A decoupling of emerging markets from the struggling developed world is a myth, as we saw in 2011 when euro and US shocks caused a sell-off in EM currencies, including in Latin America. Next year could be rough as global growth slows. Countries from Brazil to China are rushing to …
The debt dynamics equation was in the past of interest only to sovereign credit analysts (such as this blogger) and macro policy wonks. Now, more people want to know about it. You can generate such an equation that is elaborate or not, but the gist is the following: The primary budget surplus, that is, government …
If you are one of the few to hold a high place in the Chinese Communist Party life has to be good. You are running one of the world’s greatest powers and you don’t have to worry about elections next Fall, or the next Fall, or the…However, there …
Iran is back in the news again: bungled attempt to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US on American territory, IAEA’s upcoming report which is expected to detail how the Islamic Republic is working toward a nuclear weapon’s program, President Ahmadinejad’s growing feud with the Supreme Leader, and …
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a piece detailing some of the methods behind China’s expansion into the African continent. The informative article not only does a nice job detailing specific cases of African and Chinese government business partnerships, but ties in how what is being exchanged it …
When eminent scholar Walter Russell Mead tackles a subject he does not do it on the cheap. One of his latest long articles attempts to discern the current trajectory of Turkey’s foreign policy and he takes his readers through quite a ride. Mead, an …
The TARP covered banks across the nation
The US government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was such a success that it not only saved America’s financial system, with the help of the Federal Reserve, it also saved the global economy AND turned a …
With right-wing Republican presidential candidates these days either calling for the Fed to be abolished (Ron Paul) or simply calling the nation’s central bank “treasonous” (Rick Perry), thinking citizens should at least be concerned about the Fed’s activities. I defended the Fed on …
The Union of South American Nations
Will the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) and its monetary fund, Banco del Sur, be successful?
It has been difficult for emerging markets to diversify their sources of balance of payments (BOP) support. During the 1997-98 Asian crisis, the shame such …
The following post is an edited version of an article that appeared in the Jerusalem Post earlier this month by Pinchas Landau, author of The Landau Report, a newsletter and consultancy service addressing the needs of foreign firms and financial institutions active in Israel and the …
With America’s latest market crash, the debt debate seems so ‘last week’ (hey, it was last week!), there is still much to learn from the tumultuous process. Niall Ferguson attempts to provide an outside perspective on the whole debt limit battle. It’s a pretty important outside perspective too; …
It’s not exactly yellow cake, but the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the US Treasury Department accused Iran of aiding and partnering with Al Qaeda:
The U.S. for the first time formally accused Iran of forging an agreement with al Qaeda, helping operatives move money, arms and fighters …
I just spent my Saturday morning doing some solid nerding. By that I mean, I read two great articles about that rising behemoth, China. The first was ‘China’s Bumpy Road Ahead by international consultant and geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer. Bremmer, has a blog at Foreign Policy …
Preeminent international relations scholar G. John Ikenberry’s article ‘A World of Our Making‘ is his latest piece defending and promoting the extension of the liberal world order. Ikenberry is a strong believer in international norms and institutions that have been building since the end of World War II …
Just as I was finishing the Kissinger/Nixon ‘Detente’ chapter of John Lewis Gaddis’ “Strategies of Containment“, I came across this excerpt from Henry Kissinger’s new book “On China”. Kissinger, whose strategic leadership comes across very well in Gaddis’ book, dishes about his …
