June 28, 2005
Putin's Misguided Cheer
For a guy who used to work in one of the world’s deadliest spy organizations, Russian President Vladmir Putin seems to give a lot of slack to his new staff. How else could they be permitted to feed him such a distorted picture of economic reality?
Posted by Michelle Smith at 10:34 AM | Comments (1)
June 20, 2005
The "Other" Block
The EU has been the center of more than its fair share of hype lately. The constitution drama hogged headlines for days on end in May and June, and then the subsequent (and consequent) swings in the Euro sparked business media frenzies that have been active for over a month. Now the budget stalemate is setting up to fuel another solid round of publicity.
America seems to love watching the world’s integration guinea pig trip up.
Posted by Michelle Smith at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2005
Could you please pass the sake?
Japanese banks have been plagued by trouble for decades. So when good news came out last week that they had finally achieved a key loan performance target set three years ago, there was call for celebration.
Posted by Michelle Smith at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2005
The Indian Economy Express
All aboard! The Indian Economy is leaving the station. Away from archaic wastelands of textiles and agricultural goods, this sparkling new train is revving up to speed into a new world of prosperity where technology is king, standards of living are skyrocketing and rewarding employment is bountiful.
Posted by Michelle Smith at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2005
Ribbons for Mugabe
It’s a shame that there does not exist an award for “Best Dismantler of Markets”. Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe could use the dozens of first-place ribbons he would win to cheer up his otherwise drab charcoal suits.
Posted by Michelle Smith at 05:18 PM | Comments (1)
June 01, 2005
Another Failed Model
The poor economists. All that work sacrificing time for decent haircuts to shovel seas of data into massive spreadsheet models, and their theories still turn out to be wrong.
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article about the trade deficit was notice of yet another failure. The U.S. dollar has been on a decline for over 3 years now, which, according to the most basic tenets of macroeconomics, should mean that our appalling trade deficit should start improving. Thanks to steadfast American consumption, however, the deficit is still on track to exceed last year’s record of $617 billion.
$617 billion. That’s more than the entire GDP of Australia.
This news really irks the econ folks, because, according to their logic, if $6 used to buy us 2 pints of Irish Guinness and now it only buys us 1, we should be smart enough penny-pinchers to switch to good old American Budweiser. So why is the deficit still worsening?
Posted by Michelle Smith at 08:21 AM | Comments (1)