growth is negligible. Over the weekend I came across a December CEPR paper about the Latvian economy. Authors Mark Weisbrot and Rebecca Ray highlight the Latvian experience with internal devaluation, which may prove to be a case study for the current Eurozone model of internal devaluation by the … Read more