Commentary At the beginning of the year, many economists had predicted that the COVID “great re-opening” of China would spur domestic spending and the consumer sector. Following years of periodic lockdowns, the hope is that consumers would roar out of the gates to offset slowdowns in traditional growth areas such as manufacturing and real estate….
Chinese Economy Now in Deep Peril
Inflation Is the Least of Our Problems
Commentary The Federal Open Market Committee’s unanimous decision on Wednesday not to raise the federal funds rate, which banks charge each other for overnight loans, has champagne corks popping in some quarters, where it is hailed as evidence of the long-in-coming conquest of inflation; while others see Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell turning chicken in…
Franchise Businesses, DEI, and Wall Street: FTC to the Rescue?
Commentary The promise of franchise businesses is that any schmuck with the money to buy one, the grit to do it, and the extraordinary work ethic required to run a business can be successful—and even become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. No highfalutin Ivy League college degree (let alone an MBA!) to succeed in business;…
The Coming Mild Recession
Commentary Debate on recession prospects has three sides. One points to still strong jobs growth and contends that the economy will avoid recession altogether. A second side contends that the jobs numbers are misleading and that a recession is imminent. Yet a third splits the difference, arguing that a recession will wait until 2024. Forecasting…
Stop Crypto Crime of Rogue States Like China by Banning Cryptocurrency
Commentary North Korea stole over $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency, which funds approximately 50 percent of its nuclear weapons development, according to a Wall Street Journal report on June 11. The massive crypto haul is in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars that the rogue state, supported by Russia and China, has stolen or…
Phillips Curve Breaks Down Under High Inflation
Commentary International organizations such as International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED) have revised upward their economic forecasts in turn. Were their forecast updates correct, this would mean the global tightening is not strong enough, and probably not enough to bring down inflation to the 2 percent…
Tesla Is the New Energy Infrastructure Company
News Commentary Detroit rivals General Motors and Ford Motor Company both announced that they signed deals to use Tesla’s supercharger network in North America starting next year. Existing owners of Ford and GM electric vehicles (EV) can soon begin accessing Tesla’s massive supercharger network that uses the company’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector with…
Is the Jobs Market Strong?
Commentary Not too long ago, talk of recession dominated the financial headlines. Much of the flow of economic information still points in that direction. The dramatic interest rate increases orchestrated by the Federal Reserve (Fed) count as one such consideration, as does sluggish consumer spending and a clear reluctance by businesses to spend on new…
Decoupling From China’s Aircraft Industry
Commentary “Decoupling” is the new buzzword these days when it comes to sanctioning communist China for its bad behavior. The argument behind it is that the West should no longer rely so much upon China’s manufacturing base for essential products and processes but instead work to reduce, even eliminate, China’s place in global supply chains….
China Is Still What It Used to Be
Commentary The recent China data often shocked the market, foreigners, and local analysts. Sometimes it was a fight between the official and private data sources like PMI; sometimes, it was a mismatch between domestic and foreign sources like trade data. A few years ago, China data were well-known to be fake: Whatever number the government…
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