September, 2016

• 27 September

  Why GDP is China’s most illusory indicator

  

    Among investors and economists who study China, few arguments are more contentious than growth — more specifically, how to measure it. Officially, China’s economy has been growing at an annualized rate of nearly 10 percent for the past three decades. But plenty of analysts will argue that those figures are highly optimistic. Why should this debate matter? After all, ...

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• 27 September

  Trump takes Clinton’s bait and hooks himself

  

    The entire 90-minute debate on Monday night was a demonstration that Donald Trump doesn’t have the temperament to be president. Hillary Clinton was prepared — she always is — and she baited Trump early and often. And Trump got caught each time. He also hooked himself, including in at least two exchanges with moderator Lester Holt (who did an ...

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• 27 September

  Europe’s free-trade advocates need to speak up

    It’s entirely unsurprising — expected, really — for the anti-global European left to oppose a trade deal with America. But with Canada? The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, painstakingly negotiated over seven years, would cut trade barriers between Europe and the world’s 10th-largest economy. Unlike the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the European Union and the U.S. (which ...

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• 27 September

  Focus on poaching to end illegal wildlife trade

    A mega meeting to check the booming illegal wildlife trade — valued at $20 billion a year — under way in Johannesburg has got stuck in an unseemly fight. The clash comes on the heels of a report which says that the population of African elephants has declined by 111,000 in the past ten years due to surge in ...

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• 27 September

  Lula’s downfall won’t fix Brazil’s political mess

  

    From hungry migrant peasant to rock-star president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has played many roles over the years. Even so, taking the defendant’s chair in Latin America’s biggest political graft scandal will be a first. Lula has vehemently denied the charges — he’s accused of taking some $1.1 million in bribes disguised as home improvements from a contractor ...

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• 27 September

  The future of the US economy depends on Mexico

    The muscle behind the U.S. economic expansion is the same as the recovery’s weakness, and it lies in one word: Mexico. Since the low in December 2009, employment in the U.S. has increased by 13.6 million workers. Forty-three percent of that growth, or 5.9 million workers, came from Hispanics — some born in the U.S., others immigrants. Mexico is ...

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• 27 September

  The economics profession has a major blind spot

  

    The longer I work in the news media, the more I notice a problem with the way economics interacts with the world at large. Just to cite one example, economists often don’t take politics into account. As a result, econ models leave out important pieces, and the advice of economists often falls on deaf ears or is seen as ...

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• 27 September

  Loan growth in private sector pauses, says ECB

  

    AFP Credit growth to the private sector in the euro area was steady in August, European Central Bank (ECB) data showed on Tuesday, boosting expectations that the bank will refrain from adding firepower to monetary policy for now. Many of the European Central Bank’s measures aim to make access to credit easier, allowing people and businesses to invest and ...

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• 27 September

  IMF warns central banks could lose deflation fight

    AFP The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Tuesday that central banks are struggling to beat back deflationary forces and that governments need to spend to help them succeed. In a new assessment of global economic conditions, the IMF said many countries worldwide are battling disinflation — low and slowing inflation — due to weak global economic growth. If central ...

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• 27 September

  Citigroup plans India branch cuts in digital banking push

  

    Bloomberg Citigroup Inc., the largest foreign lender in India by assets, plans to shut about 10 percent of its branches in the nation as more customers switch to the firm’s digital platforms to conduct their banking transactions, people familiar with the matter said. The lender, which has 44 branches nationwide, may close about five outlets to focus on larger ...

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