This will be my last blog post, at least for the foreseeable future. I have accepted a new job , one that will require a certain level of discretion. I am excited by its challenges: ‘Balanced and sustainable” growth is … Read More

Check out the following reports from Nouriel’s speech at a mining conference in Kalgoorlie, Australia: Telegraph - Nouriel Roubini Warns China Could Cause Commodity Price Slide Purchasing - Economist Says Price Hikes Likely in 2010 for Metals, Other Raw Materials … Read More

One of the biggest economic and political stories of this decade has been China’s emergence as the world’s biggest creditor country. At least in a ‘flow” sense. China’s current account surplus is now the world’s largest – and its government … Read More

Qing Wang of Morgan Stanley: “Given China’s high national savings rate, from the perspective of the economy as a whole, there are only three forms in which China can deploy its savings: 1) onshore physical assets; 2) offshore physical assets; … Read More

Coinciding with this week’s release of RGE Monitor’s updated 2009/10 Global Economic Outlook, here we present an overview of our European Economic Outlook, including the Nordics, the Baltics and Central and Eastern Europe. Previous newsletters addressed RGE’s U.S. outlook , … Read More

Is now rather obvious. The dollar goes down as well as up. Last fall, demand for dollars rose — in part because Americans pulled funds out of the rest of the world faster than foreigners pulled funds out of the … Read More

China’s latest surge in reserves – a surge that look its total holdings over two trillion dollars – didn’t really register in the financial media. China’s first trillion was a big story. The second trillion, not so much. It generated … Read More

One of the questions raised by the expansion of sovereign wealth funds – back when sovereign funds were growing rapidly on the back of high oil prices and Asian countries’ increased willingness to take risks with the reserves – was … Read More

The goods news: the US trade deficit has shrunk. On a rolling 12m basis the trade deficit is down to around $500 billion, and the data from the last few months suggests that it should fall even further. The bad … Read More

Most reporting on the May trade data tried to fit it into the “green shoots” meta-narrative, thanks to the small uptick in exports. Never mind that total exports were about equal to their level in March even after the May … Read More