Economic Data

This is a brief update on the US economic trajectory given the most recent data and in anticipation of tomorrow’s jobs report. In July, given the persistent low level of jobless claims, I upgraded my expectations for monthly non-farm…

The conclusion of the recently released Geneva report is that debt is the Achilles heel of this cyclical recovery. The Geneva economists warn that, despite the widespread belief that a general deleveraging has occurred due to the Great…

By Michael Pettis Doug, Pancoast, an American entrepreneur living in Shanghai, asked to interview me for his blog, and I agreed to do so. I think it was meant to be a brief interview, but I began to respond on a Saturday evening, while…

Yesterday, I did a broad overview of four markets of interest to global investors. And I wanted to continue my thoughts on this here with a few more markets and with a deeper dive into some of my thinking about the UK. Britain, Part 2: I…

This is the first time I am doing this, so let’s see how much value it adds. I thought I would quickly run through a number of countries in the news and give my perspective on the macro picture in each. I am just going to give a summary…

I have always thought that the soft landing/hard landing debate wholly misses the point when it comes to China’s economic prospects. It confuses the kinds of market-based adjustments we are likely to see in the US or Europe with the much…

The gist of the piece here is that, while I see a cyclical recovery that is gathering pace, the Achilles heel of the recovery from a sustainability perspective is wage growth. To the degree the Fed normalizes policy now before wage growth…

Welcome back to Credit Writedowns! Labor Day is behind us now and I intend to have a much more regular posting schedule going forward. But the lack of posts has given me some time to reflect on the global macro situation without the need…

Today is the time to update you on how my 2014 surprises are faring and why. Just to remind you, the surprise list is based on Byron Wien’s list of ten surprises which he has been conducting for the last thirty years. Surprises are events…

I am back from my summer holiday. There has been a lot of news in the time since I last posted. And the news flow is coming from a lot of different places. So, let me start up again with a post highlighting what I think are some of the key…