December 18, 2004
My nominations.The renminbi-dollar at 8.28 renminbi per dollar -- a price that puts China’s per capita income at around, only a bit above Iraq’s per capita income. The ten year US government treasury…
November 23, 2004
Isn’t that what leaving any increase in deficit associated with partial privatization of social security off the books implies?Bush’s formula on the dollar in Santiago emphasized the need to control …
April 18, 2005
Financial MarketsDan Drezner has an interesting post up, laying out the components of a "serious" approach to encouraging (or pressuring) China to change its exchange rate peg. He nicely lays out the options, thoug…
April 11, 2005
United StatesAltogether, the circumstances seem to be as dangerous and intractable as any I can remember, and I can remember quite a lot. What really concerns me is that there seems to be so little willingness o…
May 12, 2005
United StatesThe market seems to have concluded that there is no need to put any pressure on the US to reduce its large external deficits. The dollar is up, at least against the euro. So is the renminbi for th…
June 21, 2005
Emerging MarketsThe Wall Street Journal oped page clearly has discovered the joys of post-modernism. Facts are a social construction -- and inconvenient facts can be changed to fit your preferred narrative.That is…
May 18, 2005
ChinaI sometimes find grand geostrategic commentary a bit amusing, in part because there is so little overlap between geostratists and economists. I think Tom Barnett gets some aspects of the global flo…
December 8, 2004
Politics and GovernmentIf you were John Snow, would you stay knowing that you were at best the President’s second choice?Do DC’s conservative activists really value tax cuts more than financial stability? And does their op…
August 10, 2005
United StatesI am a big fan of Robert (Bob) Rubin, so if I cannot be Brad, Bob is not a bad second choice. The US has racked up a deficit of around $2,247bn (€1,821bn, £1,260bn) since 2001 without suffering …
October 28, 2005
United StatesThat is one of many interesting issues raised by Times selectman Floyd Norris today. As Norris notes, Alan Greenspan never had half the power people thought he had. All he does is set short-term (cr…