Draghi and the ECB Are Pumping Up Europe’s Economy—Will it Work?
Mario Draghi and the European Central Bank president’s announcement of new monetary measureslate last week is a shrewd contribution to the fight against sluggish growth and the now-chronic threat of deflation. The markets had figured for weeks that Mr. “Whatever…
Here’s Why China’s Not the Global Economy’s Problem
China’s new annual economic report, which Premier Li Keqiang unveiled to the National People’s Congress over the weekend, recognizes the problems associated with China’s fundamental transformation—notably the danger of unmanageable debt spread through the system—but lands on the side of optimism….
Misreading China Leads to Another Foolish Market Rout
As the global rout in stocks last week reminds us, markets are always reliable. We can count on investors to overreact to events they don’t understand, including a plump scapegoat like China. By the S & P Global Broad Market Index,…
3 Major Lessons From the China Crisis That Wasn’t
Now that the stock market has ended its foolish careening in response to China’s modest, sensible adjustment in its exchange-rate mechanism, where are we? To borrow from Donald Rumsfeld’s famous observation about defense planning, there’s what we know, what we…
Why a Drop in the Overvalued Yuan Won’t Start a Currency War
A week of mayhem in the financial markets, grandstanding lawmakers on Capitol Hill accusing China of “rigging the rules again”—all because the overvalued yuan depreciated toward a market rate in three dramatic trading sessions. Could we see some evidence of…
Why the Global Economy Could Go Off the Rails in 2014
You do not have to go far to hear that financial hard times are over in 2014. But no one looking around the global economy could possibly miss the work still undone. Some see potholes deep enough to send the…
Washington’s Mess Damages U.S. Global Standing
Nobody will ever put up a neon sign or a billboard announcing that the U.S. has taken another step toward decline in its global position. Neither is American decline inevitable, as the so-called “declinists” habitually assert. It is not. Decline…
The 3-Speed Global Economy Puts US in 2nd Gear
When the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank gather for theirspring meetings in Washington this week, there will be no pressing euro crisis to address, and that is more than one could say a year ago. But we could be…
As Europe Slowly Recovers, the US Heads off the Cliff
What at a year for the European Union. Europe has now fought its way through the worst of its fiscal crisis, and the year ahead will end up being more about recovery than austerity. It may seem strange to hoist…
How Long Will China’s Slowdown Hurt U.S. Markets?
China’s economy, after prolonged signs of weakness, now appears to be stabilizing. Good news? That is not clear, because it is stabilizing at a lower rate of growth. The great, big boom years—14.2 percent growth at their rosiest, in 2007—may…
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