Helping you navigate the new normal
Large economies are like supertankers. There are no brakes to use if you want to change direction in a hurry. Instead, you have to put the engine into reverse, and hope you can slow down fast enough to avoid the rocks. That is what happened in China last month, as the new leadership began to […]
A year ago, the blog suggested that financial markets were reaching their most dangerous ‘melt-up’ stage, driven by investor complacency about the ability of central banks to protect them from any downturn. This analysis was confirmed in November, when absurdly high prices were paid for works of modern art, smashing previous records. Gillian Tett of the Financial Times (another of […]
China’s property market is the epicentre of the global debt bubble discussed yesterday. It has been red-hot since urban residents became free to buy their own home in 1998. Before then, they lived where the state told them. With interest rates held low to boost state-funded infrastructure spending, people had few options for investing their money. The […]