Financial Repression

While the Chinese government must rebalance its economy away from export and investment-led growth towards household consumption-led growth, the problem is that the combination of low wages, low interest rates on savings and an undervalued currency all conspire to keep the household share of Chinese GDP spectacularly low, constraining household spending. Reversing all these policies…

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Vicious Volatility

On days like today when stocks, bonds, precious metals, commodities and emerging markets all fall, portfolio diversification, doesn’t help. Remember that. Separately, financial markets have wiped out all of May and June’s gains not because QE3 will end, but because participants are unconvinced that the economy can withstand higher interest rates without slowing. And that…

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