Posts Tagged ‘China’
By Simon Johnson Most accounts of the ministerial meeting last weekend of the Group of 20 — 19 nations plus the European Union that represent the world’s wealthiest economies —implied that it continued to perform sterling service – heading off currency wars, keeping explicit protectionism under control and deftly managing the process of reforming governance [...]
By Simon Johnson The G20 communiqué, released after the Toronto summit on Sunday, made it quite clear that most industrialized countries now have budget deficit reduction fever (see this version, with line-by-line comments by me, Marc Chandler and Arvind Subramanian). The US resisted the pressure to cut government spending and/or raise taxes in a precipitate [...]
By Simon Johnson. This post is taken from testimony submitted to U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission hearing on “US Debt to China: Implications and Repercussions” – Panel I: China’s Lending Activities and the US Debt, Thursday, February 25, 2010. (Caution: this is a long post, around 1500 words; a summary of some key points [...]
The week between Christmas and New Year’s is probably a good time to throw out half-baked ideas on topics I don’t know much about. First, there’s been a lot of talk about the “lost decade” for stocks. The S&P 500 is below where it was a decade ago. Dividend yields bring you back up to [...]
“World Bank Chief Economist Justin Yifu Lin staked out a strong position against forcing China to let its currency appreciate as a way to rebalance the world economy. “’Currency appreciation in China won’t help this imbalance and can deter the global recovery,’ he said in a lecture Monday at Hong Kong University. “In an interview [...]
President Obama leaves next week for a high profile trip that includes meetings with other “Asia-Pacific” countries (in the APEC forum) and a visit to China. The President has had considerable diplomatic success on the economic front to date, including at the G20 summit in April and – to a lesser degree – at the [...]
We’ve been at first amused but more recently alarmed at how “global imbalances” are becoming many people’s preferred explanation of the financial crisis. At first you could brush it off this way: “global imbalances (read: ‘blame China’) . . .” But this explanation is going mainstream, not least because it is always more convenient for [...]
This post was written by StatsGuy, a regular commenter here and very occasional guest contributor. We asked him to expand on the ideas he put forward in this comment on the relationships between monetary policy, international capital flows, and bank capital requirements. Former Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin is most famous for his notorious quip [...]
The usual concern about the US-China balance of economic and political power is couched in terms of our relative international payments positions. We’ve run a large current account deficit in recent years (imports above exports); they still have – by some measures – the largest current account surplus (exports above imports) even seen in a major [...]
On Monday and Tuesday of this week, Treasury Secretary Geithner – and Secretary of State Clinton - meet with a high-level Chinese delegation. (Could someone please update the Treasury’s schedule of events? At 7am on Monday it still shows last week’s agenda; update, 9am, this is now fixed – thanks). According to official previews (i.e., the apparent [...]
On his China visit, Secretary Geithner is immediately on the defensive. The language he is using on the Chinese policy of exchange rate undervaluation-through-intervention is the mildest available. And the commitment he is making, in terms of bringing down the US deficit – which we all favor – is an extraordinary thing to put numbers [...]
At his confirmation hearing in January, Tim Geithner nailed the China Question. China prevents its exchange rate from appreciating through intervention (buying foreign currency), and this allows it to sustain a large current account surplus. Geithner said, as plainly as you can expect from a senior official: this is not in accordance with international rules [...]
I’m warming up for a longish Beginners-style article on government debt, which will come out next week or so. In the meantime, the New York Times has an article today about China’s diminishing demand for U.S. dollar-denominated debt. Theoretically this could make it harder for the U.S. to borrow money and thereby push up the [...]
We’ve gotten some comments to the effect that, for all the discussion of the financial crisis and the various bailouts, we haven’t looked hard at the underlying causes of the financial crisis and accompanying recession. The problem, as I think I’ve hinted at various times, is that any macroeconomic event of this magnitude is overdetermined, [...]
Tweets About Us- RT @baselinescene: Cute: http://t.co/rzK8VjXl. But is it fair to call "ignorance" the result of a steady stream of lies amplified by the media? emmett_j@twitter.com (Emmett Johnson)
- RT @baselinescene: Cute: http://t.co/rzK8VjXl. But is it fair to call "ignorance" the result of a steady stream of lies amplified by the media? JoScoMac@twitter.com (Scott McLean)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK gebersole@twitter.com (Garrett Ebersole)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK april_harding@twitter.com (April Harding)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK APogonowski@twitter.com (AP)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK jamiesw@twitter.com (JamieSW)
- The Bear&Bull Blog Daily is out! http://t.co/mcAbzHbi ▸ Top stories today via @thestalwart @baselinescene bearbull@twitter.com (bearbull)
- RT @TheBrowser: Mean-Spirited, Bad Economics: @baselinescene on unemployment benefits & Republican party plans to cut them http://t.co/GVnNzAUN drooperman@twitter.com (Drew)
- Agree with RT @baselinescene: Felix Salmon mocking Jack Welch's vacuous management lesson for Facebook http://t.co/BBKIGOIl /JK Alheri@twitter.com (Lilly Evans)
- #FF for political and other insight: @SarahBarfield @BuddyRoemer @RoyBlunt @StartSnitching @delong @TheGoodReport @baselinescene normanwlucas@twitter.com (Norman Lucas)
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China and the Saving of Europe
June 20, 2011 in Commentary
Tags: China, eurozone
By Simon Johnson The Greek government owes more than it can afford to pay, now or in the near future, at market interest rates. There are two options: reduce the payments through some form of restructuring, or move the debt into the hands of people who are willing to charge below market rates for the [...]