October 20, 2004
Capital FlowsI don’t expect many journalists will delve into it, but the IMF staff report on Iraq is a fountain of information. My favorite number: in 2004, the amount Iraq will spend importing (yes, importing) …
November 6, 2004
Some facts: 1) In 2003, Japan increased its reserves by $200 billion, emerging Asia by $245 billion. The world as whole increased its reserves by $500 billion, so Asia accounted for most of the worl…
November 20, 2004
United StatesOne of the world’s ironies is that even as John Snow putters on about how currency values should be set by market forces, the market -- or at least the private market -- is now playing a comparativel…
December 11, 2004
United StatesMy harping on the fact that US economic policy now has to pass a global test is not simply meant to score rhetorical points. I suspect that the same folks who financed the expansion of the US curren…
December 6, 2004
Financial MarketsIt looks like John Snow did Andy Card one last favor before stepping aside: late on Friday, the Treasury quietly issued the annual foreign currency report. To no one’s surprise, the report declared …
January 10, 2005
United StatesKevin Drum brought the latest National Review "trade deficits do not matter" article to my attention today. I learned a few things, namely that Steven Roach is part of a media misinformation campaig…
November 22, 2004
You could sort of see this headline coming: China tells the US to put its house in order. Lenders never like receiving lectures on sound economic policy from their borrowers. John Snow might have …
November 15, 2004
With apologies to Philip Coggan, I plagarized his FT headline from a few days ago -- he asked the same question as Brad DeLong, namely, why aren’t big bets from big macro hedge funds driving the doll…
January 3, 2005
Budget, Debt, and DeficitsEdmund Andrews of the New York Times provides the Rosetta stone that lets us decipher the Bush Administration’s plan to cut the deficit, which seems to be a plan to pretend to cut the deficit. Here i…
March 4, 2005
Emerging MarketsI do not expect to consistently agree with the oped page of the Wall Street Journal. But I do not think it is too much to ask that the columnists on oped page of the Journal try to square their argu…