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FT.com – Asia’s inflation genie leaps out of the bottle
House prices to fall further as loan arrears rise – Independent.ie
TheMoneyIllusion » It’s China’s world, we just live in it (Krugman, round two)
More Americans live with multiple generations of family – USATODAY.com
FT.com – The weak renminbi is not just America’s problem
How [...]

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Highlights
The US dollar is mixed against the major and emerging market currencies.  The euro is consolidating in yesterday’s range as bonds stabilize and despite a smaller than expected German trade surplus.  Comments from EU spokesperson Altafaj just before the NY open that measures taken by Greece are sufficient have so far failed to take the [...]

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Here is more of Marc Faber, this time with Stephen Roach joining from Asia. Faber starts things off by making a point I have made many times in the past, namely that the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy is asymmetric; they are quick to cut on the way down, but slow to raise rates on [...]

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You kind of saw this coming didn’t you. Asians remember the Depression that began there a decade ago all too vividly. Many still see the West to blame because of the draconian economic policy solutions meted out by the IMF, including now-US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner amongst others.
Incongruously, the very same Tim Geithner of [...]

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The following is a re-print of the latest monthly newsletter from Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners, published with the express permission of the author. Visit www.arpllp.com to learn more about Absolute Return Partners.  You can reach the firm  by email at info@arpllp.com.
I have arrived at the fourth and final letter in our series about [...]

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Is it just me or did Secretary Geithner just talk out of other side of his mouth? Today he wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal with two Asian leaders to mark a big meeting of APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) in Singapore.
The WSJ article started out with a bunch of diplomatic niceties about [...]

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I tend to think so. Yesterday, Ben Bernanke made what some media outlets are calling hawkish statements.  This, combined with heavy currency intervention by Asian central banks, helped to strengthen the U.S. dollar. However one must ask if there is anything fundamental about these moves.
Just a few days ago, we got a sensational article via [...]

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Earlier today we learned that the Singapore PMI was much weaker than expected for September 2009, coming in at 50.6 versus 54.4 for August. While this demonstrates that the manufacturing sector there is still rising, it is doing so just barely.  This was the lowest reading since April and should be seen as a clear [...]

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The data being reported out of Asia is in marked contrast to what we are seeing in Europe and North America.  Last week, I noted that Singapore had put up big numbers.  China is also expanding robustly. Compare that with the data coming out of Europe like the UK growth numbers released today and you [...]

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Back in April, I mentioned a story about BTA, a bank in Kazakhstan that had been nationalized by the state in February.  The interesting bit about the story was that interested parties from abroad (including Morgan Stanley) had significant Credit Default Swap contracts (CDS) written against losses in the banks bonds.  In essence, foreign investors [...]