The following article was recently published in a special supplement (May 10, 2012) titled “Emerging World Order” of the Financial Times. It is a must read for all thinking Pakistanis.
by Peter Shadbolt
If the African continent were to have its own modem-day Statue of Liberty, then Lady Liberty would probably be brandishing a mobile phone rather than a torch. Read more »
The battle that started in earnest last week to replace Robert Zoellick as the bank’s president reflects the complications of a world where power over the institutions of global governance is shifting from those developed nations that set up the bank to emerging economies. Read more »
China’s state-owned enterprises are on the march and account for 40% of China’s non-agricultural GDP
From the Economist
November 12, 2011
WHEN China joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001, many people hoped that this would curb the power of its state-owned enterprises. Ten years on, they seem stronger than ever. President Hu Jintao can expect to hear about this at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit this weekend. Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, has warned stridently of the dangers of state capitalism. A Congressional report released on October 26th railed against the unfair advantages enjoyed by state-owned firms and lamented that China is giving them “a more prominent role”. Read more »
By Alen Mattich, The Wall Street Journal
We could be reaching a new form of banking crisis. Read more »
There’s an old axiom that goes “wise is the person who appreciates candor almost as much as good news” Read more »
By Aaron Task
Welcome to the new world disorder. Monday marked the first day of U.S. trading since America lost its coveted triple-A rating and traders braced for almost anything. Read more »
China’s official news agency has called for “international supervision over the issue of US dollars” Read more »
I attended a dinner last week in Singapore where I had a chance to listen to Ian Bremmer who is the President of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political risk research and consulting firm. Ian is quite a likeable, almost cute looking guy. He did his Phd in political science from Stanford when he was not even 25 and now teaches at Columbia. He founded Eurasia Group with just $25,000 and grew it into the world’s pre-eminent political risk consulting firm. He appeared relaxed in an open neck shirt on a rather humid Singapore evening. Read more »
No politician ever uttered more honest words than Guido Mantega, Brazil’s finance minister, when he argued central banks were engaged in an “international currency war.”
Every country is trying to export its way out of trouble. And the chosen road to net exports is–largely–through devaluation. Read more »
From the Wall Street Journal
By WILL CONNORS
Ghana and China signed project loans and another deal together totaling $15 billion, the latest in a string of Chinese investments on the continent.
The loans, coinciding with a six-day Beijing visit by the West African nation’s president, John Atta Mills, highlight China’s strong interest in resource-rich African countries such as Ghana. Ghana is preparing to tap massive oil fields that are expected to turn it into one of Africa’s biggest energy producers. Read more »
BUYING a mobile phone was the wisest $20 Ranvir Singh ever spent. Mr Singh, a farmer in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, used to make appointments in person, in advance, to deliver fresh buffalo milk to his 40-odd neighbours. Now his customers just call when they want some. Mr Singh’s income has risen by 25%, to 7,000 rupees ($149) a month. And he hears rumours of an even more bountiful technology. He has heard that “something on mobile phones” can tell him the current market price of his wheat. Mr Singh does not know that that “something” is the internet, because, like most Indians, he has never seen or used it. But the phone in his calloused hand hints at how hundreds of millions of people in emerging markets—perhaps even billions—will one day log on. Read more »
Daniel Yu
In his latest book, Freefall, the 2001 Nobel Laureate for Economics, Joseph Stiglitz, professor of economics, Columbia University, says “the big lesson of this crisis is that despite all the changes in the last few centuries, our complex financial sector was still dependent on trust. When trust broke down, our financial system froze.”
In his visit to Asia a few months back, Stiglitz sat down with The Asset to share his views on how China and Asia could avoid the mistakes in the West by having a strong set of regulations to foster trust.
Stiglitz also discusses how he sees China and Asia developing, the question around the value of the renminbi, how China and America are facing very different challenges and offers advice on reforming local government financing in China and how Asia can building better capital markets. Read more »
DAWN, July 19, 2010
The most recent economic data from the United States points to a marked slowdown and has disappointed most economists who had been predicting better results. Major indicators such as Corporate Purchasing Index, Home Sales, Unemployment, Consumer Sentiment, and widely cited Weekly Leading Index (WLI) from the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) have led some analysts to conclude that another recession may be imminent. Not everyone agrees. In fact, the market participants seem to be divided over whether we are headed for a deflation or high inflation in the medium term. Read more »
By Aaron Kirchfeld, Niklas Magnusson and Elena Logutenkova
May 18 (Bloomberg) — Europe’s banks are facing déjà vu. Less than two years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., fresh tremors in the debt markets are threatening to shake the financial system.This time the concern isn’t about subprime mortgages or exotic derivatives, it’s about banks’ holdings of bonds sold by European Union governments including Greece, Portugal and Spain. Pledges of $1 trillion in EU aid have failed to shore up the euro or dispel doubts about the region’s finances. Read more »
May 6, 2010 9:59PM
The Greek “rescue” package announced last weekend is dramatic, unprecedented, and far from enough to stabilize the eurozone. Read more »
From The Financial Times
By Mohamed El-Erian
Published: May 7 2010 06:56
Given the tragic events in Greece and the financial contamination of other eurozone peripheral countries, most people now recognise that sovereign risk matters and it matters a great deal. Unfortunately, the recognition lag has already caused significant damage, including forcing the current approach to European integration to an historical juncture. Read more »
From the FT.com By Mohamed El-Erian Read more »
By Sara Webb
JAKARTA, March 2 (Reuters) – Strong growth and political stability made Indonesia Southeast Asia’s most attractive investment destination last year, but the outlook is threatened by a struggle between reformers and powerful vested interests. Read more »
By Peter S. Green
Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) — The record U.S. budget deficit and debt should be viewed as a growing national security concern, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told lawmakers yesterday.
“We have to address this deficit and the debt of the U.S. as a matter of national security, not only as a matter of economics,” Clinton said in testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and related programs. The panel was reviewing the U.S. foreign affairs budget for fiscal year 2011. Read more »
![[IUREA]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AT930_IUREA_G_20100222174230.jpg "[IUREA]")
Pritam Singh, who farms 30 acres in Punjab, says the more desperate farmers become, the more urea they use. Overuse is stunting yields.
SOHIAN, India—India’s Green Revolution is withering.
In the 1970s, India dramatically increased food production, finally allowing this giant country to feed itself. But government efforts to continue that miracle by encouraging farmers to use fertilizers have backfired, forcing the country to expand its reliance on imported food. Read more »
Lately, financial news has been dominated by reports from Greece and other nations on the European periphery. And rightly so.
But I’ve been troubled by reporting that focuses almost exclusively on European debts and deficits, conveying the impression that it’s all about government profligacy — and feeding into the narrative of our own deficit hawks, who want to slash spending even in the face of mass unemployment, and hold Greece up as an object lesson of what will happen if we don’t. Read more »
From Washington Post
By Greg Ip
Sunday, January 11, 2009; B01
In its battle against the financial crisis, the U.S. government has extended its full faith and credit to an ever-growing swath of the private sector: first homeowners, then banks, now car companies. Soon, President-elect Barack Obama will put the government credit card to work with a massive fiscal boost for the economy. Necessary as these steps are, they raise a worry of their own: Can the United States pay the money back? Read more »
By Roger C. Altman
From Foreign Affairs , January/February 2009
Summary: The financial crisis has called into serious question the credibility of western governments and may precipitate an eastward shift of power.
Fixing Global Finance . Martin Wolf . London : Johns Hopkins University Press , 2008 , 230 pp. 24.95 .
By Harold James
From Foreign Affairs , January/February 2009
Summary: The current economic crisis may have one winner: the Chinese financial model, which — together with the IMF — holds the keys to fixing the problem.
By Bo Nielsen and Daniel Kruger
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — The biggest foreign-exchange strategists and investors say the best may be over for the dollar after a four-month, 24 percent rally.
The currency weakened 5.9 percent measured by the trade- weighted Dollar Index after strengthening between July and November as investors bought the greenback to flee riskier assets and repay dollar-denominated loans from lenders reining in credit. Ever since peaking on Nov. 21, the dollar fell against all 16 of the most-widely traded currencies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Read more »
